2025 = 1984

Are we living in George Orwell's world?

You might be puzzled by the title of my post, thinking that I’m comparing two numbers, and that I’m asking a question (even though there is no question mark, in many computer languages, it appears that I’m asking you to logically compare two whole numbers (2025 and 1984) and asking whether the number on the left-hand side of the equation is equal to the number on the right-hand side. In that case, the answer would be False (or perhaps 0, depending on the language) because the implicit assumption is that the two numbers are not equal to each other.

Another possibility: The most famous NFL Super Bowl ad aired during Super Bowl XVIII, on January 22, 1984, between the Los Angeles Raiders and the Washington Redskins (the prior name of the Washington Commanders). Apple introduced the MacIntosh computer in 1984. The idea was that the Mac would be the upstart challenger to Microsoft’s PC. The look and feel of the commercial was similar to the 1984 movie. Actually, I don’t know whether the ad inspired the movie or the movie inspired the ad. It’s hard to believe that was 21 years ago.

Actually, neither of these are the comparison I’m looking for. My real intent is to compare the year 2025 with the year 1984. Of course, I didn’t tell you beforehand, so your brain would naturally default to a numeric comparison.

I need to revise my question. I’m not asking a question that can be answered mathematically. I have a specific context in mind, namely “how does the year 2025 compare with the year 1984?”.

Of course, the answer depends upon some additional context. In this case, 2025 is the current year, and 1984 is 41 years ago, and I am asking you to compare your feelings about these two years. Many of you, I’m sure, were not born yet in 1984, and so you can’t answer the question. In any case, what does it mean to compare two years? We tend to do this sort of comparison on or around the New Year holiday, where one year transitions to the next year, and you might compare some attributes (your height, weight, job status, income, marital status, geographic location, and so on) that changed or that you want to change (losing or gaining weight, for example) and you make a New Years Resolution, intending to stick to your goal, and, more likely, to abandon the resolution within a week or two.

Actually, I didn’t just pick these years randomly. After an interval of more than 60 years, I decided to re-read 1984 by George Orwell. Orwell created a fictional world (he’s now more like an adjective - Orwellian - instead of an actual person). I’ve talked with many people, some of whom characterized 2025 using the term “Orwellian”, in which they feel that the world of 2025 resembles the world Orwell describes in 1984, disjointed, out of sorts, dystopian, otherworldly, and so on. It’s a world where:

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

I am adding 2025 = 1984. Your age doesn’t matter because I’m asking you whether or not your feelings about the year 2025 (not the whole year 2025, but the present moment) compare with your feelings about the world Orwell created in 1948. He reversed the last two digits of the year because 1984 was, to him, the future, while 1984 is, to us, nearly half a century in the past.

My idea would be similar to an online discussion group centered around the book.

Please share your thoughts in the comments!