A drive on Interstate 79 reminds me of Orwell

[ThomWV]

I guess its a sign of the times that surveillance cameras are close to omnipresent. I was driving the stretch of rural Interstate between Fairmont and Morgantown, West Virginia this morning and noticed one of those aluminum-pole structures similar to the ones that suspend street lamps with its arm hanging over 3 lanes of traffic; closest intersecting exit several miles away. Hanging on this one there was a camera, one lens pointing each way. Nothing else.

"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."

George Orwell: 1984, Chapter 1

[anonymous171]

1. Huxley's Brave New World is more applicable to what America has become.

[Birthmark]

3. Relax

Take another Soma. And watch plenty of TV.

[mitchum]

5. And play Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy

[Birthmark]

8. Is there really any other kind of Bumble-Puppy?

If so, I don't wanna know about it!

[MineralMan]

2. Traffic cameras.

They're not actually spying on individuals. They're there so that the traffic can be monitored. You'll see video from them on the morning local news during rush hour. They're actually quite useful, and traffic reports are generated from them, which you can find on some GPS systems.

They also alert local authorities when there's a problem.

A fixed camera that is watching three lanes of traffic can't resolve your license plate.

[RandomThoughts]

4. 1984 is learning from others mistakes.

Do not fall into hopelessness like they did at the end of that novel.

Do not agree to have no compassion like those you fight, if anything, fight until your enemy has compassion.

And do not fear, stand.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

6. I think those are for the weigh station.............

so they can get the LP of trucks who blow it off.

But, I DO get your point and agree we are becoming a surveilled society.

[Warpy]

7. While I wouldn't be inclined to pick my nose while

approaching one of those things just in case, I don't see them as a huge problem, just a slightly creepy one.

After all, the only way to keep half of the people in this country under constant surveillance is to employ the other half to do so.

The unemployment statistics say this isn't the case, not yet.

[tom_paine]

9. Technology has made such a truism as "one-half the population needed to survey the other half"

completely false and anachronistic.

Anyone can be forgiven for making that mistake, though. It WAS true for all of human history up until roughly ten years ago, thanks to exponentially increasing computing power and AI.

Same with vote rigging. Computers made it possible for one Bushie with a modem to do what would have taken thousands of people.

This is the simply fact of current technology.

[Warpy]

11. It's still true

How many video screens can you watch carefully enough that you'll notice everything going on? How many phone conversations can you eavesdrop on and how many emails can you sift through?

What technology has helped eavesdroppers do is look for specific items and examine any occurrence of those items carefully.

If you want a fishing expedition, however, my point holds.

[tom_paine]

12. Strongly disagree. You are splitting hairs.

Data mining and all the rest is now feasible thanks to increases in comptuing power. AI grows more powerful with every iteration. Facial recognition and tracking software means humans don't even have to "man the post" to have a detailed record of a target's movements.

Your point does NOT hold, not even close.

But we must agree to disagree. I might point out that Al Gore, in his book "Assault on Reason" makes this same point (I had been making it long before his book came out).

[Zomby Woof]

10. And on the other hand

We have people confessing to every mundane minutiae of their private lives on Twitter, MySpace, etc., inviting scrutiny and freely welcoming the compromise of their privacy. We're a culture ripe for intrusion and surveillance, government or privately sponsored - just look at the popularity of iPhones, cell phone cameras, and whatnot.