I remember first time I read “1984”, the famous distopia written by George Orwell. I was 14 or 15 years old, so it was around the time we entered the new millenium. At the time, my family had a TV with 50 or so channels and a desktop computer with dial-up Internet and a couple of computer games that I very rarely played. We had a stationary telephone. I might have had a pre-paid mobile phone with black and white screen. There was nothing to be afraid of. I have been tought about the Moore’s law and how it meant personal computers will be smaller and cheaper, and very soon.
I was living in Poland, Eastern Europe, and my country was still learning about the goodies that come with capitalism and democracy. Slowly shelves of our shops were starting to fill in with colorful products. We had more money to spend and holiday abroad was becoming affordable. I saw that our country doesn’t look like neighboring Germany, but there was a lot of hope.
My world was very different from the dark future that Orwell predicted. His story was how I pictured my country must have looked like when communists were in power. Empty shelves, surveillance, fear, erosion of human bonds. Fear. Constant war. Society stripped of humanist values and culture. Truth was constantly updated to match the current situation and line of the party, so you could not really trace what was really going on. Evolution of the language deprived people from means to describe complex problems and dualities of reality. The picture painted by Orwell was so detailed, that I could almost smell the city and taste the disgusting gin drunk by Winston Smith.
I felt that his vision was as much frightening as missed. In the world where I was living, we had a free world of plenty and everything was only going to be better. And speaking if many objectively measurable factors, it is better. In Europe we are healthier, we have more money and more free time. Advancements in technology are making life almost effortless. Internet allows spreading of information. How can I be seriously thinking, that today’s world is worse than a dark distopia of 1984?
We don’t know who is feeding us information and why
In Orwell’s world, the opression was obvious. It is a world where black is black and white is white. The party wants you to obey so they are watching you and making sure nobody can rebel and say things that contradict the line of the party. Now, our social media (that we used to trust) is feeding us all kind of information, from different sources. In the times of written press, it was easy to make a proper correction when interpreting the information — you knew what paper was wright or left wing, so you knew which side they might be bending the truth. Now news is coming from everywhere and often ads are indistingushable from articles. How do you navigate this world?
We allow companies track us at all times
We no longer seem to grasp that it is important to keep private things private. We carry our smartphones everywhere like a little spying device, most of us not even tweeking the default location tracking settings. We allow our children to be tracked at all times. Is it ok that a company like Google or Facebook is following your child accross Internet and knows their location at all times?
The worst of all — nobody cares
Really. You would like to think that if something really alarming happened, we would take action. Something like, I don’t know, manipulation of election or referendum? Oh wait a minute, it did happen and nothing changed. If you were stuck in the right bubble, you might think that the #deletefacebook “movement” took off and people are more aware. But this is only because of your own limited circle of friends and information that you are exposed to. You can not even be sure that we all read the same news, so maybe some of them don’t really know the same side of the story?
Ex-executives and employees of the company might be telling us openly that Facebook was designed to be addictive, and still people will not listen. And those who will, already know.
You would only realize how bad the addiction is, when you unplug your headphones and try to look around for a change. You would see zombies. Sometimes I tried to count how many people around me don’t have a phone in their hands, and it is never more then 30%. The rest is plugged in, with the head down and indifferent look in their eyes.
In Orwell’s world, you would immediately know that your situation is quite bad. In our present world, you need to want to know. You need to actively look for the “red pill”. And I don’t really see a scenario where it happens.
Today, when I read “1984”, it seems more real than ever and for the time being, I don’t see a way out.