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Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

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Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#51

Post by virgildotcodes »

buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #30
hleszek wrote: post #8

This is still so relevant now: > This Orwellian preoccupation with the minutiae of 'historical proof' is typical of the political sectarian who is always quoting what has been said and done in the past to prove a point to someone on the other side who is always quoting something to the opposite effect that has been said and done. As any politician knows, no evidence of any kind is ever required. It is only necessary…

No more relevant today than it was 5 or 10 or 20 years ago tbh

Gravity has always been an important factor in our lives, but I'd say it's even more relevant when we're actively being spaghettified by a black hole.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#52

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

webdoodle wrote: post #40
hleszek wrote: post #8

This is still so relevant now: > This Orwellian preoccupation with the minutiae of 'historical proof' is typical of the political sectarian who is always quoting what has been said and done in the past to prove a point to someone on the other side who is always quoting something to the opposite effect that has been said and done. As any politician knows, no evidence of any kind is ever required. It is only necessary…

[flagged]

When people loudly assert there's no difference between the left and right in this era, I don't know how to give them the benefit of the doubt. Is it more generous to assume they're being disingenuous and too smart to actually believe what they're saying? Or vice versa?

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#53

Post by mulmen »

webdoodle wrote: post #40
hleszek wrote: post #8

This is still so relevant now: > This Orwellian preoccupation with the minutiae of 'historical proof' is typical of the political sectarian who is always quoting what has been said and done in the past to prove a point to someone on the other side who is always quoting something to the opposite effect that has been said and done. As any politician knows, no evidence of any kind is ever required. It is only necessary…

[flagged]

If you can’t tell the difference between the Republicans and Democrats on February 5th, 2026 then you are the problem.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#54

Post by andsoitis »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #34
krapp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The TV was evil? I feel like people forget that so much of what they blame on social media now existed with television. Propaganda, misinformation, addiction, emotional manipulation, mind rot, overstimulation, excessive advertising, even moral panics blaming it for violence and deviant behavior. Television didn't create self-reinforcing bubbles of hyperreality because it represented a corporate model of reality appli…

I would go so far as to say that the criticisms of broadcast television were completely correct; and that for all the problems of modern centralized social media and other internet use, one major good thing that it has done is kill off broadcast television. It is much easier now than it was for much of the 20th century for random ordinary people who weren't members of established mass media organizations to broadcast…

> it also allows a lot of gems to rise to people's attention that never would have under the old mass culture making system.

What is such an example? I just want to calibrate what you consider a gem that could not have been made in mass culture making system.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#55

Post by gostsamo »

TMWNN wrote: post #6
tomhow wrote: post #2

Previously... Isaac Asimov's Review of “1984” (1980) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26390752 - March 2021 (6 comments) Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18164679 - Oct 2018 (8 comments)

[flagged]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Asimov a republican?

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#56

Post by ses1984 »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #52
webdoodle wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

When people loudly assert there's no difference between the left and right in this era, I don't know how to give them the benefit of the doubt. Is it more generous to assume they're being disingenuous and too smart to actually believe what they're saying? Or vice versa?

There is of course a huge difference between left and right, but the democratic party is actually center-right, so...

Previous poster didn't say there's no difference between left and right, they said both parties are bought and paid for by fascists, which is pretty much true, thanks to Citizens United v FEC which passed the last time democrats had control of Congress and the presidency. Congress could have responded, but didn't.

At this time, democrats had 60 (!) seats in the senate, enough to end a filibuster, and they had to negotiate with MODERATE DEMOCRATS to pass the ACA. Moderate democrats are, on the face of things, the reason the ACA doesn't have a public option.

Don't get me wrong, I still vote democrat any chance I get, and would encourage everyone to do the same, but unfortunately I have to do it despite the fact they're bought and paid by the donor class, which are, by and large, fascists.

Democrats should started Jan 7th by screaming for Trump's arrest and not stopping until he was rotting in jail, but all we got was 4 years of nothing, followed by "too bad, so sad, we did everything we could".

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#57

Post by mulmen »

ses1984 wrote: post #56
add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people loudly assert there's no difference between the left and right in this era, I don't know how to give them the benefit of the doubt. Is it more generous to assume they're being disingenuous and too smart to actually believe what they're saying? Or vice versa?

There is of course a huge difference between left and right, but the democratic party is actually center-right, so... Previous poster didn't say there's no difference between left and right, they said both parties are bought and paid for by fascists, which is pretty much true, thanks to Citizens United v FEC which passed the last time democrats had control of Congress and the presidency. Congress could have responded…

This is one of those times where technically correct isn’t the best kind of correct.

Ok yeah fine there are fascists in both parties. Now that we have that out of the way where are we? Oh, right. The same fucking place. Stop wasting everyone’s time with the soft apologetics.

We have a system that moves slowly at a national level by design. One party is hellbent on tearing that down in favor of literal (techno-)fascism. The other wants to maintain the incremental refinement of our democracy. That’s it. One party is literally promising Nazi Germany while the other is offering the potential of the United States of America.

So sure, when someone mentions Alex Preti’s murder or the literal Gestapo or the Epstein Files or unprecedented corruption or the irreparable harm to our international standing or the economic ruin that will take generations to heal or any of the other atrocities just tell them that Anthony Weiner was a creep. You won’t be wrong!

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#58

Post by ses1984 »

neilellis wrote: post #32
decimalenough wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

North Korea is rather exceptional though. Few dictatorships manage even one smooth succession, let alone two.

Monarchies

A lot of monarchies aren't really stable across two or more successions either.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#59

Post by zhoujing204 »

hleszek wrote: post #8

This is still so relevant now: > This Orwellian preoccupation with the minutiae of 'historical proof' is typical of the political sectarian who is always quoting what has been said and done in the past to prove a point to someone on the other side who is always quoting something to the opposite effect that has been said and done. As any politician knows, no evidence of any kind is ever required. It is only necessary…

Dictators are absolutely terrified of the paper trail. This is the entire reason for existence of the Great Firewall. The CCP invests heavily in sanitizing imported literature and curating the information supply to maintain cognitive capture over the populace.

We are seeing parallel mechanics from the Trump/GOP camp: look at the library purges in conservative states and the push to co-opt moderation on platforms like TikTok. Access to the historical record isn't just a detail; it is the fundamental substrate of free speech.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#60

Post by BoredGuyAtWork »

I loved the Foundation series and Isaac Asimov was definitely my most read science fiction author as a kid, but damn - my estimation of Asimov as a man just fuckin plummeted. He comes across like a whiny nerd. He's upset that 1984 gets such acclaim in "his" area of expertise, science fiction. And how dare this non science fiction guy step foot in his domain. If 1984 weren't set in the future, he wouldn't have any gripes with it, I'm sure.

The one thing Asimov gives Orwell credit for is predicting that there would be three separate great powers? Like, what? The other nations don't matter at all. We're not even sure they really exist or not. Or how he complains that Orwell used a missile strike, instead of calling it what, a 2X00 Plasma Fueled Missile Strike? It's not about the missile strike. It's about the fear the missile strike incites into people. People afraid are easy to control.

Or about how the warring nations didn't use nukes. Like, there's no way Asimov didn't understand that it was probably not even the other nations that were responsible, but rather the party itself, right? But that's what it sounds like. It reminds me of how in the Foundation series, one of the characters has an "atomic" wristwatch. Like, you can tell that Asimov thought that would be possible in the future and would be cool, and just had to include it. But really, who cares. As if cool gadgets or what people might use in the future is what makes or breaks science fiction. Not to mention how outdated an atomic watch feels now.

Asimov had great ideas, but his actual writing ability doesn't hold a candle to George Orwell's. Orwell was a true literary master. Asimov was a very creative scientist, with a lot of ideas in his head, and he successfully put them to paper.

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