Life As We Know It Truly Dystopian?
Our government and lives may be increasingly similar to 1984
"Our job is to report the news, not fabricate it. That's the government's job."
School Sonnet
Their eyes lay hidden everywhere
Forced to live as they say
To no other feeling does this compare
Scared to be otherwise until the end of the day
While on school grounds we're limited
Forced to dress upon set rules
Everything inside this prison is scripted
Told to stand upon a bell's toles
Sentenced to these silent white walls
No noises, phones, or movement
Quiet lines in the halls
Never allowed to be absent
Horrifically dystopia, schools are...
All commanded by a principal, better known as Czar
Dystopian World
The world we live in today is dystopian in many ways. From the government hiding information from us with censorship, to them looking at what we search on the internet, and taking note on anyone we talk to over social media sites, which was just uncovered by Edward Snowden. Not many people are realizing how limited we are by our government, which ironically the people who started this country were running from.
As we all recently were told by Edward Snowden, the government has been taking large amounts of information of what we search on our computers in order to “help prevent another terrorist attack like 9/11. In order to find the needle in the haystack, they argue, they need access to the whole haystack. (NSA files decoded).” This has brought our attention to the fact that the government may be becoming slowly like the government portrayed in the book 1984. They have also the ability to view people who are “Three Hops” from you, or friends of your friend’s friends. Making us question whether the government was invading our privacy, or if they had the right to do this. We are unable to go on the internet without leaving a trail of our information, such as passwords, usernames, and even your search history “The chances are you are sharing a lot more personal information than you think … (NSA files decoded).” The government may also be able to view more than just American’s computers, with the 63 fiber optic cables they have sprawled across the earth to other countries. While we may find this wrong the NSA argues with laws and legal precedents to justify their doing so.
Snowden has brought to our attention the fact that government has the ability to and exercises the ability to take everything we do, every café we visit, every call we make, and store it in a digital cloud.“But while Snowden is no hero, his revelations have focused attention on a brave new world of total information (Time Magazine).” They have also started using these things to do things like these, to create algorithms to find criminals, and even stopped focusing on why crime happens, and focusing on events and actions the precede crimes, as to stop crimes before they even happen. That seems a lot like the government in 1984 and the thought crimes. The government has already slightly put this into order to prevent terrorist attacks before they have the ability to enact upon it.” As far as we know, the U.S. government has broken no laws and has followed all established procedures, and Congress approved this program, though it did so in secret, writing laws that aren't public (Time Magazine).” While this all seems pretty wrong, but the government has the ability to do this, there are no laws that say they can’t, and until there are (if there ever is) they will continue to exercise this.
Snowden has uncovered a lot of information that the government tried to censor to us. He felt that we had the right to know this as American people, so that people could likely protest against this. Although people may protest against it, there won’t be a change, because people can’t track this stuff, which is why no one knew about this until Snowden leaked it. Which means that the government will keep growing with power by finding loop holes in the laws sending America into an even worse dystopia than it is, possibly copying the book 1984.
March Against Censorship
Saturday, Dec 14, 2013, 12:00 PM
The White House, Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest, Washington, DC, United States
Social Media as a Mini Dystopia
In today's day and age there are many activities we are participating in that would by definition be dystopian, many including cult like things. Social media is the topic that I will be describing as one of our more dystopian cultures in our society. This is dystopian, because everyone is at a near breakdown if one person may have more followers than another or a higher score in a pointless game than them. It’s all together cult-like, with everyone gathering together to discuss topics of their beliefs, or their feelings, and at most to fight about stupid things and start drama. Twitter is very dystopian for the reason of followers. Followers are people who follow you most likely because you post something that they see and they like, feel the same about, or just because they are friends with the person, thus again, many people following one for beliefs. It can also be dystopian, because it gives people the ability to pretty much track you. Social Media sites, a few at least, post your address, age, phone number, and pictures not privately giving others the ability to pretty much track you. It also has a negative impact upon your job future, it could ruin you if you were to had posted something like “Smokin’ a blunt with Jimmy after school.” and it never left. Future employers would deduct that you were a "druggy", and that you were unsuitable for the job, pretty much destroying your future.
Works Cited
"Big Data, Meet Big Brother." TIME.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2013.
Orwell, George. 1984: A Novel. New York, NY: Published by Signet Classic, 1977. Print.
Team, Guardian US Interactive, and Ewen MacAskill. "NSA Files Decoded: Edward
Snowden's Surveillance Revelations Explained." Theguardian.com. Guardian New
and Media, 01 Nov. 2013. Web. 15 Dec. 2013.
V for Vendetta. Dir. James McTeigue. Perf. Hugo Weaving, Natalie Portman, Rupert Graves.
2005.