Dystopian Technologies

Part I.

The communication technology that I chose that currently exists is surveillance technology in general, specifically the satellites listed on the examples list for this assignment.

As I've stated in my previous blog, I believe the technologies that the government currently uses to make "The Patriot Act" possible, make the United States closer to a Dystopian Society. Surveillance satellites, along with wire taps, are now legal in order to make the United States a so called "safer" place, because if somebody is suspected of a crime, any government official is allowed to listen in to any of their phone conversations. I believe this form of spying does represent some aspects of a Dystopian society, however in our nation's case (as far as I can tell) it is less drastic, and actually used for a good cause.

Part II.

There are a couple of technologies from the novel "1984" that I could relate to this form of government monitoring. The telescreen, the microphones in the bushes, and others are all used to make sure the citizens of Oceania are not misbehaving, or disobeying the laws the Big Brother has instilled. The telescreen, like the wire tapping used today, presents an interesting issue. That is, you may or may not be being listened to or watched at any moment, but there is no way of telling if you are, but there is also potential it is always happening. No government, in the real world, or this made up one, has the resources to monitor every citizen at all times, but the threat still exists for individuals, forcing them to follow strict rules. In 1984, they must abide by very strict rules, including the thoughts they have, but in the real world its sole use is to monitor the conversation of potentially dangerous people who would be causing harm to other citizens. This aspect itself is not dystopian, but the potential exists for that technology.

Part III.

I don't believe that there are currently any true dystopian communication technologies, but I believe almost all of them have aspects of the topic. Like I said before, the surveillance technology that the government uses, if used for the wrong, power-hungry purposes, could be used to make our society totally controlled. Even in text messaging today, there are examples of "newspeak". When acronyms and texting terms are used so frequently, it limits the actual context of what we can convey via an SMS message. If this system evolves, and we started using even more abbreviated terms, it could effect our language in a way the "newspeak" tries to effect society in "1984"