The Principles of Newspeak (1949) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#141

Post by bjowen » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 3:11 PM UTC

joophro wrote: post #74

genera1 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, COVID-19, technical name for a respiratory disease, totally in the same category as Gestapo

>technical name In an era where almost all viruses/diseases have been referred to by non-technical names, the rapid switch to a technical mouthful of “COVID-19” or “SARS CoV 2” is absolutely political. I remember sitting at an airport last year watching newscasters denigrating the use of the term “Wuhan virus” as I had just walked past a sign warning about MERS (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome) just on the other…

You forgot Irish disease, French disease, German disease, Italian disease [0]. Why do you think the toponym of the point of discovery of a virus or strain is relevant? At this point, it has been circulating on multiple continents for 18 months, your most likely source of infection is in your neighbourhood, not another country or person whose ancestry you believe to be associated with that place. Systematic names have been increasingly common for influenza strains for a decade now, and if anything the systematic name SARS-2 gives you more useful information about the virus. To the extent that the choice not to call it something arbitrary [1] like Spanish flu is political, it is to protect people from ostracism and hatecrimes, which is an actual problem that happens in such circumstances and has since December 2019 [0,2].

If we were making name choices for inherently-parseable utility, we’d be calling every respiratory virus Coverface Washhands Stayhome.

[0] https://jmss.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/The-Racis... [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2805838/#!po=1.... [2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12103-020-09545...

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#142

Post by Rochus » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 4:43 PM UTC

Rochus wrote: post #55

lostlogin wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think you can accurately call the downvoted comments which are still visible and being debated, ‘censored’.

We're talking about the flagged one which is no longer visible; the trend to remove comments or even accounts is even increasing with the large providers. I responded to the flagged comment before it was flagged, and I didn't see a reason for flagging it. But you can already tell from the downvotes what values certain people here represent; obviously not exactly liberal. EDIT: as it seems it has been unflagged meanwh…

And now it's flagged again.

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#143

Post by hkai » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 12:05 PM UTC

dbattaglia wrote: post #4

This appendix, along with the chapters that are except from "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism", are actually my favorite parts of 1984. I enjoyed how "Principals of Newspeak" is written in a past tense when describing the language and the events of year 1984, it feels like a glimmer of hope that somehow mankind did indeed escape the horrific dystopian world otherwise presented in the book.

1984 is a nice book, but it's too late to read it. We are already living in a 1984 world.

I find it more useful to read another dystopian novel, Atlas Shrugged, which, written in 1957, surprisingly well predicts the collectivist changes happening right now.

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#144

Post by hashkb » Wed, Aug 11, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

antiterra wrote: post #84

hashkb wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it'd give us way more options for clever poetry and songwriting. Which tends to make us better and freer thinkers. The weirder your language is, the weirder art you can make with it. The more the audience understands your nuances, the better the art, the more emotional the experience, the more happiness and empathy and connection (or fear and sadness and despair) you can project.

No, you don’t need weird language for weird art, and there are amazing poems written in languages far less muddled than English. Much of art is about transcending limits, and often those limits are intentionally imposed. (See Oulipo)

I'm familiar with intentional constraints on art... I don't personally enjoy that but I'm not against it, the way I would be against simplifying the entire language or choosing to work in one solely for its regularity.

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#145

Post by simonebrunozzi » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 10:14 AM UTC

mynameishere wrote: post #78

dbattaglia wrote: post #4

This appendix, along with the chapters that are except from "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism", are actually my favorite parts of 1984. I enjoyed how "Principals of Newspeak" is written in a past tense when describing the language and the events of year 1984, it feels like a glimmer of hope that somehow mankind did indeed escape the horrific dystopian world otherwise presented in the book.

1984's original title was 1948. He was describing his time in the BBC and the general squalor and shifting loyalties of post-war Britain. Like most dystopian fiction the point is to criticize the current day, not gamble on being a prophet.

The original title was "The Last Man in Europe" [0].

From the wikipedia article:

...but in a letter dated 22 October 1948 to his publisher Fredric Warburg, eight months before publication, Orwell wrote about hesitating between that title and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four#:~:text=T....