I am still not sure if 1984 is a net positive. It was supposed to spread awareness of the dangers of surveillance and totalitarian states, but sometimes it rather seems it provided a blueprint for those organisations on how to use power effectivly. /s

sarcasm sure,

but I don't think anyone does read Orwell and is like "oh that's a good tool of manipulation"

because they have many more ways to find the same tools but in a context where it's packed into a "this is for (the grater,your,your peoples) good" package instead of a "this is a dystopia" package

Did you read the whole 1984?

It is exactly about this "this is for (the grater,your,your peoples) good" or rather it is about total control of the information space that indeed everyone thinks, whatever the party is doing is good.

No one is living in a dystopia there. They are living in the best of the best worlds. And everybody thinks and believes that.

It is an examination of power and control mechanism. Power over the mind of people.

That's political, but this is the new morality police.

I am still recovering from the religious "moral values" people who were insufferable as recently as a few years ago, and who have proven to be hypocrites on just shocking levels.

This movement of the "white, fluffy and righteous" is just taking their place.

I mostly agree, but I'd caution against the label of hypocrisy. I think it was in "diamond age" that Stephenson wrote something to the effect that hypocrisy is the only remaining taboo when all morality is relative because the only moral standard you can hold someone to is the one they eapouse themselves. This leads to people espousing no standars of behavior at all, when the best standard of behavior of all is one you know you won't be able to quite live up to.

I want to never be cruel or cowardly, but I know I will mess up sometimes, hopefully I will make amends, but I probably won't always. I don't think that is hypocrisy, just fallibility.

> I mostly agree, but I'd caution against the label of hypocrisy. I think it was in "diamond age" that Stephenson wrote something to the effect that hypocrisy is the only remaining taboo when all morality is relative because the only moral standard you can hold someone to is the one they eapouse themselves.

I wish, but hypocrisy is a weak criticism that's easy to escape except in the most clear cut cases, and in some cases is deemed as invalid.

Eg, some people's approach to morality is that people are intrinsically moral or immoral, not actions. This allows people to make statements that work out to something like "My friend may be a rapist, but he's a good person. He shouldn't be punished for a mistake". Moral goodness isn't gained through actions but through acquiring status in some way.

In that kind of worldview, hypocrisy is irrelevant. My friend is a good person because he lives in a good community and is well-off. That guy over there is a bad person because he lives in a slum and obviously deserves that.

One can avoid being called a hypocrite, moral relativism conversation aside, by doing one thing - not judging others publicly.

I see people simply stating their moral system and when they fail to uphold it, being attacked. The inference that they think everyone should use their moral system might be inferred, but wasn't necessarily intended.

That also works, but seems unrelated to my comment

Morality is political.

I think sometimes. I am sure there are some "holier than though" individuals that are thoroughly apolitical.

Here in the United States, a certain political party all but appropriated Christianity for themselves, even though their own platform (or now lack of one) is the direct opposite of what the religion teaches.

Jesus is both a libertarian and a socialist. It depends how you read it and whom you ask.