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Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

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Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#71

Post by kikokikokiko »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #70
kikokikokiko wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These Minessota videos are classic examples of what Scott Adams used to call "two different movies being played on the same screen", in this case quite literally. From the point of view of a left leaning person, that movie shows a man being assassinated for no reason at all, nothing justify what happened. From the point of view of a right leaning person, Alex Pretti was actively interfering with law enforcement, and…

You seem to be using the terms "left leaning person" and "right leaning person" when you actually mean "normal people" and "sociopaths." Left and right have nothing to do with it.

Yep, no rational argument can be used to make you (or me) see the same movie.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#73

Post by kleiba »

> This is an extraordinarily inefficient system of keeping everyone under control. To have a person being watched at all times means that some other person must be doing the watching at all times (at least in the Orwellian society) and must be doing so very narrowly, for there is a great development of the art of interpreting gesture and facial expression.

https://theresanaiforthat.com/

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#74

Post by fake-name »

kleiba wrote: post #73

> This is an extraordinarily inefficient system of keeping everyone under control. To have a person being watched at all times means that some other person must be doing the watching at all times (at least in the Orwellian society) and must be doing so very narrowly, for there is a great development of the art of interpreting gesture and facial expression. https://theresanaiforthat.com/

You don't even need an AI.

This is such a core misunderstanding that Asimov seems to have, and it kind of kills his entire analysis for me.

The assumption is that only some small fraction of a fraction of the people who could be surveilled at any time are being surveilled.

The crux of the thing is that everyone COULD be under surveillance at any time, so in effect everyone must behave as if they are being observed because they do not know they are not.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#75

Post by rpigab »

TMWNN wrote: post #5

>Furthermore, he has a system of volunteer spies in which children report on their parents, and neighbours on each other. This cannot possibly work well since eventually everyone reports everyone else and it all has to be abandoned. Asimov was mistaken here. The East German Stasi did implement a system in which many, many people (not literally everyone, but a staggering percentage) reported on each other.

> Our own computers to some extent do this in the IRS, in credit files, and so on, but that does not take us towards 1984, except in fevered imaginations. Computers and tyranny do not necessarily go hand in hand. Tyrannies have worked very well without computers (consider the Nazis) and the most computerised nations in today's world are also the least tyrannical.

China begs to differ.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#77

Post by JuniperMesos »

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

It's definitely interesting to see what ideas 1984 had that were salient to Asimov writing in 1980 - and also to see which of those ideas still have relevance in 2026, when the world has changed considerably again from when Asimov was writing.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#78

Post by gerikson »

globular-toast wrote: post #61
harry8 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed reading "Foundation" recently. The total lack of female characters was jarring to say the least. Worth the read if you haven't. Not much like the AppleTV series.

You can't just stop with the first book. Keep reading...

Or don't. There's so much more better SF out there.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#80

Post by JuniperMesos »

andsoitis wrote: post #54
JuniperMesos wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One salient example is Grant Sanderson's 3blue1brown math explainer youtube channel and the various other people inspired by him (and often using his open-source software) to make similar math content on youtube. The kinds of math videos he makes are a pretty niche interest when you consider percentage of a regional or national TV market, and so they didn't end up getting made in the 20th century broadcast TV era of mass-culture-making.

There was some math and science content made in that regime, some of it even good - but it mostly got made by publicly-funded television studios with limited airtime, and subject to the inherent constraints of having to make mass-market-friendly content. But when you have internet-based platforms that allow people starting out as hobbyist enthusiasts to broadcast to anyone who can understand English in the entire world, you can do things like actually put real, difficult equations in your videos, and still have that build a sustainable audience.

In general the state of math and science communication on the internet is way better than it was under broadcast television, and this is one of many ways that the world has steadily improved over the past few decades.

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