I’ve been reading the George Orwell classic 1984 recently and I was struck by how visionary Orwell was.
If you are not familiar with the book, Orwell paints a grim picture of a future (the book was written in 1948) in which the ruling government is fully in control of its citizens in every way from gross infringements of personal freedoms and privacy, right through to an attempt to control citizens’ thoughts.
I couldn’t help but be reminded of the world we find ourselves in today. I’m not just talking about those cameras that are popping up all over our suburbs. You know, the ones that are there “for your safety” whether you like it or not. Perhaps it is just a symptom of working in the well- (over?) regulated financial services industry, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that Orwell’s fiction is closer to reality than he ever could’ve thought it would be.