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

[Ken]

Probably. The US was also behind the rest of the modern world when it came to this sort of thing pre-pandemic. So maybe we are also just catching up. Kenyans, for example, have been using electronic cell phone payments to conduct business for years. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2142 ... hone-money

To what extent "the rest of the modern world" was already using digital wallets I'm unsure. Vox mentions Kenya, China, and Bangladesh. Why it wasn't just taking off in other countries (like the US) seems to be a mystery to Vox, but it wasn't. Vox does give some reasons why "it's not that simple" and why the rest of the world was not quite "catching up" in another article.

M-Pesa was exactly what Kenya needed, and it took off there. But no two countries are the same, and convincing an entire society to adopt a new way of doing financial transactions isn’t an easy thing.

In some countries, mobile money has failed to take off, maybe because of a chicken-and-egg problem: Agents need to be widespread for the service to be useful, but putting agents everywhere isn’t viable until the service is widespread. That’s the reason mobile money didn’t take off in Niger, according to a 2020 paper. Despite the country having lots of unbanked people and lots of interest in a better money transfer system, M-Pesa and competitors have failed to get a foothold. In other countries, mobile money systems have been shut down by the government at the behest of central banks or competitors.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2142 ... hone-money

Other reasons were government regulations and taxes making using digital wallets expensive.

I haven't spent time in Europe recently. But digital wallets and cell phone payment methods are common in Latin America and Asia.

Part of the reason is that in many countries, personal computers are less common and people do more business and stuff directly on their cell phones. So the economies are more accommodating to that.

[Falco Underhill]

I haven't spent time in Europe recently. But digital wallets and cell phone payment methods are common in Latin America and Asia.

Part of the reason is that in many countries, personal computers are less common and people do more business and stuff directly on their cell phones. So the economies are more accommodating to that.

According to this article, the pandemic is accelerating the growth of digital wallets in Latin America, too.

The easy access to mobile internet, and the increase of online purchases especially now, when the region is still feeling the effects of social isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, are leading people to search for new online payment methods that are secure and easy. Moreover, digital wallets can work as an alternative for the traditional financial system, as these do not require a bank account.

https://business.ebanx.com/en/latin-ame ... al-wallets

According to this other article, the pandemic has accelerated the use of digital wallets the world over, including Southeast Asia.

Southeast Asia is the world’s fastest-growing region for mobile wallets, followed by Latin America and Africa & Middle East, research from London-based fintech company Boku Inc. shows. ....

Mobile wallets overtook credit cards to become the most widely used payment type globally in 2019, according to the report, and adoption accelerated during the pandemic.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... let-market

[Grace]

For example, here is a QR code generator web site: https://www.qr-code-generator.com/

I typed in mennonet.com and generated the following QR code for mennonet.



Go ahead and point your phone camera to it and see what happens

You forgot to mention,you need to open your camera for it to work.

Well yes, you need to have your phone camera turned on obviously. I don't know what happens if you are using an android phone, but with an iPhone if you do that it pops up a message asking if you want to open that web site.

Nothing happened with the Android.

[ohio jones]

I typed in mennonet.com and generated the following QR code for mennonet.



Go ahead and point your phone camera to it and see what happens

Grace, you may have to have a QR reader app and scan it with that.

[Falco Underhill]

With respect to the use of digital wallets in Latin America....

Digital wallets are gaining popularity around the world, as well as in Latin America, even if this payment method is still recent in the region there are some key factors driving the success of digital wallets among Latin American consumers.

The easy access to mobile internet, and the increase of online purchases especially now, when the region is still feeling the effects of social isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, are leading people to search for new online payment methods that are secure and easy. Moreover, digital wallets can work as an alternative for the traditional financial system, as these do not require a bank account.

Digital wallets are growing on a daily basis, offering security, speed and convenience to customers and merchants alike. Now, more than ever, it’s the right time to embrace this payment method.

The article points out that digital payments are a "recent" development in the region and that one of the "key factors" driving their success is the pandemic. They're even using the pandemic as a selling point.

https://business.ebanx.com/en/latin-ame ... al-wallets

[Ken]

With respect to the use of digital wallets in Latin America....

Digital wallets are gaining popularity around the world, as well as in Latin America, even if this payment method is still recent in the region there are some key factors driving the success of digital wallets among Latin American consumers.

The easy access to mobile internet, and the increase of online purchases especially now, when the region is still feeling the effects of social isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, are leading people to search for new online payment methods that are secure and easy. Moreover, digital wallets can work as an alternative for the traditional financial system, as these do not require a bank account.

Digital wallets are growing on a daily basis, offering security, speed and convenience to customers and merchants alike. Now, more than ever, it’s the right time to embrace this payment method.

The article points out that digital payments are a "recent" development in the region and that one of the "key factors" driving their success is the pandemic. They're even using the pandemic as a selling point.

https://business.ebanx.com/en/latin-ame ... al-wallets

I don't exactly know what the exact definition of a digital wallet is.

But, for example, you could for years use your cell phone to transfer money in many Latin American countries simply through the cell phone company. It would be the equivalent of using Verizon or AT&T to send money to anyone else also using Verizon or AT&T. Most cell phone accounts are "pay as you go" and you can use your phone to put more money on your account, or you can also use it to put more money on anyone else's account. So people just did that to send money back and forth since you could also take money back out of your cell phone account. Spending time in Chile I just notice that people seem to do a lot more business on their phones that people here would do on their laptop or desktop.

Personally I think the pandemic is going to be the seminal transformational event in the early 21st century. Just like WW2 changed everything during the 20th Century from pre-war to post-war. Everything from digital commerce to education to health care to real estate to business to transportation to labor is going to be permanently changed from this pandemic. And I expect we will look back to pre-pandemic and post-pandemic in every aspect of life. I don't think it is so much about things like QR codes. But bigger structural changes that will never reverse to how things used to be. Some will be good changes, some not so much. But there is no going back.

[Falco Underhill]

Personally I think the pandemic is going to be the seminal transformational event in the early 21st century. Just like WW2 changed everything during the 20th Century from pre-war to post-war. Everything from digital commerce to education to health care to real estate to business to transportation to labor is going to be permanently changed from this pandemic. And I expect we will look back to pre-pandemic and post-pandemic in every aspect of life. I don't think it is so much about things like QR codes. But bigger structural changes that will never reverse to how things used to be. Some will be good changes, some not so much. But there is no going back.

The emphasis was never supposed to be on QR codes but on what was being accomplished with them especially because of the pandemic. Their main purpose is just to connect one digital platform to another. That is how they facilitate the process of making digital payments. The WHO has recommended switching to digital payments during the pandemic and that goal is being accomplished.

QR codes also come in handy for checking vaccine passports, to connect to a database that registers your vaccine status and possible other personal information, directly to the government sometimes, as Josh has pointed out. This is of course another usage being advocated by the WHO.

But the QR codes are just a means to these objectives, not an end in themselves.

The point is the pandemic is making vaccine passports (in some places) necessary and cashless transactions a necessity everywhere.

[Grace]

I typed in mennonet.com and generated the following QR code for mennonet.



Go ahead and point your phone camera to it and see what happens

Grace, you may have to have a QR reader app and scan it with that.

You probably are right. We have both an I-Phone and an Android. When opening the camera with the I-Phone it immediately gives you the option to open Mennonet. With the Android, opening the camera, nothing happens.

[Falco Underhill]

"If you combine vaccine passports, which is really a way to get a digital ID card that can dovetail with the CBDC system, what we're talking about is a complete digital control system." — Catherine Austin Fitts



(The quote is at @ 5:15)

Catherine Austin Fitts: President of Solari Inc, Publisher of Solari Report, Former Managing Director of Wall Street investment bank Dillon, served as Assistant Secretary of Housing and Federal Housing Commisioner during the Bush Administration, and was President of Hamilton Group Inc. Catherine has designed and closed over $25 billion of transactions & investments to date.

[Falco Underhill]

So then, what are vaccine mandates possibly leading to?

(a) Digital wallets/currency (Cashless society) ?

(b) A social credit system something like China's (Surveillance State) ?

Cashless society + surveillance state = beast system?

(What is the beast? the government in which A/C appears?)

Because your merchants were the great ones of the world,
all nations were led astray by your magic potion.

Revelation 18:23 (NABRE)

The Greek for “magic potion”: φαρμακείᾳ (pharmakeia) — is the use of medicine, drugs or spells. It is the word from which we derive the term pharmaceuticals.

Did St. John possibly foresee that drugs and medicines would be used to enslave mankind under a powerful group of men — “ten kings” who would rule for “one hour, together with the beast?”