1984 Monitoring Quotes

Our society has come to adopt many of the draconian measures Orwell tried to warn us about. Cameras monitor citizens from nearly every street corner in the United Kingdom, and there are a steadily growing number of them mounted on traffic lights in America. The fact that Orwell’s 1984 remains a part of the required reading curriculum in many high schools across the country is laughably ironic. What is truly sad is how many readers acknowledge the brilliant foresight of Orwell yet fail to grasp how closely present-day America (and England) resemble Winston Smith’s Oceania.

Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy. One of the benefits of the sequence of five-year plans written and administered by Gosplan was supposed to have been the long time horizon necessary for rational investment and innovation. In reality, what got implemented in Soviet industry had little to do with the five-year plans, which were frequently revised and rewritten or simply ignored. The development of industry took place on the basis of commands by Stalin and the Politburo, who changed their minds frequently and often completely revised their previous decisions. All plans were labeled “draft” or “preliminary.” Only one copy of a plan labeled “final”—that for light industry in 1939—has ever come to light. Stalin himself said in 1937 that “only bureaucrats can think that planning work ends with the creation of the plan. The creation of the plan is just the beginning. The real direction of the plan develops only after the putting together of the plan.” Stalin wanted to maximize his discretion to reward people or groups who were politically loyal, and punish those who were not. As for Gosplan, its main role was to provide Stalin with information so he could better monitor his friends and enemies. It actually tried to avoid making decisions. If you made a decision that turned

Growth was so rapid that it took in generations of Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy. One of the benefits of the sequence of five-year plans written and administered by Gosplan was supposed to have been the long time horizon necessary for rational investment and innovation. In reality, what got implemented in Soviet industry had little to do with the five-year plans, which were frequently revised and rewritten or simply ignored. The development of industry took place on the basis of commands by Stalin and the Politburo, who changed their minds frequently and often completely revised their previous decisions. All plans were labeled “draft” or “preliminary.” Only one copy of a plan labeled “final”—that for light industry in 1939—has ever come to light. Stalin himself said in 1937 that “only bureaucrats can think that planning work ends with the creation of the plan. The creation of the plan is just the beginning. The real direction of the plan develops only after the putting together of the plan.” Stalin wanted to maximize his discretion to reward people or groups who were politically loyal, and punish those who were not. As for Gosplan, its main role was to provide Stalin with information so he could better monitor his friends and enemies. It actually tried to avoid making decisions. If you made a decision that turned out badly, you might get shot. Better to avoid all responsibility. An example of what could happen

At those airfields, cocaine was reportedly loaded onto planes to be later dropped near an “Atlantic coast port,” where it was concealed on shrimp boats and ultimately unloaded in Miami. U.S. officials who monitored drug traffic from Colombia to the United States through Central America told the AP that they began receiving “reliable” reports of the operation as early as November 1984 after a Contra leader named Sebastian Gonzalez Mendiola was arrested and indicted in Costa Rica for drug trafficking. Another Contra leader, unnamed in the AP’s investigation, reportedly informed U.S. authorities that he had been approached by Colombian traffickers and offered $50,000 to guard a one-hundred-kilo cocaine shipment. In exchange for turning in the Colombian smugglers, he asked for $50,000 from the U.S. Embassy. When the request was rejected, he reportedly went forward with the smuggling arrangement and faced no consequences from U.S. authorities.

Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy. One of the benefits of the sequence of five-year plans written and administered by Gosplan was supposed to have been the long time horizon necessary for rational investment and innovation. In reality, what got implemented in Soviet industry had little to do with the five-year plans, which were frequently revised and rewritten or simply ignored. The development of industry took place on the basis of commands by Stalin and the Politburo, who changed their minds frequently and often completely revised their previous decisions. All plans were labeled “draft” or “preliminary.” Only one copy of a plan labeled “final”—that for light industry in 1939—has ever come to light. Stalin himself said in 1937 that “only bureaucrats can think that planning work ends with the creation of the plan. The creation of the plan is just the beginning. The real direction of the plan develops only after the putting together of the plan.” Stalin wanted to maximize his discretion to reward people or groups who were politically loyal, and punish those who were not. As for Gosplan, its main role was to provide Stalin with information so he could better monitor his friends and enemies. It actually tried to avoid making decisions. If you made a decision that turned out badly, you might get shot. Better to avoid all responsibility. An example of what could happen

This is illustrated by their children’s involvement in the Junior Spies organization in which children monitor adults for disloyalty to the Party.

Experiments like Lack's indicate considerable flexibility. The results should not be overinterpreted as indicating tendencies to reflexive responding, as Krebs and Dawkins (1984, p. 385) did: *that animals are susceptible to being "tricked" by the crude dummies of ethologists ... makes it Ukely that natural selection will favor similar exploitation by other animals'. In real events stimuli are not isolated. Animals trying to 'trick' other individuals will inevitably supply information from many sources, some of which may be contradictory. Natural selection will have opposing effects, favoring exploita- tion on the one hand and flexible coping procedures on the other. Surely one of the hardest questions about flexibility is: to what extent can signalers anticipate responses to their signaling and control that signaling to influence the behavior of other individuals? Can they choose whether to signal, and perhaps even what signal to use, based on expectations of the responses they may eUcit? The parrot Alex can, with Enghsh words (e.g. Pepperberg, 1990), but can birds have similar control over their species- specific signaling? Evidence of such effects is inconclusive. So-called 'audience effects' are sometimes cited as evidence of volitional control of signaling; some may well be. In many if not most cases, however, plausible alternative explanations have not been ruled out (Smith, 1990, pp. 211-214). For instance, does an individual ground squirrel (e.g. Spermophilus beldingi) behave differently on detecting a predator if it is near or not near its close relatives? It is more likely to utter trills when near close relatives (Sherman, 1977), but is this because in such a situation it is more likely alertly to monitor a predator, or because its audience elicits the calls? If the former, then the audience effect does not influence signaling directly. The influence is indirect, through an effect on the signaler's monitoring behavior. If a high probability of staying attentive is part of the information that the vocalization provides about the signaler's behavior, then the presence of relatives may be simply a condition for the monitoring rather than a basis for a decision to vocalize. The point is that we can not learn whether animals make decisions about whether to signal until we have fully grasped the requisite conditions (and thus the regular correlates) of signaling. If an individual retains freedom with respect to those correlates, then its signaling can be modulated by audience effects and the like. However, if the correlates are regular and thus represented by the 'messages' of the signal, there is little opportunity to signal electively. Signaling behavior is useful for cognitive research only when the referents of signals have been carefully studied. Surprisingly, a signaler can also be its own audience. An unanticipated effect of an individual's vocal signahng on its own hormonal states was discovered by Cheng (1992). The ovarian follicles of female Ring Doves, Streptopelia risoria, who cannot coo because of experimental brain lesions, severed syringial nerves or deflated air sacs do not mature. If the doves are exposed to playback of their own previously recorded coos, the follicles do mature. Cheng proposed that 'vocal self-stimulation' might also be important in physiological responses to other signahng - a male passerine's singing, for instance, or a human's crying, talking or singing in the dark. Any such physiological changes would alter the bases for cognitive processing, and thus for social responsiveness as well.

Soneto 1984 Las identificaciones gubernamentales son básicamente monitores de tobillo, emitidos para rastrear a los ciudadanos como perros, o debería decir, monos. Puede haber gobiernos sin constitución, pero no hay gobierno sin vigilancia. Cuando eliges a un supuesto representante, estás entregando oficialmente tu independencia. La violación de los derechos ciudadanos es un derecho del gobierno, es la regla tácita del manual de la democracia. Es posible que muy de vez en cuando tengas un gobierno benévolo, pero 9 de cada 10 veces acabarás bajo una autocracia. Un ciudadano librepensador es una contradicción en sus términos, y no sirve para el gran diseño de la dictadura democrática. En los libros, la democracia es, para el gente, por el gente - en la calle, la democracia es el gobierno de los monos en una tierra de ovejas.

Sonnet 1984 Government IDs are just ankle monitors, issued to tag citizens like dogs, or I should say, apes. There can be governments without constitution, but there is no government without surveillance. When you elect a so-called representative, you're officially signing your life to them. Don't be naive enough to think otherwise, and then yell about human rights violation. Violation of citizen rights is right of the government, it's the unspoken rule of the handbook of democracy. Once in a blue moon you may get a benevolent government, but 9 times out of 10 you'll end up under an autocracy. A freethinking citizen is contradiction in terms, no good to the grand design of democratic dictatorship. Democracy in books is, for the people, by the people, democracy on street is rule of the apes in a land of sheep.