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Comment by aprdm | Hacker News Reader

Illustrates it well: http://postimg.org/image/ue0pdq56r/

That illustrates it very well.

It's a shame that recombinantrecords.net has removed that from his site, even though it's original work, because lawyers sued him for using the title of a (good) book "Amusing Ourselves to Death". Then, 9GAG & other sites have no problems copying the content. It just goes to show you that you can't stop information flow. All you can do it stop legitimate players from controlling it.

Thank you for sharing that link. It's a great summary. As we turn into a hedonistic society, the impetus for doing good and morality will deteriorate.

That comic is based on Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death. It originally appeared at...

http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourse...

...but was apparently taken down due at the copyright holders' request. More on the book:

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

I'm torn about this takedown. Until today I had no idea it was based on prior work.

If they left the comic up but clarified what it was inspired by it would definitely help the Postman estate.

The conversion rate of "Do yourself a favour and read Neil Postman's words in full. Purchase a copy of Amusing Ourselves to Death new/used (aff)" must be a rounding error on 0.

Definitely agree that the comic, staying at one canonical location, could have served as a boon to the sales of the book and awareness of its themes.

(I'm guessing that the subtlety of the comic's original Postman mention – at the very bottom – compared to the top line "AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH by Stuart McMillen" may have started the attribution discussion off on the wrong foot.)

I think the reality is a combination of the two. Most of the world (including the media) is so distracted by the entertainment trivia of Brave New World that almost no one cares about the 1984 surveillance/censorship world that is being constructed all around is.

Wow excellent! I'm always been more drawn to Orwell. But I think this illustrates how we are definitely headed more towards Huxley's vision.

It does cherry pick from Huxley to make the point. There's little uptake of genetically engineered class systems in modern society, for example. Regardless, I think that between the two texts, 1984 is by far the closest to our reality. Not here, of course, but in North Korea. No western country can be drawn as either without some major overreaches.

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