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Oh it's a lucky country ... the Angelic one says so, and so does the hole
in bucket man ...
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The judges hadn't been expecting a classic conundrum when they sat down to
sort out the winners of the pond's weekend hunger games.
Insiders had alway...
6 hours ago
11 comments:
Facism?
Hee hee.
Isn't it called 1984?
I don't think even Orwell predicted face recognition of the current kind, did he? Or did he?
very strange and scary...
I'd like to see any computer, or any person for that matter, recofnise my face first thing on a Monday morning.
Orwell's 1984 is I think completely without computers. Lots of recording technology, but no artificial intelligence. That's a general trend in 1930s/40s/50s science fiction - they thought, if intelligent computers did exist in the future, they would be massive*. In golden age SF by people like Van Vogt, interstellar spacecraft are generally entirely computerless - slide rules tend to be the most complicated technology aboard the spacecraft.
*Douglas Adams sent this trend up nicely when writing about a computer so large, it actually became the planet earth.
Could only happen in America?
But the whole world's America. Kafka-esque, but true?
Still, "they" didn't ask if Dr Haneef wanted to be busted or lots of Afghanis blown to bits, either. Lots of coercive laws have come into existence over the last decade and this is so intrusion, surveillance and coercion are normalised rather than seen as atypical or fascist.
Like Winston Smith, the day will come when people will feel lost without Big Brother reassuringly looking over their shoulders, telling them what to think or how lucky they are getting sacked after twenty years surface with loss of entitlements and the gates locked.
Last post, what's wrong me?
How did I get "surface" for "service", in that last sentence?
See.
It's even getting to me..
A curious epilogue to this thread. An FB friend, Selim Gool of South Africa, has forwarded the story of the banning of John Pilger's new film and trip to, the USA yesterday (10/6), at "Znet".
"God bless America,
Home of the Free".
Anyone seen anything in the local msm on this?
Complete lack of privacy brings to mind the world in WE, by Zamiatin, still my fave in the genre.
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