Quotes About Control

Technopoly eliminates alternatives to itself in precisely the way that Aldous Huxley outlined in Brave New World. It does not make them illegal. It does not make them immoral. It does not even make them unpopular. It makes them invisible, and therefore irrelevant.

Naturally, bureaucrats can be expected to embrace a technology that helps to create the illusion that decisions are not under their control. Because of its seeming intelligence and impartiality, a computer has an almost magical tendency to direct attention away from the people in charge of bureaucratic functions and toward itself, as if the computer were the true source of authority. A bureaucrat armed with a computer is the unacknowledged legislator of our age, and a terrible burden to bear.

There are two ways by which the spirit of a culture may be shriveled. In the first—the Orwellian—culture becomes a prison. In the second—the Huxleyan—culture becomes a burlesque. No

In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

We may have reached the point where cosmetics has replaced ideology as the field of expertise over which a politician must have competent control.

But statistics, like any other technology, has a tendency to run out of control, to occupy more of our mental space than it warrants, to invade realms of discourse where it can only wreak havoc. When it is out of control, statistics buries in a heap of trivia what is necessary to know.

I am constantly amazed at how obediently people accept explanations that begin with the words "The computer shows …" or "The computer has determined …" It is Technopoly's equivalent of the sentence "It is God's will," and the effect is roughly the same.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.

people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.

What is clear is that, to date, computer technology has served to strengthen Technopoly's hold, to make people believe that technological innovation is synonymous with human progress.

As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

Large institutions such as the Pentagon, the Internal Revenue Service, and multinational corporations tell us that their decisions are made on the basis of solutions generated by computers, and this is usually good enough to put our minds at ease or, rather, to sleep. In any case, it constrains us from making complaints or accusations. In part for this reason, the computer has strengthened bureaucratic institutions and suppressed the impulse toward significant social change.

There is no denying that the technicalization of terms and problems is a serious form of information control.

Scripture has at its core such a powerful mythology that even the residue of that mythology is still sufficient to serve as an exacting control mechanism for some people. It provides, first of all, a theory about the meaning of life and therefore rules on how one is to conduct oneself.

Huxley grasped, as Orwell did not, that it is not necessary to conceal anything from a public insensible to contradiction and narcoticized by technological diversions.

Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

An Orwellian world is much easier to recognize, and to oppose, than a Huxleyan.

Tüketici psikodramalarla yat??t?r?lan bir hastad?r.

Los tiranos siempre han confiado, y lo hacen aún, en la censura. Después de todo éste es el tributo que los tiranos pagan por suponer que el público conoce la diferencia entre el discurso serio y el entretenimiento, y que le importa.

This may account for Americans' overuse of the courts as a means of finding coherence and stability. As other institutions become unusable as mechanisms for the control of wanton information, the courts stand as a final arbiter of truth. For how long, no one knows. I

Those who would be gods refashion themselves into images the viewers would have them be.

to whom will the technology give greater power and freedom? And whose power and freedom will be reduced by it?

Huxley grasped, as Orwell did not, that it is not necessary to conceal anything from a public insensible to contradiction and narcotized by technological diversions. Although Huxley did not specify that television would be our main line to the drug, he would have no difficulty accepting Robert MacNeil's observation that 'Television is the soma of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.' Big Brother turns out to be Howdy Doody.