Vladimir_M comments on George Orwell's Prelude on Politics Is The Mind Killer - Less Wrong

10 [deleted] 29 March 2012 04:27PM

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Comment author: Vladimir_M 07 April 2012 07:13:21PM *  5 points [-]

I didn't mean to say that their mechanisms of enforcement are identical; that would certainly be absurd. I just made an analogy between the two systems' ideological narratives of progress and their confounding of the alleged beneficial effect of the system itself with the exogenous effects of technological progress. (Note the difference between my characterizing of dissent in the former system as dangerous in general, and my claim that in the West nowadays, it is typically dangerous only for one's reputation. I did mean by this that the latter system practices, for the most part, more subtle reputation-based mechanisms instead of downright censorship, repression, etc.)