A New Draconian World
George Orwell's "1984" a futuristic look at a draconian world to come. "Where, the people are monitored, where every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture repainted, every statue, street and building renamed, every date altered and the process continues day by day … nothing exists except an endless present in which the party is always right."
So tell me how far off are we to this world in our world today? Where great swathes of history and books are being rewritten to comply with our modern world until nothing exists except an endless presence of political correctness thinking rather than a free thinking society?
Recently in the news; The freedom of democracy. Democracy is one of the key principles of the UK’s constitution. It ensures that everyone’s voice counts when the government makes a decision.
Do we really have that in a world where we are hurtling towards a surveillance state’: the rise of facial recognition technology. Plans for a new law that would stop people without the right photo IDs from being able to vote in UK wide elections - it could lock thousands of people out of being able to engage in our democracy. To which there is a petition in an attempt to stop this bill being passed.
Renaming street names that may be offensive to some in society, removing statutes and being replaced with others.
Books written by the likes of Roald Dahl and others are being rewritten to comply with today's world. It would be an understatement to say the decision to rewrite potentially offensive passages of Roald Dahl’s children’s books has garnered much attention. Even the bible as in Christianity is being rewritten to accommodate those who don't or won't conform to God's word on the matter, but rather that which best suits their own lifestyle rather than surrender to Christ.
Online Safety Bill 'catastrophic for free speech 'The draft Online Safety Bill harms free speech and hands policing the internet to Silicon Valley, a new campaign claims. The "Legal to Say. Legal to Type" campaign says if it becomes law, US tech firms would gain too much power. The draft bill places new duties on social media firms to remove harmful or illegal content.
“I think there are really big legal questions,” says Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch. “The notion of doing biometric identity checks on millions of people to identify a handful of suspects is completely unprecedented. There is no legal basis to do that. It takes us hurtling down the road towards a much more expansive surveillance state.”
Some countries have embraced the potential of facial recognition. In China, which has about 200m surveillance cameras, it has become a major element of the Xue Liang (Sharp Eyes) programme, which ranks the trustworthiness of citizens and penalises or credits them accordingly. Meanwhile, the UK government has faced harsh criticism from its own biometrics commissioner, Prof Paul Wiles, who said the technology is being rolled out in a “chaotic” fashion in the absence of any clear laws. Brexit has dominated the political agenda for the past three years; while politicians have looked the other way, more and more cameras are being allowed to look at us.
Hence how much closer are we now to George Orwell's draconian world of 1984?