George Orwell Quotes: "War is peace." 1984

Good Reads; George Orwell Quotes

“War is peace. 

Freedom is slavery. 

Ignorance is strength.”

― George Orwell, 1984"

Confronted with the bloody behavior of autocrats, Trump, instead, blames the world; The Washington Post, November 22, 2018

Kristine Phillips, The Washington Post; Confronted with the bloody behavior of autocrats, Trump, instead, blames the world

[Kip Currier: We must call out and hold accountable those leaders who engage in blurring the boundaries of objective truth, as in the example excerpted below, in which Donald Trump asserts that:

"Maybe the world should be held accountable, because the world is a vicious place."

Such a statement is the amoral apotheosis made manifest of a Gospel of the Inherent Unaccountability of Actors and States:

If everyone is culpable, then no one is culpable.

All are equal in blame.

No one is accountable to anyone else.

No system shall stand in judgment above any other.

Such a nakedly irreproachable manifesto flies in the face of bedrock principles undergirding the rule of law and the U.S. Constitutional system of checks and balances. It is a credo for unchecked anarchy, the very antithesis of originalism. It is the recurrent rhetoric and obfuscatory modus operandum of the oppressor, the despot, the tyrant. The aspiring authoritarian conman.

Its Orwellian aims--to cloud conceptions of "right and wrong", to gum up and break down the imperfect but fine-tuned cogs of systems and rules that hold people responsible for their action and inaction, to "gaslight", confuse, overwhelm with disinformation, demoralize, divide, and manipulate--must be named, called out, and rejected by those who see such self-serving machinations for what they are, and the threats to democracy, the rule of law, and free thinking peoples that they represent.

Inspired by and building upon the prescient words of George Orwell's 1984, to speak truth to power:

Mr. Trump--and those of your ilk, who weaponize facts and wield misinformation to attempt to delegitimize truth and reason--War is NOT peace. Freedom is NOT slavery. Ignorance is NOT strength.]

"In fielding questions from reporters about the killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, President Trump avoided blaming Mohammed bin Salman, despite the CIA’s findings that the Saudi crown prince had ordered the assassination.

“Who should be held accountable?” a reporter asked Trump Thursday. Sitting inside his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, the president took a deep breath, seemingly mulling his response.

Then he said: “Maybe the world should be held accountable, because the world is a vicious place.""

Google's Mysterious AI Ethics Board Should Be Transparent Like Axon's; Forbes, April 27, 2018

Sam Shead, Forbes; Google's Mysterious AI Ethics Board Should Be Transparent Like Axon's

"This week, Axon, a US company that develops body cameras for police officers and weapons for the law enforcement market, demonstrated the kind of transparency that Google should aspire towards when it announced an AI ethics board to "help guide the development of Axon's AI-powered devices and services".

Axon said the board's mission is to advise and guide Axon's leaders on the impact of AI technology on communities. The board will meet twice a year and it held its first meeting on Thursday in Scottsdale, Arizona.

"We believe the advancement of AI technology will empower police officers to connect with their communities versus being stuck in front of a computer screen doing data entry," said Axon CEO and founder, Rick Smith, in a statement. "We also believe AI research and technology for use in law enforcement must be done ethically and with the public in mind. This is why we've created the AI ethics board — to ensure any AI technology in public safety is developed responsibly.""

In China, Big Brother isn’t just watching your every move. He may be selling your personal data.; Washington Post, 1/4/17

Simon Denyer, Washington Post; In China, Big Brother isn’t just watching your every move. He may be selling your personal data.

[Kip Currier: This article's chilling real-world information about Chinese authorities' "social credit" score efforts reminded me of Black Mirror's 2016 "Nosedive" episode, starring Bryce Dallas Howard, in which citizens are given crowd-sourced ranking scores that influence all areas of their lives.]

"Sometimes living in China feels like dystopia has already arrived. As thick clouds of choking smog envelop the Chinese capital this week, more bad news has emerged to make life here feel even more like a grim science fiction movie.

Not only are Chinese authorities collecting vast amounts of personal data on all of their citizens, that data is now for sale.

A report in the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper, translated by the SupChina newsletter and website on Wednesday, found that vast amounts of citizens’ private information can be freely bought by strangers, for very affordable prices...

If that wasn’t bad enough, China is already in the midst of an ambitious plan to centralize everyone’s data and issue everyone a score based on their “social credit.”"