Quote:

Quote:L. Ron: Don’t you be tarot-fied, it’s just a token of my extreme.
Joe: Oh, oh, oh, Mystical Advisor
What is my problem, tell me, can you see?
L. Ron: Well, you have nothing to fear, my son!
You are a Latent Appliance Fetishist, it appears to me!
Joe: That all seems very, very strange
I never craved a toaster or a color T.V.
— Joe’s Garage Acts II & III, Frank Zappa

AI is changing how we think about money.

When I was a Paduan learner, we used to joke that at least they can’t tax air. Then the bastids created global warming, which evolved and expanded into climate change, which allowed them to tax sunshine, as well.

As I read and listen to a wide variety of commentators on the current global situation, it strikes me that few of them actually understand what’s going on. The entire global economy is being dismantled by design, and there is not much anyone can do about it.

All the “green” energy transition nonsense is to wean us peons off of the good stuff, so “they” can save the hard core power sources for their data centers. What “they” are trying to do is create a precise model of our world, and tokenize every…single…piece of it. The idea is to monetize and weaponize literally everything. You won’t be able to do anything without your “smart” devices, and “they” will allocate and tax everything down to the molecule.

All these little ‘fit bit” thingies? That’s your personal monitoring system. Don’t get enough exercise, or have chronic health issues? Your access to medical services will be rationed, since you don’t deserve good health care.

Eating too much protein? Your per-gram tax will go up to control your access to beef, pork and chicken. Not sleeping enough at night? You will have a curfew and your electricity rations will be cut at night to take away your distractions. Regularly exceeding your travel allotment per week? Your access to enter or leave various zones will be restricted.

This is happening right now in China, which is the test bed for this authoritarian nightmare. Folks can’t get enough of this technological imprisonment. Everyone is equally miserable. Everyone gets punished or rewarded according to their behavior. They can even rat out folks who aren’t part of the Collective—see Star Trek TOS, Return of the Archons,” to see what’s coming at you. Landru loves you.

Oh sure, there are some benefits. If you are a good little Collectivist, your taxes and fees will go down, you’ll get extra rations, and your freedom of movement will relax. Think of it as an extension of loyalty points or air miles—the more you comply, the more bennies you rack up.

It’s already under way. If you use 2-step verification for any account, you’re tagged. It’s not about security, it’s about subverting VPN and finding your phone’s location. If you use any form of biometrics to log into anything, you’re in the system. If you have gone through Know Your Customer processes for any account, your privacy is no more.

We are being herded into this system through the use of various scandals, emergencies and other subterfuges to get you plugged in one way or another. As the system builds, you will be tokenized, as will everything you consume and produce down to the molecule. All that data will be scoured and patterns will be established so that your behavior can be predicted with a fair amount of accuracy.

If you have a smart phone, then your daily movements can already be broken down into minute-by-minute maps. Malls and other commercial interests are already using this to build a customer profile, pushing vouchers and coupons at you depending on where you are standing at that moment.

You may think that not using a smart phone makes you immune, and you’d be wrong. Any electronic device at all—dumb phones, pacemakers, radios, pagers, even your car are all connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) and publishing your location every second of the day.

Any more, we can’t even trust jabs and pills. Your prescription might be tagged with nano-transmitters similar to RFID chips on products. All your bank accounts and credit cards are logged and all your economic activity is duly logged—what bills you pay, what subscriptinos you have, what treats you give yourself every month.

Generation by generation, we’ve all been conditioned to accept a bit more of the Gilded Cage. The minute we allowed every home to have an individual address, the process had begun. It’s been a process of narrowing the address down to your person ever since. It only takes one small crack to breach a dam. Think of the Magician’s Apprentice in Walt Disney’s Phantasia.

Is there a ray of hope in all this bleakness? Why yes, there is.

The most basic hope is that human nature abhors captivity and it cannot be changed. Though “they” are working feverishly on it, they haven’t yet been able to breed this ineffable quality out of us. There are always radicals, outlaws and subversives who rise up to throw wrenches into the cogs.

The second ray of hope is that every complex system is beset with random errors that cannot be predicted or eliminated. Over time, these errors multiply until the system collapses. “They” are also working frantically to solve this problem, but it can’t be done, because in our Universe any sufficiently complex system always breaks down. The current central banking system is a great example. In just over a century, the faults within the system have multiplied to the point that it is collapsing at this very moment.

Think of the chaos theory guy in Jurassic Park.

Universe loves entropy and dissipation of energy. Any amount of organization must always corrupt and collapse. Kodak, once the dominant global name in photography, shut its doors recently. They invented digital photography, but the decision to sit on the technology so as not to harm their chemical-mechanical industry led to this moment. A fallible human made a fallible choice that compounded to bring down an empire. As Lord Acton noted a while back, “Absolutely power corrupts absolutely.”

Keep in mind that “corruption” is just decay and rot. It is not necessarily a choice to do evil, immoral or unethical acts for personal gain. Corruption is built into Universe as a means to recycle raw materials for other being to organize to their liking.

In the immortal words of Robert Blake, “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men, Gang aft agley.” Though the overlords struggle mightily to build their ivory towers, they can never control everything, no matter how much they try.

And that’s a good thing.

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In keeping with Robert Burns’ theme, today’s cultural tapestry is the brilliant Of Mice and Men (1939), with the great Burgess Meredith playing George, and the iconic Lon Chaney Jr. playing Lenny. If you aren’t openly weeping by the end of this movie, you have no heart. If you’re one of those quaint hold-overs who still read, John Steinbeck’s novel is amazing. One of my early performances was the character Boss in the stage play, and it’s stuck with me for 50 years.