Course Syllabus - Computers and Society - Fall 1984 | CS 485, Papers of Computer Science

Download Course Syllabus - Computers and Society - Fall 1984 | CS 485 and more Papers Computer Science in PDF only on Docsity! 1 Nineteen Eighty-Four Jesse Young CS 485 Computer Science Department Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago, Illinois 60616 jesse.young@gmail.com Abstract—Nineteen Eighty-Four is a novel written by George Orwell about a man unhappy about his position in a dystopian totalitarian state. Orwell, growing up during the rise of totalitarianism greatly despised the direction the world was heading. Orwell imagined that in the year 1984 government surveillance would extremely invasive in both public settings and private. Index Terms—George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1984, Technology, Sci- ence Fiction. English author Eric Arthur Blair, who is better known by his pen name George Orwell wrote the book Nineteen Eighty- Four in the year 1949. Orwell was born on June 25, 1903, and died January 21, 1950. His writing clearly demonstrates many of the significant events that have occurred in his life- time. One of which was the first world war, which lasted from 1914 to 1918, when Orwell was between 11 and 15 years old. The Great Depression followed WWI in 1929, and ended in the mid 1930’s. World War II lasted from 1939 to 1945. All the while, states were moving towards totalitarian- ism. Germany, of course was under control by Hitler’s Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. The USSR was turning Com- munist after the Russian Revolution in 1917. Italy experi- enced Fascism under Benito Mussolini from 1922 to 1943. George Orwell aligned his political thought strongly against the totalitarianism of the time. While opposing far left positions such as communism and socialism, Orwell did not consider himself a conservative. He “belonged to the Left,” and fought to preserve the Democracy which was in order in England. Nineteen Eighty-Four is a novel based in England (now called Aristrip One) about the life of Winston Smith. Smith is a civil servant for Oceania’s government, “The Party.” Smith works to falsify historical records when The Party deems such information as in conflict with current circumstances. It seems to Smith that everybody graciously accepts the lies that he is implementing, he feels that he is alone in his thoughts against the government. If only he could meet somebody who shares his sentiment. The around-the-clock surveillance that monitors everybody for hints of “thoughtcrime” make this task seemingly impossible. Smith later meets a woman named Julia who shares his distaste for their shared situation. Julia and Smith have a love affair amidst a government instilled sexually stigmatized cul- ture. Winston and Julia discuss methods of escaping capture from the “thought police” while managing to subvert the es- tablished government. The two find their break when they meet with a man named O’Brien, an apparent member of the “Brotherhood,” an underground network which works to overthrow the government. O’Brien delivers Smith a book detailing the history and mechanics leading up to the current state of affairs. The book was written by the supposed leader of the Brotherhood, Em- manuel Goldstein. Smith was reading the book to Julia in their hideout when it was stormed by the Thought Police. Smith and Julia were hauled off separately to the ironically named “Ministry of Love” to be tortured by O’Brien. O’Brien not only tortured them, but re-educated them to accept the Party’s propaganda, and to love “Big Brother,” the elusive head of the state. Living in a dystopian totalitarian state prevents the au- tonomous progression of technology. Instead, The Party, de- termines where research efforts are focused. To worsen the decline in technological advance, The Party deliberately di- minishes the quality of life of the general populous. This effectively significantly reduces the amount of quality-hours spent on research and design. Nineteen Eighty-Four’s setting is based around the year 1984. The date is subject to Winston Smith’s perception, which is heavily influenced by The Party, thus the date is not very specific. The discussion between the technologies in the Earth years of 1984, 2009, and the Novel’s year 1984 is par- ticularly interesting due to the retrospective insight which is usually not found when comparing the present day to settings in other science fiction stories. Due to the negative influence on research and develop- ment by the totalitarian regime, and the 25 year difference between the story’s setting and the present day, one might venture to guess that the technology would be outdated com- pared to today. When compared to technology in 2009, Nine- teen Eighty-Four is not very far off the mark. However com- paring the book’s technology to that of the year 1984, the book was ahead of its time. Seeing how R&D is limited in the story, it is hard to imagine that the imagined world’s communications infras- tructure could support constant surveillance of the inner and outer party, or 15 percent of the population as estimated in Goldstein’s book The Theory and Practice Oligarchical Col- lectivism. Orwell hinted that full-duplex communication was a new technology. Full-duplex video is necessary for the most technological item in the book, the “telescreen.” The telescreen is basically a television set with a built-in camera with microphone. For members of the Outer Party, a rough equivalent of today’s middle class, the telescreen could not be turned off, though