Part of why early dystopic fiction seems different is due to the assumption that tyrants are efficient rather than accepting the reality that tyrants are by their nature highly inefficient (and sometimes ineffective) rulers. Computers just make it more obvious how stupidity and incompetent they are. And I’m thankful since despite all the problems computers bring with them (all the chaff they throw into a sea of facts) it makes it easier to break the system as is. Tyrants can’t rule if they can’t give orders but the system itself now makes those orders kinda like how Brazil’s premise starts with a stuttering printer.
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