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For me the creepiest thing about 1984 wasn't the degradation of language or the censorship. What I found most concerning was Winston risking his life for a resistance movement that turned out to be fake. There are two well-known groups of violent protestors that the opposing side believe keeps getting away with reprehensible behavior that the authorities seemingly could stop at any time but choose not to. It didn't click with me until the doc "Social Dilemma" alluded to it with the "extreme center" protests. I think many would-be freedom fighters are falling for that trap.

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it's a honeypot. my father was involved with a left wing party in the 80's in Brazil - not guerrila, just regular election-oriented stuff. He used to tell me that whenever someone showed up in gatherings with very extremist views people would be suspicious because that person was probably an agent trying to identify people with subversive behavior (by seeing who would agree with him).

On the book it's much more than a honeypot, the regime depended on such extremists to exist, so it created them.

Of course, the regime on the 60's to 80's in Brazil didn't have that problem, because they had no shame from practicing the violence themselves and claiming it was from the other side when extremists failed to appear. It looks much more reliable to me.

We still create extremist personas, that don’t exist in real life. I know in France this tactic is used very often to trigger a demonstration of “the good guys”. When you interview the opponents, they’re 1 for 10.000 (=insignificant).

For example with feminism, when asked precise questions, you notice they are afraid of people that don’t exist (meanwhile the actual rapists are still free to roam).

The social changes we're seeing in the West, apart from aligning with the unfolding decadent logic of liberalism, are also supported by powerful groups, some of them government backed.

> For example with feminism, when asked precise questions, you notice they are afraid of people that don’t exist

Well, you will always find a couple freaks of every stripe somewhere. The job of any government looking to create fear is to give them disproportionate attention. Some may even fund the promotion of said freakishness because it either generates more panic, because it functions as a wedge for producing desired social changes that also grant more power to the government, etc. Pick your favorite subversive ideology today or mass phenomenon weakening moral norms and rights and you will find powerful backers. Control over information flow permits the impression that everyone is behind this ideology which causes people to conform for fear of sticking out. This normalizes the ideology, at least in the performative sense.

Well, to put it in perspective, I'm talking about trying to explode a bomb in a full stadium just to claim communists planted it.

But sure, characterizing your enemy as something other than humane is a common thing in propaganda.

Like Italy in the '70s? (Piazza Fontana, Piazza della Loggia, Bologna Station bombing, Italicus train...)

He's probably talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riocentro_attack the bomb exploded on the lap of one of perpetrators before the attack could take place

In eastern germany, there were many anti-government meetings and plans, and sometimes, literally all of people there were different stasi members reporting on other stasi members.

At some point in the late 1950s, the FBI had so thoroughly infiltrated the Communist Party of the USA that it could have taken it over. J. Edgar Hoover considered doing so, but apparently thought it would be more trouble than it was worth.

That’s interesting! Although maybe not surprising. I’d like to know more… do you have a source?

that's a great plot for a comedy sketch

See "The Man Who Was Thursday" by G. K. Chesterton.

One of my favorite books. I like the Fr. Brown stories but TMWWT has stuck with me. The vivid richness of the descriptions could only have come from an artist. In a way he reminds me of Leon Garfield (The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris especially).

So like that Spideman meme where there’s a dozen copies pointing at each other? Except in real life?

Do you have a source for that?

In The Netherlands, the Communist Party was infiltrated by the security service up to the point they were writing the monthly magazine.

The party visited CCP and had a group photo opportunity with the leader du jour. A picture which includes one or more of the spooks.

The "Social Dilemma" is pure propaganda and manipulation, there's very little facts or stats stated in that film that aren't heavily misleading.

What about it is propaganda? From who and for what purpose? Certainly not any large corporation or government, all of whom benefit from a populace that is always online.

Can you provide examples?

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200928/11452045401/socia...

It may have been a hackneyed attempt to point out real issues, but to call it propaganda... by who? Who is running the big 'maybe all these social networks are kinda bad, or at least we should be aware of what they are doing' scheme?

Are you referring to QAnon perchance? I've always found the "advertised risk" of QAnon to be inconsistent with the apparent lack of investigation (and lack of curiousity about a lack of investigation) a bit curious, as compared to say the Unabomber scenario.

It could be nothing of course, but then it could also be something.

Lack of investigation into what?

Plenty of investigation has been done conducted into QAnon, their beliefs and their claims. Everything has turned out to be spurious.

> Plenty of investigation has been done conducted into QAnon, their beliefs and their claims. Everything has turned out to be spurious.

Oh, it sounds like you are referring to QAnon's ideas - I am referring to QAnon the organization, including its leadership, if any.

We regularly hear (perhaps not so much lately now that the election is over) about how dangerous QAnon is, my thinking is that if this organization is so dangerous, why does no one do anything about it, and why do journalists not wonder why no one does anything about it.

Probably because calling things dangerous is a way to rile up hate which is what journalists do.

QAnon was dangerous (I don't know how dangerous they still are) because of the support given to them the President of the United States and their shared conspiratorial beliefs potentially gaining the power of a mainstream political movement. When the leader of your country believes in a secret conspiracy of leftists undermining him at every turn and a millions-strong cult believes his political enemies are literal baby-raping demons that he's been sent by God to cleanse the country of, that has the potential to create political instability to put it lightly. In other countries, a group like QAnon would become the leader's personal secret police.

But QAnon members have been investigated by the FBI and have been arrested and charged with various politically motivated crimes and attempted crimes including murder, assassination, kidnapping, bombings, disruption of ballot counting in various states and of course the White House insurrection.

I don't know what else you would expect to happen.

I would expect an investigation into what QAnon is from an organization and leadership perspective, at least. Your description is a very popular narrative, but my intuition is that it is fairly manufactured.

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