I'm checking vacancies for postmen every day. The tech industry in USKA has had its jugular opened and is just bleeding out. I'm getting a job that will still be there in ten years, and one which doesn't require me to work 60 hour weeks to compete with Indian and Chinese developers. I owe my child that much.
Answer the question. Why did those nineteen people get into such a state of hopelessness that they chose to take their own lives rather than try and fix things? Can you, just for one second, comprehend what it would feel like to have a Chinese military base on US soil? To have them swaggering around, smoking opium and gang raping white Christian schoolgirls at will, with the tacit sanction of the Chinese military and the US government? How would you feel about that? Would you just suck it up, because the US controls a huge percentage of the Earth's resources, and so of course China has to maintain a presence here?
I'm rather inclined to believe that your attitude that they'd better just get used to it is a major contributing factor in why those people died. Sure, the people that did it were crazed fuckers, and I hope that they were right that there is an afterlife, because in any rational cosmos, they'll be burning in their own personal hells. But as we're talking realpolitik, what's your problem with acknowledging that these kind of people do exist, and that as long as we make ourselves a target, they will target us? What are we going to do, kill them all before they can breed orphans?
Incidentally, I've been out of college for a long, long time.
So the OS is linux (not KDE/GNOME/X/GNU/Linux), and it's a rip off of Unix. That should push RMS's blood pressure a bit higher, and get the SCO lawyers rubbing their paws in glee. It's hard to refute their FUD when your boss has just read the BBC and seen this. "But linux must be ripping off Unix! The BBC couldn't publish it if it wasn't true!". Oh dear.
I wish I didn't, but my brother forced it on me. Oh, do we mean "available through authorised channels of distribution"? Then in that case, I don't. There is no screener.
> Well, to be fair, those drugs never have been legal per se, just a bit less criminal.
Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Unquestioning acceptance of the Party line? Plus good.
Read about the history of drug prohibition. It's come in piecemeal, and it's come because right thinking White Anglo Saxon Protestants want to protect niggers, chinks and spics from their own brutish, unevolved natures. If you think I'm trolling, read the link and read the quotes from eminent US statesmen.
The history of drug prohibition in the USA is a pretty repugnant one. Get back to me if and when we ever admit that, turn it around and legalize (not decriminalize) any of those drugs so beloved of Uncle Tom and his dusky skinned cohorts. We won't, because we'll always need to have a boogieman under the bed, smoking crack and planning to rape our white virgin daughters.
> Actually, in 1984, the government itself bombs it's own citizens
That's never made clear. It's implied, but the book also says that the wars are genuine, just small scale. You can attribute the rocket bombs to Oceana, Eurasia or Eastasia, if you think it makes any difference.
>just maybe... it's to aide other nations and international organizations (i.e. United Nations & NATO) in providing not just domestic security, but global security.
Your "security" is the other guy's "corrupt imperalism" though. Security isn't synonymous with global good. Global peace would be good, but security doesn't mean peace, it means defending your interests. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to be part of Oceana rather than Eurasia, but that doesn't mean that I can't question each of Oceana's actions on their own merits. Helping in Bosnia and Somalia in the name of security was good. Leveraging predatory trade deals and propping up dictators (*cough* Saddam *cough*) in the name of security is plus ungood.
>n 1984, there was no democratic elections, but there are in the U.S. (make all the lame comments you want about the Supreme Court "giving" the presidency to Bush).
The Supreme Court gave the Presidency to Bush. Funnily enough, that doesn't suck any less with time. Incumbents get relected because they enjoy a five to one finance advantage over challengers. That's what campaign contributions means, and that's why corporations continue to control US politics. They can buy more airtime, and people will always vote for the guy "As Seen On TV".
From the point of view of Eurasia, and even Airstrip One, the US is split between very right wing and ultra right wing. Even that needs qualifying though, as right wing often implies small, hands off government. Both parties in the USA look nearly identical from outside, being (demonstrably if not in rhetoric) in favour of big government, domestic surveillance, huge military, national brainwashing of children, social inequality, with cheap gas and two hundred channels of garbage TV for all. Fiddling around the edges with Medicare and affirmative action doesn't really distinguish them, especially when the "liberals" appear to be a bunch of spineless patsies too terrified of being labelled Un-American to dare to say the word "socialism", let alone propose policies that benefit society rather than the individual.
Got a bit off track there. Don't get me wrong, the USA is a wonderful country, it just looks a little different from outside, even when viewed from other parts of Oceana.
But question why those planes flew into the twin towers and the Pentagon. What acts of the US's drove nineteen people to carefully plan their own suicides and mass murder on that scale?
"They hate our Freedom" doesn't cut it. People die to buy their own freedom (even if it's the freedom to oppress others). They don't die just to end other peoples' freedom.
Taking bin Laden (remember him?) at face value, it happened because the USA keeps a presence in Saudi Arabia. Maybe we should be asking our political masters exactly why we do this? Perhaps we should question the unquestionable. Why exactly does the USA need all those military bases across the world?
Well, the world is a dangerous place. It's full of people who want to kill us. For placing military bases in their countries.
Another interesting lesson in 1984 is that when Winston is inducted into the (anti establishment) Brotherhood, it is made clear to him that this is a suicidal act. He will die because of it. His best hope is to kill himself rather than being taken alive. He will receive no rewards, little contact, no secret knowledge, and he will not see his efforts rewarded within his lifetime. He will just serve, and then die.
And Winston still leaps at the opportunity. He commits himself to carrying out any act to weaken the power of the Party, to kill innocents, to "throw sulphuric acid in a child's face" without question, merely at the behest of his Brotherhood contact. Winston has no hope. He is already resigned to a pointless death, possible for something he didn't do. This way he feels that he has some control over his life and his means of passing.
When I read this, I paused to admire the stark clarity of the message. People with no hope become irrational. You can't reason with them, you can't threaten them, you can't bargain with them.
Israel discovered this to its cost years ago. Kill a child's family, destroy his future, take away all hope, and you craft a weapon for your enemies to wield against you. Shower someone with hatred all their life, and the first person to show them love will control them. Oceana is only just beginning to find this out, but we seem to be in full denial about it right now. Empty rhetoric won't console the Afghan and Iraqi orphans we created. Yes, Saddam created more, but that won't console the ones that we created.
Sorry, got a bit off track there, just wanted to mention that 1984 is a salient lesson in how to create terrorists, or specifically their pawns.
What do you mean? Senator McCarthy did a great job protecting us from Muslim terrorists. We're at war with Muslim terrorists. We've always been at war with Muslim terrorists.
Um, further to my other reply, while we turned Prohibition around, we didn't manage to do anything about other recreational drugs, did we? We can roll them back three steps, but if they took four forward, that still leaves us one step closer to the sort of Nanny State that exists on Airstrip One.
We're playing compare and contrast with 1984, remember? Middle class Americans have cars, they have televisions and DVD players and computers and washing machines and (by and large) reliable electricity for them, have mortgages and detatched houses with basements and garages. Sure, they have to work to keep them, but that's still half way to Orwell's utopian alternative to war austerity. Outer Party 1984ians work 60+ hours a week, 90 if they are redacting large parts of history, for no reward, remember?
Heck, if you're on welfare in the USA, you've still got far, far more than 1984's proles. You have your own viewscreen, and it doesn't watch you (yet). You can eat more or less what you want in terms of fat, carbs and protein. You get more than 20 grams of chocolate a week, and you don't have to get your gin on the black market. Orwell's proles would be delighted to live in 2003 America.
As for education, the vast majority of the US middle class are literate and have a political education that goes (barely, but measurably) beyond simple indoctrination. Whether they retain that knowledge, or act on it, is largely a matter of choice, but they aren't denied the opportunity.
On the other hand, the US middle class are brainwashed with jingoistic flag-worshipping propaganda from an early age, and I'm not disagreeing with your premise that consumer debt is a millstone round most peoples' necks, but it's a millstone of their making. If you want to step out of the rat race and live on minimum wage or welfare, you're free to do so. Orwell's characters - proles and party both - don't have that luxury.
Well, sure, but I can't figure out whether it's short term greed or mid term planning. The cynical part of me thinks that the Bush/Cheney dynasty just wants to secure oil and jobs for their families for the next five or ten years. The thoughtful part of me suspects that what they might - might - be doing is securing oil for their kids, or as part of some Great Christian Destiny plan.
It's no less reprehensible, but it's perhaps unfair to consider that Bush/Cheney/Blair are thinking with their brain stems rather than, er, their gonads.
Not "people". Rebels. Insurrectionists. Organised criminals. Cultists. Terrorists. But never people. Not until well after the fact.
Do you remember the media coverage at Waco? "child molesting lunatic cultists" said BATF and the FBI, and thus it was faithfully reported by the media, without question. Won't someone think of the children! If it happened again today, we'd just say "terrorists" (or "Ba'ath loyalists") and send in the tanks. I doubt we'd even bother destroying evidence these days.
Yes, I know that, and I also know that one of them was black or native American, but was shown as white in Revere's revolutionary propaganda, which goes to show the long history of spin in American politics.
I suspect we're agreeing, by the way. Put <sardonic></sardonic> around my original post and see if it makes more sense.
1984 covers that. The disputed territories in 1984 cover most of Africa and some of Asia, and they are valuabel as a source of cheap labour, but only so that the domestic populations of Oceana, Eurasia and Eastasia can focus entirely on the war effort.
That said, while Orwell got a lot right, he called it wrong on Eurasia and Eastasia, and on the basis principle of using austerity to cover up inequality. We in Oceana have a rich, educated, fairly indolent population, but we haven't seen fit to cast down our super rich ruling class. Bread and circusses keep people quiet just as well as starvation and overt oppression.
Fair comment. Religious dogma is so alien to me that I find it hard to remember about it, even when the leaders of Oceana have prayer sessions before making important decisions. I'm not sure what's more worrying; that they think they hear answers, or that they actually hear answers.
Nah, this is Office 2000 versus OpenOffice 1.0. I'll try again with 1.1. Note that I do use and love OO, it just irks me that it's a dog compared to MS Office.
That means DARPA employees, NSA, CIA, FBI, police, Congressmen, Senators, the Executive, Fortunate Sons of Blue Chip dynasties, [RI|MP]AA execs, Enron/Worldcomm/Haliburton CEOs, high class hookers, roofied teenage pop star wannabes, assorted Princes and diplomats from oppressive oil rich dictatorships, coke dealers, transexual Thai ladyboy dominatrices and all, right?
I ask this because it'll be very interesting to see if Freedom of Information extends to letting We, the People find out the locations of those people, and specifically, interesting intersections of them in space-time.
I'm betting not in practice ("National Security" == "IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH"), but it'd be nice to assert it in principle about now to hopefully give Them a chance to pause for thought.
>I think the US government is now far worse than the british government was in 1776.
Rubbish. The British gunned down political protestors in cold blood and then tried to spin that it was their fault for rising up against soldiers that were garrisoned there to protect them. The USA doesn't do that! When we gun down political protestors in Iraq, it is because they are rising up against soldiers that are garrison there to protect them. Surely you see the difference?
Hmm. Or perhaps not. The Iraqis might consider having a Umm Qasar Tea Party, only instead of throwing tea into the sea, they could heave a few Haliburton overseers over the side.
> I'm not too bothered if someone is tracking where I go and where my car goes within a city
Sure, because only criminals have something to hide. And you never do anything illegal in your car. You never speed, you never pick up a hooker, you never go and buy drugs, you never pick up anything that you've paid cash for and not asked about the sales tax. Likewise, your car will never be mistaken for someone elses, and you'll never turn the wrong way down Hooker Alley, or stop to ask directions from Peter the Pusher, and you'll never find yourself parking near a terrorist cell gathering, aka anti-government political rally, right? Right?
>I still have the privacy of my own home, which is the only place I really had privacy in the first place
Unless you're suspected of being a terrorist supporting drug user, in which case the police can use an IR camera to watch you through your walls.
But that's OK. You've probably got nothing to worry about. Not this week.
It's an astonishing book, but the basic premise is that constant war is a means of keeping resources scarce, purely in order to maintain class distinction. If the plebians get too rich and well educated, they'll start to question why they need a ruling class at all, and the ruling class would rather be comfortable in a land of poverty than revoltingly rich in a land of plenty. The whole Big Brother culture is just a consequence of that (from the need to cover up the futility of the war), not the cause.
While it's true that USKA burns up hundreds of billions of USD a year (possibly a trillion if you count the stuff that isn't counted) in moving guns, tanks and bombs around the world, the goal does seem to be global imperialism rather than domestic scarcity. Sure, plenty of people are starving, but our middle classes are fatter and happier in terms of consumer toys than even the Inner Party in 1984.
Then again, that's pretty much what Winston Smith believes until he reads the book, so what do I know? The goal might be different, but the methods seem largely the same; an eternal war that can't be won against a foe with a constantly changing face, surveillance of citizens in the name of this war, arrest and detainment without due process, parading and show trials of prisoners for propaganda value, WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH, the whole works.
But I still can't figure out what the goal is. If it's merely self preservation for the incumbent autocrats, then that's understandable but both disappointingly unimaginative and largely unncessary - 98% of US Congressional incumbents already get reelected, and hereditary ruling dynasties are now as accepted in the USA as in Airstrip One. What more do they want? What is the point of moving further towards a police state? Any ideas?
You can run Office (Word, anyway) using wine on a linux system. It starts faster, runs faster, and uses less memory than Open Office swriter.
You can claim that it's not a fair comparison because it's not running native, or properly, but the point is that it does run, it runs better than Open Office, and it does so even it's an unfair comparison in Open Office's favour.
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I'm checking vacancies for postmen every day. The tech industry in USKA has had its jugular opened and is just bleeding out. I'm getting a job that will still be there in ten years, and one which doesn't require me to work 60 hour weeks to compete with Indian and Chinese developers. I owe my child that much.
Answer the question. Why did those nineteen people get into such a state of hopelessness that they chose to take their own lives rather than try and fix things? Can you, just for one second, comprehend what it would feel like to have a Chinese military base on US soil? To have them swaggering around, smoking opium and gang raping white Christian schoolgirls at will, with the tacit sanction of the Chinese military and the US government? How would you feel about that? Would you just suck it up, because the US controls a huge percentage of the Earth's resources, and so of course China has to maintain a presence here?
I'm rather inclined to believe that your attitude that they'd better just get used to it is a major contributing factor in why those people died. Sure, the people that did it were crazed fuckers, and I hope that they were right that there is an afterlife, because in any rational cosmos, they'll be burning in their own personal hells. But as we're talking realpolitik, what's your problem with acknowledging that these kind of people do exist, and that as long as we make ourselves a target, they will target us? What are we going to do, kill them all before they can breed orphans?
Incidentally, I've been out of college for a long, long time.
"Linux, built upon the venerable Unix operating system, is the creation of Linus Torvalds"
So the OS is linux (not KDE/GNOME/X/GNU/Linux), and it's a rip off of Unix. That should push RMS's blood pressure a bit higher, and get the SCO lawyers rubbing their paws in glee. It's hard to refute their FUD when your boss has just read the BBC and seen this. "But linux must be ripping off Unix! The BBC couldn't publish it if it wasn't true!". Oh dear.
I wish I didn't, but my brother forced it on me. Oh, do we mean "available through authorised channels of distribution"? Then in that case, I don't. There is no screener.
> Well, to be fair, those drugs never have been legal per se, just a bit less criminal.
Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Unquestioning acceptance of the Party line? Plus good.
Read about the history of drug prohibition. It's come in piecemeal, and it's come because right thinking White Anglo Saxon Protestants want to protect niggers, chinks and spics from their own brutish, unevolved natures. If you think I'm trolling, read the link and read the quotes from eminent US statesmen.
The history of drug prohibition in the USA is a pretty repugnant one. Get back to me if and when we ever admit that, turn it around and legalize (not decriminalize) any of those drugs so beloved of Uncle Tom and his dusky skinned cohorts. We won't, because we'll always need to have a boogieman under the bed, smoking crack and planning to rape our white virgin daughters.
> Actually, in 1984, the government itself bombs it's own citizens
That's never made clear. It's implied, but the book also says that the wars are genuine, just small scale. You can attribute the rocket bombs to Oceana, Eurasia or Eastasia, if you think it makes any difference.
>just maybe... it's to aide other nations and international organizations (i.e. United Nations & NATO) in providing not just domestic security, but global security.
Your "security" is the other guy's "corrupt imperalism" though. Security isn't synonymous with global good. Global peace would be good, but security doesn't mean peace, it means defending your interests. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to be part of Oceana rather than Eurasia, but that doesn't mean that I can't question each of Oceana's actions on their own merits. Helping in Bosnia and Somalia in the name of security was good. Leveraging predatory trade deals and propping up dictators (*cough* Saddam *cough*) in the name of security is plus ungood.
>n 1984, there was no democratic elections, but there are in the U.S. (make all the lame comments you want about the Supreme Court "giving" the presidency to Bush).
The Supreme Court gave the Presidency to Bush. Funnily enough, that doesn't suck any less with time. Incumbents get relected because they enjoy a five to one finance advantage over challengers. That's what campaign contributions means, and that's why corporations continue to control US politics. They can buy more airtime, and people will always vote for the guy "As Seen On TV".
From the point of view of Eurasia, and even Airstrip One, the US is split between very right wing and ultra right wing. Even that needs qualifying though, as right wing often implies small, hands off government. Both parties in the USA look nearly identical from outside, being (demonstrably if not in rhetoric) in favour of big government, domestic surveillance, huge military, national brainwashing of children, social inequality, with cheap gas and two hundred channels of garbage TV for all. Fiddling around the edges with Medicare and affirmative action doesn't really distinguish them, especially when the "liberals" appear to be a bunch of spineless patsies too terrified of being labelled Un-American to dare to say the word "socialism", let alone propose policies that benefit society rather than the individual.
Got a bit off track there. Don't get me wrong, the USA is a wonderful country, it just looks a little different from outside, even when viewed from other parts of Oceana.
But question why those planes flew into the twin towers and the Pentagon. What acts of the US's drove nineteen people to carefully plan their own suicides and mass murder on that scale?
"They hate our Freedom" doesn't cut it. People die to buy their own freedom (even if it's the freedom to oppress others). They don't die just to end other peoples' freedom.
Taking bin Laden (remember him?) at face value, it happened because the USA keeps a presence in Saudi Arabia. Maybe we should be asking our political masters exactly why we do this? Perhaps we should question the unquestionable. Why exactly does the USA need all those military bases across the world?
Well, the world is a dangerous place. It's full of people who want to kill us. For placing military bases in their countries.
Another interesting lesson in 1984 is that when Winston is inducted into the (anti establishment) Brotherhood, it is made clear to him that this is a suicidal act. He will die because of it. His best hope is to kill himself rather than being taken alive. He will receive no rewards, little contact, no secret knowledge, and he will not see his efforts rewarded within his lifetime. He will just serve, and then die.
And Winston still leaps at the opportunity. He commits himself to carrying out any act to weaken the power of the Party, to kill innocents, to "throw sulphuric acid in a child's face" without question, merely at the behest of his Brotherhood contact. Winston has no hope. He is already resigned to a pointless death, possible for something he didn't do. This way he feels that he has some control over his life and his means of passing.
When I read this, I paused to admire the stark clarity of the message. People with no hope become irrational. You can't reason with them, you can't threaten them, you can't bargain with them.
Israel discovered this to its cost years ago. Kill a child's family, destroy his future, take away all hope, and you craft a weapon for your enemies to wield against you. Shower someone with hatred all their life, and the first person to show them love will control them. Oceana is only just beginning to find this out, but we seem to be in full denial about it right now. Empty rhetoric won't console the Afghan and Iraqi orphans we created. Yes, Saddam created more, but that won't console the ones that we created.
Sorry, got a bit off track there, just wanted to mention that 1984 is a salient lesson in how to create terrorists, or specifically their pawns.
What do you mean? Senator McCarthy did a great job protecting us from Muslim terrorists. We're at war with Muslim terrorists. We've always been at war with Muslim terrorists.
Um, further to my other reply, while we turned Prohibition around, we didn't manage to do anything about other recreational drugs, did we? We can roll them back three steps, but if they took four forward, that still leaves us one step closer to the sort of Nanny State that exists on Airstrip One.
We're playing compare and contrast with 1984, remember? Middle class Americans have cars, they have televisions and DVD players and computers and washing machines and (by and large) reliable electricity for them, have mortgages and detatched houses with basements and garages. Sure, they have to work to keep them, but that's still half way to Orwell's utopian alternative to war austerity. Outer Party 1984ians work 60+ hours a week, 90 if they are redacting large parts of history, for no reward, remember?
Heck, if you're on welfare in the USA, you've still got far, far more than 1984's proles. You have your own viewscreen, and it doesn't watch you (yet). You can eat more or less what you want in terms of fat, carbs and protein. You get more than 20 grams of chocolate a week, and you don't have to get your gin on the black market. Orwell's proles would be delighted to live in 2003 America.
As for education, the vast majority of the US middle class are literate and have a political education that goes (barely, but measurably) beyond simple indoctrination. Whether they retain that knowledge, or act on it, is largely a matter of choice, but they aren't denied the opportunity.
On the other hand, the US middle class are brainwashed with jingoistic flag-worshipping propaganda from an early age, and I'm not disagreeing with your premise that consumer debt is a millstone round most peoples' necks, but it's a millstone of their making. If you want to step out of the rat race and live on minimum wage or welfare, you're free to do so. Orwell's characters - proles and party both - don't have that luxury.
Well, sure, but I can't figure out whether it's short term greed or mid term planning. The cynical part of me thinks that the Bush/Cheney dynasty just wants to secure oil and jobs for their families for the next five or ten years. The thoughtful part of me suspects that what they might - might - be doing is securing oil for their kids, or as part of some Great Christian Destiny plan.
It's no less reprehensible, but it's perhaps unfair to consider that Bush/Cheney/Blair are thinking with their brain stems rather than, er, their gonads.
Not "people". Rebels. Insurrectionists. Organised criminals. Cultists. Terrorists. But never people. Not until well after the fact.
Do you remember the media coverage at Waco? "child molesting lunatic cultists" said BATF and the FBI, and thus it was faithfully reported by the media, without question. Won't someone think of the children! If it happened again today, we'd just say "terrorists" (or "Ba'ath loyalists") and send in the tanks. I doubt we'd even bother destroying evidence these days.
Yes, I know that, and I also know that one of them was black or native American, but was shown as white in Revere's revolutionary propaganda, which goes to show the long history of spin in American politics.
I suspect we're agreeing, by the way. Put <sardonic></sardonic> around my original post and see if it makes more sense.
1984 covers that. The disputed territories in 1984 cover most of Africa and some of Asia, and they are valuabel as a source of cheap labour, but only so that the domestic populations of Oceana, Eurasia and Eastasia can focus entirely on the war effort.
That said, while Orwell got a lot right, he called it wrong on Eurasia and Eastasia, and on the basis principle of using austerity to cover up inequality. We in Oceana have a rich, educated, fairly indolent population, but we haven't seen fit to cast down our super rich ruling class. Bread and circusses keep people quiet just as well as starvation and overt oppression.
Fair comment. Religious dogma is so alien to me that I find it hard to remember about it, even when the leaders of Oceana have prayer sessions before making important decisions. I'm not sure what's more worrying; that they think they hear answers, or that they actually hear answers.
Hey, give me a chance to download it. ;-)
Nah, this is Office 2000 versus OpenOffice 1.0. I'll try again with 1.1. Note that I do use and love OO, it just irks me that it's a dog compared to MS Office.
That means DARPA employees, NSA, CIA, FBI, police, Congressmen, Senators, the Executive, Fortunate Sons of Blue Chip dynasties, [RI|MP]AA execs, Enron/Worldcomm/Haliburton CEOs, high class hookers, roofied teenage pop star wannabes, assorted Princes and diplomats from oppressive oil rich dictatorships, coke dealers, transexual Thai ladyboy dominatrices and all, right?
I ask this because it'll be very interesting to see if Freedom of Information extends to letting We, the People find out the locations of those people, and specifically, interesting intersections of them in space-time.
I'm betting not in practice ("National Security" == "IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH"), but it'd be nice to assert it in principle about now to hopefully give Them a chance to pause for thought.
>I think the US government is now far worse than the british government was in 1776.
Rubbish. The British gunned down political protestors in cold blood and then tried to spin that it was their fault for rising up against soldiers that were garrisoned there to protect them. The USA doesn't do that! When we gun down political protestors in Iraq, it is because they are rising up against soldiers that are garrison there to protect them. Surely you see the difference?
Hmm. Or perhaps not. The Iraqis might consider having a Umm Qasar Tea Party, only instead of throwing tea into the sea, they could heave a few Haliburton overseers over the side.
> I'm not too bothered if someone is tracking where I go and where my car goes within a city
Sure, because only criminals have something to hide. And you never do anything illegal in your car. You never speed, you never pick up a hooker, you never go and buy drugs, you never pick up anything that you've paid cash for and not asked about the sales tax. Likewise, your car will never be mistaken for someone elses, and you'll never turn the wrong way down Hooker Alley, or stop to ask directions from Peter the Pusher, and you'll never find yourself parking near a terrorist cell gathering, aka anti-government political rally, right? Right?
>I still have the privacy of my own home, which is the only place I really had privacy in the first place
Unless you're suspected of being a terrorist supporting drug user, in which case the police can use an IR camera to watch you through your walls.
But that's OK. You've probably got nothing to worry about. Not this week.
Hey, just do your Physical Jerks at night instead of in the morning. I find Jenna Jameson's, er, "workout videos" to be a great help.
It's an astonishing book, but the basic premise is that constant war is a means of keeping resources scarce, purely in order to maintain class distinction. If the plebians get too rich and well educated, they'll start to question why they need a ruling class at all, and the ruling class would rather be comfortable in a land of poverty than revoltingly rich in a land of plenty. The whole Big Brother culture is just a consequence of that (from the need to cover up the futility of the war), not the cause.
While it's true that USKA burns up hundreds of billions of USD a year (possibly a trillion if you count the stuff that isn't counted) in moving guns, tanks and bombs around the world, the goal does seem to be global imperialism rather than domestic scarcity. Sure, plenty of people are starving, but our middle classes are fatter and happier in terms of consumer toys than even the Inner Party in 1984.
Then again, that's pretty much what Winston Smith believes until he reads the book, so what do I know? The goal might be different, but the methods seem largely the same; an eternal war that can't be won against a foe with a constantly changing face, surveillance of citizens in the name of this war, arrest and detainment without due process, parading and show trials of prisoners for propaganda value, WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH, the whole works.
But I still can't figure out what the goal is. If it's merely self preservation for the incumbent autocrats, then that's understandable but both disappointingly unimaginative and largely unncessary - 98% of US Congressional incumbents already get reelected, and hereditary ruling dynasties are now as accepted in the USA as in Airstrip One. What more do they want? What is the point of moving further towards a police state? Any ideas?
>Linux on the desktop still barely has the functionality of Windows 3.1. Win3.1 still has a more tightly integrated clipboard
When was mod-clipboard released?
If you don't even know whether you're talking about linux, KDE or GNOME, I suggest that the terrorists - sorry, Microsoft - have already won.
You can run Office (Word, anyway) using wine on a linux system. It starts faster, runs faster, and uses less memory than Open Office swriter.
You can claim that it's not a fair comparison because it's not running native, or properly, but the point is that it does run, it runs better than Open Office, and it does so even it's an unfair comparison in Open Office's favour.
> it is set to autoreplace the word lepton with leprechaun which is proving most annoying as I write my paper on particle physics.
Well, changing the dictionary or turning off auto-replace isn't exactly, er, rocket science.