Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" and a nice example of data visualization

My first - well, second, to be precise - reading of Orwell's work has been "Nineteen Eighty-Four", one of his two most famous novels. He wrote it between 1947 and 1948, towards the end of his rather short life -Orwell died of Tuberculosis in 1950; a sickness that, thankfully, very few years later became curable in many cases. Sick and all, it seems to me that Mr. Orwell possessed a brilliant brain and an enviable gift for putting complex thoughts into simple, clear words with a clear meaning. He had rather strong opinions about the subject of language: read his essay "Politics and the English Language" to see what I mean.   

Orwell imagined a terrifying future for humanity in his "Nineteen Eighty-Four" novel. In 1984 the world is divided in three big nations that are constantly, endlessly at war; where governments are totally authoritarian and untruthful, most of the population barely struggles to survive, there's no freedom even to think and, most terrible, where there is absolutely no hope for a brighter future.

I suppose Orwell, shall he had lived a longer life, would have been glad to see that his imaginary "Nineteen Eighty-Four" did actually not became a reality, at least the scale he envisioned it in his novel.

Unfortunately in today's world there's still war, poverty, ignorance, lack of freedom, hidden agendas, greed for power, brutality...and a long etc. of terrible in-human behaviours and situations that are present in Orwell's novel. In this sense Orwell's message is as actual as ever.

I do not want to finish this post without sharing a video that I happened to visualize while reading "Nineteen Eighty-Four" . Typically, I keep IT-related topics separate from my "out of work" readings, but this time I'll make an exception. The short video embedded below is a powerful and beautiful example of data visualization techniques. It gives us a glimpse into economic and health growth in the last 200 years. Look at the second part of the 20th century: thankfully, the real political and economical situation at the end of the century looked much brighter than that in Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four"! Enjoy the still one-way "telescreen"!