It's rare, but sometimes I do wonder with some patients.

It's obviously somewhat unarguable if it's just the more ideological "they're listening to all of us and generally invading our privacy." Usually then I'm just like, "TRUTH, but also please either put the pants back on or go to your room."

But then there'll be a woman who says the voices telling her to wash her hands until she bleeds are a symptom of the black magic her ex is using to track her. And I'm like: girl, u crazy about the black magic thing. All they need is a fuckin' AirTag, and he probably is tracking you. So then you call the cops to take down the report, and they're like, "We can't arrest the dude for black magic." And it's like, no shit, she's bonkers. But could you at least double-check that the dude isn't stalking her?

There are so many patients who tell me super fractured stories. They're impossible to untangle in a way that could even approach a formal pursuit of justice. But based on the details they're able to express coherently, I genuinely wonder if the story is true.

Um, actually, in 1984 the government spies on you through your TV, but in real life, corporations spy on you through your TV and the government intercepts the internet traffic and/or asks the corporations for the data, so it's obviously completely different.

We have known ever since snowden, but people kinda just pretended that never happened.

They were called "screens". I don't have a smart tv...i have a kick ass dumb tv that works just fine.

Yeah we didn't learn shit from that book.

That being said, it's easily one of the more important books I've ever read.

Also, the MapQuest app just added a surveillance layer. I swapped a month or so ago when Google bowed to their pedo god over the whole Lake Ontario thing. It's honestly a great app and gets me from point A to point B just as well as Google Maps. Anyway, I checked the surveillance layer yesterday and we are literally surrounded by surveillance cameras. It's terrifying.

Still is in my house. TVs are separate from streaming devices. No remote or speaker has a mic in it. Phones and laptops have mic and video permissions off if not in use.

Do I expect someone is listening? Yes but they are at the nation state level and ain't willing to risk their tools for less than national level threats.

We are living in the age where dystopia is being built up and all we can do is write witty comments online about it.

Its an interesting life experience and our generation will be the last young ones who didn't grow up in dystopia. 20 years from now, the west will be exactly how we think it will be.

Get a pi-hole

The difference was that Orwell's TVs could not be turned off, whereas today people won't turn them off.

They have ears, and eyes, and noses, and skin, and tongues. They can absolutely perceive everything you do, and tell it to the enemies of the people. It's frightening the moment we're living.

Years ago,

[Bad Russian accent] In Soviet Rrrussia, TV watches you!