Rant: Technology, Your New Prison Cell
This is not a title you see very often. Why would I say this? Technology has always been used in man-kind. Whoever utilized technology & tools were always better off than those who did not–how could it be otherwise? Well it comes down to who is in control of it.
I am not a technophobe in so much that I don’t have a complete understanding of how it works. However, the more I learn, it seems quite obvious that we don’t own much of anything in the social tech sphere outside of our own personal data which everybody is willing to sell for free. As of the last 10 years, it is obvious that social media apps, new tech innovations and social media apps appear to be entertaining tools for us; but perhaps they are far more useful tools for governments (as you may have noticed with elections).
Just like in the movie Brazil, there is a double-edge sword of technology promoted by the state as a means of protecting you from outside threats at the cost of losing your privacy and value as an individual; the characters are nothing more than numbers on a spreadsheet.
Internet Freedom in a Shrinking Phase
What we’re seeing all around the world, facilitated primarily by the CIA and their cut-out agencies is the censorship, blocking and complete shut down (with severe penalties) of anything resembling populist, right-wing or “dissident” towards the existing socialist regimes. Many people ask, “when will people wake up?”. The truth is, most of the world already has woken up. They see they are over-regulated, over taxed, that immigration is killing their country, that the economy is shrinking at the hand of the fascist state, that the banks are tyrannical & insolvent, etc. etc.
Your average person paying attention wants to return to something amounting to patriotism, nationalism and the reduced influence of government in their lives, especially foreign governments. However this doesn’t fly too well with the CIA and their affiliates who wish to keep their existing power structures in place. The result is that they’re winding back the freedoms associated with the internet and flipping them to be tools of mass surveillance, censorship, of guilt & destruction of ones’ income earning prospects. Research does show that very influential people becoming censored does significantly reduce their traffic flow. Look at Brazil right now:
In Singapore, everything is online and has a record. It’s pure dystopia. The politicians know who you voted for and will use this against you. It seems simple for us, but you have to be careful
Source in Asia
Everything Else
As for the new & catchy forms of tech, everybody is forfeiting their data willingly to their own demise as an individual. What’s so pathetic is the promises of “liberation” are so shallow and weak–and people seem to go ahead with it anyway. It’s scary to see such a lack of backbone
You may hear:
- I need to have all my financial and health information sent to the internet for public viewing or data analysis. Its the law.
- I need to partake in the “Internet of Things” whereby Google has monopolistic power over all your information–that’s how you stay connected and relevant!
- No TV or Social Media? How do you figure out what to believe everyday?
- IPhone? Oh yea I remember those, yea, that’s weird you didn’t even need to wear a headset to use one of them. Holding that thing was so cumbersome before.
- You walk down the street with an actual dog? We take Skippy the Robot for a walk for our exercise, it’s much better cause you don’t have to pick up after it.
- I need to be able to start my car from speaking while inside my house. It’s a must have.
- Roadtrips? Why are you polluting for no reason?
You know exactly what type of person I’m talking about when you’re reading this–the upcoming generation who are completely detached from what real freedom offered. The freedoms of 1990 were nothing compared to 50 years before it and so on. In fact, I question whether they would even enjoy it. I know many many Canadians who are quite literally scared by the prospect of being free & having to own personal responsibility.
More Crazy Ideas
- I need to fit in to have a Siri or Alexa that listens in to all my conversations so I can get things done faster, plus it’s tax season! Bugging my own house? That’s conspiracy theory talk!
- I need to have a pension, otherwise, who is going to look after me when I’m older!
- I need to make sure I am saving the entire planet by being hooked onto the energy grid that is completely controlled by someone other than me. Besides, I don’t consume gas for cooking my vegetables because the less meat there is the better it is for the “greater good”
- It won’t come up on the internet searches? That’s probably for your own good since you don’t go learning something you don’t or shouldn’t need to know. I should only hear from state-sponsored sources of information anyway, they’re the ones who know.
- Oh a Central Bank Digital Currency? You mean the thing that can never go bust? That’s better than dumb cryptocurrency where you can lose everything! If the government can block all my transactions to whomever, whenever, wherever, than it will ensure I’m a good citizen that way plus I’m financially secure.
- What about Privacy? You only need privacy if you’re doing something a bad person would do
The end result will be that everybody tuned into the grid will be completed isolated from history, the real functioning economy around them & data/scientific results to the point where they will be like a semi-version of North Koreans. To use an analogy, it will be like they are stuck in their artificially created matrix. Future generations will encounter new stimuli & think it must be inherently racist, homophobic, sexist, anti-semitic, anti-muslim, xenophobic, etc. Their ideas of “believe authority” is contaminated in the culture. Why would anybody seek to break free if they cannot see they are in a trap to begin with?
Anecdote
How many people have you come across where they need to receive a code or a text in order to access their own account? How many of you crypto bros out there have had a single trouble with a wallet? How many counter-party risks have you assumed using technology where it requires a 2nd authentication method that simply impedes you from engaging with that form of technology. How many times has the use of a phone made it longer and more complicated than the traditional way. I have a rule where if anybody asks me to scan a QR code for the menu (which works only about half of the time) I will never return to eat at that restaurant again; so far I’ve stuck by that personal rule.
We Won’t Become More Computer Literate
The current trend is that despite more people than ever creating their IP address to the web, it will not make anybody anymore literate or knowledgeable in the back-end inputs that are required to create or fix such technological device. Imagine going to a nice restaurant and ordering a 4-course meal; it doesn’t mean that you suddenly know how to grow/harvest that food nor cook & prepare it–and I’d have to say that cooking is far simpler than computer software (sorry chefs). I kid you not, I’ve seen a half-dozen homeless people in Mexico (already a poor country) with the latest cell-phone.
In order for adoption of technology to take hold in widespread ways, it becomes apparent that the user-interface will have to increasingly look dissimilar to a computer. Your refrigerator and your automobile are both computers–however on the outside you cannot tell. Imagine getting into your Tesla and you see Command Control–C:/Drive on the screen.
The consequence is a paradox whereby more and more users can engage with technology but fewer and fewer understand it to any degree whatsoever. It’s trap that widens to encompass more and more people. The buttons become easier, brighter, simpler, wider. Think of the movie Idiocracy.
Latest examples
Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock is a huge proponent of tokenization and utilizing a blockchain technology. It seems to me that they are moving towards using this as the basis of the new derivatives to hit financial markets. As an example, if one were to buy a house, they wouldn’t need to go through the bureaucracy of the bank nor even have to come up with the cash to own it (cause these people hate the freedom of cash). Instead, you would own fragments of home ownership that is displayed publicly on the blockchain. Your ownership, the value, your life, the items in the house, your assets would be available for public display as you made an endless number of payments where it’s near impossible to own the underlying asset. Remember the “you’ll own nothing and be happy” slogan?
Just like the Bitcoin crowd unequivocally accepting anything positive and rejecting anything negative, it would be somewhat easy to implement such an idea to financialize their lives in this way. This is kind of being done right now. Where?
In China.
The most dystopian item yet has to be the Orb that provides you with WorldCoin. In many countries around the planet already, it is a orb ball that appears like the eye of Sauron to scan your iris. After exchanging your biometric data (which links to a code held on an app that the World Economic Forum owns), you are issued with some garbage cryptocurrency. I think prostitution is a better form of selling your body, personally.
European nations in conjunction with the Anglo 5 eyes (UK, Australia, NZ, Canada & USA) are particularly aggressive in pursuing these social credit like policies. The use of a digital ID in Europe laid the foundation for this exact goal–to unify individuals based upon their medical, travel, consumption, income, tax, voting, biometric & personal interest data. Cattle farmers are aware as they’re regulated to ear tag their livestock–that is, until they are sent to the meat grinder. The same applies here.
Solutions
I’ve been fortunate enough to have travelled to many countries (perhaps if you see the list). I try to get far “off-resort” to get a feel for the living standards of the average citizen. I’ve been to the poorest areas in 3rd world countries (can’t say I recommend it!). It is 100% the case that they do not have the willingness or capacity to enforce dystopian technological measures because they often don’t have the money and/or the government is so dysfunctional that is simply doesn’t have the resources. The good news is you don’t have to downgrade that far before you find some sort of normalcy.
In fact, what I’ve been telling family and friends is that these dystopian policies are largely a “Western” problem. Nevertheless, it stands that when the world is creating bad, dangerous policies ironically you want to be a place that is incapable of implementing such policies. They do not have the wealth, orderliness nor the focus to listen-in on every citizen.
One immediate action you can take if you’re looking for a Plan B or new Plan A that we covered in this article here is to seek out countries that very much hold true to being a “cash-society”. Hungary, Mexico, Colombia, Serbia, Argentina are some places that come to mind.
It’s a backwards way of thought whereby the country that is more old-fashioned & tangible has less means to disturb your way of life–but I believe it will ring true as bankrupt governments try to tax their own subjects into oblivion. Choose Wisely!
Closing
Technology going mainstream may be caught in this strange feedback loop whereby fewer and fewer individuals are aware on how to create, write, edit, modify code or how technology truly operates as the more adopt it. Selling new innovations as a tool to make your life simpler is the cheap temptation which will become a costly decision. Both trends provide for a more centralized control over such technology who can then dictate people’s lives with god-like power.
To negate the integration of all your personal data, it could be, that the countries or areas that remain ‘simpler’ may be the ideal spots to live/operate. These poorer places can still withdraw from human intellect and creativity. Those who operate with such machinery may hold the basic knowledge of its use because you are actively choosing to adopt that technology–in other more “advanced” countries, it is imposed upon them.
If they [government] do replace the transactional items such as cash (which is required to sustain everyday life like food/shelter) then you very much are shuttled into this digital arena where they’ll be complete control on what you spend your money on, when & where. Ironically, having a backpack full of cash (even if it’s a crappy currency like the Colombian Peso) breaks you from this geophysical grasp.
If you want to address the problem accurately, you have to acknowledge the rise of the state’s role in every aspect of the economy, the financial system, the legal system and in everyone’s lives. Technology is an effective source of getting the job done, but it’s counterproductive if the “job to be done” is to infringe upon every aspect of your freedom.
#StayOnTheBall
