Sunday, March 13, 2016

Did George Orwell Predict ?

h/t Sig94

Or did he give these bastids the blueprint?

Being in flux over the answer, I've put my own book on hold.

Related:

- Have you ever seen a Good story about the future ?  (I haven't.)
- Motivates me to write a good story about the future.

 

27 comments :

  1. Barry and the boys will do what Barry and the boys do: rotten things. I doubt any of them have read Orwell. I think Alinsky had a couple of chapters on this type of skulduggery, though. And barry and the boys carry 'Rules for Radicals' around with them like the Red Chinese all carried 'Mao's Thoughts', aka The Little Red Book.

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    1. Fredd, so maybe barry got it indirectly then.

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  2. I think Orwell intended 1984 as a cautionary tale and not a to-do book. I do agree with Fredd about Alinksy's book.

    As for good stories about the future, short stories aren't my usual choice, but I do have an exhaustive list of good books that take place in the future. I've been a reader of science fiction novels since I was a little girl.

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    1. I -too- believe that Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning ..
      C-CS

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    2. Cube, C-CS, I agree that Orwell meant it as a warning, but my thought was that it actually may have spawned or accelerated the actions of government in this direction.

      As a parallel, I look around in the technology environment and see people working on things introduced in Start Trek TV series of many decades ago. Would they be if Star Trek hadn't been on or Gene Roddenberry hadn't published his ideas.

      Cube, I was a Sci-Fi nut. Isaac Asimov, Robert Sheckley are a couple I remember. I haven't been much of a reader for a while though.

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    3. Seems to me - I posted a short comment on someones blog about Orwell and his 1984
      book, that was a celebratory recognition of the tech breakthroughs in the late 1800's--yea---the late 1800's.
      The group had to wait for the science to make the necessary advances.
      That group was/is Fabians. Yes Orwell was a Fabian!
      Like stated before - Orwell wrote the book 1984 as a celebration of the Fabian's advancement in the tech world. Yea a warning of what was to come. Just like the Movies Hollywood puts on the big screen and little screen (tv series/movies), telling the world what is about to happen! Or, more like it--a --in your face--this what is about to happen to you all--and there is nothing you all can do about it! Cause most of us don't think in that dark a realm!

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    4. TS/WS, Yes, I can see many things coming, and can't imagine how they will stop it once it is out of the box. Artificial Intelligence combined with militarized robotics. Terminator. It will come to pass.
      Mind reading and memory planting. It can already be done.
      Lots of really scary stuff around the corner.

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  3. Here's one short story you probably know, but may not have seen in a long time:

    http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

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    1. I also read a lot of Vonnegut in my misspent youth. I remember finding this one very dystopic when I first read it. Not a place I ever want to live in, then or now.

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    2. Kid,
      "Harrison Bergeron" is a great story. When my American Literature class studies Fahrenheit 451, the follow-up is "Harrison Bergeron."

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    3. Cube, The only Vonnegut story I'd want to live in is Slaughterhouse 5, but near the end if ya know what I mean.

      AOW, That should be required reading for everyone along with probably at least Animal Farm and 1984.

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    4. School isn't the end all to an education. We had our girls read both Animal Farm and 1984 at home.

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  4. Some equate Alinsky w/-Orwell- I don't --
    Alinsky gave honor to Luicifer in his book - Rules for Radicals-
    and- I understand that H clinton sat at the feet of alinsky - and he was a mentor to her-
    I have the basic 'Rules' on my scroll to remind me what to look for--
    http://vcn.bc.ca/citizens-handbook/rules.html

    C-CS

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    1. C-CS, Maybe it will come down to rules vs bullets. I think bullets will win.

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  5. Have you ever seen a Good story about the future?

    Spoiler alert... Gilligan eventually DOES make it off the island. Unfortunately he gets mixed up with the professor's basement meth lab and it goes badly from there.

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    1. DaBlade, Another spoiler alert, Gilligan got an STD from Maryann... Yes. This I can tell you. Women can give you things you don't want. Especially on islands in the middle of nowhere. Donald told me about this.

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  6. E.M. Forster published The Machine Stops in 1909. It was, as far as I know, the very first to outline a horrifying dystopian view of the future.

    Aldous Huxley came next with A Brave New World, published in the 1920's.

    Orwell gave us his two dark, depressing visions of where we were headed –– Animal Farm and Nineteen-Eighty-Four –– in the 1940's.

    So, there was plenty of precedent before Orwell gave us his dismal view of human nature (Animal Farm) and made his horrifying prophecy of where we were headed (Nineteen-Eighy-Four).

    I believe these unusually perceptive authors came to their sad, horrifying conclusions, because of the hugely negative impact of the Industrial Revolution.

    Life may have been hard before machines came to dominate our existence, but at least it was free of the influence of "dark satanic mills," where clanking noise, cheerless gloom, and suffocating, dehumanizing repetitive toil became the new norm.

    Working conditions on the mines and mills that fed The Beast were all-but-intolerable, and THIS in turn gave rise to the LABOR MOVEMENT which paved the way for MARXISM. Science and Technology made possible the widespread destruction and mass killings of the two World Wars, and the souped up "Business Community" with its BOOM and BUST dynamic gave us The Great Depression.

    Of course we can never "go back," but we should at least acknowledge that "Progress" has been a two-edged sword at best.

    In short MODERNITY STINKS! ;-)

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    1. Free: aw, I can't really say that I don't enjoy many of the fruits of the Industrial Revolution. Prior to the Jetson's 'Rosie the Robot' bringing me my Mai Tai after I got done parking the flying car, people actually had to work from the moment they got up to the time they simply dropped after functioning for hours while dead on their feet.

      Life, as nasty, brutish and short as it was in the good ol' days really did improve for quite a large percentage of humans once we started inventing things to make our lives easier. When our crappy little huts were heated by fire, most of our waking hours, when not scrounging around for food, was spent scrounging around for stuff to burn. Then, once flammable material was found, like a tree, it was chopped down, drug up to the hovel, and then chopped into maneuverable size. All of this effort was required from everyone in the hovel, every day. Or die.

      "Rosie, make that a double, please."

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    2. Fredd,
      Yes, life was like that before the Industrial Revolution.

      I do wonder, however, if those people were more contented that we are since the Industrial Revolution.

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    3. "If ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."

      ~ Thomas Gray

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    4. FT, Very perceptive and valuable observation. I've noticed also just in my short time of observation that advances always bring the bad with the good. We are river. We flow in one direction and can never reverse course. I guess I'm good with that.

      I was driving along side a middle aged lady (she in the 'fast lane' and I in the middle lane of the freeway. She had 100 car lengths in front of her. As I pulled aside her I noticed she was texting on here phone and spent a good deal of time not looking at the road (Hence the empty 100 car lengths in front of her.) I stood on the horn and hopefully scared her out of her wits. Really? The 3rd lane? If you want to do that shit get in lane 1.
      Damn.
      My story does your analysis no justice but I had to relay it anyway.

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    5. Fredd, I'll take modern life with all its problems. Seems pioneer life had a few problems too.

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