Not to say I don't take this very seriously. And as much as humor is all but verboten on HN, I'm glad to see the occasional little kernel of comic exchange on here. It's a sign that we still possess our fundamental human nature.
From the disclosures we got from Snowden, as well as previous revelations about the NSA, the evidence points to a situation pretty damn close to that. They are grabbing data from all sorts of social networks, we know they scarf up email, we know at least they grab most - if not all - phone metadata, and we know they're tapping underseas fiber-optic cables that represent backbone Internet links between countries. We know carriers like AT&T graciously make data off their networks available to the NSA, and we know they do these smokey back-room deals with the other Five Eyes countries, and now Germany as well. I see no reason to think they aren't doing similar deals with most other "friendly" countries.
And let's not get into the backdooring routers and commercial software, and attempts to weaken encryption standards.
To say that we aren't already "in a world remotely like 1984" strikes me either disingenuous (Hello, NSA employee?) or uninformed. Would you care to say what else the NSA would have to do (or what we'd have to find out they're doing) before you say we are "remotely close to 1984"?
> What else the NSA would have to do (or what we'd have to find out they're doing) before you say we are "remotely close to 1984"?
They would have to know our private thoughts. They would have to read our paper diaries. They would have to disallow me closing my curtains at night. They would have to hear me telling my girlfriend I love her.
All the clusters of GPUs and corridors of big data will not know my private thoughts. I see your handle is mindcrime, but as I said; there would be blood on the streets if they started infiltrating the substrate of our craniums.
And you think that's what it would take to be "remotely close"? I don't get it. From what I remember of Nineteen Eighty Four that scenario would put us absolutely on par with the description in the book. I believe that we are far more than "remotely close" already. But that's just me. shrug
Basically any AFK stuff is pushing it, and apt to be very invasive of privacy and truly Orwellian. The distinction I make is the NSA resides on the network and doesn't go much further than that. Is what they're doing Orwellian on the network? Possibly, but only insofar as I let them on my network. Who is to say I don't use secure meshnets? Who is to say I don't watch the watchmen?
I respect your thoughts on the matter, and the current narrative does suggest we are tending towards a 1984 panopticon, but this is also framed in the context of pervasive CCTV, and presumes that every citizen is glued to their smartphone. Measures like CCTV and smartphone tracking observe the citizenry and this means everyone is kept in line and the system works, so fair dues, this could be seen as 1984'ish. But again, only insofar as the citizen opts in. It is said we would prefer to be watched than go about our private business alone.
(And yes CCTV can be opt in, but that is a lot harder to achieve and ironically requires Google Maps hacking to pinpoint where key CCTV hotspots are)
TL;DR: I don't negate 1984'ish elements, I'm simply saying they are opt-in only, and not as bad as the current narrative suggests.