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Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

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Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#141

Post by saint_fiasco »

ahartmetz wrote: post #135
whizzter wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asimov's sci-fi has both hard and soft parts (especially his later works). The main thing is that Asimov was more of a bright person(mensa member and professor) and good at making conjectures about development based on technology and it's impact on humans, rather than a great writer per-se (there's some famous interview from the 70s that makes a fair bit of things that weren't obvious at the time). Like how he immedi…

About feasibility, did Asimov even read the book properly? I remember quite well that telescreens were not permanently watched, but that wasn't necessary because the consequences of getting caught with "wrongthink" were terrible.

Near the end of the book Winston finds out that he was watched much more thoroughly than he thought. They read his private diary and carefully put the same mote of dust on top of the cover so that Winston wouldn't notice it had been opened.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#142

Post by itsalwaysgood »

riazrizvi wrote: post #140
itsalwaysgood wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't human nature at all, that is a feature of our economy. The human nature bit is that we are inclined to follow conviction: belief in an idea. And if someone says something with conviction, whether true or not, our first instinct is to believe them, maybe even trust them.

I'm often baffled by how people online find a tone of disagreement to agree with people.

Sorry, didn't mean to offend you. My tone is bad.

I just wanted to make a distinction between human nature and the benefits of specialization within an economy. You mentioned being an expert in a single domain, which I interpreted as specialized labor, as in an economy

An economy isn't really related to human nature, directly.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#143

Post by brabel »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #131
kikokikokiko wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

List the rational arguments in favor of the so-called "right-leaning" point of view (OP's term, not mine) with respect to the Pretti killing. Spoiler: there are no such arguments, effective or otherwise. To apologists it looks like a Rorschach test; to normal people it looks like a snuff film, brought to us by the same studio that is now distributing child pornography. Meanwhile, it's possible to favor free enterpris…

In my country, lifting a finger against an officer on duty will land you in big trouble. If you got a gun on you and you resist arrest, like happened in this case, you are absolutely getting shot. I can’t really understand you Americans. What do you think an armed person reacting to arrest is going to do with that gun given the chance? If you were a cop would you take chances?? If you did you wouldn’t be here complaining about anything as you would be dead.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#144

Post by throwaway894345 »

kikokikokiko wrote: post #67
throwaway894345 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orwell and Asimov are talking about something entirely different than drawing flawed conclusions due to inexperience—they’re talking about people with access to the facts and choosing not to believe them. For instance, Alex Pretti’s murder was recorded from several angles and yet the American right still broadly claims that he attacked the agents, that he pulled his gun on them, etc. You don’t need to be an expert in…

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…

> The right leaning person, just based on these facts…

To be clear, those aren’t facts, that’s delusion. Pretti objectively did not interfere at all. He was carrying a gun—that’s a fact—but he didn’t interfere. The federal agents approached him and pushed him back, and he retreated the entire time.

Moreover, a right leaning person wouldn’t delude themselves in this way except that they had previously coded the federal agents as “their side” and Pretti as “the other side”—if Pretti was a J6er and the ICE agent was a Capitol Hill police officer, our hypothetical right-winger would have been outraged at the killing as would everyone else (assuming it was equally as unjustified as the Pretti murder). We don’t even need a hypothetical, because the right was outraged that the J6ers were prosecuted and sentenced, and then jubilant when Trump pardoned them.

I’m also obligated to point out that I’m painting with a broad brush here. A small share of the right have, however reluctantly or timidly, spoken out against the mainstream right-wing claims that Pretti was doing something wrong. For example, Rand Paul gave an interview stating that Pretti was clearly retreating and there was no cause for the killing, and even MTG said that the right would be up in arms (no pun intended) if the roles were reversed. Kudos to those on the right who have the bravery to say obvious truths in times such as these, I guess.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#145

Post by throwaway894345 »

dotancohen wrote: post #121
srean wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These so called right leaning people were, in the recent past, crying themselves hoarse that they have all the right and moral prerogative to carry arms at a protest.

Having the right to do something does not make it safe. Americans have the right to carry a pistol. But carrying a pistol while heckling police officers and touching a police officer who is performing their duty, sounds deadly to me. Can we agree that the deceased had a right to carry a pistol? Can we agree that the deceased had been heckling police officers? Can we agree that the deceased had touched a police office…

> Even if you're right, you're still dead.

Yes, this is the entire point: the left is saying "the government shouldn't murder citizens for exercising their legal rights", and the right is saying "if you exercise your legal rights, it's your fault if the government murders you" (or at least "that's the risk you run").

If American patriotism has anything at all to do with valuing freedom from tyranny and oppression, then the right-wing mindset ("you might have the 'legal right' to film an officer, but the state might murder you for it") seems aggressively un-American. Specifically, if you have "the right to do X but the government might murder you for doing X" then you don't really have the right to do X by definition.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#146

Post by throwaway894345 »

brabel wrote: post #143
CamperBob2 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

List the rational arguments in favor of the so-called "right-leaning" point of view (OP's term, not mine) with respect to the Pretti killing. Spoiler: there are no such arguments, effective or otherwise. To apologists it looks like a Rorschach test; to normal people it looks like a snuff film, brought to us by the same studio that is now distributing child pornography. Meanwhile, it's possible to favor free enterpris…

In my country, lifting a finger against an officer on duty will land you in big trouble. If you got a gun on you and you resist arrest, like happened in this case, you are absolutely getting shot. I can’t really understand you Americans. What do you think an armed person reacting to arrest is going to do with that gun given the chance? If you were a cop would you take chances?? If you did you wouldn’t be here complai…

1. In the United States, we have Constitutional rights, including the right to carry a gun with proper permits. Like other rights, the state can't murder you for having a gun on your person, but if they have a credible reason to think that you are an immediate threat, they can shoot you. The legal standard for "immediate threat" does not cover this scenario because (1) Pretti wasn't resisting (2) the police stripped him of his gun before they executed him and (3) the agents approached Pretti for no reason at all; Pretti was clearly peacefully recording with his hands clearly visible.

> If you were a cop would you take chances

I wouldn't be a cop if I was afraid that every person with a cell phone might shoot me with a gun, or if I was afraid that every soccer mom in a car might try to run me over. And while American policing is riddled with accountability problems, it's important to emphasize that the crushing majority of American police can manage much riskier circumstances without murdering anyone--it seems to be exclusively the agencies under the Department of Homeland Security that behave like secret police on a regular basis.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#148

Post by throwaway894345 »

dotancohen wrote: post #122
CamperBob2 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So you consider people with different values then you sociopaths? You sound very intolerant.

If the "different values" are whether or not the state should be allowed to execute someone for peacefully exercising their right to film agents in public, then yeah that constitutes sociopathy in my mind. I'm okay with being intolerant of such sociopaths. You may also find my distaste for Nazism to be "intolerant". Guilty as charged, I guess.

Re: Review of 1984 by Isaac Asimov (1980)

#150

Post by dotancohen »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #130
dotancohen wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you consider people with different values then you sociopaths? You sound very intolerant.

Yes. Karl Popper's 'Paradox of Tolerance' applies. TL,DR: tolerating intolerance turns out to be a bad idea. Glancing at your user page, this should be an exercise in preaching to the choir. You do understand that the only reason the Republicans in the US support Israel is because embracing fundamentalist Christian eschatology gets them votes they don't have to work for. Right?

No, actually, it seems to me that Americans support Israel because we have the same system of values (democracy, human rights, rule of law), and have the same enemies who wish to destroy both our societies.
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