Prism and edward snowden sealed that for me a while back.

Yep. I have a Yahoo! email. The NSA has already read all my personal correspondence.

Edit: I suppose "read" is a bit of a strong word. How about "processed," or "scanned"? [0]

--- [0]:http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yahoo-nsa-exclusive-idUSKC...

We have been living in a dystopian sci-fi novel since 2001.

We have been living in a dystopian sci-fi novel since 1945.

Yep. 1. Cities destroyed by atomic weapons 2. Rockets 3. Computers 4. A dystopian one party nation state murdering millions of it's own (murdering en masse is nothing new but usually there was some excuse - soviet system brought state instituted terror to a whole new levem).

> usually there was some excuse - soviet system brought state instituted terror to a whole new levem [sic]

Perhaps on an absolute basis, the Soviets were the worst, but on a relative-to-population basis history is littered with meaningless massacre.

I agree, yet, I don't think there is anything intellectually dishonest in counting human suffering in absolute measures. Yes, we can identify historical patterns, but individual humans are not just playing out a manifestation of social dynamics, they are living their life. The heart and mind are equal in gauging the world - just different aspects of it.

We have been living in a dystopian sci-fi novel since 33 AD. Or, if you prefer, 66 million years ago.

Yes but I think the velocity of Dystopianism since 2001 might be much greater than anything experienced before then.

The massive stockpiling of nuclear weapons that began is kind of on league of it's own. The western electorate has been taken on a ride since national suffrage became a thing (before that they had very little power thus no rides were necessary - ditto for non-democratic states)

Please reread what wrote. I am not stating that it didn't exist much earlier. I was simply saying that the velocity of it has seemed to increase since 2001.