Neil Postman argued in 1985 that we worry about the wrong things. We expect Orwell's 1984 when the real danger is Huxley's Brave New World. Here are some thoughts from his book "Amusing Ourselves To Death"...

"...in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. "

"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. "

"Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance."

"As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny 'failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.'"

In a world seemingly managed by reality TV stars with a bafflingly shallow understanding of facts, an unparallelled capacity for attractive bullshit and no obvious competence to counterbalance those flaws, he might have been right.