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ORIGINAL: LinnaeaBorealis

I really don't see this as a partisan issue either. And it could be a great topic of conversation. But some are so entrenched in their partisan beliefs that they think that everything in life is either due to the conservatives or the liberals, the democrats or the republicans.

I agree that there is too much information in too many places for this to happen in this day & age. And I have some issues with the facial recognition software, the GPS in the cellphones that show where I am at any given moment of any given day, the coding on credit cards that do the same, the grocery discount cards that track what I spend my money on, & most of all, the medical records being computerized. When I hear that Kaiser commercial where they tell me this is an improvement, I just shudder!! And if the store insists that I have to give them information to get a discount card, I always falsify it on general principal.

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ORIGINAL: Lucylastic

being classed as a rad is hardly an insult or true

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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic

I was in the fifth grade, the first time I picked up George Orwell's 1984.  It scared the hell out me, and has managed to do that every time I've picked it up since.  Just scanning through the opening chapters, and looking for the snip below creeped me out.

(For anyone who has never read the novel, it is out of copyright, and available to read free, online.
http://www.george-orwell.org/1984/0.html )

As Winston Smith goes about his job in the Ministry of Truth, correcting and updating the past, Orwell asks a little suspension of disbelief from his readers.  Every hard copy, everywhere, must be tracked down and replaced? 

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What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the pneumatic tubes led, he did not know in detail, but he did know in general terms. As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of The Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead. This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs -- to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date.

As I think most people would have done, I rationalized that there would be a lot fewer people who saved pamphlets, or lived in homes surrounded by books, gave him the leap on "how" it was done, and let the horror of "what" was being done have its impact

In the age we live in though, with the developments coming into play, and all the records going to electronic storage, do you think this aspect of Orwell's nightmare vision might soon become possible?  Forget the pneumatic tubes and printing presses, substitute "he completed his upload, and pressed 'submit' to send the corrective cloud crawler program in its way."

This subject could easily attract the attentions of more conspiracy minded posters, who might say it's already here.  I hope that won't scare off the rational.

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holocaust [image]http://www.etymonline.com/graphics/dictionary.gif[/image]mid-13c., "sacrifice by fire, burnt offering," from Gk. holokauston "a thing wholly burnt," neut. of holokaustos "burned whole," from holos "whole" (see holo-) + kaustos, verbal adjective of kaiein "to burn." Originally a Bible word for "burnt offerings," given wider sense of "massacre, destruction of a large number of persons" from 1833. The Holocaust "Nazi genocide of European Jews in World War II," first recorded 1957, earlier known in Hebrew as Shoah "catastrophe." The word itself was used in English in reference to Hitler's Jewish policies from 1942, but not as a proper name for them.

Auschwitz makes all too clear the principle that the human psyche can create meaning out of anything. [Robert Jay Lifton, "The Nazi Doctors"]

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The green ethic rejects economic growth in the industrialized countries because it imposes excessive demand on the world's resources, and it rejects nuclear power because that would only encourage economic growth.
 
http://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/articles/thanks-george-no-thanks-1
 
I'm pretty sure the sorts of items that make up your business aren't going to make the cut in the worldview he and his would like to impose.

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

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The green ethic rejects economic growth in the industrialized countries because it imposes excessive demand on the world's resources, and it rejects nuclear power because that would only encourage economic growth.

http://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/articles/thanks-george-no-thanks-1

I'm pretty sure the sorts of items that make up your business aren't going to make the cut in the worldview he and his would like to impose.

Basic arithmetic tells us that growth cannot keep happening forever. It's impossible to sustain.

There is a finite amount of resources on the planet. They will not last forever. It doesn't matter how innovative or clever or inventive we are. It doesn't matter which way we organise or process or re-arrange them, at some point we will run out of new resources. Well before that point we currently have a choice about going down the route of sustainable development. When we get to that point, we will have no choice but to adopt a policy of sustainable development only.

Unless you wish to argue (moronically) that resources are infinite, is there another option?

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Our identities, behaviours and preferences are just more commodities to be traded for profit.

If people are concerned about 'Big Brother" influence and control over their lives (and there is every justification for such concerns), this is where the most immediate dangers lie IMHO.

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ORIGINAL: Montana32DDD
Global Warming = Democrat Totalitarianism
Environmentalism = Democrat Totalitarianism
High Taxes, High Regulation = Democrat Totalitarianism
Government programs that reward the unsuccessful paid for by the successful = Democrat Totalitarianism
National Single Payer Health Care = The Ultimate in left wing Democrat Totalitarianism coming soon
Population Control - Choosing who gets to breed (Conservatives need not apply) = Democrat Totalitarianism
Democrat Response to anyone who does not agree with them = Democrat Totalitarianism
787 Billion Dollar Stimulus program resultingi n 25 million unemployed = Democrat Totalitarianism
Public Education/Labor Unions = Democrat Totalitarianism (Or do you support a tax funded army of Conservative supporters in all fifty states courtesy of Uncle Sam?  No?  Hypocrisy thy name IS Democrat.)
New York City - Highest Taxes, Highest Regulations, Rated most Authoritarian City in the World. - BBC
Frankly, from where I sit, I am surprised we still have democrats, let along anyone who is silly enough to defend their failed and flawed policies.  

To easy.

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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic

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ORIGINAL: Lucylastic

being classed as a rad is hardly an insult or true

Well, that's all good, Lucy, and I surely have my moments of radical thought myself, but do you wish to be lumped in with the school of thought that says this? (my bold)

The moment a genuine green thinker, or indeed anyone with an ounce of spiritual insight, considers the demands of the whole economy is the moment that they start to wonder why we are producing all this crap. Why do we spend our lives driving to and fro on a daily basis, buying new clothes that we don't need, shunting food around the planet when it grows next door, eating disproportionate amounts of meat, wasting staggering amounts of food, discarding an endless stream of packaging, heating up entire houses to tee-shirt temperature when a warm room would do, warming up the firmament with patio heaters, and purchasing roomfuls of gewgaws and gizmos — the pursuit of Mammon, as it used to be called — when there is no evidence that this makes us any more fulfilled than we would be if we contented ourselves with a sufficiency of food, shelter, medicine and the cultural technology that was available in the days of Bach, Shakespeare and Leonardo da Vinci. The green ethic rejects economic growth in the industrialized countries because it imposes excessive demand on the world's resources, and it rejects nuclear power because that would only encourage economic growth.
 
http://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/articles/thanks-george-no-thanks-1
 
I'm pretty sure the sorts of items that make up your business aren't going to make the cut in the worldview he and his would like to impose.

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ORIGINAL: Sanity
Obamacare dictates that everyones complete medical history go into the megatron computer for example. Social Security gives everyone their number, banking information is becoming highly centralized, facial recognition technology combined with cameras everywhere are fast becoming a reality, and these things are all trending towards being merged together so that there will be no hiding in the future for any rebel of any kind at all.

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ORIGINAL: StrangerThan

You'd need a world government or at least, an agreement of world governments to do it.

But yes, it's probably possible in terms of what's seen online. At the same time, it is also about as likely as winning every lottery for the next year.

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Question,who`s going to save us from the kooks like yourself after you`ve saved us from the thought-police?

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ORIGINAL: Lucylastic
hmmmmmmm I feel the same way about being labelled a communist or a stalinist, and when applying labels to the beliefs of the right...have I ever accused you of being a religious righty? have I ever accused of being a nazi or a neo con, or labelling you with anything more than a republican?