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What would Orwell tell us now?

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"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

What would Orwell tell us now?

Post in thread 'Karine Jean-Pierre: Videos of Biden faked' https://debatepolitics.com/threads/karine-jean-pierre-videos-of-biden-faked.542462/post-1079828838

As long as this thread lives I will never post about the video. Except to say this is a good example of what's to come. As for the truth , that's the other thread.

Deepfakes start arguments about what the facts are. Would anyone agree that we are already periously plagued by disagreements about facts? Would anyone agree we have a problem if we can't conduct policy if we don't agree on the facts?

This is a potential floodgate of a total propaganda misinformation smorgasbord. "Buyer beware" was never more important.

www.euronews.com

Fake image of Pentagon explosion causes real dip on Wall Street

It could be the first instance of an AI-generated image sowing enough confusion to move stock markets.
www.euronews.com www.euronews.com
 
Orwell would probably say something like:

"The people will believe what the media tells them they believe"
 
SkyChief said:
Orwell would probably say something like:

"The people will believe what the media tells them they believe"
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You mean Big Brother. "The media" in 1984 are completely controlled by Big Brother.
 
Slartibartfast said:
Orwell, being the activist he was, would probably be in the thick of protesting MAGA.
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I know he was a leftist, but remember that Animal Farm was a parody of the Soviet Union, and 1984 was a dystopia closer to the Soviet Union than to post-war Britain.

Orwell fought the Fascists in Spain, so there's no question he was anti-Fascist. However the column he joined were denounced by the pro-Soviet Communists as being Trotskists. This casts some light on his opposition to Soviet Communism.
 
Orwell would be speechless, he could not possibly have foreseen the neoliberal privatisation of tyranny.
 
Ug make hammer said:
I know he was a leftist, but remember that Animal Farm was a parody of the Soviet Union, and 1984 was a dystopia closer to the Soviet Union than to post-war Britain.

Orwell fought the Fascists in Spain, so there's no question he was anti-Fascist. However the column he joined were denounced by the pro-Soviet Communists as being Trotskists. This casts some light on his opposition to Soviet Communism.
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I totally agree. However today's world doesn't really have any major power centers that can be honestly called Communist. The closest we have is regulated capitalism with social spending, which isn't even close to what Communism was supposed to be.
 
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Slartibartfast said:
I totally agree. However today's world doesn't really have any major power centers that can be honestly called Communist. At best we have regulated capitalism with social spending.
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Cuba has given up the title Communist by allowing private enterprise, but they still have state enterprises and public healthcare. If only they were a democracy, I'd consider moving there.

When I was still a teenage communist, and in a mental hospital, my father offered to buy me a return ticket to Cuba. He didn't sugar coat it: "you can work cutting cane, find out what communism is really like." Clever move actually: I stopped being a State Communist and adopted what I now recognize as anarcho-syndicalism. Though I should really have called his bluff. A holiday is a holiday, and at the very least I would have learned a second language.
 
Ug make hammer said:
Cuba has given up the title Communist by allowing private enterprise, but they still have state enterprises and public healthcare. If only there were a democracy, I'd consider moving there.
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I agree, their economy is mixed now, which means they can no longer be considered communist. I also agree that I dislike their lack of democracy.
Ug make hammer said:
When I was still a teenage communist, and in a mental hospital, my father offered to buy me a return ticket to Cuba. He didn't sugar coat it: "you can work cutting cane, find out what communism is really like." Clever move actually: I stopped being a State Communist and adopted what I now recognize as anarcho-syndicalism. Though I should really have called his bluff. A holiday is a holiday.
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A lot of the impetus for Communism seemed to be a way to develop industrialized economies quickly. At least that seems to be what I can find when I look at the history of the phenomenon. It seems without fail that once a certain level of production and comfort are met, the culture turns its sights to liberalizing or falls into a fascist state.
 
Slartibartfast said:
I agree, their economy is mixed now, which means they can no longer be considered communist. I also agree that I dislike their lack of democracy.

A lot of the impetus for Communism seemed to be a way to develop industrialized economies quickly. At least that seems to be what I can find when I look at the history of the phenomenon. It seems without fail that once a certain level of production and comfort are met, the culture turns its sights to liberalizing or falls into a fascist state.
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Very sound analysis. Russia and China both advanced enormously by "short circuiting" the profit motive. But once most of the working class are lifted out of abject poverty, capitalism is a necessary incentive to keep them working hard (and for the entrepreneurs among them to develop new ways of production.)

The Soviets were outstanding in providing tertiary education to so many citizens (and China is going the same way now) but when prominence in the One Party is all that's needed to succeed in business, there are no opportunities for experts or inventors.

The Chinese model of Communism is working a lot better than the Soviet model ever did. Some industries are completely state owned (coal, military production) but government simply owning a stake in businesses, is quite brilliant. We could do that, it would really help to bridge the gap between taxation and spending.
 
He would tell us it's working toward getting crazier than he envisioned.
But hey, there's no head cages and rats yet, so there's that.
 
SkyChief said:
Orwell would probably say something like:

"The people will believe what the media tells them they believe"
Click to expand...

FOX "news" is a great example of that. Lower IQ deplorables are very susceptible to the brainwashing.
 
He would say. "Told ya."
 
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