Social scientists helped win World War II by judging enemy morale. But in Afghanistan, the U.S. kept getting it wrong. (2023 Update)

Governments used to try to "manufacture consent", but "manufacturing discontent" is the norm in America now and a number of other "Western" countries. Millions of people who distrust the government but simultaneously feel powerless to do anything about it is ideal, they also don't expect anything of a government they distrust, and the government prefers an easy job where nothing is expected but cashing checks

1984 happened a long time ago.

I read it when I was a kid, always thought it was kind of a silly book written by a very bitter person. Even as a dystopia things don't make sense.

And George Orwell's life story in part seems to be the story of a kinda bitter beta male who was regularly becoming infatuated with some snobby rich-ass British and Parisian hotties who wouldn't give him the time of day so it sorta checks out. I guess nobody took the time to impress the concept of "who gives a f*ck what a hoe do" onto him adequately.

"He used to say the one thing he wished in this world was that he'd been attractive to women. He liked women and had many girlfriends I think in Burma. He had a girl in Southwold and another girl in London. He was rather a womaniser, yet he was afraid he wasn't attractive."

Yep, he was all pissed that he only banged like two top-shelf UK broads, Burmese pussy for days but that wasn't good enough. What a complainer.

bitrex wrote: ========== >

** That book was waaaay too old for you.

Noddy and Big Ears would be more your style - f*****ad.

FYI:

Most folk in China are experiencing a life similar to that depicted in "1984" right now. The book was a horrible warning of things to come.

..... Phil

Everyone in the book is either stupid or evil or both except for our heros, somewhat the hallmark of fiction written by abused children who "grew up" to see themselves as heros in a world of stupid and evil people.

Other types of people who read a lot of other fiction also tend to think of the use of cardboard stock characters like this as "poor character development" or just "bad writing."

You'd think China would've banned the book if that were the case, they haven't, you can get it there in libraries and bookstores same as most anywhere else.

Orwell was pretty wrong you don't really need some huge all-seeing government agency to actively erase history all the time, "the people" regularly do this very effectively on their own. Often more effectively than any government ministry could. Just point them in the right direction and they'll take it from there.

The John Doe troll stated the following in message-id <sdhn7c$pkp$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

And the John Doe troll stated the following in message-id <sg3kr7$qt5$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

And yet, the clueless John Doe troll has itself posted yet another incorrectly formatted USENET posting on Mon, 27 Sep 2021 17:29:24 -0000 (UTC) in message-id <sisv1k$n4a$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me.

You are aware of the aggravation orchestrated by Roosevelt to rope the Japanese in?

MAD snipped-for-privacy@ieee.org wrote: =============================

** So an opportunistic and attention seeking pilot is your idea of a reference? ** The USAAF offered him a nice job, teaching P38 pilots how to maximise range flying over Europe. Seems he had some experience of that skill .....

.... Phil