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Comment by zitterbewegung | Hacker News Reader

We are in a society that has the distractions of Huxleys world with the surveliance of Orwell. The only thing different is the fact that no one expected our computers to get so small . That we would stare at screens that watch us every hour of every day. The anime psycho pass is much more relevant .

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I think it's easy to get hung up on the means (that each authored). But as we know, the prediction business is a tough one.

For example, Orwell (in 1984) focused on the filtering, manipulation, constriction and reconstruction of information in order to continuouly redraw the history / truth. But today the truth is something that's often just as fuzzy because we're overwhelmed with too much information and too many distractions. Different means, same ends (read: confused and manipulated proles).

But it's the ends that matter. Both Huxley and Orwell have warned us. The irony is, at this point, too few are paying attention.

The truth has always been fuzzy/slippery. There never was a golden age of unbiased nothing-but-the-correct-truth journalism. The only change now is it's a little more obvious.

> The truth has always been fuzzy/slippery. There never was a golden age of unbiased nothing-but-the-correct-truth journalism. The only change now is it's a little more obvious.

And IMO that realization is a sort of "coming of age" that isn't in any way unique to modern generations.

When you become an adult and realize that the people running the show are just humans like you...

And that anyone selling you a simple "one right perspective" is only selling you part of the truth.

Or you realise that anyone selling you anything is merely wanting your money.

These days media organisations cause outrage for the sole purpose of getting you mad, only to read the article and realise the title is nonsense and you've just given them ad money.

I think you're wrong in a tiny but important point. It's not "All media organisations offer you senseless outrage and clickbait", it's "Some media organisations". There are plenty of meaningful, in-depth, well-written articles which provide new viewpoints on topics that it's important to talk about. You just have to find mediums. And I find it important to honor them instead of claiming "all media provides bullshit", which fuels a certain, toxic "truth is no where in media" atmosphere.

No disagreement here. The arc of my point is for those who look at 1984 and believe we're a long ways from there. On the contrary, we ARE there. The same ends, just different means.

I find lots of people miss Asimov with the Hari Seldon's Psychohistory. Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, all manner of services now collect enough information to predict with relative accuracy what we like, want, and how we will behave in the imminent future or when presented with a certain situation. Google knows us better than we know ourselves.

If their targeted ads are the yardstick, no, they do not. They may have a lot of data but cannot use it well.

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