1984 or Neuromancer? Where are we headed?

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Sanrith Descartes

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So where are we going?
1984 - Government controls all of our information and uses it to dominate our lives.

Neuromancer - Big corporations control all of our information and uses it to dominate our lives.

When you look at the direction big tech is going with data control I think its a race between big corporations and China-type government to see who wins. As more of our history gets digitized and white-washed, it's only a matter of time until a Fahrenheit 451 burns the printed books and all our knowledge and history is digital and subject to "editing" and control.

So who wins? I tried making this a poll but couldnt find a "make this a poll" button on my phone.

Ps.. if you haven't read Neuromancer, put down your phone and go read it. Same goes for 1984 actually.
 
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LiquidDeath

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I have to say, I prefer the Neuromancer apocalyptic future to the 1984 one.

At least in the Neuromancer style world we can have cyborg sentry dogs and bad ass cyborg implants. In 1984 world we just get government spy TVs.
 
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fanaskin

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So where are we going?
1984 - Government controls all of our information and uses it to dominate our lives.

Neuromancer - Big corporations control all of our information and uses it to dominate our lives.

When you look at the direction big tech is going with data control I think its a race between big corporations and China-type government to see who wins. As more of our history gets digitized and white-washed, it's only a matter of time until a Fahrenheit 451 burns the printed books and all our knowledge and history is digital and subject to "editing" and control.

So who wins? I tried making this a poll but couldnt find a "make this a poll" button on my phone.

Ps.. if you haven't read Neuromancer, put down your phone and go read it. Same goes for 1984 actually.

it's both, neuromancer is the day to day, 1984 is the subpoena so gov can borrow what neuromancer already achieved.
 
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Cybsled

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Country also changes it a lot. China and Europe seem to be more in the 1984 direction, whereas the US leans more heavily in the Neuromancer direction.
 
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khorum

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Looks like I have some reading to do.
Basically as the costs to build extremely risky technology shrinks and the global population of butthurt people who would use it explodes, the necessity of an absolute totalitarian police state crosses over from a negative into a necessity.

The manhattan project cost $384 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars, roughly 9.5% of the US' total annual revenues. Today even third-world nations like North Korea and Pakistan, who barely have the heavy industrial economies to feed their people, can build nuclear weapons. Those costs will continue to shrink until terror groups and even wealthy individuals can eventually make them. It's even worse with biological weapons, engineered pathogens etc....and the principle applies to future "black ball" technologies we haven't discovered yet.

Without even contemplating a catastrophic terror attack that persuades people towards the need of it, just anticipating and planning for that eventuality forces us to confront the necessity of an eventual Panopticon Society governed by an Police Superstate.
 
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Sanrith Descartes

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Basically as the costs to build extremely risky technology shrinks and the global population of butthurt people who would use it explodes, the necessity of an absolute totalitarian police state crosses over from a negative into a necessity.
So our freedom is contingent on remaining in the bronze age?
 
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Kiroy

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it's clearly going to be a combination

Going to have to add in some Brave New World and Harrison Bergeron
 

Titan_Atlas

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So our freedom is contingent on remaining in the bronze age?
Freedom is an illusion. Outside of living in the woods by yourself you are always subject to the needs, manipulation, and lies of others. The freedom you believe existed, was largely due to people spreading out over large areas during pre-information time periods. Probably the last time America had a high level of freedom was during old west cowboy times.
 

Sanrith Descartes

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Freedom is an illusion. Outside of living in the woods by yourself you are always subject to the needs, manipulation, and lies of others. The freedom you believe existed, was largely due to people spreading out over large areas during pre-information time periods. Probably the last time America had a high level of freedom was during old west cowboy times.
Lies. I have the freedom to choose whatever overlord I desire.
 
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pharmakos

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Borzak

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Not familiar with the Neuromancer. Read 1984 35 years ago. Recently listened to the audio book of it to refresh my memory. Not only the aspect of the government knows everything and feeds you everything he hit on a couple of other things. Battleships and Dreadnaughts were long forgotten. Now massive ships that traveled around to launch helicopters off of and that was the focus of warfare. The "tele screen" the government could watch you in your house or office and instantly switched to they could talk to you on. All that in 1948. Say it often enough and the past will be forgotten and the "new speak" will replace the old with the fake new reality.
 

Borzak

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Lies. I have the freedom to choose whatever overlord I desire.

Freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose. Err wait that came from Kris Kristofferson while driving thru Baton Rouge on the way back to Morgan City to fly helicopters offshore for oil rigs. But he has a pretty strong leftist streak in him so who knows.
 

Sanrith Descartes

Veteran of a thousand threadban wars
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Not familiar with the Neuromancer. Read 1984 35 years ago. Recently listened to the audio book of it to refresh my memory. Not only the aspect of the government knows everything and feeds you everything he hit on a couple of other things. Battleships and Dreadnaughts were long forgotten. Now massive ships that traveled around to launch helicopters off of and that was the focus of warfare. The "tele screen" the government could watch you in your house or office and instantly switched to they could talk to you on. All that in 1948. Say it often enough and the past will be forgotten and the "new speak" will replace the old with the fake new reality.
Read neuromancer and the other stuff by William Gibson. He was the father of Cyberpunk.
 

AngryGerbil

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I need to read Neuromancer, it seems.

Until then, 1984 paints the scariest picture that I have ever been witness to. I consider it to be the scariest novel I've ever read. It's doubly scary because not only is 1984 a realistic outcome (unlike say 'Brave New World' or 'Minority Report' which require significant technological advancements in order to become fully real), it's an outcome that has been achieved already. Several times in fact.

Contrary to popular belief 1984 wasn't a warning of what was to come, it was a warning to everyone else about what had already happened. Reading 1984 and knowing that 'this has already happened in human history' is literally terrifying. Not even the Caliphate scares me as much as the The Party. At least, for what it's worth, the Caliphate sees itself as subservient to a higher power. The Party on the other hand is power. Not metaphysical power, but actual psychological and physical real-world power practiced in its most brutal form.

So to that end, without having yet read Neuromancer, I definitely think 1984 is a very real outcome. America is supposed to be the thing that can stand up to the world of 1984, but if we fall prey to it then all hope is lost the world over. If America fell victim to it then I think the world would enter a millennium-long dark age. And when I see Antifa, all I see is 1000 years of Big Brother and the Thought-Police.

"From the age of Big Brother. From the age of the Thought-Police. From a dead man. Greetings."
 
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Oldbased

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It all ends in blood. Just like the thousands of times before. It is our nature, our chemistry.

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