{"id":51388,"date":"2020-02-25T19:23:12","date_gmt":"2020-02-26T00:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=51388"},"modified":"2020-02-25T19:23:18","modified_gmt":"2020-02-26T00:23:18","slug":"1984-has-come-to-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=51388","title":{"rendered":"\u201c1984\u201d Has Come to China"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dweaay7e22a7h.cloudfront.net\/wp-content_3\/uploads\/2020\/02\/%E2%80%9C1984%E2%80%9D-Has-Come-to-China-650x360.jpg\" alt=\"\u201c1984\u201d Has Come to China\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dailyreckoning.com\/1984-has-come-to-china\/\">\u201c1984\u201d Has Come to China<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>You\u2019re probably familiar with George Orwell\u2019s classic dystopian novel&nbsp;<em>Nineteen Eighty-Four<\/em>; (it\u2019s often published as&nbsp;<em>1984)<\/em>. It was written in 1948; the title comes from reversing the last two digits in 1948.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The novel describes a world of three global empires, Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia, in a constant state of war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Orwell created an original vocabulary for his book, much of which is in common, if sardonic, usage today. Terms such as Thought Police, Big Brother, doublethink, Newspeak and memory hole all come from&nbsp;<em>Nineteen Eight-Four<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Orwell intended it as a warning about how certain countries might evolve in the aftermath of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. He was certainly concerned about Stalinism, but his warnings applied to Western democracies also.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When the calendar year 1984 came and went, many breathed a sigh of relief that Orwell\u2019s prophesy had not come true. But that sigh of relief was premature. Orwell\u2019s nightmare society is here today in the form of Communist China\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>China has most of the apparatus of the totalitarian societies described in Orwell\u2019s book. China uses facial recognition software and ubiquitous digital surveillance to keep track of its citizens. The internet is censored and monitored. Real-life thought police will arrest you for expressing opinions opposed to the government or its policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Millions of Chinese have been arrested and sent to \u201creeducation\u201d camps for brainwashing (the lucky ones) or involuntary organ removal without anesthetic (the unlucky ones who die in excruciating pain and are swiftly cremated as a result).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While these atrocities are not going to happen in the U.S. or what passes for the West these days, the less extreme aspects of China\u2019s surveillance state could well be. And while you might not be arrested for expressing unpopular opinions or challenging prevailing dogmas (at least not yet), you could face other sanctions. You could even lose your job and find it nearly impossible to find another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201c1984\u201d Has Come to China You\u2019re probably familiar with George Orwell\u2019s classic dystopian novel&nbsp;Nineteen Eighty-Four; (it\u2019s often published as&nbsp;1984). It was written in 1948; the title comes from reversing the last two digits in 1948. The novel describes a world of three global empires, Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia, in a constant state of war. Orwell [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[1212,130,28817,29011,1788,13599,4622,21387,1598,1213],"class_list":["post-51388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-liberty","tag-1212","tag-china","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-doublethink","tag-james-rickards","tag-surveillance-state","tag-the-daily-reckoning","tag-thought-police","tag-totalitarianism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51388"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51390,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51388\/revisions\/51390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}