The amusing irony is that both Huxley and Orwell imagined that governments would have to impose things on us, whereas the reality is we rush out and spend our own money to acquire the devices that enslave us. We're just baboons stroking shiny flickering screens, with no agency over our own lives. Now we could, in theory if not in practice, toss aside these shimmering distractions. But we won't, because who'd be crazy enough to risk missing a text or watching the latest episode of Toxic Housepersons of Beverley Hills?