Earlier quoted context omitted.
FWIW both of these books were written about western societies. 1984 was about Orwell’s experience writing propaganda for the BBC during WW2. Oceania is explicitly modeled on the U.S. + Britain; “air strip one” is his tongue-in-cheek name for the British isles. Fahrenheit 451 is based on the second red scare and McCarthyism in the U.S. It’s explicitly set in America, and the inspiration for it was actual calls to ban…
I looked to see if I could find anything asserting 1984 was about propaganda at BBC - nothing. I found no interviews, no recordings - it seems what survives are his notebooks. Can you describe the basis for the claim?
CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook
131–140 of 197 posts
Re: CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook
#132Re: CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wild. Growing up through Reagan, I saw the world only act like this. Apple's 1984 commercial didn't age well: https://youtu.be/ErwS24cBZPc Everyone ran towards this Brave New World based on media fueled populism. To me religion isn't Christianity or Islam. It's following orders of arbitrary leaders who give themselves titles via narrative. Priest, Minister, CEO, General... just words. Provenance such as "this is what…
> To me religion isn't Christianity or Islam. It's following orders of arbitrary leaders who give themselves titles via narrative. Priest, Minister, CEO, General... just words. Religion = doing what your boss told you. Got it, that makes sense why so many people are religious.
Religion = blind loyalty (to those in power of said religion)
It's one of the oldest tools we have to control society. And it gets abused. All. Of. The. Time.
Re: CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How much do we believe the current administration values "intelligence"? Broadly? A lot. Donald Trump is wickedly smart. So is Stephen Miller. Susie Wiles. Hegseth is an idiot, but he's Chip 'n' Dale to Marco Rubio. (Our planes aren't falling off our carriers any more. And the raid on Caracas was executed flawlessly. That isn't something numpties can pull off.)
ah yes, a wickedly smart man who appoints an idiot as secretary of defense. completely consistent analysis here
I frequently see people saying that Trump is great, but he's let down by those around him. As if he didn't put them all there.
In any case, all you have to do is listen to the man talk. If you can hit stop before your brains start leaking onto the floor, the conclusion is inescapable.
For most of his life he did nothing that would require any sort of smarts. Becoming POTUS was quite an accomplishment, but he lucked into it. He happened to have a style and set of opinions that appealed to a large group of voters. He's charismatic in an empty sort of way that still works on a lot of people. He had a pretty pathetic set of opponents both in the primaries and the general. And he just barely won. Nothing in his campaign was shrewdly designed, he was just doing what he does, and it happened to work.
Birth him into an ordinary family instead of a rich one and he's going to be a used car salesman griping about getting bumped into the next tax bracket when he makes too many sales.
Re: CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
It gives me hope that Trump will replace the top generals and a few layers down with yes-men who will spend the military budget on coke and then the US will be less of a threat to the rest of the world. Another Russia is not a good thing, but it's better than a mad man at the top of the most powerful military in history.
> It gives me hope that Trump will replace the top generals and a few layers down with yes-men who will spend the military budget on coke and then the US will be less of a threat to the rest of the world. I realize this is kind of a joke, but... The US will continue to be the most powerful military in history for a very long time even with a highly incompetent top-layer. It will just have less people with the wisdom…
What's really fun is that conventional weapons can protect you from a crazy aggressor if you're strong enough, but nuclear weapons may not. They only act as a deterrent, so they require your enemy to believe you'll use them, believe that they can't destroy all of them before you use them, and understand the horrible consequences of retaliation.
I get the impression that Trump is pretty negative on nuclear weapons and I don't think he'd do something that could provoke nuclear retaliation. But I doubt he'll be our last mad king. I think the odds are pretty high of at least a small nuclear war within my lifetime. Even if the US keeps it together, proliferation means much higher odds of some idiot leader somewhere pressing the Button.
Re: CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
FWIW both of these books were written about western societies. 1984 was about Orwell’s experience writing propaganda for the BBC during WW2. Oceania is explicitly modeled on the U.S. + Britain; “air strip one” is his tongue-in-cheek name for the British isles. Fahrenheit 451 is based on the second red scare and McCarthyism in the U.S. It’s explicitly set in America, and the inspiration for it was actual calls to ban…
Eh, orwell got his fare share of socialisation with socialism in spain and became a ardent anti-communist (more anti-totalitarian after seeing what this "experiment was all about" when it betrayed the anarchists). Its like animal farm a staunch criticism of the communist experiment and the societies it would form. The history rewritting was actually a typical socialist society pehnomena, going so far that china basic…
The Spanish civil war turned him into a socialist. His anti-stalin/anti-Soviet streak was in no way anti-communist. perhaps you shouldn't be so weasel-y with your wording.
Re: CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eh, orwell got his fare share of socialisation with socialism in spain and became a ardent anti-communist (more anti-totalitarian after seeing what this "experiment was all about" when it betrayed the anarchists). Its like animal farm a staunch criticism of the communist experiment and the societies it would form. The history rewritting was actually a typical socialist society pehnomena, going so far that china basic…
The Spanish civil war turned him into a socialist. His anti-stalin/anti-Soviet streak was in no way anti-communist. perhaps you shouldn't be so weasel-y with your wording.
Nope. He was unapologetically socialist before his involvement in the Civil War, and that conflict actually did make him anti-communist, and an anti-authoritarian. Socialism of the kind Orwell supported and communism of the kind we have seen in the world are two very different things.
For those reading who are curious on which comment is accurate, I would encourage you to read up on it to confirm for yourself. It's a highly fascinating subject to read about.
Another thing the Spanish Civil War did make Orwell was a hardcore realist.
"Half a loaf of bread is better than no loaf."
Re: CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook
#138Facts are the enemy. I remember reading books like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 as a teen thinking, "Cool story, but the US will never look like that." Oof.
I had the opposite reaction to you.
I read the Handmaid's Tale and my first thought after finishing it was "Oh wow, this might actually happen here!"
Re: CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
It gets cited a lot in immigration litigation as well (eg in asylum arguments) because it's an unimpeachable factual source that the government's lawyers can't reasonably dispute.
Now that you mention it, I'm pretty convinced this is the reason they took it down. If you can't dispute the facts, get rid of them, I guess.
And that's not necessarily anti-intellectual or in opposition to truth. When "seeing like a state", a government doesn't have a view of most actual facts, like "was this person actually in danger" or "is this person repeating the exact same story as the ten people before them". It only knows facts legitimated by its own systems. When those facts force it to take actions that are harmful and dumb, the government is wise to stop defining those as facts.
For example, if the army keeps launching raids that kill civilians because the government can only track progress through body counts, it is not "facts are the enemy" to stop counting the bodies. (Obviously it would be wiser to stop using the counts as the deciding factor, but if the generals have different values than the government, as immigration courts do, then stopping the count is the only way to stop the bleeding.)
Re: CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook
#140I used the CIA factbook so much in college in the early 2000's when looking at so many things. When researching countries to support and travel to it made sense to vreview it beforehand. Its insane that this as a resource would be taken down.
It gets cited a lot in immigration litigation as well (eg in asylum arguments) because it's an unimpeachable factual source that the government's lawyers can't reasonably dispute.
In what ways would you use it like that? Honest question, I'm not at all familiar with what was in it.