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Comment by TMWNN | Hacker News Reader

>Furthermore, he has a system of volunteer spies in which children report on their parents, and neighbours on each other. This cannot possibly work well since eventually everyone reports everyone else and it all has to be abandoned.

Asimov was mistaken here. The East German Stasi did implement a system in which many, many people (not literally everyone, but a staggering percentage) reported on each other.

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And North Korea maintains a system of neighborhood surveillance, mandatory self-criticism sessions, and hereditary social classes which are perhaps closer to “1984” because they are so well established now.

When it collapsed, East Germany was still led by the same people who had created it. The Berlin Wall only existed for 28 years. North Korea is a multi-generational prison.

> When it collapsed, East Germany was still led by the same people who had created it. The Berlin Wall only existed for 28 years. North Korea is a multi-generational prison.

Excellent point. Something that refutes another of Asimov's critiques in his review, that tyrannies inevitably end through tyrants' deaths, or at least become milder in their oppression. Admittedly he wrote the review in 1980, back when a) the first Kim was still in power and b) no one in the West saw North Korea as anything other than an "ordinary" Communist state—no awareness of Juche, etc.—but still.

North Korea is rather exceptional though. Few dictatorships manage even one smooth succession, let alone two.

Monarchies

It depends on one's definition of dictatorship. I personally do not believe, for instance, the British Crown is one such instance.

Besides that, multiple ways to read this. "Monarchies" could've been a reference to pre modern monarchies of which many made it through at least 3 successions. Or as a correction to the upper comment, saying that the Kim's are more monarchy than plain dictatorship.

The British Crown had to concede some rights centuries ago, or there would have been civil wars and probably no more crown. Dear Leaders are the ones that don't have to concede anything, yet.

> or there would have been civil wars

Would have been? There were.

Not only have there been multiple civil wars, there has also been “no more crown” after the beheading of King Charles I (1649) until the restoration in 1660.

A lot of monarchies aren't really stable across two or more successions either.

No. East Germany did not start existing with the Berlin Wall. The system was in place well before that, and so was the Stasi.

It spanned more than 40 years, and was absolutely multi-generational.

In hindsight East Germany took a lot of inspiration from Nazi Germany.

Asimov comes off as incredibly naive.

> Our own computers to some extent do this in the IRS, in credit files, and so on, but that does not take us towards 1984, except in fevered imaginations. Computers and tyranny do not necessarily go hand in hand. Tyrannies have worked very well without computers (consider the Nazis) and the most computerised nations in today's world are also the least tyrannical.

China begs to differ.

This also happened heavily under the Romanian communist regime. My parents were first hand witness to that.

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