Eight predictions from George Orwell’s books that are beginning to come true

The world crises of the last decade resemble the fruit of someone’s cruel fantasy. And from time to time, you feel like you’ve seen it somewhere. That's it! Orwell’s scandalous novel “1984” has gathered in its pages a lot of frightening predictions of the future, which are already coming true. The author of the famous dystopia described modern society and technology as if he had seen them with his own eyes. We talk about the most shocking coincidences.



George Orwell lived only 47 years, but left a monumental legacy in the form of his novels, short stories, novels and essays. Careful readers of the novel “1984” managed to find 8 predictions of the writer, which have already come true. It's really impressive!

This poisonous feeling led the characters of the novel to war, totalitarianism, restriction of freedoms and secret conspiracies. Because of the hatred of themselves and society, people have crossed the line and started to destroy themselves with the help of technology. They used genetic engineering for purposeful programming. They destroyed the educational system and the institution of family and marriage.

The concept of the Cold War came into use thanks to British prose. It marked a comprehensive manifestation of the hatred of peoples towards each other.



In the Orwellian universe, there are only 3 large states left: Eurasia, Oceania and Ostasia. There was a military conflict between the two countries at any time. So, every 4 years Oceania changed the enemy and the official doctrine, and employees of the Ministry of Truth cleaned up and replaced the data in the documents.

“Oceania has always been at war with Ostasia!” the propaganda broadcast. And just a week before that, she was allied with her and was fighting Eurasia. But no one could prove it - there is no evidence on paper!

What's going on today? The major world states are engaged in a non-stop battle for resources and minds, with no end in sight.

The creator of “1984” tells about some “telecranes”. They look like big TVs and stand in every home and public place. With their help, the government spreads its ideas among the population. And by means of “telecranes” the citizens of Oceania are monitored by a repressive body – “thought police”. Devices can recognize faces, facial expressions and identify conspirators.



These days, high technology has also learned to recognize faces and speech. Any craftsman with malicious intent can hack them to follow a person.

In 2014, Facebook was at the center of a scandal. He was accused of commercial wiretapping. While the user updated the status, the app automatically recognized TV shows and music to then show the appropriate ads. Google and Apple voice assistants are listening to us all day long.

"Big Brother is watching you." In 1984, Big Brother appears as a global overseer who punishes defiance. Posters with his image looked at the inhabitants of Oceania from all walls. Wherever a man went, Big Brother’s eyes watched him without letting go.

A similar tactic was used by North Korean propagandists in 2018. Posters with Kim Jong-un urged people to work harder. And the eyes of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez watched the people of the country from all the walls of houses and billboards.



Perhaps Orwell's most eerie prediction concerns the search for truth. The writer was afraid that she would cease to interest anyone or simply drown in information noise.

According to the plot of the novel, the government of Oceania regularly falsified data and deleted undesirable historical facts. All the dirty work was done by the Ministry of Truth.

This is what some countries are doing today. They use history as a political tool to justify their imperialist plans. People do not want to double-check the data. It embraces ideology and becomes the perpetrator of mass crimes.

Another example of erasing history is the implementation of the law on the right to be forgotten. Thanks to it, anyone can demand to remove information defaming him from search engines.



Roman Orwell describes huge floating fortresses that “absorbed as much labor as would go into building several hundred cargo ships.” These unsinkable military bases "defended strategic naval communications points."

Their modern embodiment is aircraft carriers and artificial islands, where airports, docks, military bases, helipads, resorts and shopping centers are located. So, in 2015, China launched the development of such a platform longer than 3 km. The United States and Japan have also explored similar projects.



Wikimedia Artificial intelligence and the transformation of voice into text In the novel, we find mention of the prototypes of artificial intelligence. Thus, the instrument “versifier” created literature and music according to the standards of the ruling party without human participation. True, it was enough only for astrology, criminal chronicles, low-grade chaptushki, sports reports and scruffy films. Today, AI is famously trained on images that we pass through a special application.

The main character of the story used in the work “recipe”. This device recognized the recorded speech and output it in the form of text on the “telescreen”. Such functions are performed by modern bots and decryptors. Not perfect yet, but these apps can learn too.



The government of Oceania has invented a unique adverb “newspeak”. It removed all the words objectionable to party ideology, retaining the general grammatical rules. Politicians have created a new lexicon to impose a position on the population. Newspeak was supposed to reduce "thought crimes" - harmful thoughts associated with the words "freedom" and "equality."

After the outbreak of a full-scale war, its “newspeak” appeared in Russia. He helped justify the invasion, downplayed economic problems, and smoothed out front-line failures. “Clapping and smoke” instead of explosions and fires, “goodwill gesture” instead of admitting defeat are just one of many examples.



We want to believe that modern society will be able to maintain some sanity. And the message of the master will help to draw the right conclusions and return peace and love to our children and grandchildren.