This will be the last post today.
The subject of central bank digital currency (CBDC) and the potential use to reduce personal freedom, was introduced here yesterday. That article was a funny, imaginary vision of the future, the first half of a good article. "CBDC's could become the single greatest expansion of totalitarian power in human history - Just Say No to Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) ":
The second half of that article was on my Economic Logic Blog yesterday: "Say no to Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs)":
https://el2017.blogspot.com/2022/03/say-no-to-central-bank-digital.html
A related article posted today might be the first article to read if this subject is new to you: "Central Bank Digital "Currency vs, Freedom: The Coming Carbon Social Credit Digital Currency":
I avoid publishing predictions and other speculations about the future, because they are so often wrong. But with this subject it's necessary to include speculation on what implementing CBDCs could mean. They could be harmless, but with the growing leftism and fascism in the world, harmless would be wishful thinking. CBDC are an opportunity to ramp up government power and reduce personal freedom. Based on my experience with leftists, they will not let an opportunities like that go to waste.
If this subject is new to you, I felt the same way one week ago. I'd heard about digital currencies, but didn't start reading about them until Biden signed an Executive Order on the subject last week. Until last week, CBDCs were just part of the alarming increase of subjects I knew nothing about. That's something you realize as you grow older. It's called wisdom, because that sounds better. I knew everything when I was a teenager!
Ye Editor
"The control of data might enable human elites to do something even more radical than build digital dictatorships,
Last week on the 10th of March, the government announced in a press release New legislation set to make digital identities more trustworthy and secure,
which attempts to incentivise the use of digital identities through its perceived convenience,
stating its use will “reduce the time, effort and expense that sharing physical documents can…”
Cited in the response Heather Wheeler MP, Parliamentary Secretary to the Cabinet Office states that the government is delivering “a number of ambitious and interlinked policy initiatives to prepare the UK for the digital world,”
Although nations worldwide, have been preparing for this digital world for the last two years it has been under the guise of a deadly virus, so clearly, there is nothing “trustworthy” about this legislation at all.
To their detriment the global masses have shown
they were willing to give up their civil liberties and freedom,
they were willing to be locked down,
masked up, and compliant with all
disproportionate measures, rules,
and restrictions
imposed on them without question.
Yet they were not told that this was never about a virus, and the vaccine passports were never about public health.
The main reason was ... setting up a permanent digital infrastructure for a central digital identity, to track, manipulate and control the world’s population.
Not Compulsory?
Data Minister Julia Lopez states in the press release that the new legislation “is committed to ensuring digital identities are not compulsory and people will still be able to use available paper documentation.
What this will mean, however, it is not compulsory if you don’t mind not being able to go on holidays, buy shopping, attend events etc.
An early example of requiring a digital identity was reported in the Daily Express yesterday, in an article titled “Payment warning: Shoppers may have their credit and debit cards declined from Monday”.
According to the Express, “credit and debit cards may be declined from Monday 14 March.
The new changes coming into force will see cards declined if someone can’t prove their identity.”
and “Retailers will be making additional checks before people can purchase items or take money from their cards.”
“Without the identification check to prove the transaction is genuine, the card payment may be declined”
Central Banks Digital Currency
The Financial Times also reported that Central banks are realising Central Banks Digital Currencies
will have to be intimately linked to identity
to deal with illicit finance and bank
disintermediation risk,
due to the status report this week from Goldman Sachs’ econ research division, headed by Jan Hatzius, on central bank digital currencies.
The Financial Times
The FT advises us to consider the wider picture. what CBDC research and experimentation appear to be showing
is that it will be nigh on impossible to issue such currencies outside of a comprehensive national digital ID management system.
This means that CBDCs will likely be tied to personal accounts that include personal data, credit history, and other forms of relevant information.
The Financial Times:
If we cannot access our money
without a digital ID,
how is it then not compulsory?
The World Economic Forum
Of course, the plan is for each and every person on the planet to have digital IDs and the implementation of this has been planned and promoted by the World Economic Forum (WEF) for years
as part of the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
By now we know there is nothing trustworthy about legislation that has been backed by the WEF.
A digital identity is not simply a means of identification which refers to documents that prove who you say you are.
Your “identity” is who you actually are, and as the founder of the WEF Klaus Schwab says himself “Nothing is as fundamental to human beings as identity.
Our identity is, literally, who we are: a combination of personal history, innate and learned beliefs and behaviours, and a bundle of cultural, family, national, team, gender or other identities.” says Schwab.
The Importance Of Data
While there are many people that will still equate digital IDs as giving much the same information as we have always given away ...
but a digital identity will be able to keep a permanent record of our choices and behaviours, 24/7 and can also be used against us.
Additionally, data has usually been distributed in the hands of corporations, but if data gets into the hands of the wrong people,
for example, a tiny elite, who may come to control not just the future of human societies but the shape of life forms in the future
according to Prof Yuval Noah Harari who has a PhD in History from the University of Oxford and now lectures at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specialising in World History.
Those Who Control The Data Control the Future
Those who control the data, control the future, not just of humanity but of life itself.
Because today, data is the most important asset in the world according to Harari, speaking at a WEF meeting in 2018
“In ancient times, land was the most important asset and if too much land became concentrated in too few hands humanity split into aristocrats and commoners.
Then in the modern age in the last two centuries, machinery replaced land as the most important assets.
And if too many of the machines became concentrated in too few hands, humanity split into classes, into capitalists and proletariats.” argues Harari,
He predicts that “Now data is replacing machinery as the most important asset and if too much of the data becomes concentrated in too few hands, humanity will not split into classes it will split into different species.”
Hacking People
We’ve reached the point where we can hack, not just computers, we can hack human beings and other organisms.
Back in 2018 Hanrari said that “there is a lot of talk these days about hacking computers, email accounts, and bank accounts and mobile phones, but actually we are gaining the ability to hack human beings”.
To be able to hack human beings you need a lot of computing power, and you need a lot of data, especially biometric data,
This is not the usual data about what we buy or where we go, this is data about what is happening inside our bodies and brains.
Two simultaneous revolutions, which are the advances in computer science and especially the rise of machine learning and AI,
are giving us the necessary computing power and also advances in biology and especially in brain science are giving us the necessary biological understanding.
The Future
Harari believes that organisms are algorithms that will even be able to tell a person where they are on the gay / straight spectrum and even how malleable this position is,
basically the algorithm tracks your eye movements your blood pressure, your brain activity and tells you who you are.
Also as you watch videos or check into social media, the algorithms will be monitoring your eye movements, blood pressure and brain activity,
you will not be able to hide from Amazon, Alibaba, or the secret police, the algorithms will be able to predict desires and manipulate emotions and make decisions on our behalf.
A Digital Dictatorship
If we are not careful the outcome might be the rise of digital dictatorships says Harari.
The information and power can be concentrated in one place and the technological revolutions of AI and machine learning using centralised data processing are more efficient than the democratic nations distributed data processing”
“if democratic societies cannot adapt then humans will come to live under the rule of digital dictatorships.” by allowing the implementation of digital identities, are we not potentially opening the door to this?"
