[ninalanyon]

I wonder what Asimov would write if he were to re-do that review now? Now that we actually do have televisions that can hear us as well as show us ads and in which governments of every nominal political stripe are falling over themselves in the rush to buy Palantir's products and to inject monitoring software into every mobile phone and 3D printer.

[tenthirtyam]

One of my most fascinating reads of all time was "Brave New World Revisited" (1950s I think), a follow-up of "Brave New World" (1920s I think) by Aldous Huxley. Similarly, the point then was how the mass media and TV would eventually be used to mislead and deflect populations' attentions.

Such innocent times when we thought the TV could be evil.

[krapp]

The TV was evil?

I feel like people forget that so much of what they blame on social media now existed with television. Propaganda, misinformation, addiction, emotional manipulation, mind rot, overstimulation, excessive advertising, even moral panics blaming it for violence and deviant behavior.

Television didn't create self-reinforcing bubbles of hyperreality because it represented a corporate model of reality applied to an entire culture. It could only do so much being a one-way means of communication, but bear in mind all most people do with social media now is consume. The more social media becomes like television, the worse it becomes.

[JuniperMesos]

I would go so far as to say that the criticisms of broadcast television were completely correct; and that for all the problems of modern centralized social media and other internet use, one major good thing that it has done is kill off broadcast television. It is much easier now than it was for much of the 20th century for random ordinary people who weren't members of established mass media organizations to broadcast their ideas to the world, and try to build an audience that cares about their message. And even though this results in a lot of bad content being made (or just content that is uninteresting to you personally), it also allows a lot of gems to rise to people's attention that never would have under the old mass culture making system.

[andsoitis]

> it also allows a lot of gems to rise to people's attention that never would have under the old mass culture making system.

What is such an example? I just want to calibrate what you consider a gem that could not have been made in mass culture making system.

[JuniperMesos]

One salient example is Grant Sanderson's 3blue1brown math explainer youtube channel and the various other people inspired by him (and often using his open-source software) to make similar math content on youtube. The kinds of math videos he makes are a pretty niche interest when you consider percentage of a regional or national TV market, and so they didn't end up getting made in the 20th century broadcast TV era of mass-culture-making.

There was some math and science content made in that regime, some of it even good - but it mostly got made by publicly-funded television studios with limited airtime, and subject to the inherent constraints of having to make mass-market-friendly content. But when you have internet-based platforms that allow people starting out as hobbyist enthusiasts to broadcast to anyone who can understand English in the entire world, you can do things like actually put real, difficult equations in your videos, and still have that build a sustainable audience.

In general the state of math and science communication on the internet is way better than it was under broadcast television, and this is one of many ways that the world has steadily improved over the past few decades.

[andsoitis]

> Grant Sanderson's 3blue1brown math explainer YouTube channel

Looks like a great recommendation; hadn't come across it before. Thanks!

[a_better_world]

gems and turds. The far right consipiracy stuff was filtered out, likewise the neonazi/technocracy stuff (and yes, there is clear historical links between technocracy and nazi idologies, see the history of Joshua Norman Haldeman (1902–1974), the American-born Canadian maternal grandfather of Elon Musk, and why they moved to South Africa)

[tenthirtyam]

You're right, the TV was evil. I suppose I meant to say: such innocent times when we thought the TV was about as evil as it could get. More better? :-)

[GJim]

> I feel like people forget that so much of what they blame on social media now existed with television

TV news/documentary broadcasts have a "fairness doctrine" in most of the democratic world [1], meaning both sides of political discussions must be presented. This is a very good bit of legislation which makes television (and radio) broadcasts much more impartial and open minded than a typical social media bubble.

TV programming might well be "mind rot" to some. But to equate TV news/documentaries with social media is a poor comparison. One is demonstrably worse.

[1] USA excepted. Obviously.

[graemep]

> TV news/documentary broadcasts have a "fairness doctrine" in most of the democratic world [1], meaning both sides of political discussions must be presented.

That is the problem. Most discussions have more than two sides. There are lots of shades of opinion and nuances. Showing just two viewpoints might not be quite as bad as the "memes" and straw man arguments that dominate social media, but it is well down the same road.

[GJim]

I really don't know how to respond to such a naive interpretation of what I have written.

[ahazred8ta]

(1958) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World#Brave_New_Worl...

[janwillemb]

His point is that the Orwellian way of surveillance is impossible to do in practice, and that a proper science fiction writer would have left the surveillance to machines. So I think his critique is about the art of SF writing, not about the prediction of surveillance itself.

[f4c39012]

Asimov missed the idea of the panopticon here, whereby control is self-enforced by the fear of being caught because you can be watched at any time, not all the time

[kergonath]

That’s just gate keeping. How hard does science fiction have to be in order to be considered worthwhile? Why does it matter?

[whizzter]

Asimov's sci-fi has both hard and soft parts (especially his later works).

The main thing is that Asimov was more of a bright person(mensa member and professor) and good at making conjectures about development based on technology and it's impact on humans, rather than a great writer per-se (there's some famous interview from the 70s that makes a fair bit of things that weren't obvious at the time).

Like how he immediately goes to the feasibility of non-human total surveillance when concluding that the total surveillance of a population on the level of 1984 by humans is infeasible.

So this review is to large parts to be taken as an post-fact analysis about 1984 both from a standpoint of the predictions of it's conjectured future and an attempt to see _why_ conjectures failed (much of it, being attributed to Orwells need to expose his hatred for how infighting perverts socialistic causes).

[kergonath]

> Asimov's sci-fi has both hard and soft parts (especially his later works).

Yeah I know Asimov. I actually really like his writings, which is why I am a bit surprised because this review is short-sighted and mean, and I think, misses the point.

> Like how he immediately goes to the feasibility of non-human total surveillance when concluding that the total surveillance of a population on the level of 1984 by humans is infeasible.

Right, but he still misses the point. As a physicist I can think about a dozen reasons why positronic brains make little sense. I accept this as some of the disbelief I have to suspend to get to the actual substance of the books. It’s no different. Me being a nerd does not mean that I have to be a jerk just because someone writes something I find implausible.

[ahartmetz]

About feasibility, did Asimov even read the book properly? I remember quite well that telescreens were not permanently watched, but that wasn't necessary because the consequences of getting caught with "wrongthink" were terrible.

[saint_fiasco]

Near the end of the book Winston finds out that he was watched much more thoroughly than he thought. They read his private diary and carefully put the same mote of dust on top of the cover so that Winston wouldn't notice it had been opened.

[rawgabbit]

He would write a mea culpa. 1984 is a warning. And that warning is playing out in our lives. We are in a post-truth world.