Did George Orwell's 1984 come to pass 40 years later? Is that where we're at?

[PeaceWave]

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.”

[misanthrope]

1. In many ways, we're more like Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World"

We willingly keep ourselves distracted and numbed.

[jfz9580m]

3. Agreed - we amplify the nonsense, fear and distraction

We as in a major chunk of the humans using the web.

We are doing the work of the surveillance capitalists, advertisers, junk peddlers of the world by amplifying the fear and distraction. This is the world of Idiocracy imo.

It is why I am eschewing the net (some light DU aside). I apply the notion of degrowth to degrow what has become a bot and influencer filled noise machine dispensing clickbait and terror..

Real efficiency in action is the refusal to let creepy crypto/Si Valley bros like Musk and Ramaswamy troll us all with a war on our attention via the net.

Tim Wu and Nicholas Carr have always made sense:

https://www.roughtype.com/?p=1471

These findings are consistent with more general studies of media multitasking. In a much-cited 2009 paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, for example, Stanford’s Eyal Ophir, Clifford Nass, and Anthony D. Wagner show that heavy media multitaskers demonstrate significantly less cognitive control than light multitaskers. The heavy multitaskers “have greater difficulty filtering out irrelevant stimuli from their environment” and are also less able to suppress irrelevant memories from intruding on their work. The heavy multitaskers were actually less efficient at switching between tasks – in other words, they were worse at multitasking.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_Google_Making_Us_Stupid%3F
Is Google making us stupid?
I think so yes..Google and the net in general are making us more stupid, fearful etc. I think the net is a source of a lot of mental instability since trolling is the order of the day. The average person cannot really assess or predict the future in these uncertain and troubled times using such a frequently unreliable tool.


I was reading this a few months back:
https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/news/the-fear-frequency-researchers-identify-brain-waves-linked-to-fear-response-352183

The researchers noted that, when a fear-associated square was shown, activity of a type of brain rhythm called a theta wave spiked in both the mPFC and the amygdala. This activity didn’t appear when a non-fear associated square was shown.

All that is gonna happen if one follows irrelevant trolling over the next four years is that one will dysfunctionally be in an anxious state. So I won’t.

I have this gloomy suspicion that in the same way that extremists have poor cognition, the extreme Idiocracy and general dysfunction sweeping through the societies we live in is warping our collective cognition:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/feb/22/people-with-extremist-views-less-able-to-do-complex-mental-tasks-research-suggests

[kysrsoze]

2. We're not quite that bad... yet.

We do have big enough screen sizes to view and admire Big Brother’s pictures.

[localroger]

5. We also have the screens working both ways

An important feature was that Big Brother could use the screens to watch you.

[jaxexpat]

4. To answer you question, well, of course. The better question, what do we do now?

But now, for your pleasure, a bit of music from the late 1960's. A visit to the past with a song by Steppenwolf which most radio stations across the mid-west wouldn't play even as they conducted a much-lauded tour across the nation, including that same region. Station managers usually said it was "too long". Others came right out and said it was "anti-American filth". We, almost every individual of my generation, knew it was simply history.

Monster
Song by
Steppenwolf

Once the religious, the hunted and weary
Chasing the promise of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new vision
Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope
Like good Christians, some would burn the witches
Later some bought slaves to gather riches
But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to carve the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light
And once the ties with the crown had been broken
Westward in saddle and wagon it went
And 'til the railroad linked ocean to ocean
Many the lives which had come to an end
While we bullied, stole and bought our own homeland
We brought the slaughter of the red man
But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to carve the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light
The blue and grey they stomped it
They kicked it just like a dog
And when the war over
They stuffed it just like a hog
And though the past has it's share of injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But it's protectors and friends have been sleeping
Now it's a monster and will not obey
(Suicide)
The spirit was freedom and justice
And it's keepers seem generous and kind
It's leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they don't pay it no mind
'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
And now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order
But it's all just an echo of what they've been told
Yeah, there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin'
Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there, where
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching
(America)
America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster

Songwriters: Jerry Edmonton, John Kay. For non-commercial use only.

[travelingthrulife]

6. I feel it's more like Sinclair Lewis', 'It Can't Happen Here'.

Buzz Waldron at the helm.