30 May 2013

Welcome back, Daily Quoters, to the second-ever Throwback Thursdays.

It's time again to go back to the Recycle Bin and restore some of the crème de la crème.

Today's Daily Quota is from the end of December 2012 and it discusses the philosophical and social differences between Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World.

Which dystopia do we live in now?

29 December 2012

Welcome to Sardonic Saturdays, where every silver lining has a cloud!

What if I offered you a device that I said will make your life easier. What if this device was able to track your location, record everything that is being said, even when it is switched off?
What if this device was able to construct an identity that knows you better than you know yourself? Your curiosities, your vices, your favourite foods, your thoughts, your friends and your enemies?
What reasonable person would accept such a gift?

Now what if I were to offer you a brand new smartphone.
It has GPS for your convenience, and your favourite location and history is tracked (again, for your convenience). You can do all of your communication through your phone - emails, texts, calls, Snapchat...
It also gives you direct access to social media like Facebook, so that you can share your thoughts without filter, share your location without concern, voice your ideology and carve yourself an extroverted identity. Everything will be in your phone. Your life.
All of this is stored for you by Google, and is offered for free. Because hey, they're a charity.
Who would say no, right?
Why look a gift horse in the mouth?

There's a reason why authorities love iPhones - they don't have removable batteries.
Happy Days.

In recent times, a lot of attention has been given to online privacy; whether it be on social networks or financial institution or the authorities granting themselves power to monitor your browsing.
These are the times we live in, and I guess this movement is a product of its context.

Whatever the case, an equal amount of attention has been given to two works of literature that best encompass people's fears for the future; Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World.
These works are multiple posts in themselves.
Both depict (contextually) futuristic dystopias where populations are kept in check, where classes are formed in stone and where order is maintained.

Today's Quota is not a summary of these works, but rather an interesting comparison between them.
Activists worry about a future where we are all watched, monitored, and kept in order by coercion. However, they have neglected to see that we willfully succumb to such a future.
It is not the Illuminati that is to blame, but rather...us.

Until tomorrow, keep those smiles beaming.
The cameras can't detect you if you're smiling.

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