Worldcoin, a digital identification platform designed to distinguish real humans from AI algorithms and bots, has become a popular service for young whippersnappers indifferent to their privacy and liberty. Sam Altman, who co-founded the organization and currently serves as the OpenAI CEO, recently shared a video of people voluntarily lining up for iris scans. In exchange for the Orb scanning their eyeballs, participants received 25 free Worldcoin tokens. By using iris biometrics, Worldcoin can "verify humanness and uniqueness" and "build the biggest financial and identity community" possible. So far, according to the firm, 2.2 million individuals have signed up, leaving everyone else to wonder one thing: Why?
Worldcoin Is Your Savior
After the video went viral on X, formerly known as Twitter, there were plenty of privacy concerns for the digital identity system. Even the Kenyan government was worried, with the Ministry of Internal Security announcing that Worldcoin was banned from operating in the African country. But the authoritarians must be ebullient after the latest confirmation from Worldcoin: Governments and companies can access its technology.
While Worldcoin says its applications can enable "global democratic processes" and lay the groundwork for a "potential universal basic income," the entity also notes that "we build this infrastructure and that we allow other third parties to use the technology." Law enforcement agencies, intelligence communities, and Big Tech must be foaming at the mouth over the endless surveillance possibilities.
The success is unsurprising. The Cato Institute 2023 Central Bank Digital Currency National Survey found that nearly one-third of Generation Z Americans favored the government installing surveillance cameras in the home "to reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity." In the future, Big Brother may no longer be a pejorative – the term will be viewed with fondness and excitement.
But are these types of tools as dangerous as some conservatives and libertarians warn? Ask the Chinese population or even Nigel Farage.
The Social Credit Score Expansion
(Photo by Priyanka Parashar/Mint via Getty Images
Across the Twitterverse (Xverse?), there are videos showcasing the evolution of China's social credit system. The apparatus was initiated in 2007 to impose morality on society and usher in economic and social change in the world's second-largest economy. To no one's surprise, it metastasized into a totalitarian landscape that controls every aspect of citizens' lives. In 2018, the Chinese government implemented restrictions on individuals and businesses with low social credit scores, meaning millions would be denied flights, high-speed train tickets, and seats on city buses.
Social media has highlighted that this system now prevents people with low ratings from accessing gasoline stations, supermarkets, and affluent neighborhoods. In addition, various places have screens sharing images and names of folks with abysmal scores. In other words, it is the left's cancel culture on steroids.
The incomparable Carol Roth, author of You Will Own Nothing and guest of Liberty Nation’s Swamponomics videocast, recently said it best in a Fox News opinion piece:
"When a social moral code replaces a legal code and gains acceptance, it is only a matter of time before those in power want to leverage that dynamic to secure more power for themselves. That begets the foundation for social compliance and social credit at the state/government level.
The formalization of this state social credit system requires two steps. The first is information-gathering on individuals. The second is those in power using the information without being challenged. When both of those become easy to do at scale, tyranny quickly follows."
And Then There Was Nigel Farage
Nigel Farage (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Leading Brexit figure Nigel Farage was ostensibly punished for his politics. It was recently reported that Coutts, a private banking and wealth management firm in London, closed his account for what he says were his views on COVID-19 vaccines, his friendship with former President Donald Trump, and his thoughts on the 2SLGTBQIA+ agenda. Farage calls it a "major national scandal" and will target "the increasingly woke and authoritarian banking industry" after launching accountclosed.org. "This is about the right to free speech, about having a country where people are treated fairly in an age when you frankly can’t function on a personal level, let alone a business level, without a bank account," he said.
Farage is an affluent, famous, and controversial figure who can quickly transfer his funds to another financial institution that readily accepts these deposits. But what about John Q. Public, who does not share this luxury? What happens when governments and central banks impose central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, on the public and citizens cannot access money because of their opinions?
Are these concerns far-fetched? Think for a moment about the pandemic. Canadian protesters had their bank accounts and cryptocurrency holdings frozen because they opposed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Americans lost their employment for not bowing down to the regime. Social media users' speech was censored as the government pressured tech firms to crack down on opinions that defied The Science. Polls showed that half of Democrats supported imprisonment for questioning the efficacy of coronavirus vaccines.
First, it is an elected president. Then, it is a well-known private citizen. Before you know it, John Smith is being cast out like a leper because he did not wave a rainbow flag during Pride Month. President Abraham Lincoln allegedly wrote: "The best way to predict the future is to create it." The anointed totalitarian establishment is constructing tomorrow. Will the public accept the orange jumpsuit on a prison planet?
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