Anyone else disturbed by modern day newspeak?

[HalationEffect]

In a novel I'm reading right now, I came across the following passage, which got me thinking:

The personnel manager called himself a human resources manager and, like personnel managers the world over, was one of the least personable people one could meet. Sitting opposite him, it was difficult not to feel that anyone who could happily reduce individuals to resources, to the same level as oil, bricks and canaries in coal mines, probably shouldn't be allowed to have human relations that didn't involve locks and prison bars.

I'm a person, not a human resource. I watch movies and TV shows, listen to music, and read books, magazines and web pages - I don't 'consume content'. For that matter, I'm a customer, not a consumer. Piracy is copyright infringement, not theft. If someone gets hold of enough information on me, I could be the victim of identity fraud, not identity theft.

Words have power, and if you change the words people use to describe a thing, then you change the way people think about that thing. The examples above are a non-exhaustive list of the changes that I refuse to buy into. It's doublethink, and I'm just not bellyfeeling it.

This doubleplusgood message was brought to you by the Ministry of Truth.

[blobfish]

Words have power, and if you change the words people use to describe a thing, then you change the way people think about that thing.

Probably the most important, underestimated concept of our day!

I knew nothing was going to come of the torture scandal here in the US, when even NPR started using the term "enhanced interrogation".

Another one of my favorites is "operate extra legally"
remember when they tried to feed us "Islamofascism"

I have said it before: Orwell was not an author, he was a prophet.

[lcorken]

Wow, You guys are ONTO something here.

OR.

You guys are ON something here.

Ken.

[HalationEffect]

Wow, You guys are ONTO something here.

OR.

You guys are ON something here.

Ken.

Can't it be both?

[vinnywright]

very disturbed ,,,,,,,AND I do believe it to be government induced social engineering at that .
for instance I think any one of our great grandfathers would be appalled at the amount of ,,,,,,,,well, power, for lack of a better word at the moment ; we have let our police have and how most people just shrug and say "well thay need to be able to do this or that"
I fear for my great grandchildrens freedom , by then all the scare tack ticks and careful word crafting will have the scared and troubled masses voting away any freedoms that are left and having microchips implanted in their sculls to prove who thay are and be found if the "bad guys" get them , and of course the chip will have bone resonant audio capture and transmission to make sure your staying a good citizen.

VINNY

[vinnywright]

Wow, You guys are ONTO something here.

OR.

You guys are ON something here.

Ken.

are you a government bot,,,,,,,,dispelling the truth as ,,,Awww thay must be on drugs , yup look at them ,,,,you can tell ,,, quick round them up and lock them away ,,,,,dont listen their crazy ,,,,,,, see see how mad thay get when we cuff them for thar own protection ,,,,,,yup crazy.

VINNY

[Qqmike]

I thought "onto" was a preposition.
So, third case, I was thinking
on to:
You guys are on to something here.

[SteveRiley]

If someone gets hold of enough information on me, I could be the victim of identity fraud, not identity theft.

"Identity theft" is the dumbest term ever invented. More properly, such incidents are impersonation attacks, which have occurred for so long as people have existed. It's like "cyber war" -- no, there is no such thing. The proper term is espionage, again something that's not new: we've had troubles with this ever since nations started forming.

This doubleplusgood message was brought to you by the Ministry of Truth.

Preach on.

[jlittle]

Words have power, and if you change the words people use to describe a thing, then you change the way people think about that thing.

Probably the most important, underestimated concept of our day!

Yes, but the reasonable can and should resist that power. In politics my attitude is spurned, because politicians wish to harness the power to turn the tables and fight back; not fighting back is perceived as weakness and voters vote for the strong. All meaning and reason is lost in a tailspin of partisan propaganda.

Resist the spin and insist that the words be as accurate, as plain, and objective as possible.

Regards, John Little

[HalationEffect]

In politics my attitude is spurned, because politicians wish to harness the power to turn the tables and fight back; not fighting back is perceived as weakness and voters vote for the strong. All meaning and reason is lost in a tailspin of partisan propaganda.

Oh man, don't even get me started on populist representative democracy. I can't be the only person who ever thought that implementing a government via a popularity contest is a flawed idea (Is the most popular TV show the best show? Is the best-selling model of car the best car on the market?). It's great if you think that being led by the most unprincipled and charismatic liars is a good idea, and too often it leads to there only being two parties with any realistic chance of forming a government. The TV show South Park expressed it well in the episode where they characterised the choice voters get in a two-party system as being between a giant douche and a turd sandwich. Sometimes choice is an illusion.

Personally, I favour direct democracy. People should be voting on issues, not on who will represent them. The challenge of DD is that for it to work properly, at the very least you need a reasonably well educated, politically aware populace who have easy access to good quality information. That's the first and probably biggest hurdle; after overcoming that, the remaining challenges are mainly technical in nature (having a pervasive, robust and secure communication infrastructure* comes to mind). Getting past our preoccupation with bread and circuses won't be easily achieved.

* i.e. the ability to ensure that everyone can easily (as in, trivially so) vote, and that the voting system is sufficiently difficult to rig or game.

[blobfish]

The challenge of DD is that for it to work properly, at the very least you need a reasonably well educated, politically aware populace who have easy access to good quality information.

If we had this, our representative democracy would function.

[HalationEffect]

If we had this, our representative democracy would function.

Maybe. It wouldn't solve the problem of corrupt and / or incompetent representatives. Even if that problem could be solved separately, and a properly functional representative democracy was achieved, I still think that a direct democracy would work even better.

[blobfish]

I love the idea of a direct democracy, I just think it is "pie in the sky". I don't have enough faith in the average american.

[bsniadajewski]

I think a direct democracy would work better on a smaller scale like, say, a town or village level. An area (and population) the size of the U.S. (315.5 million on ~3.8 Million sq. mi.) could be more problematic. Some sort of representative democracy can work beeter, given the government is very transparent to the public. A question to be asked is whether proportional system, the current single seat system (with seats allocated to the States by population), or a combination of the two for the HR would work best. Maybe we can increase the size of the House (of Representatives) itself, considering the future possibility of adding Puerto Rico as a new State.

[SteveRiley]

A good start might be to abolish the Senate. In its current form and practice, it lacks reasonable representation (Wyoming != California, sorry) and sensible controls (perpetual threat of filibuster allows the minority to hold tyranny). The institution is systemically broke. Get rid of it.