Fiction

I trust many people have at least heard of George Orwell, the prolific author, and (even if you don’t read) his prophetic novel, 1984. I hope so; if not, then this society is fucked.

The invention of print, however, made

it easier to manipulate public opinion, and the film and the radio carried the

process further. With the development of television, and the technical advance

which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously on the same

instrument, private life came to an end. Every citizen, or at least every citizen

important enough to be worth watching, could be kept for twentyfour hours a

day under the eyes of the police and in the sound of official propaganda, with all

other channels of communication closed. The possibility of enforcing not only

complete obedience to the will of the State, but complete uniformity of opinion

on all subjects, now existed for the first time.  

Excerpt: 1984, George Orwell

Fact

November 2012: Verizon registered a patent that makes Big Brother, the ‘reality TV’ show strangely apt in its name alone (which was inspired by the character Big Brother in the novel), look like LEGO blocks to a civil engineer.

Here, see for yourself