Red pill or blue pill? You decide.
Twenty years after the Wachowskisâ iconic 1999 film, The Matrix, introduced us to a futuristic world in which humans exist in a computer-simulated non-reality powered by authoritarian machinesâa world where the choice between existing in a denial-ridden virtual dream-state or facing up to the harsh, difficult realities of life comes down to a red pill or a blue pillâwe stand at the precipice of a technologically-dominated matrix of our own making.
We are living the prequel to The Matrix with each passing day, falling further under the spell of technologically-driven virtual communities, virtual realities and virtual conveniences managed by artificially intelligent machines that are on a fast track to replacing us and eventually dominating every aspect of our lives.
Science fiction has become fact.
In The Matrix, computer programmer Thomas Anderson a.k.a. hacker Neo is wakened from a virtual slumber by Morpheus, a freedom fighter seeking to liberate humanity from a lifelong hibernation state imposed by hyper-advanced artificial intelligence machines that rely on humans as an organic power source. With their minds plugged into a perfectly crafted virtual reality, few humans ever realize they are living in a dream world.
Neo is given a choice: to wake up and join the resistance, or remain asleep and serve as fodder for the powers-that-be. âYou take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe,â Morpheus says to Neo in The Matrix. âYou take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.â
Most people opt for the red pill.
In our case, the red pillâa one-way ticket to a life sentence in an electronic concentration campâhas been honey-coated to hide the bitter aftertaste, sold to us in the name of expediency and delivered by way of blazingly fast Internet, cell phone signals that never drop a call, thermostats that keep us at the perfect temperature without our having to raise a finger, and entertainment that can be simultaneously streamed to our TVs, tablets and cell phones.
Yet we are not merely in thrall with these technologies that were intended to make our lives easier. We have become enslaved by them.
Look around you. Everywhere you turn, people are so addicted to their internet-connected screen devicesâsmart phones, tablets, computers, televisionsâthat they can go for hours at a time submerged in a virtual world where human interaction is filtered through the medium of technology.
This is not freedom.
This is not even progress.
This is technological tyranny and iron-fisted control delivered by way of the surveillance state, corporate giants such as Google and Facebook, and government spy agencies such as the National Security Agency.
We are living in a virtual world carefully crafted to resemble a representative government, while in reality we are little more than slaves in thrall to an authoritarian regime, with its constant surveillance, manufactured media spectacles, secret courts, inverted justice, and violent repression of dissent.
So consumed are we with availing ourselves of all the latest technologies that we have spared barely a thought for the ramifications of our heedless, headlong stumble towards a world in which our abject reliance on internet-connected gadgets and gizmos is grooming us for a future in which freedom is an illusion.
Itâs not just freedom that hangs in the balance. Humanity itself is on the line.
Indeed, while most people are busily taking selfies, Google has been busily partnering with the NSA, the Pentagon, and other governmental agencies to develop a new âhumanâ species.
Essentially, Googleâa neural network that approximates a global brainâis fusing with the human mind in a phenomenon that is called âsingularity.â Google will know the answer to your question before you have asked it, said transhumanist scientist Ray Kurzweil. âIt will have read every email you will ever have written, every document, every idle thought youâve ever tapped into a search-engine box. It will know you better than your intimate partner does. Better, perhaps, than even yourself.â
But hereâs the catch: the NSA and all other government agencies will also know you better than yourself. As William Binney, one of the highest-level whistleblowers to ever emerge from the NSA said, âThe ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control.â
Cue the dawning of the Age of the Internet of Things, in which internet-connected âthingsâ will monitor your home, your health and your habits in order to keep your pantry stocked, your utilities regulated and your life under control and relatively worry-free.
The key word here is control.
In the not-too-distant future, âjust about every device you have â and even products like chairs, that you donât normally expect to see technology in â will be connected and talking to each other.â
By 2020, there will be 152 million cars connected to the Internet and 100 million Internet-connected bulbs and lamps. By 2021, it is estimated there will be 240 million wearable devices such as smartwatches, keeping users connected it real time to their phones, emails, text messages and the Internet. By 2022, there will be 1.1 billion smart meters installed in homes, reporting real-time usage to utility companies and other interested parties.
This âconnectedâ industryâestimated to add more than $14 trillion to the economy by 2020âis about to be the next big thing in terms of societal transformations, right up there with the Industrial Revolution, a watershed moment in technology and culture.
Between driverless cars that completely lacking a steering wheel, accelerator, or brake pedal and smart pills embedded with computer chips, sensors, cameras and robots, we are poised to outpace the imaginations of science fiction writers such as Philip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov. (By the way, there is no such thing as a driverless car. Someone or something will be driving, but it wonât be you.)
The aim of these internet-connected devices, as Nest proclaims, is to make âyour house a more thoughtful and conscious home.â For example, your car can signal ahead that youâre on your way home, while Hue lights can flash on and off to get your attention if Nest Protect senses somethingâs wrong. Your coffeemaker, relying on data from fitness and sleep sensors, will brew a stronger pot of coffee for you if youâve had a restless night.
Internet-connected techno gadgets as smart light bulbs can discourage burglars by making your house look occupied, smart thermostats will regulate the temperature of your home based on your activities, and smart doorbells will let you see who is at your front door without leaving the comfort of your couch.
Nest, Googleâs $3 billion acquisition, has been at the forefront of the âconnectedâ industry, with such technologically savvy conveniences as a smart lock that tells your thermostat who is home, what temperatures they like, and when your home is unoccupied; a home phone service system that interacts with your connected devices to âlearn when you come and goâ and alert you if your kids donât come home; and a sleep system that will monitor when you fall asleep, when you wake up, and keep the house noises and temperature in a sleep-conducive state.
Itâs not just our homes that are being reordered and reimagined in this connected age: itâs our workplaces, our health systems, our government and our very bodies that are being plugged into a matrix over which we have no real control.
Moreover, given the speed and trajectory at which these technologies are developing, it wonât be long before these devices are operating entirely independent of their human creators, which poses a whole new set of worries.
As technology expert Nicholas Carr notes, âAs soon as you allow robots, or software programs, to act freely in the world, theyâre going to run up against ethically fraught situations and face hard choices that canât be resolved through statistical models. That will be true of self-driving cars, self-flying drones, and battlefield robots, just as itâs already true, on a lesser scale, with automated vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers.â
For instance, just as the robotic vacuum, Roomba, âmakes no distinction between a dust bunny and an insect,â weaponized drones will be incapable of distinguishing between a fleeing criminal and someone merely jogging down a street.
For that matter, how do you defend yourself against a robotic copâsuch as the Atlas android being developed by the Pentagonâthat has been programmed to respond to any perceived threat with violence?
Unfortunately, in our race to the future, we have failed to consider what such dependence on technology might mean for our humanity, not to mention our freedoms.
Ingestible or implantable chips are a good example of how unprepared we are, morally and otherwise, to navigate this uncharted terrain. Hailed as revolutionary for their ability to access, analyze and manipulate your body from the inside, these smart pills can remind you to take your medication, search for cancer, and even send an alert to your doctor warning of an impending heart attack.
Sure, the technology could save lives, but is that all we need to know? Have we done our due diligence in dealing with the ramifications of giving the government and its cronies access to such intrusive programs? For example, asks reporter Ariana Eunjung Cha, âHow will patients be assured that the technology wonât be used to compel them to take medications they donât really want to take? Could what started as a voluntary experiment be turned into a compulsory government identification program that could erode civil liberties?â
Let me put it another way.
If you were shocked by Edward Snowdenâs revelations about how NSA agents have used surveillance to spy on Americansâ phone calls, emails and text messages, can you imagine what unscrupulous government agents could do with access to your internet-connected car, home and medications?
All of those internet-connected gadgets we just have to have (Forbes refers to them as â(data) pipelines to our intimate bodily processesâ)âthe smart watches that can monitor our blood pressure and the smart phones that let us pay for purchases with our fingerprints and iris scansâare setting us up for a brave new world where there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
Imagine what a SWAT team could do with the ability to access, monitor and control your internet-connected home: locking you in, turning off the lights, activating alarms, etc.
Thus far, the public response to concerns about government surveillance has amounted to a collective shrug.
After all, who cares if the government can track your whereabouts on your GPS-enabled device so long as it helps you find the fastest route from Point A to Point B? Who cares if the NSA is listening in on your phone calls and downloading your emails so long as you can get your phone calls and emails on the go and get lightning fast Internet on the fly? Who cares if the government can monitor your activities in your home by tapping into your internet-connected devicesâthermostat, water, lightsâso long as you can control those things with the flick of a finger, whether youâre across the house or across the country?
Itâs hard to truly appreciate the intangible menace of technology-enabled government surveillance in the face of the all-too-tangible menace of police shootings of unarmed citizens, SWAT team raids, and government violence and corruption.
However, both dangers are just as lethal to our freedoms if left unchecked.
Consider that on any given day, the average American going about his daily business is monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in virtually every way by both government and corporate eyes and ears.
Whether youâre walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, will be listening in and tracking your behavior.
This doesnât even begin to touch on the corporate trackers that monitor your purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere.
In other words, there is no form of digital communication that the government cannot and does not monitor: phone calls, emails, text messages, tweets, Facebook posts, internet video chats, etc., are all accessible, trackable and downloadable by federal agents.
The government and its corporate partners-in-crime have been bypassing the Fourth Amendmentâs prohibitions for so long that this constitutional bulwark against warrantless searches and seizures has largely been rendered antiquated and irrelevant.
We are now in the final stage of the transition from a police state to a surveillance state.
Having already transformed local police into extensions of the military, the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the FBI are in the process of turning the nationâs police officers into techno-warriors, complete with iris scanners, body scanners, thermal imaging Doppler radar devices, facial recognition programs, license plate readers, cell phone Stingray devices and so much more.
Add in the fusion centers and real-time crime centers, city-wide surveillance networks, data clouds conveniently hosted overseas by Amazon and Microsoft, drones equipped with thermal imaging cameras, and biometric databases, and youâve got the makings of a world in which âprivacyâ is reserved exclusively for government agencies.
In other words, the surveillance state that came into being with the 9/11 attacks is alive and well and kicking privacy to shreds in America. Having been persuaded to trade freedom for a phantom promise of security, Americans now find themselves imprisoned in a virtual cage of cameras, wiretaps, sensors and watchful government eyes.
Just about every branch of the governmentâfrom the Postal Service to the Treasury Department and every agency in betweenânow has its own surveillance sector, authorized to spy on the American people.
And of course that doesnât even begin to touch on the complicity of the corporate sector, which buys and sells us from cradle to grave, until we have no more data left to mine. Indeed, Facebook, Amazon and Google are among the governmentâs closest competitors when it comes to carrying out surveillance on Americans, monitoring the content of your emails, tracking your purchases and exploiting your social media posts.
âFew consumers understand what data are being shared, with whom, or how the information is being used,â reports the Los Angeles Times. âMost Americans emit a stream of personal digital exhaust â what they search for, what they buy, who they communicate with, where they are â that is captured and exploited in a largely unregulated fashion.â
Itâs not just what we say, where we go and what we buy that is being tracked.
Weâre being surveilled right down to our genes, thanks to a potent combination of hardware, software and data collection that scans our biometricsâour faces, irises, voices, genetics, even our gaitâruns them through computer programs that can break the data down into unique âidentifiers,â and then offers them up to the government and its corporate allies for their respective uses.
For instance, imagine what the NSA could do (and is likely already doing) with voiceprint technology, which has been likened to a fingerprint. Described as âthe next frontline in the battle against overweening public surveillance,â the collection of voiceprints is a booming industry for governments and businesses alike. As The Guardian reports, âvoice biometrics could be used to pinpoint the location of individuals. There is already discussion about placing voice sensors in public spaces, and ⦠multiple sensors could be triangulated to identify individuals and specify their location within very small areas.â
The NSA is merely one small part of a shadowy permanent government comprised of unelected bureaucrats who march in lockstep with profit-driven corporations that actually runs Washington, DC, and works to keep us under surveillance and, thus, under control. For example, Google openly works with the NSA, Amazon has built a massive $600 million intelligence database for CIA, and the telecommunications industry is making a fat profit by spying on us for the government.
In other words, Corporate America is making a hefty profit by aiding and abetting the government in its domestic surveillance efforts.
Control is the key here.
Total control over every aspect of our lives, right down to our inner thoughts, is the objective of any totalitarian regime.
George Orwell understood this. His masterpiece, 1984, portrays a global society of total control in which people are not allowed to have thoughts that in any way disagree with the corporate state. There is no personal freedom, and advanced technology has become the driving force behind a surveillance-driven society. Snitches and cameras are everywhere. And people are subject to the Thought Police, who deal with anyone guilty of thought crimes. The government, or âParty,â is headed by Big Brother, who appears on posters everywhere with the words: âBig Brother is watching you.â
Make no mistake: the Internet of Things is just Big Brother in a more appealing disguise.
Now there are still those who insist that they have nothing to hide from the surveillance state and nothing to fear from the police state because they have done nothing wrong. To those sanctimonious few, secure in their delusions, let this be a warning: the danger posed by the American police state applies equally to all of us, lawbreaker and law-abider alike.
In an age of too many laws, too many prisons, too many government spies, and too many corporations eager to make a fast buck at the expense of the American taxpayer, there is no safe place and no watertight alibi.
We are all guilty of some transgression or other.
Libertarian
boosted
Libertarian
boosted
@dcjogger EXACTLY! And thats why,IMHO,this country is about to go into a MASSIVE depression!
Having a new boss won't change anything.
No one is going to work when everything is illegal and taxes pay for curfews, gun bans, NSA wiretapping, checkpoints, forfeiture, the end to the right to silence, free speech bans, torture, kill lists, no fly lists, searches without warrants, private prisons, mandatory minimums, 3 strikes laws, DNA databases, CISPA, SOPA, NDAA, IMBRA, FBAR, FATCA, TSA groping, secret FISA courts, and Jade Helm.
The US stock market is a massive Ponzi scheme. There was a time when the stock market was based on reality, but that time is gone.
The stock gains have come from government cash injections and CEO's buying their own companies stocks back using company money to boost share prices and their own personal net worth.
The economy collapsed in 2008 and the government bailed out the bankers instead of arresting them. Nothing has been fixed.
Most people prefer to ignore a hard fact rather than face it.
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. There was a bubble in 2001 and 2008. Both times there was a crash. Is this time different?
If debt is good, why doesn't the government print and borrow money to send monthly checks for $500,000 to every American?
The lazy are being sent welfare checks.
94 million Americans are jobless.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/record-94031000-americans-not-labor-force-participation-rate-stuck-38-year
Wages are flat. Minimum wages are going up only because of government decrees, not because of real free market growth.
Stocks are high only because of QE and the fantasy belief that the government can keep printing money to bail out companies forever.
Interest rates are low because the Fed is afraid to crash the economy and bankrupt the government with higher rates.
Oil prices are low because no one has any money anymore.
The US economy is a house of cards. A large chunk of the hollowed out US economy is basically just consumer, mortgage, student, and auto loans, government deficit spending, overpriced healthcare, and fast food/retail jobs.
How can anyone say the economy is good when wages are flat, corporate profits are falling, spending is falling, sales are falling, orders are falling, jobless claims are rising, gold is rising, stocks are falling, futures are falling, confidence is falling, net worth is falling, inventories are rising, and negative rates are being considered?
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/record-94610000-americans-not-labor-force-participation- rate-lowest-38
http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2016/04/wage_growth_stagnant_since_200.html
http://www.themonitordaily.com/corporate-profits-fall-as-u-s-economic-growth-slows/21169/
http://www.seattletimes.com/business/us-construction-spending-falls-0-4-percent-in-november/
http://www.toledoblade.com/Retail/2016/04/13/US-retail-sales-fall-in-March-as-Americans-buy-fewer-cars.html
http://www.post-gazette.com/powersource/latest-oil-and-gas/2016/01/28/US-durable-goods-orders-fall-5-1- percent-in-
December/stories/201601280163
http://www.delawareonline.com/story/money/business/2015/03/06/jobless-claims-rise-highest-level-nine-months /24502837/
http://elkodaily.com/mining/gold-rises-above/article_4a5eb51b-ac0c-535c-80be-22c3a79dd6d2.html
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/us-stocks-fall-weak-data-220211387.html
The US is headed for a complete economic collapse, a civil war, and WWIII.
Many people are complacent because their government checks are good now and they still have electricity and running water, but there is no doubt the US economy will collapse one day.
No country can print and borrow their way to wealth. Rome, Germany, Zimbabwe, Japan, and Greece couldn't do it.
The US economy might continue for 2 or 5 or 30 years, but one day the house of cards will crash. The US dollar will be worthless, there will be inflation, deflation, banks will shut, bankruptcies and foreclosures will rise, businesses will close, unemployment will soar, there will be bail-ins, capital controls, negative interest rates, riots, bank runs, bank holidays, and gold may be outlawed. Think 1929, 2008, and Greece all in one.
American jobs have been offshored, illegal immigrants are flooding the country, and the US is bankrupt. The government is punishing hard work with taxes and regulations while rewarding laziness with welfare. The government knows this fraud can't continue forever which is why they're building a police state and trying to start wars with Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China to distract Americans and boost the economy.
The world is now in another bubble and governments realize that they cannot print money forever.
The Fed has no more bullets, but the government has real ones.
Think.
Americans are so enslaved now that Americans scream that anyone who loves freedom, peace, and balanced budgets is a traitor and must get out of the USA.
Americans cannot see hypocrisy.
Americans swear that Biden is an evil monster for embracing war, debt, and tyranny, but then Americans turn around and insist Trump is a holy god for supporting war, debt, and the police state.
Strange how Trump can quickly regulate airline seats and ban bump stocks, but is powerless to stop illegal immigrants, reduce refugees, end wars, end Obamacare, reduce the debt, or restore the Bill of Rights.
4D chess, right?
Americans are only interested in bread and circuses, celebrities, movies, sports, sex, drugs, or irrelevant issues like free college, homosexuality, and slavery reparations.
Americans say surrender is the answer to tyranny.
Americans are not interested in solutions to the collapse. Americans only want to blame, point fingers, and say that they're not at fault and not responsible for anything.
Why can't Americans unite and agree that debt, wars, and tyranny are bad?
Do you think things would change in the US if Americans protested? What if the Gestapo, government workers, politicians, and soldiers went to work and were not sure that they would come home? What if Americans attacked government buildings?
Some of the problems with tyranny is that remaining silent means that you accept debt, wars, curfews, gun bans, NSA wiretapping, checkpoints, forfeiture, the end to the right to silence, free speech bans, torture, kill lists, no fly lists, searches without warrants, private prisons, mandatory minimums, 3 strikes laws, DNA databases, CISPA, SOPA, NDAA, IMBRA, FBAR, FATCA, TSA groping, secret FISA courts, and Jade Helm.
Assange is in jail because of your silence.
The blood from US wars is on your hands.
Another problem with tyranny is that it grows.
Do Americans think that because straws are illegal now that the USA is a paradise? Do you think tyranny will not continue?
The US seems to be waiting for a spark like Yorktown today.
Will Americans revolt when the stock market crashes, property is nationalized, books are burned, guns are confiscated national ID card are required, passports are revoked, domestic travel permits are required, Americans are required to submit a DNA sample, give fingerprints, get microchip implants, and be registered in a facial scan database, Internet filters are required on all computers, mobile phones are banned, the Internet is shut down, free speech and protests are illegal, reporters are arrested, government loudspeakers are installed on street corners, newspapers, magazines, and TV and radio stations are closed, churches are shut, neighborhood watch groups are set up, undercover police are everywhere, warrantless home searches are routine, taxes are raised, cash is banned, there are negative interest rates, bank fees, bail-ins, capital controls, gold is outlawed, torture and extra-judicial assassinations are routine, government drones and robots patrol everywhere, lawyers are arrested, elections are canceled, juries are banned, courts have show trials, congress is eliminated, Americans are required to wear uniforms and attend study sessions, or concentration camps are opened and Americans are starved and killed?
What if Americans never rebel?
How do people live under tyranny?
If you lived in China in 1947 would you join the Communists, fight Communists, or flee to Taiwan?
Would a Vietnam prison guard in a re-education camp have ethics or try to justify his job?
How would feel if you spent your whole life in the USSR? Would you think that you are free? Would you think bread lines are normal?
How would feel if you lived in North Korea and were in a concentration camp because your dad found a Bible?
Cuba is a police state because they are cowards.
Are Americans pussies, too?
Can't freedom go viral?
Do you think tyranny is a joke? Do you see what is happening?
Libertarian
boosted
@dcjogger Because idiots are promising this all over the world for them to come here. This is an combined Globalist agenda.
How can Americans sleep at night while the USA is collapsing?
Soros, Obama, Clinton, and Trump all support endless wars, debt, and tyranny. What's the difference?
Has Trump opposed trade wars, starting wars with Iran, Mexico, China, Russia, and North Korea, driving up the debt, ending minimum wages, opening concentration camps, banning free speech, religious freedom, freedom from warrantless searches, freedom from torture, security cameras, license plate readers, checkpoints, redlight cameras, speed cameras, FBI facial and voice recognition, curfews, gun bans, NSA wiretapping, the end to the right to silence, searches without warrants, private prisons, mandatory minimums, 3 strikes laws, DNA databases, CISPA, SOPA, IMBRA, private prison quotas, no knock raids, take down notices, no fly lists, terror watch lists, Constitution free zones, stop and frisk, 3 strikes laws, kill switches, National Security Letters, DNA databases, kill lists, FBAR, FATCA, Operation Chokepoint, TSA groping, civil forfeiture, CIA torture, NDAA indefinite detention, secret FISA courts, FEMA camps, laws requiring passports for domestic travel, IRS laws denying passports for tax debts, gun and ammo stockpiles, laws outlawing protesting, police militarization, and Jade Helm?
Has Trump arrested the bankers, decreased taxes, kicked out the illegal aliens, ended the Fed, ended the wars, ended welfare, ended Obamacare, and restored the Bill of Rights?
Trump doesn't work for you. He works for the elites.
The time for supporting Trump has ended and the time for buying gold, guns, and food has arrived.
Wake up. Think. Spread the word. Dark times are coming.
Libertarian
boosted
History is replete with examples of empires mounting impressive military campaigns on the cusp of their impending economic collapse.
Libertarian
boosted
Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots.
- Libertarian
- https://neinchan.com/pol/
Joined May 2019
