alt Hacker NewsI remember neither that happening in 1984, nor is that a description of what is happening to Anthropic. Or is this is an Animal Farm reference instead?
I remember Winston having a private conversation about political beliefs, and then being literally tortured into submission. And I remember Anthropic refusing a government order (albeit a stupid government order), and then being labeled a "supply chain risk." You can twist reality however you'd like though.
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There's no need to read it that literally, we're not making Borges' map here. 1984 is both about the visceral horror of the authoritarian state and the existential horror of being unable to fight an opponent who controls the very language you speak and the concept of truth. The former grounds the latter, turning an interesting philosophical treatise that might otherwise not land with readers into an approachable work of fiction.
And so can you.
You don’t remember the concept of thought crime in 1984? Or you don’t recall how thought crime gets you branded an enemy of the state? The former was a term literally introduced in 1984 and the thought police is tasked with locating and eliminating thought crime. Throughout the book there are news reports of the thought criminals caught and arrested who are now enemies of the state. The book ends with him being tortured until he completely succumbs to the thought control and is then murdered.
If you can’t see the allegory in that story to an administration that actively goes after those it labels as enemies because they dare to voice their own opinion or oppose their political goals in any way, either you’re not cut out for literary analysis and trying to apply metaphors in literature to the real world or you aren’t seeing the real world for what it is.