I think Orwell was prescient and attuned to this sort of thinking in England at his time. Perhaps, it never really went away? e.g.: "crimestop"

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/725596-crimestop-means-the-...

It isn't precrime or "dissent management" that is the problem, but the engineering of behavior and thought in society where such concepts are acceptable to people.

I don't think we can discuss it in detail here, but with this , chat control, and all sorts of other controversial laws, you'll notice the people of the country actually support that stuff. There is an interesting conversation there about democracy, and the priority of the working class people. Naturally, a person living paycheck-to-paycheck and fighting for healthcare and keeping their job (or getting one) does not care about this stuff. So who does? Not the ruling class. A lot of people (including on HN) who think this stuff is important (rightfully) are not poor people, perhaps middle-class?

Is democracy itself something that can survive, if it is left entirely up to popular vote? Power has gravity, it always wants more. Ideally, there would be institutions that are democratically established and managed that would be trusted to safeguard the people's interests. In the US, there are executive department agencies for example like the FCC, FTC, FDA and more, but they are subject to those in power who are elected by the people.

My "food for thought" here is that similar to supreme courts, there needs to be a regulatory and oversight branch of the government, whose chiefs are apolitical (like actually, not like the US supreme court), well compensated, long-tenured (but not lifetime, more like 20 years), and appointed by confirmation of all other branches of government.

We need to address the problem of power, influence to wield power and incentives for those entrusted with power to act in good faith, but also with good competence. The last part is important, because I have no doubt, a lot of the politicians that come up with this Orwellian nonsense have good intentions, the outcome they seek are noble, just not the means. they just happen to be incompetent when it comes to the subject matter.