Vaccine Mandates a Slippery Slope towards the Surveillance State and Mark of the Beast

[nett]

China has been a totalitarian regime for 70 years. Technology has nothing to do with it. They were just as totalitarian before the invention of digital IDs as after. Before digital technology they used low-tech methods like official stamps in your internal passport or ration book. Same exact result. They controlled what you could buy, where you could go, etc.

My point was just how convenient such tools are to any would-be tyrants.
Worded poorly, maybe. " ... such a potential threat to freedom."

Every single technology ever invented can be a tool to would-be tyrants.

Cell phones
Highways
Guns
Centralized distribution systems like airport and seaports
Banks
Computers
Radio
Television
Internal combustion engine.

We would have to dial civilization back to the Stone Age if you want to avoid any technologies that might help tyrants. And even then we would still have tyrants.

Everything you listed there is modern industrial age, I think rolling back to the Renaissance would be sufficient, which isn't sounding so bad right about now.

Yes there will always be tyrants, does that mean everyone should sign up to be completely dependent on the luxuries and conveniences the tyrants control and offer in exchange for totalitarian control? probably not.

Tyrants have always ruled by making everyone into little mini tyrants ie. acting completely selfishly, if you opt out of their system, they lose their power. Today is no different.

[Ken]

My point was just how convenient such tools are to any would-be tyrants.
Worded poorly, maybe. " ... such a potential threat to freedom."

Every single technology ever invented can be a tool to would-be tyrants.

Cell phones
Highways
Guns
Centralized distribution systems like airport and seaports
Banks
Computers
Radio
Television
Internal combustion engine.

We would have to dial civilization back to the Stone Age if you want to avoid any technologies that might help tyrants. And even then we would still have tyrants.

Everything you listed there is modern industrial age, I think rolling back to the Renaissance would be sufficient, which isn't sounding so bad right about now.

Yes there will always be tyrants, does that mean everyone should sign up to be completely dependent on the luxuries and conveniences the tyrants control and offer in exchange for totalitarian control? probably not.

Tyrants have always ruled by making everyone into little mini tyrants ie. acting completely selfishly, if you opt out of their system, they lose their power. Today is no different.

Well, the Romans controlled their enormous empire by building roads. All roads lead to Rome is what they used to say.

And banks certainly go back to the Renaissance and before. They were an essential tool for building autocratic empires. They financed all the armies of the city states of Europe as well as the exploration/exploitation of the Americas and Asia. Without banks you don't have the conquistadors.

[Josh]

Every single technology ever invented can be a tool to would-be tyrants.

Cell phones
Highways
Guns
Centralized distribution systems like airport and seaports
Banks
Computers
Radio
Television
Internal combustion engine.

We would have to dial civilization back to the Stone Age if you want to avoid any technologies that might help tyrants. And even then we would still have tyrants.

This is one of those rather amusing situations where I can cite the experts as, well, disagreeing with you. They agree with me that these sort of technologies enable a much more pernicious and invasive kind of tyranny.

(cf. people ranging from Andrew Willard Jones to Yuval Harari)

[Ken]

Every single technology ever invented can be a tool to would-be tyrants.

Cell phones
Highways
Guns
Centralized distribution systems like airport and seaports
Banks
Computers
Radio
Television
Internal combustion engine.

We would have to dial civilization back to the Stone Age if you want to avoid any technologies that might help tyrants. And even then we would still have tyrants.

This is one of those rather amusing situations where I can cite the experts as, well, disagreeing with you. They agree with me that these sort of technologies enable a much more pernicious and invasive kind of tyranny.

(cf. people ranging from Andrew Willard Jones to Yuval Harari)

Um...feel free to cite and quote away.

You will note that I'm not making the point that any particular technology is the "worst" but rather that virtually all technologies can and have been used for tyranny. If that is your measure then virtually no technology will ever pass muster.

Are we moving into a new and more tyrannical age due to the advent of new technologies like digital ID? I rather doubt it. We have always had tyrannical regimes going all the way back to ancient Egypt. They have done just fine using whatever tools were available at their time. Whether we are talking about the Spanish Empire, Stalinist Russia, Khmer Rouge Cambodia, or Genghis Kahn.

But go ahead, give us some citations showing how digital technologies are worse. I'm curious to see the arguments.

[Josh]

Harari, Financial Times, March 2020:

Immature and even dangerous technologies are pressed into service, because the risks of doing nothing are bigger …
In order to stop the epidemic, entire populations need to comply with certain guidelines. There are two main ways of achieving this. One method is for the government to monitor people, and punish those who break the rules. Today, for the first time in human history, technology makes it possible to monitor everyone all the time. Fifty years ago, the KGB couldn’t follow 240m Soviet citizens 24 hours a day, nor could the KGB hope to effectively process all the information gathered. The KGB relied on human agents and analysts, and it just couldn’t place a human agent to follow every citizen. But now governments can rely on ubiquitous sensors and powerful algorithms instead of flesh-and-blood spooks. 
…
Today billions of people daily wash their hands, not because they are afraid of the soap police, but rather because they understand the facts. I wash my hands with soap because I have heard of viruses and bacteria, I understand that these tiny organisms cause diseases, and I know that soap can remove them. 

But to achieve such a level of compliance and co-operation, you need trust. People need to trust science, to trust public authorities, and to trust the media.

[Ken]

Harari, Financial Times, March 2020:

Immature and even dangerous technologies are pressed into service, because the risks of doing nothing are bigger …
In order to stop the epidemic, entire populations need to comply with certain guidelines. There are two main ways of achieving this. One method is for the government to monitor people, and punish those who break the rules. Today, for the first time in human history, technology makes it possible to monitor everyone all the time. Fifty years ago, the KGB couldn’t follow 240m Soviet citizens 24 hours a day, nor could the KGB hope to effectively process all the information gathered. The KGB relied on human agents and analysts, and it just couldn’t place a human agent to follow every citizen. But now governments can rely on ubiquitous sensors and powerful algorithms instead of flesh-and-blood spooks. 
…
Today billions of people daily wash their hands, not because they are afraid of the soap police, but rather because they understand the facts. I wash my hands with soap because I have heard of viruses and bacteria, I understand that these tiny organisms cause diseases, and I know that soap can remove them. 

But to achieve such a level of compliance and co-operation, you need trust. People need to trust science, to trust public authorities, and to trust the media.

So pandemic measures are worse than Stalin. Got it.

[nett]

Harari, Financial Times, March 2020:

Immature and even dangerous technologies are pressed into service, because the risks of doing nothing are bigger …
In order to stop the epidemic, entire populations need to comply with certain guidelines. There are two main ways of achieving this. One method is for the government to monitor people, and punish those who break the rules. Today, for the first time in human history, technology makes it possible to monitor everyone all the time. Fifty years ago, the KGB couldn’t follow 240m Soviet citizens 24 hours a day, nor could the KGB hope to effectively process all the information gathered. The KGB relied on human agents and analysts, and it just couldn’t place a human agent to follow every citizen. But now governments can rely on ubiquitous sensors and powerful algorithms instead of flesh-and-blood spooks. 
…
Today billions of people daily wash their hands, not because they are afraid of the soap police, but rather because they understand the facts. I wash my hands with soap because I have heard of viruses and bacteria, I understand that these tiny organisms cause diseases, and I know that soap can remove them. 

But to achieve such a level of compliance and co-operation, you need trust. People need to trust science, to trust public authorities, and to trust the media.

So pandemic measures are worse than Stalin. Got it.

So you don't respect Yuval Harari's research and opinions on technical progress?

[ohio jones]

Harari, Financial Times, March 2020:

But to achieve such a level of compliance and co-operation, you need trust. People need to trust science, to trust public authorities, and to trust the media.

Seems to me the level of trust has eroded significantly in the last two years (at least in the US).

[Ken]

Harari, Financial Times, March 2020:

So pandemic measures are worse than Stalin. Got it.

So you don't respect Yuval Harari's research and opinions on technical progress?

I haven’t read it in detail. But I am skeptical of the notion that having a chip in my driver’s license or other digital ID stuff is going to lead to a totalitarian state. Totalitarianism operates through fear. Stalinist USSR was totalitarian not because the state could watch all citizens 24/7. They didn’t need to. You only had to FEAR that your neighbor or boss or co-worker *might* be watching. What you feared wasn’t the watching. It was the consequences.

And keeping totalitarianism at bay isn’t about technology. It is about the same things it always has been. Insuring free and fair elections. Maintaining a free and independent press. Keeping special interests and monopolies at bay. Maintaining competitive marketplaces. Combatting misinformation. Insuring civil rights and equal justice for all. That sort of thing.

[Josh]

I haven’t read it in detail. But I am skeptical of the notion that having a chip in my driver’s license or other digital ID stuff is going to lead to a totalitarian state. Totalitarianism operates through fear. Stalinist USSR was totalitarian not because the state could watch all citizens 24/7. They didn’t need to. You only had to FEAR that your neighbor or boss or co-worker *might* be watching. What you feared wasn’t the watching. It was the consequences.

And keeping totalitarianism at bay isn’t about technology. It is about the same things it always has been. Insuring free and fair elections. Maintaining a free and independent press. Keeping special interests and monopolies at bay. Maintaining competitive marketplaces. Combatting misinformation. Insuring civil rights and equal justice for all. That sort of thing.

Perhaps you should go read some of what Harari has written, as he answers your objections; going back to Plato's Republic, the prospect of tyranny has always been on people's minds. The difference with the current state of technology is that it is much easier to rapidly implement a tyranny.

Insuring free and fair elections. Maintaining a free and independent press. Keeping special interests and monopolies at bay. Maintaining competitive marketplaces. Combatting misinformation. Insuring civil rights and equal justice for all.

Technology has obliterated free and fair elections by replacing them with unaccountable electronic voting machines, which the experts all agree are not superior in terms of free and fair election to the old paper based voting systems. But selling voting machines makes a lot of money for Diebold.

Competitive marketplaces get obliterated by technology which makes rapid consolidation and financialisation a lot easier. Look at the banking or airline industries, or media empires. There used to be 50 media empires in America and now there are about 5.

We have more technology than we've ever had before and we also have the worst wealth inequality in America in a century and a half. "Civil rights and equal justice for all" goes by the wayside as that happens, as society changes to be whatever the super-wealth want to do. Big corporations wave rainbow flags for a month. Meanwhile, the march of totalitarianism proceeds apace.