1984 was off by about 17 years

[John Eric Tiessen]

Orson Wells was off by about 17 years when he wrote the book 1984, which described a future in which information  was constantly censored and history always being re-written to suit the image that the central government wanted. The problem is that that day is already here. We are living in an age where we spend a considerable amount of our time online in an environment that isolates us from information and perspectives that are threatening to our own! Case in point: Facebook!

The 'filter bubble'

Facebook actively screen's out information and political views on your news feed that go contrary to your political, religious and general way of thinking about the world.

Why is this concerning? There is no longer a generally accepted perspective on ANY issue! It is becoming impossible to have a generally recognized source of information and opinion! We are headed towards an age where it doesn't matter that you are quoting from a panel of scientists who have definitively proven that global warming is real. The group of conservatives across the table from you will just point to their lone scientist and claim that he's right and the other guys are wrong.

What can we do to avoid this fate? Should we even bother to try and stop this? Finally, what are going to be the long term consequences of this new way of looking at the world, through a metaphorical pinhole camera instead of the traditional wide-field lens?

[Vertigo_One [Ops Mod]]

This is my favorite thing anybody has said to me in a long time! That is hilarious logic: if you are going to disprove my deterministic logic in regards to God, I demand you do it only using deterministic philosophy! Yes, please, claim that Hilter's Third Reich was wrong, but remember to be objective, you must only use Hitler's logic

You are not understanding what I'm saying. I've already made the point that I accept your premise. IE If we do not have free will, then yes the Bible's conception of hell would be unfair. However, the whole rationale behind hell in the first place is that we do have free will, so if you take that aspect of it away, then yes, of course it doesn't work. But the issue is that you havn't made it clear what you are doing here. Namely, are you attempting to prove God as evil, or are you attempting to prove him wrong? If you're attempting to prove him wrong, you need to martial all of the evidence that we don't have free will. If you are attempting to prove him evil, you need to look at the system he has built and determine if it is encouraging evil, hold it up in its entirety to the standards of morality.

If you examine Christianity with one of the central pillars removed, then of course it's going to look stupid and evil.

[Chris L]

Here's a quick thought experiment or quasi paradox: Imagine you knew the position and speed of every atom in the universe, you would know where they all would go, thus what would happen, but you could change it. (Don't get annoyed about the fact that this is theoretical impossible therefore irrelevant, my point still stands) A friend told me this and I was boggled by it, until I established that this wasn't a paradox, but was logic: Though knowledge comes free will. If you know about and can manipulate 50% of the atoms of a coin, you have a 50% chance of being able to toss a coin had freely choose to have it land on heads of tails.

Also we need not know what every atom everywhere does, merely what a collection of them (like a person of a football) would do in circumstances and how desirable it is. We do have knowledge that is correct most of the time on things that matter and require free will (When to talk about a movie, or how to get someones atention) therefore we have some free will.

It's Important to note that most people debating free will and determinism reject the idea of complete free will, but argue over whether anything we do is a free choice.

Also, can you guy's stop discussion religion and free will in this thread, I don't want to stop you discussing it, just it's annoying seeing the thread keep popping up and wondering if someone gives a damn about my point to find from the second page it's all irrelevant. (be nice if I'm wrong, after the first few days of posts I skim read the first sentence before going wtf and stopping) Make a new thread or something, you can even quote and decimate this post on it if you want.

[Ryan O'Toole]

When I think of "1984", I think of North Korea. Orwell was off, but the world of "1984" is not yet global.

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