Exapno, I didn’t get to hear her. I wish I would have.
Do you mean in general, or in the US? If you mean in general, something similar to 1984 is happening right now, in North Korea.
If you mean in the US, then some dystopia could also happen, but some ways in the future. Some suggestions of how it could happen:
- The government invents a spy satelite that can see everything from space. This will in effect mean an actual, full ban on everything illegal, such as prostitution, smoking marijuana, etc. New laws are also slowly and gradually put in place, banning smoking, gradually moving towars a ban on alcohol, fast food and guns As people dissent against this, additionally dissent is gradually made illegal. First large gatherings, since they tend to become violent. Then any call for violence. Then anything spoken or written against the satelite.
The society is in a prosperous future. Life is very streamlined, with the banning of alcohol, nicotine, all drugs, porn, prostitution, varius sex acts, food viewed as unhealthy, etc. Exercise and work is mandatory. Some forms of lying are illegal. A large part of the population spends most of their time in the prison system. The prison system has black markets for cigarettes and such things, and are not uncomfortable.
2. New technology makes it easy for private individuals to kill large number of people. Very effective bombs can be 3D printed in a couple of minutes. A department is set in place to use surveillance to stop these disasters from happening. After a few horrible instances of mass murderers in the population, the department is granted full surveillance of everyone. The department that does this is supposed to only watch for such destructive intent. But the head of the department has higher aspirations. He uses the surveillance of his opponents to consolidate and increase his power. He runs for president on a platform of being the one who completely stopped the killings. Helped by surveillance of his opponent, he discredits him and wins the election, although large part of the population is appaled. He starts to plant evidence on his opponents, and consilates his presidency into a dictatorship.
The world is prosperous and new technology changes the rules of the society. This includes new tools for the dictator to stay in power. Such as truth serums, implanting false memories, advanced torture methods, that send a signal directly to the brain receptors without affecting the body, etc. The dictator has a greatly expanded lifespan.
3. Some sort of extremely effective terrorism / attack on the US that gives a good argument for the state to control and spy on everyone. Like what happened with 9/11 and the aftermath times a thousand. Then he starts wars against the attacking nations. Wartime rules are set in place that grant him larger powers, and have more inclusive criteria for what constitutes treachery. Conscriptions and wartime rations are instated. The president uses his “emergency” power of control of the army to pacify the opposition, and become a dictator.
The society is in constant war. Like in 1984 the wars are not completely ruining of the country, but they are draining the economy, making the country poorer. As are other large scale government projects. There is propagandy, indoctrination, fascism.
Are you positing as a real-life scenario or some unfilmed movie? Because this is just science fiction nonsense. It would require a wholesale shift in attitude that wouldn’t be practical for centuries.
Bombmaking is not exactly an immature science. TNT was discovered by accident (it was originally a dye). If a determined individual really wanted to, this could happen today. Of course, it’s happened a few times over the last few decades and THE US DIDN’T DEVOLVE INTO A DYSTOPIA.
It is my suggestion for a possible dystopia.
Many of these things are already illegal. It is mostly illegal to smoke weed, it is illegal to drink publicly, prostitution is mostly illegal. These laws cannot be fully enforced presently, but in this hypothetical scenario they can. And once weed smoking is really, fully banned, it is not a very large step to ban alcohol also. The laws against large gatherings and protests are also not far against the current attitude. One of the major steps is the banning against mere threats or protest against the satelite. But once the other things are enforced, and people have lost the sense of privacy and autonomy, I think it could follow.
In this scenario it will happen, and it will happen way worse than it does now. The Boston bombers, instead of killing 3 people, now kill 10.000. Thus the population panics, and allows any steps possible to prevent this.
Again, you’re going from A to C without any B. It is already illegal to smoke weed, drink publicly, or prostitute yourself and it has been for centuries. BUT! Going one step over to banning alcohol completely was also tried in the past and it was a complete disaster. It’s not going to happen again. Full stop.
And laws against large gatherings are impossible to enforce completely. You’d have to outlaw spectator sports and conventions and malls. It’s impossible. You’d need a zombie apocalypse to get people to stay from other people like that.
Most prostitution takes place indoors. If we had a spy satellite that could see into bedrooms, prostitution would be number 368 on the list of what people got upset about.
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Again, you’re going from A to C without any B. It is already illegal to smoke weed, drink publicly, or prostitute yourself and it has been for centuries. BUT! Going one step over to banning alcohol completely was also tried in the past and it was a complete disaster. It’s not going to happen again. Full stop.
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This is different in that things can now be enforced. So people actually wont smoke weed, etc. The reason bannng alcohol failed last time, was that it couldnt be enforced at all. I dont think this particular step is that unlikely, let alone impossible. The mere fact that it has even been attempted before, shows that its not completely implausible.
Yes, the satellite can see everything, including things indoors, thats the point. Thus, everything illegal will be enforced, even if done in private. Many people will be upset with this. But they will only gradually realize how much the satellite can see. There will be supporters, defending it by saying that it only affects people with crimes to hide. Also rebellion against it is illegal, and you will be promptly arrested.
Why don’t you just create a future in which all the cops are telepathic and thought evidence can be used in court? It’s exactly as plausible.
Many people, including me, say the single large scale terrorist attack of 9/11 brought America WAAAAAY closer to becoming a fascist dystopia than it was before.
Do you mean technologically? Technologically I think that a satellite hat can see through roofs and such are closer than the ability to read thoughts.
I think such a satellite is pretty much impossible. How would you be able to point a single satellite at everyone? How would you monitor it? And the best question, how can you point it through walls?
MIT scientists are working on something similar (MIT scientists always are), but it’s range is limited to 60 feet (at best) and it’s ground-based, and it displays people as blobs, and it’s useless for non-moving objects.
Frankly, I think the current situation in North Korea is arguably worse than 1984 at this point. It’s like someone read the book and said Wow, there are some really good ideas here, but the author didn’t take them far enough…
North Korea, especially the long-term political prison camps, are a good example of a real-life dystopia.
How do you see a joint from space?
Who monitors 300 million people (or more by that time) all the time, 24 hours a day?
How does government pay for and implement all this without the support of the people or multi-billion dollar industries these bans will likely piss off?
Societies that try to control their population to the extent North Korea does tend to end up with economics like North Korea. And once people have a taste for wealth and affluence like they do in most of the Western world, they tend to not want to go back.
The movie was filmed. It was called ‘Demolition Man’.
Many of those people, including you, have a penchant for the melodramatic.
Except for the prison thing. Dr. Cocteau (I remember the villain’s name from Demolition Man!) has got 100% compliance from everyone who lives above ground. Even people who were adults when the programs were put into place and should know how stupid the whole thing is.
I think its a good question which is worse. I think 1984 is worse, but that you can even ask that question in this day is totally insane.
I think 1984 is worse because you cant marry someone you like or is attracted to. There is somewhat more freedom in NK, you are not under surveillance all the time. But a plus for 1984 is that you wont starve to death.
For dissenters NK has the concentration camps, and 1984 has the insane torture. Here I think 1984 is worse, with its trump in room 101. But the NK concentration camps are no slackers either, and kids are put there too. Man Im getting so angry writing this. Why aren’t we doing anything?
Maybe it’s not a satelite from space, maybe its some sort of equipment locally placed. I don’t know exactly how it would work, it would require some novel technology. I don’t know what exactly we will be capabable of in 60 years. The constant monitoring will be performed mostly by image-recognizing software.
The sample size is not really that large, that I think you could conclude this. How long a period are you using to make this conclusion, 80 years? Also consider pre-fascism Germany, they were relatively affluent.
I haven’t seen that one. But I will add it to my queue now.
How is asking the question insane?
PLEASE do some research on what conditions are like in North Korea. Yes, you can, in a sense, marry whomever you like but marrying the wrong person - someone whose family is considered tainted by the government - will severely limit your options in life. That, and the family of political criminals is considered tainted for 3 generations, so if, for example, your grandfather is found guilty of treason YOU get to spend the rest of your life in a “total control zone” no matter what you may or may not have done in life. Please point to the pages in 1984 where they cart off whole families for the crimes of one individual.
And YES, people ARE under surveillance 24/7 in North Korea. The fact that this is done by their family, neighbors, coworkers, and acquaintances doesn’t make it any less of a surveillance.
Um… what makes you think there isn’t torture in North Korea? Like I said, do some more research. Here, let me help you - the documentary Camp 14 - Total Control Zone, the book Escape from Camp 14, the eyewitness testimony of Shin Dong-hyuk, a man born in a total control zone camp, Hyuk Kwon who was a guard in the same camp and managed to smuggle out video footage of conditions in the camp, and Oh Yang-nam, a former secret policeman in North Korea. Torture, starvation, and rape are routine in those camps.
Not only that, kids are BORN there. Given that their parents are chosen to have sex with each those kids are, essentially, bred to be slave labor. They are born there, deemed guilty for the crimes of their parents or grandparents, and live their entire lives in horrific and torturous conditions.
The minute we enter North Korea the city of Seoul will be attacked with an artillery barrage more concentrated than anything ever seen up to this point which would be expected to largely destroy the city, and a death toll exceeding that of dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There are 10 million people in the city itself, 25 million in the metropolitan area. How many people are you will to see die in order to force a change on North Korea?
And, oh yeah - they now also have nuclear weapons in addition to lots and lots of conventional firepower. It’s not just Seoul we have to worry about. Granted, their current missiles aren’t that accurate but they can reach Japan, China… pretty much everyone around them.
Again, how many people are you willing to sacrifice in order to change North Korea?
After WWII nearly everybody smoked. They smoked on the church, hospital and clinic steps, in nursing homes, stores. They smoked in airplanes, buses and trains. They smoked on TV and billboards. Pregnant mothers smoked while they breastfed their children.
It would have been unthinkable and rude to ask them not to it was that accepted.
Now we can’t get through a day without hearing the latest antismoking information. Children are trained from kindergarten on to confront smokers. Doctors working for the Mayo are required to address it with each smoking patient at each visit. Smoking is forbidden nearly everywhere including outdoor parks. And strangers think they are performing a civic duty with rude remarks to any smoker they see.
In my lifetime the cost of a pack of cigarettes has gone from fifty cents to about eight dollars.
I have no problem at all believing that I could live to see the day when smoking is forbidden or seriously punished in some way in our society.
The trick, and it only takes a couple of generations, is - get ready for the Godwinization - teach it in school. Add penalties, social disapproval and you can make sweeping changes in a few decades.