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It seems backwards to me that you think cultural changes are harder to implement than policy changes. Its a form of Democracy propaganda that I see often enough that its worth addressing.
Changing culture is hard and slow, it involves talking to a lot of people, convincing them, having role models to hold up who are paragons of the change you want. If you are pushing against specific incentives or people then they will try to reverse the cultural changes you are making.
How do you get a democratically elected government to change policy? You have to change base cultural desires of the people so that they change their voting habits often and consistently enough. And you need to tailor the policy to make it survive through whatever political process exists in the country.
Cultural change also has the benefit of snowballing effects. If you have some good ideas and good culture it self advertises as it spreads. Democracy requires a minimum 50%+1 starting point. So good ideas and terrible ideas have somewhat equal chances to getting implemented.
Changing the culture is very fast and very easy to do when the government wants to do it. Look at any communist revolution, or look at the way every modern TV show has an unnecessary gay character.
Most people are Havel's Greengrocer. There is not a political thought in their heads. When the party line changes, they change along with it, and don't even notice the difference. Orwell had them pegged. Animal Farm and 1984 are not novels; they are documentaries.
In the age of mass media and compulsory education, culture is imposed from the top down, not bottom up. Public opinion is a function of whose army is guarding the TV station.
Democracy is a sham. It doesn't matter who gets elected, the bureaucrats remain the same, the teachers remain the same, the university professors accrediting the teachers remain the same, and the people making movies remain the same. So, of course, nothing changes; it's the same government! Voting for the other party is voting for a change of décor.
Changing the culture is a coup-complete problem.
Animal Farm was a documentary. Nineteen eighty-four was not - it was a warning, and one that has so far been effective in preventing the thing warned about. The USSR never managed to achieve the level of social control you see in Oceania, and not for want of trying.
1984 overestimates the competence and underestimates the infighting of a large organization. The Party wants to control and monitor citizens so it can do what exactly? Even "for power" ignores certain Party members vying for power over others, threatening the entire system because it gives them an advantage. (I didn't finish the book, so if it actually explains this, sorry.)
I doubt even AI will solve this problem.
I think it's actually pretty spot on. The woke aren't terribly competent, and they have lots of infighting, but they're able to reproduce the Party structure from the book pretty faithfully. The only thing missing for them is the technology / infrastructure.
The woke aren't nearly as successful as the Party: while they have significant influence, Trump's faction exists, this site exists, and even on Reddit (outside the most extreme echo chambers) and in-person interactions with left-leaning people, I consistently see and hear the most extreme woke ideas (analogous to 2+2=5) repudiated by the majority.
You can find analogies to everything in 1984 (Two Minutes Hate, doublethink, etc.), today and in Orwell's time. But as bad as our society is wrt. conformity and top-down control, it's nowhere near 1984. I do note that mass surveillance is gaining in certain places (e.g. the UK), but it's stalling in others, and I suspect only a matter of time before it gets crippled because some group uses it for something stupid.
Yeah, but I think all that is more a question of insufficient technological infrastructure, not infighting or lack of competence. They're already building what they need. Give them a few years, and things will start looking a lot more 1984-ish.
We have much more invasive technology than Orwell’s time (some, like AI, surpass that in 1984). And arguably we have less overall freedom (at least it’s harder to commit crime without getting caught), but again, much more than 1984 citizens.
In a few years our leaders may actually not be human (if we achieve ASI and it merges with and/or overthrows them). Then it is plausible we’d be put into a 1984-like society (temporarily, but that may be a long time: until the AI can do everything more efficiently than humans and promptly exterminates us, or the Earth becomes uninhabitable, or aliens invade, etc.). While I can’t imagine why an omnipotent (from our perspective) AI would even give humans the choice to rebel, it’s possible 1984 is the best configuration for a non-omnipotent AI. But that’s just one possibility: if keeping humans alive is useful, I think giving them some agency would also be.
Orwell was writing speculative fiction, the system from his book was unachievable with the technology of his time. He wasn't even writing sci-fi as such, focusing more on what society would look, given total surveillance technology being available. So AI isn't surpassing 1984, it's a necessary condition for it.
Yeah, this is an issue I have with rationalists. ASI is a religious belief that they obsess over, and ignore far more plausible scenarios. You don't need ASI for 1984. Smartphones and LLMs are more than enough. You just need to build out the infrastructure, you might not even need to improve the models beyond what we have today.
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