The future of fashion: hair waves

I don’t do hair. I shave my head to 3mm every month or so, and never let it grow long., but I watch telly and observe that very many women use hair extensions and wigs, and I spot a high voltage technology opportunity.

Remember the Van der Graff generator in your school physics lab? It makes a high voltage than makes your hair stand up. When you finally touch something, the tiny charge involved dissipates and gives you a tiny shock.

So, suppose you are a wig manufacturer, making a wig with fine filaments, or hair I guess. You add a base layer of circuitry, ideally separated from your scalp by an insulating layer. You design the circuits so that you can apply specific voltages individually to any region of the hair, and you design a nice algorithm to move those voltages around in patterns, so that patches of hair stand up, fall down, and overall the effect is dynamic patterns such as waves all over your head. Hair will be mobile.

Total charge doesn’t need to change much, mainly just be moved around, so battery drain would be OK, and the power supply could be hidden in a collar or shoulder pad.

Hair patterns could even adopt fashion language, used for secret tribal signalling, and internet of hair will be needed. It is also capable of misuse and another potential signalling path to guard against in casinos.

It would also be trivially easy to monitor your emotional state, or even thought recognition, and have you hair respond and illustrate your emotions. So when you think “shock, horror”, you hair would actually stand on end 🙂

Well, you get the idea. Fun! And you read it here first.

Shoulder demons and angels

Remember the cartoons where a character would have a tiny angel on one shoulder telling them the right thing to do, and a little demon on the other telling them it would be far more cool to be nasty somehow, e.g. get their own back, be selfish, greedy. The two sides might be ‘eat your greens’ v ‘the chocolate is much nicer’, or ‘your mum would be upset if you arrive home late’ v ‘this party is really going to be fun soon’. There are a million possibilities.

Shoulder angels

Enter artificial intelligence, which is approaching conversation level, and knows the context of your situation, and your personal preferences etc, coupled to an earpiece in each ear, available from the cloud of course to minimise costs. If you really insisted, you could make cute little Bluetooth angels and demons to do the job properly.

In fact Sony have launched Xperia Ear, which does the basic admin assistant part of this, telling you diary events etc. All we need is an expansion of its domain, and of course an opposing view. ‘Sure, you have an appointment at 3, but that person you liked is in town, you could meet them for coffee.’

The little 3D miniatures could easily incorporate the electronics. Either you add an electronics module after manufacture into a small specially shaped recess or one is added internally during printing. You could have an avatar of a trusted friend as your shoulder angel, and maybe one of a more mischievous friend who is sometimes more fun as your shoulder demon. Of course you could have any kind of miniature pets or fictional entities instead.

With future materials, and of course AR, these little shoulder accessories could be great fun, and add a lot to your overall outfit, both in appearance and as conversation add-ons.

Brexit, Futurizon’s analysis

The EU has a population of around 500M. These people differ enormously but agree to cooperate for mutual benefit. Being able to trade more easily with other countries is obviously a good idea, and for that reason the UK joined the Common Market. A common market may work better if there are commonly agreed standards so that buyers can be sure of the quality of what they are buying. Some regulations and associated administration align well with seamless running of a common market.

However, since the UK joined the Common market, it has evolved into a very different entity. Rather than just regulating easy trade, it has gone in baby steps so that noone would notice far beyond any interpretation of a free trade zone, firstly into a ‘European Economic Community’ and now the European Union. The EU now is intended by many of its leaders and executors to become a single country, a United States of Europe. There is nothing wrong with aspiring to that, but not all of us want to go that way. Now we will have a vote on it. Do we want to stay in the EU, with all of its current issues, knowing what it is intended to become, or to leave, re-asserting our own sovereignty, making our own laws and renegotiating trade agreements, controlling our own future?

The EU is made up of very different countries. We have the Northern set, with high wealth, a strong work ethic, relatively low corruption, strong regard for law and order, and a high welfare net. We have the Eastern European countries, with lower wealth but in some cases more vibrant populations, aspiring, and determined to self-improve. And we have Southern European, Mediterranean set, aligned with a lower work ethic, a gentler pace of life, but more affected by corruption and in some cases higher enthusiasm to avoid taxes. Incompatibility between the interests of these three zones has often featured in the Euro collapse.

Trade

A Brexit UK  would have to renegotiate terms of trade with the EU. We sell the EU far less than we buy from them, so it is in the EU’s interest to give us favorable terms.

Inside the EU, we cannot negotiate terms of trade with non-EU countries, but those are the fastest growing markets. The EU is the least well performing major trading block in the world. It is in the UK’s interest to be free to pursue larger and faster-growing non-EU markets without EU-imposed restraints.

Will Britain be better off in the EU as Cameron says? Very probably not. We would keep favorable trade with a shrinking EU, and gain trade with a faster expanding rest-of-the-world.

Trade would continue. I would still work for EU companies, and they would still gain just as much by choosing me over another. You’d still be able to buy French cheese or wine, or a German car,  or Swedish furniture, they won’t suddenly refuse to sell it to you. They will fight with fierce competition for your business from other regions, and offer you fair reciprocation, so there is no reason to fear unbalanced trade sanctions. As far as trade balance goes, the UK has most of the aces in this game.

Free movement of people

Free movement of people coupled to differences in standard of living encourages people to leave countries with low pay and welfare and migrate to others with better pay and welfare. Countries are not permitted to choose who enters, so it may be the top engineers or brain surgeons that all countries want, or people who won’t contribute much, make big demands on expensive services such as education and health and to send generous welfare payments home.

The 7 year period where we can restrict in-work benefits that Cameron has negotiated would mean that if he can show that the UK is under undue stress, then we can disallow benefits to future immigrants in their first year of entry, increasing them to maximum over the next 3 years. The savings estimated for this is around £30M, or less than 45p for each UK citizen. Cameron might therefore have saved you 45p, if he can argue that it would otherwise cause too much stress. Bigger savings would only occur if potential EU migrants decide that a year’s restriction on in-work benefits is too big a problem and prevents their migration, thereby saving their impacts on health, education and other  welfare. I don’t believe that will be the norm. I would expect virtually no impact from this headline win in his negotiations.

Free movement of people is not a requirement for free trade. They are quite separate issues. It is perfectly possible to agree amicable terms of trade with another nation without allowing citizens to relocate freely between them. A Brexit UK that negotiates trade agreements with the EU and other trading blocks would still be able to use an Australian-style points system to decide who to admit and who to reject, whether from the EU or anywhere else. The UK still has borders where passports are required for entry, since it was not part of Schengen, but it is nevertheless true that once a person is given any EU passport, they are able to travel and live here at will. Some of the migrants currently entering the EU are the sort of migrants everyone would welcome, but some are terrorists, some are criminals, some are religious extremists and a huge problem is that nobody knows which are which, so many undesirables will be given EU residence and passports.

Brexit UK would be far less vulnerable to entry by unsavory migrants and terrorists who have somehow managed to be accepted in any other EU country. It would be able to attract the best people and fill the needs of our industries, but to refuse entry to those who would be an overall strain on our systems.

Security

Cameron says we will be safer in the EU. That is an insult to our intelligence.

The world is a dangerous place right now. North Korea, Russia, the Middle East and North Africa are already major threats to peace, and China may become a security threat. The UK is a leading member of NATO, which has been the backbone of our defense for decades. Brexit UK would remain in NATO. The creation and success of NATO is the main reason that European countries live in peace.

The EU provides little additional security benefit, other than streamlining working of police forces to make catching criminals easier. Extreme ongoing delays in dealing with the migrant problem instead demonstrate total EU incompetence in the face of a security threat.

The EU creates some severe security risks. It has been argued by some that the EU’s attempt to capture the Ukraine as a part of the EU was a significant factor in causing the problems we see there now. Given the overall threat from that and its encouragement to Putin to expand elsewhere, it is very hard to see how one could believe the EU has made us more secure.

By its failure to stem the migrant crisis, and with Angela Merkel almost single-handedly causing it by encouraging them to take the risks to come, the EU has led to thousands of migrants dying at sea, and millions of unknown migrants to enter, some having deliberately discarded their identification, others using fake identification, during a period in which ISIS have stated their aim to smuggle as many terrorists into Europe as possible among the migrants. Many EU countries are now experiencing severe internal problems caused by migrants, such as massive increases in rape, sexual assaults, violence, intimidation, antisemitic attacks and other crime. By contrast, the UK’s policy is to help refugees close to their origin and to carefully select those most in need of resettlement to be allowed to come to the UK. By that policy, resources are focused on those most in need, migration is discouraged, many lives are saved and the UK is protected at least in the short term from the more unsavory migrants until they obtain EU identities.

A Brexit UK would still be able to help refugees in exactly the same ways but by being properly in control of our borders, reduce the risk of terrorists and criminals entering with EU identities. If we remain, undesirables will be able to come here at will once they obtain an EU identity.

Cameron knows all of this, as do his ministers. To claim that the UK is safer in Europe while knowing the opposite is true is simply lying. Brexit UK would be safer and more secure.

UK Relevance

If any proof were needed that the UK has very little influence in the EU, then Cameron just provided it. He went to beg for a few very minor changes to the UK’s position and got very little of even that. He is certainly no Thatcher. Two world wars failed to make Germany controller of Europe. By many tiny incremental changes that were never enough to make people worry, today’s EU is de-facto a German dictatorship. As perfectly illustrated by the migrant crisis, the Germans often seem to run the EU as their own show, sometimes allowing their French allies to have some input, with other countries generally doing as they are told. While Cameron has to beg for changes to migrant regulations, Germany unilaterally changes their polices without consultation. Germany shouts and expects everyone else to do as they command.

The EU as a whole is the last well performing of any trading block, and unilaterally handicaps its industries by environmental regulations and taxes. It has reducing military influence as China, Russia and the USA still dominate worldwide events.

Voter say varies enormously between countries too. Numbers of seat in Brussels are allocated disproportionately to smaller countries. Being outside of the Eurozone also reduces the UK’s say. The best the UK can ever hope for if we remain is to have an ever-decreasing say in a rapidly diminishing Europe.

Brexit UK will be a small player in a large world, but we have always shown strength and influence  well above our numbers in every domain, economic, cultural, technological and political, and we would do so outside the EU. The UK could grow as the EU declines. Remaining will ensure decreasing worldwide relevance.

Sovereignty

Ever closer union is a headline aim of the EU. It wants to become a Unites States of Europe. It almost certainly will in due course. The process will take several more decades, slowed further by all its self-inflicted problems. A weak EU superstate will gradually emerge onto a much stronger world stage. An EU UK would be just one small region of that. We would be irrelevant, doing as we are told by un-elected bureaucrats from other countries, having a say only on unimportant local issues. Taxed heavily to subsidise other regions, without much representation at all.

Brexit UK would regain its sovereignty. It would make its own decisions, its own alliances, its own place in the world. There can be no pretense that we would ever again have the status once enjoyed by the British Empire, but we have enough national character to play our part well.

Independence and freedom are goals worth fighting for. Our leaders surrendered much over the last few decades, and our country has suffered the consequences. We once led the world, now our EU partners consider us mostly a nuisance. We still command some respect in the world, but it is diminishing year on year as our ability to self-govern is siphoned away. It is time to reclaim our freedom and to become a leader once more.

The Scots might argue for another referendum to leave. They are fortunate indeed that the last one failed, given what has happened to oil prices since. They would now be arguing over Greek style budgets. No canny Scot would vote to leave the UK next time knowing it would mean certain decline in standard of living.

I have tried to understand the mindset that says that a United States of Europe is a good idea. I don’t doubt that many people believe in it, and some of them for well-argued reasons. I have no doubt that we will see some of them articulate its merits during coming months, and I will listen to them, and in the unlikely event that they’ve got a convincing argument, I’ll change my mind. Until then, I can’t see what we can achieve all forced into a single country that we cant achieve by separate countries cooperating.

Islamification

Islamification needs a mention in its won right since it is a major challenge for Europe now and for several decades to come, specially since Europe otherwise was becoming far more secular. The EU intends to absorb Turkey in due course, an Islamic country. The Islamic minority in other countries in Europe will grow greatly, as millions of Muslims already in the EU before the migrant crisis are joined by the millions of migrants already arrived, on the way or coming later, and then later joined by their families. Much higher birth rates feature in the Islamic community than ‘native Europeans’. Even leaving aside terrorist threats from extremist subgroups, many attitude surveys have shown that most Muslims do not consider their culture compatible with western values. Even peaceful Islamification already creates significant tensions right across the EU, and that will increase as numbers increase. Far worse of course, Islamic extremism and activism will also increase in line with numbers, especially as growing communities become more emboldened. Resurgence of far right parties claiming to fight back against Islamification is already evident and will undoubtedly worsen. The two will eventually very likely be in conflict. I have written many times comparing Islamic extremism and its response with the IRA problem in Belfast where I grew up. Islamification will be a very significant problem in the EU in coming years. Having better control of our borders won’t stop it also affecting the UK, where I calculate it could potentially become 13 times worse than the IRA troubles give the right stimulus, but it will help prevent it from getting far worse.

Brexit UK will still have a significant problem from Islamic terrorism, but an EU UK will have a far worse one.

If Brexit, then what?

The Common Market no longer exists. It was a good idea and it could exist again. In fact, watching current fragmentation of the EU, with fences being erected, borders closed, arguments over migrants becoming fiercer, and watching the slow car crash collapse of the Euro, there is every chance that European union as it is today could collapse. If Britain leaves, some other countries will look at having such freedom again. It is very likely that Brexit could stimulate partial evaporation of the EU, and an end to the dream of a united States of Europe. Britain could form alliances with other countries leaving to establish a proper common market, determined to be no more than a common market.

The EU is already creaking, pushed by several forces. Brexit could be the end of a nightmare, and the resurgence of the dream of a Common Market of sovereign states.

If we stay, that collapse might happen anyway. The seeds of doubt have been planted, watered and much fertilizer will be poured on them in next months and years. The EU is weak and will get weaker. It may survive and the nightmare United States of Europe might happen. Britain staying might even encourage further progress towards that goal. But even if Brexit fails, there is still every reason to expect that the nightmare might end all on its own, that others will realize that what we all actually want is a Common Market, not all the other stuff.

Digital Halos

I enjoyed watching a few seconds of the Lady Gaga video from the Grammy’s where Intel used a projection system to display a spider crawling around her face along with Bowie images. State of the art today is dirt cheap tomorrow. So soon everyone will be doing that, projecting images and videos onto their faces. They will do that to look like other people too, as Gaga hinted. I do like Gaga. She may not have the advantage of being born the prettiest singer ever but she makes up for that 100-fold by her creativity and pushing boundaries in every way she can and making good use of tech. I love her music too.

I’ve written about digital or smart makeup lots of times so i won’t do that here. But another idea that springs to mind is the digital halo.

Some fog generators use water and ultrasonic transducers to create a fine mist, the sort of thing you see on indoor water features where fog tumbles down the ornament. Of course, some come with a bank of LEDs, because they can, and that makes pretty colors too. At least one trade show projection system uses a fine mist as a 3D projection medium too. Put these together, and you have the capability to make a fine mist around your head and project images onto it. I blogged that idea quite a while ago as a Star Wars projection in front of you, but imagine doing this as a sort of halo, a mist that surrounds your head and immerses it in visual effects. You could project a halo if you so desire, and it could be a single whitish color as tradition dictates, changing colors, patterns or images, or you could do the full thing and go for a full-blown video spectacular, and – haute to Family Guy –  you could accompany it with your personal theme too.

Taste seemingly has few boundaries, and it is frequently obvious that the lower echelons of bad taste often offer the greatest rewards. So I am confident that we will soon see people sporting the most hideously garish digital halos.

The greatest threat to human well-being? Sanctimony

Nuclear war became a tiny bit more feasible with yesterday’s rocket launch by North Korea, and it remains the biggest existential risk we face today. We could also be hit by a massive asteroid unexpectedly deflected out of its expected orbit, or a massive solar flare could take out our electronics, or hostile aliens might invade. Life as we know it could be very severely disrupted or even ended. Shit happens, but the probability of any one of these happening in a given year is low, so life carries on.

Far bigger risks exist that won’t kill everyone but will reduce quality of life in coming years, even as technology development theoretically enables an almost utopian existence. In spite of a wide range of complex interactions, the vast majority of these quality of life risks can ultimately be traced back to the same thing, the biggest single threat to human well-being. That thing is sanctimony.

Sanctimony is pretended holiness, and very often accompanied by hypocrisy:

‘Pretended, affected, or hypocritical religious devotion, righteousness, etc.’

‘Righteousness accompanied by an unwarranted attitude of moral or social superiority; smug or hypocritical righteousness.’

I first listed ’21st Century Piety’ as a big future problem in my World Futures Society conference presentation in 2000. The talk was called ‘the future of sex, politics and religion’ and I recognized that although Christianity was declining in the West, the religious bit of human nature certainly wasn’t going away and I identified the following as some of the more obvious 21st century religion substitutes:

Many others have also inferred pseudo-religious motivations in these. It is certainly possible to subscribe to any of these without being sanctimonious, but when they become religion substitutes, they do very often go together.

The need to feel a sense of inner worth is a fundamental part of human nature. Translating to Maslow’s insights, self-actualizing it leads to a desire to occupy the moral high ground, while coupling it to security, social belonging and status leads to very strong reinforcement loops that become sanctimony. The traits in my diagram often lead people to believe they are genuinely better than those who do not share them. That reinforced belief in their moral superiority gives them a further belief in their right to impose compliance on others.

No big surprise here. We see this every day now. Holier-than-thou people lecture us from every angle, they use social networks to gang up on non-compliers, they lobby to have laws passed to lock in their beliefs, reward their compliant status and punish any infidels.

We even have familiar phrases to describe everyday consequences of this 21st century piety, this sanctimony such as ‘political correctness gone mad’ and ‘virtue signalling’.

My blogs often pick up on the dangers of sanctimony. It is sanctimony that is pushing us hard towards 1984. It is sanctimony that threatens to result in a Great Western War. Sanctimony is the primary force driving acceptance of millions of migrants without first making sure of each one’s identity, security threat potential or social compatibility with western values while condemning anyone who questions this recklessness. The achievements of this sanctimony are responsible for the rise of the far right opposition, potential conflict across Europe, closing down of Schengen and the raising of borders and tensions. Sanctimony may well prove the force that kills the EU. Sanctimony is the force increasing the divide between left and right in the USA and Europe. Sanctimony is the driving force behind the EU’s attempt to absorb the Ukraine, resulting in conflict with Russia. Sanctimony is reducing the pleasures of eating by legislating, taxing, removing or otherwise reducing things not deemed holy enough by the bishops of food, and their Pope Jamie Oliver. Sanctimony drives the major flaws and corruptions in climate science. Sanctimony forces the poorest people from their homes and drives up the cost of their food so that western environmentalists can have their carbon reductions. Sanctimony chops down the rainforests and drains peat bogs to make biofuels. Sanctimony plants solar panels on prime agricultural land while people starve. Sanctimony forces you via speed cameras to drive far slower than your ability allows, to get less pleasure from driving and still to feel guilty about it. Sanctimony causes increased loneliness and isolation for those not holy enough. Sanctimony censors and destroys knowledge, both historical and future. Sanctimony impedes cultural and social development. Sanctimony destroys personal liberty. Sanctimony makes the future into a gilded cage.

Nuclear war might kill you but probably won’t. Sanctimony is already killing many people and destroying many lives. It is making your life more difficult, more stressful, more problematic, less enjoyable, and it is just warming up. 21st Century piety may be a religion substitute, but sanctimony makes its converts show every bit as much zeal as the Spanish Inquisition. And no-one is safe because values don’t stay the same for long, but change on a random walk:

https://timeguide.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/an-almost-random-walk-for-civilisation/

However holy you may think you are today, you will likely be an outcast before you get old, as I argued in

https://timeguide.wordpress.com/2015/05/22/morality-inversion-you-will-be-an-outcast-before-youre-old/

Sanctimony is far and away the greatest threat to human well-being. It has no permanent friends. It rewards someone on the moral high ground today, and burns them on a stake tomorrow.

 

 

Inspired by the Doomsday Clock, the 1984 clock is at July 1st 1983

The Doomsday clock was recently re-assessed and stays at 23.57. See http://thebulletin.org/timeline

I have occasionally written or ranted about 1984. The last weeks have taken us a little closer to Orwell’s dystopian future. So, even though we are long past 1984, the basket of concepts it introduces is well established in common culture.

The doomsday committee set far too pessimistic a time. Nuclear war and a few other risks are significant threats, and extinction level events are possible, but they are far from likely. My own estimate puts the combined risk from all threats growing to around 2% by about 2050. That is quite pessimistic enough I think, but surely that would give us reason to act, but doesn’t justify the level of urgency that extinction is happening any minute now. 11pm would have been quite enough to be a wake-up call but not enough to look like doom-mongering.

So I won’t make the same mistake with my 1984 clock. Before we start working out the time, we need to identify those ideas from 1984 that will be used. My choice would be:

Hijacking or perversion of language to limit debate and constrain it to those views considered acceptable

Use of language while reporting news of events or facts that omits, conceals, hides, distorts or otherwise impedes clear vision of inconvenient aspects of the truth while emphasizing those events, views or aspects that align with acceptable views

Hijacking or control of the media to emphasize acceptable views and block unacceptable ones

Making laws or selecting judiciary according to their individual views to achieve a bias

Blocking of views considered unacceptable or inconvenient by legal or procedural means

Imposing maximum surveillance, via state, social or private enterprises

Encouraging people to police their contacts to expose those holding or expressing inconvenient or unacceptable views

Shaming of those who express unacceptable views as widely as possible

Imposing extreme sanctions such as loss of job or liberty on those expressing unacceptable views

That’s enough to be going on with. Already, you should recognize many instances of each of these flags being raised in recent times. If you don’t follow the news, then I can assist you by highlighting a few instances, some as recent as this week. Please note that in this blog, I am not siding for or against any issue in the following text, I am just considering whether there is evidence of 1984. I make my views on the various issue very clear when I write blogs about those issues.

The Guardian has just decided to bar comments on any articles about race, Muslims, migrants or immigration. It is easy to see why they have done so even if I disagree with such a policy, but nonetheless it is a foundation stone in their 1984 wall.

Again on the migrant theme, which is a very rich seam for 1984 evidence, Denmark, Germany and Sweden have all attempted to censor  news of the involvement of migrants or Muslims in many recent attacks. Further back in time, the UK has had problems with police allowing child abuse to continue rather than address it because of the racial/religious origins of the culprits.

Choice of language by the media has deliberately conflated ‘migrants’ with ‘refugees’, conflated desperation  to escape violent oppression with searching for a wealthier life, and excessively biased coverage towards those events that solicit sympathy with migrants.

Moving to racism, Oriel College has just had an extremely embarrassing climb-down from considering removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes, because he is considered racist by today’s standards by some students. Attempting to censor history is 1984-ish but so is the fact that involvement of the campaign instigators in their own anti-white racism such as links to the Black Supremacy movement has been largely concealed.

Attempted hijacking of language by the black community is evident in the recent enforcement of the phrase ‘people of color’, and illogical and highly manufactured simultaneous offence at use of the term ‘colored’. The rules only apply to white commentators, so it could be considered a black supremacy power struggle rather than an attempt to deal with any actual anti-black racism. Meanwhile, here in the UK, ‘black’ and ‘people of color’ seem both to be in equally common use so far.

David Cameron and some ministers have this week accused Oxford University of racism because it accepts too few black students. A range of potential causes were officially suggested but none include any criticism of the black community such as cultural issues that devalue educational achievement. In the same sentence, Cameron implied that it necessarily racist that a higher proportion of blacks are in prison. There was no mention that this could be caused by different crime incidence, as is quickly learned by inspection of official government statistics. This 1984-style distortion of the truth by marketing spin is one of Cameron’s most dominant characteristics.

Those statistics are inconvenient and ignoring them is 1984-ish already, but further 1984 evidence is that some statistics that show certain communities in a bad light are no longer collected.

Europe is another are where 1984-style operations are in vogue. Wild exaggeration of the benefits of staying in and extreme warnings of the dangers of leaving dominate most government output and media coverage. Even the initial decision to word the referendum question with a yes and no answer to capitalise on the well-known preference for voting yes is an abuse of language, but that at least was spotted early and the referendum question has been reworded with less bias, though ‘remain’ can still be considered a more positive word than ‘leave’ and remain still takes the first place on the voting slip, so it is still biased in favor of staying in the EU.

Gender is another area where language hijacking is becoming a key weapon. Attempts to force use of the terms ‘cis’ and ‘trans’ accompany attempts to pretend that the transgender community is far larger than reality. Creation of the term ‘transphobic’ clearly attempts to build on the huge success of the gay equality movement’s use of the term homophobic. This provides an easy weapon to use against anyone who doesn’t fully back all of the transgender community’s demands. Very 1984. As recently pointed out by Melanie Phillips, UK government response to such demands has been very politically correct, and will needlessly magnify the numbers experiencing gender dysphoria, but being accompanied by a thorough lack of understanding of the trans community, will very likely make things worse for many genuine transgender people.

As for surveillance, shaming, career destruction etc., we all see how well Twitter fills that role all by itself. Other media and the law add to that, but social media backlash is already a massive force even without official additions.

Climate change has even become a brick in the 1984 wall. Many media outlets censor views from scientists that don’t agree that doom caused by human emissions of CO2 is imminent. The language used, with words such as ‘denier’ are similarly evidence of 1984 influence.

Enough examples. If you look for them, you’ll soon spot them every day.

What time to set out clock then? I think we already see a large momentum towards 1984, with the rate of incidents of new policies pushing that direction increasing rapidly. A lot of pieces are already in place, though some need shaped or cemented. We are not there yet though, and we still have some freedom of expression, still escape being locked up for saying the wrong thing unless it is extreme. We don’t quite have the thought police, or even ID cards yet. I think we are close, but not so close we can’t recover. Let’s start with a comfortable enough margin so that movement in either direction can be taken account of in future assessments. We are getting close though, so I don’t want too big a margin. 6 month might be a nice compromise, then we can watch as it gets every closer without the next piece of evidence taking us all the way.

The 1984 clock is at July 1st 1983.