Reply to post: Re: It was thought computers and computer networks would empower human kind

Worldwide Web wizard Tim Berners-Lee sticks wellington boot into Worldwide Web's giants: Time to break 'em up?

kneedragon

Re: It was thought computers and computer networks would empower human kind

It was thought computers and networks would empower humankind.

Well, it was thought those things were in the future but coming. One very widely noted vision was written in 1948, by George Orwell. He imagined a constant 3 way war between 3 world powers, and totalitarian states in each who maintained the war, and he imagined a "telescreen" which was a TV with a camera on it. It showed you what the gov wanted, and it showed them what you were doing. But even George Orwell didn't imagine we'd pay between one and two thousand dollars for our viewscreen, or b1tch like hell if it stopped working. I don't care if the CIA and the NSA and the FBI can watch every key stroke and read every url, if I can't flame fools on facebook (fool being anybody of the opposite political persuasion to you) then I'm going to get torches and hoods and jackboots, and send pipe-bombs through the mail to prominent figures of the other side. Steve Bannon would like to remind you that "merica - faque yeah!" Stupidity is power. Dr Goebbels and Dr Hess knew this 80 years ago.

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