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George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

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Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#591

Post by eli_gottlieb »

Lramseyer wrote: post #162
flukus wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will this awakening by introspective at all? Because punishing wrongthink seems to be endemic with third wave feminists and modern "progressive" groups.

I thought the exact same thing myself when I saw this news. It made me think of this: https://medium.com/@aristoNYC/social-justice-bullies-the-aut...

How much right-wing authoritarianism by a sitting government will or would it take to convince you that authoritarian governments are more of a problem than ideologically incoherent university students?

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#592

Post by RangerScience »

andai wrote: post #424
RangerScience wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google variations on "graphs to make you feel better about the future". http://www.businessinsider.com/charts-that-will-restore-your...

Thanks, that's somewhat uplifting.

You're welcome! There's also a good Ted Talk with an animated graph of life expectancy v wealth, with country blobs moving around from ~1700ish? to now.

Hint: Everything goes up and to the right, although in some pretty interesting ways.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#593

Post by RangerScience »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #393
RangerScience wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm down-voting you, here's why: This is a headline and an article about "alternative facts", relating them to a book about comprehensive "alternative fact" propaganda. Not about any of things that you listed. You didn't add any meaningful information to the discussion, but have added divisive and heavily argued opinions, in a way that only furthers their divisiveness. This is not a comment on your opinions. This is…

I don't see the phrase "alternative facts" (or even the word "facts", for that matter) in either the headline or the article. Nineteen Eighty-Four is very much about surveillance and totalitarianism (which is why, here in the UK, it seems even more prescient right now) so, while I disagree with Mikeb's political stance, I think your dismissal of their comment as not contributing to the discussion is unfair.

Well expressed!

There is exactly one non-Orwell link in the article, and it's to an article with this headline: "Sales of George Orwell's 1984 surge after Kellyanne Conway's 'alternative facts'"

The first explicitly political thing in the OP is "alternative facts"; so that's where I grabbed that from.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#595

Post by leereeves »

vectorpush wrote: post #569
leereeves wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth a try. Obama antichrist - 445 thousand results Obama anti-christ - 2 million Trump Hitler - 32 million

Try Trump antichrist - 447k Trump anti-christ - 1.7mil Obama Hitler - 27mil I think the takeaway is that stringing a couple terms together in google gives us little in the way of political insight.

Interesting.

I think the takeaway may be that both sides of the political spectrum are equally inclined to name calling.

(One tiny piece of evidence these results are not mere coincidence: there are 4x as many such results for Trump/Obama Hitler than for "Jesus Hitler" - 9.5 million)

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#596

Post by dragonwriter »

null4bl3 wrote: post #594

It's ironic that the CIA rakes in on that, since they have the publishing right for several of Orson Welles books

Orson Welles and George Orwell are different people, despite the latter's last name also being a common subsequence of the two names.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#597

Post by Arizhel »

Arizhel wrote: post #558
bzbarsky wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> About the only people who were having a really bad time were the people in former Yugoslavia. Or the people anywhere in the vicinity of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Congo_War (which conveniently didn't appear in the news much). Pretty sure they were having a much worse time than people in former Yugoslavia...

Yeah, that didn't get much exposure in the west. I've never even heard of it. Also, this isn't to say that the rest of the world was doing great either; lots of other 3rd-world places were surely having a hard time too. But the question is, were they having an unusually hard time during the 90s, or was that normal for them? In former Yugoslavia, it was abnormal: before that they had stability behind the Iron Curtain,…

I guess one big one I did forget to mention here is Rwanda in 1994.

Anyway, if you focus mainly on the western world, I think my point stands. For the West, the 90s were a great time, better than now overall IMO.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#598

Post by downandout »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #582
downandout wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump has been in office for 4 days. Conflict of interest laws do not apply to US Presidents, so the business interest argument is moot. We don't impeach Presidents because a loud group of people dislikes the fact that they lost an election. We impeach Presidents when they commit crimes, which he has not done and hasn't even been in office long enough to do.

> We don't impeach Presidents because a loud group of people dislikes the fact that they lost an election. As a matter of fact, that's exactly why they impeached Clinton. Face it: America impeaches Presidents for being not-Republican, and empowers Presidents for being Republican. It's a one-party state.

Nope. Clinton was impeached because he committed perjury.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#599

Post by Lasher »

noobermin wrote: post #50

While I love 1984, I think Fahrenheit 451 has become more true than Orwell's novel. People have willingly given into an information bonanza that is the internet, with headphones always in (seashells). We don't need the TV walls, as our cellphone has taken that role, altogether with the hyperactive delivery of such content. A collectivist state has not become the dominating power, but wealthy individuals and corporati…

The Roger Water's album titled 'Amused to Death' is also a perfect predication of where we've ended up, particularly the title track on the album.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#600

Post by downandout »

kilroy123 wrote: post #555
downandout wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump has been in office for 4 days. Conflict of interest laws do not apply to US Presidents, so the business interest argument is moot. We don't impeach Presidents because a loud group of people dislikes the fact that they lost an election. We impeach Presidents when they commit crimes, which he has not done and hasn't even been in office long enough to do.

I think that will be up to the Supreme Court to decide. Not you.

The Supreme Court does not try impeachment cases. That would be the Senate, and it requires a 2/3 vote, after Congress first adopts articles of impeachment with a majority vote. It is unlikely that either would happen.
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