1984

I have been watching (and listening to and reading) the advertisements and cross- and counter-claims being made for and by the various candidates for public office. I also had the misfortune to watch a PBS program showing the way the campaigns are being run and guided. It seems, if I got it right, that the campaigns have unprecedented data on virtually all the possible voters: data on opinions, statements, shopping and reading habits, public and not-so-public statements, memberships, google searches made, movies watched, books read, etcetera. They have handed these data to political computer programs designed to enable them to target everyone in each person's particular weak or susceptible area. The scope and capabilities of these programs are staggering, and, for me at least, enormously frightening! It would a small step from using such programs for political purposes to using them or something like them to watch and listen to all of us for the purpose of altering our opinions or convictions by feeding each of us with targeted information.
Hence the title of this blog entry: I submit that George Orwell had the idea right in his book "1984" but he had the date wrong. The title should have been 2012 or 2013 or 2014. Big Brother is already watching us, and doublespeak and thoughtcrimes are already to be found in our newspapers and "news" broadcasts.