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Hmmm....





Richard Muller writes for Technology Review, Who's Afraid of 1984?:



1984, that dreaded Orwellian year, has finally arrived. The phenomenon George Orwell predicted reached full bloom around 1989, and has been straggling to completion ever since. Few people noticed, however, because of a simple error in Orwell’s prediction. His analysis was right, but he got the sign wrong.



His novel 1984, written in 1948, contained the foremost prophecy of the cold war: that technological advancement would render Stalinism unstoppable, with individual liberty the inevitable casualty. However, when the technologies that would enable this totalitarian global village reached fruition, the victim was not democracy, but totalitarianism itself. What went right?
While I can agree that technology had a major hand in the downfall of Communism in East Europe, and probably elsewhere, I can see signs of rising totalitarianism throughout the West, facilitated by that very same technology. Look at how many legislators and corporate whoevers are trying to control that technology, and even the Internet itself. Just a cautionary note....

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