I think the dystopia of Nineteen Eighty Four was *realized* in 1984. But isn’t it arrogant to think that “history ended” at that time? That is, why would the forces that *created* the dystopia *stop* bringing about that chaos?
It is now 2021, 37 years later. Our technology is markedly different from the way it was. Comparatively, in the UK there are now 5.2 MILLION CCTV cameras. Lord knows how many such public and private cameras now exist in the US.
The NSA actually built a gigantic data library in Utah.
“The 1.5 billion-dollar one million square-foot Bluffdale / Camp Williams LEED Silver facility houses a 100,000 sq-ft mission critical Tier III data center.”
And yet, the *vast* amount of data it consumes and archives is essentially worthless.
But that is the “dystopian threshold”. That dystopian governments over time become obsessed with useless trivia, *and ignore the big, important things that government is supposed to do*.
East Germany is a great example. At the end, almost half its people had been coerced to spy on the other half. And yet, its infrastructure was collapsing. Many consumer goods were rare or unavailable. Pollution was horrific, etc.
And that is how dystopian societies end. Not with a bang, but with a shrug.
Very well said.