Ah yes, I too remember the part of 1984 in which Big Brother improved Oceania’s outdated train ticketing system.
Comment on England Trials Smartphone Rail Payment System with Real-Time Phone Location Tracking
muntedcrocodile@hilariouschaos.com 1 week ago
Fucking 1984 shit right here and everyone is gonna love it
MurrayL@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Jrockwar@feddit.uk 1 week ago
Why do you consider the UK’s ticketing system outdated? There’s oyster in/around London and QR codes everywhere else.
What are you missing, is location-based surveillance what would be needed to modernise it in your opinion?
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 1 week ago
Well, there’s JKR, she wrote books pretty closely describing how powerful and arbitrarily unbalanced a computerized world will be, presented as magic. But she’s a TERF, so nothing she wrote apparently has value. Or maybe she’s a plagiarist, so again nothing she wrote apparently has value, except her plagiarism describes well current events and its sources don’t.
I don’t think she did that consciously, more like felt “something” in the air. But see the priorities of the public, in her not being a nice person and her having described the future correctly.
Also see the Matrix.
In general I think it’s good to remember the initial reception of everything, if you were around then. Because in a few years power dynamic (hating on JKR for being TERF, and her using her fame to promote such views, - both these are that) always regulates the image of any work into something sterile and neutered.
We’ve had plenty of good art predicting today, but we’ve been taught after some time that it’s capitalist, consumerist, non-original, empty, overrated and has asshole authors.
That direction of thought is wrong. Marcus Aurelius once made a bath for his wife - filled with her lover’s blood ; doesn’t seem to affect the value of his philosophy. Much of the classics in music was made by order for rich people for their entertainment and prestige. Nothing is life is truly original. And whether something is empty is not decided by the public opinion, it’s decided by the reader.
So. We’ve had some preparation. Less than desired, and impeded by the enemy, as is the expectation always. It’s not decided yet.
muntedcrocodile@hilariouschaos.com 1 week ago
I didn’t realise jkr meant that interpretation but its definitely something to consider.
I’ve always believed one must separate art from the artist lest all works are reduced to nothing given enough time. People love to dismiss modern works based on the authors opinions yet everyone through history is bad by modern standards. We must judge people by the context of their time. For example both Churchill and Disney where famously antisemitic yet both are now praised for their efforts against the Nazis.
Haven’t read any Marcus Aurelius I’m reading Plato at the moment so I’ll add it to the list.
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 1 week ago
I don’t think she consciously did, but HP definitely features abuse and misuse of authority left and right, main characters fighting and bypassing it, injustice, fascism, evil being attractive (at least in the first two books she deliberately makes the world of pure-blood wizards more “magical” than that of the rest, and Harry almost being accepted to it or thinking he would be, except that’s not so), public judgement being always wrong (talking to snakes, Harry being considered cuckoo, werewolves, and what not), evil being possibly all-poweful (the Taboo spell and such), one can go on and on.
And then Harry becoming an Auror, thus sort of a magical peeler, which is a common criticism - well, law enforcement is a necessary task. In a non-degenerate system that involves preventing murder, rape, stopping human trafficking operations.
It’s funny how people usually start with the HP world mechanics being bad, - unbalanced, arbitrary, calling spells out of thin air, - while that’s how our world works right now, except they teach very little magic here (BTW, Racket is very cool - I’m again stalling at what I’m trying to do, though, just no willpower at all). Also notice Umbridge in the book 5, in the real world fighting evil with something you always carry with yourself and only skill being important is not a thing usually, for most intents and purposes, except computers.