Sep
29th
Tue
29th
[W]e need to move away from the Orwell “1984” paradigm. It was a brilliant description of the most important threats to freedom in the middle of the 20th century, but it no longer describes the most important threats to freedom today*. It was already clear how creaky the paradigm was in 1984, when the Mac ad came out; it’s only gotten creakier over the past 25 years. Orwell didn’t pay much attention to the problem of an oppressive blizzard of “choices” designed to take advantage of the consumer or citizen by manipulating asymmetries of information. But that is the way the American commercial and political landscape feels much of the time.
(*NOTE: This analysis not valid in Iran, China, or Myanmar. Always read the fine print!)
