Pro tip: If you find large mysterious eggs on a derelict space ship, ALWAYS inspect them very closely. They tend to contain some really cool stuff. Mind-blowing, transcendental best stuff ever. I’m talking, like, way too legit to be legit, feel me? If you see movement inside, be sure to place your head close to the top of the egg. You should try to smell the egg or even give it a lick.
There are indeed many eerie similarities. Both books got many themes correct, even though the exact details were wrong. BNW isn’t as popular and well known as 1984, and that’s why the latter still gets all the attention. If people knew BNW, they would be referencing it all the time, since modern life is pretty messed up even by BNW standards.
Currently we live in a world where neither book became completely true. However, bits and pieces from both did. Nowadays there’s all sorts of enjoyment and distraction easily available, and it seems to partially take the role soma has in BNW.
Those are some important principles. Recently, I’ve been thinking about following this method in a completely different context.
Using a privacy-respecting phone is entirely doable as long as you don’t need to interact with certain parts of the modern world. In 2010, such problems didn’t exist, but mobile Linux wasn’t available for this kind of use. Nowadays it is, but the world around it has moved on, and what’s required for a daily driver of a normie has changed radically.
So here’s how to adapt: Get some basic Android phone and use it for doing the few necessities that don’t work on a FOSS-based phone. That Android is just a skeleton. There’s nothing too personal, and you don’t use it for anything unless absolutely necessary. Same as that Gmail idea, but adapted.