A lot of great stuff in here.

1. The term came from a dystopian fictional epic called "1984" by George Orwell. It's not a shocker that people thought it was pure fiction, relegated to the realm of "conspiracy theorists" as a quick way to dismiss the idea.

It's interesting how that works. Whether or not intentional, it essentially conditions people to this possibility.

And then when it starts to be like "dude.. uh, this is kinda scary, check this out", the response can be like oh you mean like Big Brother type of things? lul

So it's like people have a built-in straw man ready to go whenever they hear something they should be concerned about.

Now, instead of people speaking about reality and sounding like they were "nut jobs" or whatever other dismissive remark used to deny reality people don't want to honestly look into, people who are speaking about the big brother surveillance state are being listened to by other people and paid attention to for speaking about reality.

Ya, a lot of the things that would be "tin foil hat talk" and mocked even like 10 years are just obviously realistic now.

I feel like it was hard for statists to anticipate this, because they don't see the government as a system of aggression looking out for its own growth and survival. They imagine it working how they want it to work, like that it's bound by standards and decency.

In reality it's just perfectly natural for it to happen this way. The stakes are large, and as things become more sophisticated, data like this is a tool or weapon, and they won't just not use it if it gives them a leg up on the competition, or other potential competition.