What if Big Brother isn’t so bad after all? | Hacker News Reader

What if Big Brother isn’t so bad after all?

america.aljazeera.com

12 pointsprivong18 comments

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> "A person or vehicle appears as a pixel, essentially a moving dot on the screen."

> "I was able to watch several killings caught on camera as they unfolded: ... a victim toppling to the ground"

It can't be both ways.

CIA operative thinks Big Brother is 'not so bad after all'.

It's like the final paragraph of Orwell's 1984:

"He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."

"He had won the victory over himself."

Orwell—magical.

I didnt get that sentence, or the entire paragraph for that matter. Is there some story-dependent context that I'm missing here, or am I just too dense for Orwell?

First off, it's really more profound than any little statement like this can make it, and you're better off reading it for yourself. That said...

It's been years since I read it, but I'll put forth a few ways to read it, though I'm probably wrong, as I said it's been awhile.

One is a sort of Stockholm syndrome, in which you come to see and appreciate the others' point of view, but you're too close to see any of the drawbacks that were obvious and clear to outsiders (readers?).

More literally speaking, the protagonist with every reason to hate the system that even set up traps to catch its own "enemies," ends up convincing him that it's necessary, hence, "He had won the victory over himself."

(Cue "Mission Accomplished" photo-op? Heh.)

Oh shit. Sorry for the spoiler. It didn't occur to me that I'd be spoiling the ending for those who hadn't read it. Good one, me!

There's more context and events in the story which fit in with this ending, but I should leave them for the discovery of reading it.

The entire story is based on Winstons' struggle to resist the society he lived in. That struggle was constant, and he only 'won' the struggle at the end, when he indeed decided he loved Big Brother, and would no longer resist his authority.

The final paragraph of a novel is most times best understood in a story-dependent context.

> What if Big Brother isn’t so bad after all?

But what if it is? Try putting that genie back in the bottle. What about the surveillance regimes of the past, like the Stasi? They were such successes that we should use the modern technology we have today to add to the powers of the elite?

Right.

I don't get those who say that this is disappointing coming from Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera is run by a media group funded by the Qatari government. Qatar is not a democracy, it's an absolute monarchy. Non-democracies tend to like Big Brother-type scenarios because it keeps them in control.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_Media_Network

Is surveillance always bad? From the reactions here, you'd think it is. But that attitude will keep forcing surveillance underground. Any policy discussions are going to be:

  "We need to watch people."

  "They will hate that."

  "Let's not tell them we're doing it then."

It would be far better to have it out in the open, transparent. That's only going to happen if we are willing to talk about it constructively.

And although I'd rather not have my metadata collected by the NSA, I also don't want to be knifed while I walk home, and it sounds like that second scenario is what this surveillance system is trying to prevent.

*edit: formatting

Perhaps the first assertion isn't true. Perhaps we don't need to watch people as much as or in the ways we think we do.

So now Al Jazeera is kowtowing to the almighty surveillance state, too? This is depressing.

AlJazeera, I am disappointed.

Al Jazeera is likely supported by the government, so I really don't understand the surprise or disappointment.

Seriously. This was very surprising to see. I had to double take the source.

What if Al Jazeera is not so bad after all?

Wait, what did I just say?

Naturally from aljazeera

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