Pat Sajak, yes the TV gameshow host, wrote up an interesting article on Big Brother. Here's an excerpt --
[quote name='Pat Sajak']George Orwell’s 1984, the frightening tale of a totalitarian society led by Big Brother, was inaccurate in at least three major respects: first, the time frame was too early by about twenty years; second, Big Brother is not a product of totalitarianism, but of freedom; and third, he is not an agent of government. We are Big Brother. And, make no mistake: we are watching!
Thanks to cell phone cameras, email and Internet sights such as YouTube, we have become self-appointed spies keeping close watch on everything our neighbors do. It isn’t the government surreptitiously taking pictures in our public bathrooms and posting them; it’s our fellow citizens. It isn’t the government using unauthorized recordings of private events and streaming the videos around the world; it’s our fellow citizens. It isn’t our government making people reluctant to exercise their right of free speech; it’s our fellow citizens.
This Brave New World has come about without any deliberation or debate, and there is absolutely no recourse. If this were a government-generated issue, we could respond with our votes or even with a revolution. But against whom do we rise up? We have moved into a world where anyone can hide behind an anonymous screen name and spread the most vile untruth in a matter of seconds; where the wall of privacy is no match for the penetrating camera built into a stranger’s cell phone; and where lives, fortunes, careers and reputations can be destroyed with the click of a mouse. [/quote]
And here's a link to the full article.
[quote name='Pat Sajak']George Orwell’s 1984, the frightening tale of a totalitarian society led by Big Brother, was inaccurate in at least three major respects: first, the time frame was too early by about twenty years; second, Big Brother is not a product of totalitarianism, but of freedom; and third, he is not an agent of government. We are Big Brother. And, make no mistake: we are watching!
Thanks to cell phone cameras, email and Internet sights such as YouTube, we have become self-appointed spies keeping close watch on everything our neighbors do. It isn’t the government surreptitiously taking pictures in our public bathrooms and posting them; it’s our fellow citizens. It isn’t the government using unauthorized recordings of private events and streaming the videos around the world; it’s our fellow citizens. It isn’t our government making people reluctant to exercise their right of free speech; it’s our fellow citizens.
This Brave New World has come about without any deliberation or debate, and there is absolutely no recourse. If this were a government-generated issue, we could respond with our votes or even with a revolution. But against whom do we rise up? We have moved into a world where anyone can hide behind an anonymous screen name and spread the most vile untruth in a matter of seconds; where the wall of privacy is no match for the penetrating camera built into a stranger’s cell phone; and where lives, fortunes, careers and reputations can be destroyed with the click of a mouse. [/quote]
And here's a link to the full article.
