Monday, February 15, 2016

Orwell's 1984 and Today

George Orwell wrote his book "Nineteen Eighty Four" in 1949. At the time, I cannot imagine how he conceived such a futuristic novel and how prophetic it it turned out to be. I first read it in 1964 and thought Orwell was way out there as his book seemed impossible. Now, I see it has come true. Big Brother knows all and sees all. Security cameras record just about everything around the world's major cities. What the cameras do not record, we ourselves willingly hand out every time we go to a doctor, buy something with a credit card or post our thoughts on Facebook or pictures on Tumblr or Snapchat. Our society has become dystopian in nature as have our political parties, in the manner Orwell predicted.

Think about it for a few moments and you will realize how much of your personal life is on Facebook or Snapchat. You post where you are, what you are doing, what you are missing, what you are happy about, what your thoughts are at the moment, your past, your present, what you agree with, what you disagree with. You are profiling yourself for everyone. And yes here I sit profiling myself. The thing to remember is that what we post never goes away. I opted out of Facebook for several years. Supposedly they delete things after a year or two, but when I went back everything was still there. We complain about the lack of privacy, about Big Brother spying on us; but he does not have to spy on most of us, we feed him anything he cares to know about us.

If none of what I am saying makes any sense, read the first two paragraphs on the 1984 link above. If I too am as far out there as I perceived Orwell was in 1949, let me know about it.

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