Our lives are becoming increasingly digitised. At the moment this development is benign and presented as simply a matter of convenience. A great many of us are accepting it on that face value. In reality this development is incredibly dangerous as it gives the controllers of this technology enormous power over us. An illustration of this, which is still current, is the post masters scandal. Great harm was done to innocent people, the sub postmasters and their families. As they found themselves locked into a digital system that was claimed to be infallible, simply because it was digital. The harms done, the lives lost, the money stolen. The innocent accused and condemned. It would be a terrible mistake if you want to imagine it couldn’t happen to you.
In China where digital control is more advanced, there is such a thing as a Social Credit Score. A digital score, attached to a digital I.D. that is unique to the individual. That score goes up and down depending on the actions of the individual made possible through widespread surveillance. The consequences of a low score can be what food you can access, how far and by what means you can travel, whether or not you have permission to access public spaces. No one can have failed to notice those strange steel structures on the road by Judges Lodgings. It is a mistake to imaging that what is already in place in China isn’t going to be tried here.
One of the key elements of this digitisation, is the digitisation of money. Something called Central Bank Digital Currency, or CBDCs. I believe our Bank of England has its plans in place and is ready to put those plans into action. These digital tokens masquerading as money are programable. They can dictate where you spend it, how you spend it, what you can spend it on, how long you can have it before you loose it. It can be frozen, it can be taken away from you, it can be as if you never had it. Not too dissimilar to the Postmasters experience.
If we allow this horror to achieve its full expression, then the only way we can have so much as a crumb of what is now a free life, would be our absolute, total, abject submission to the power over us. Digital convenience then becomes digital slavery. And there will be no way out. If, like me, you want to resist this development, then, for now, the most direct way of protesting, is to use cash as much as possible, and as much as possible, refuse to do business with businesses that wont accept cash.
If, like me, you value your freedom, then cash is King and we must do all we can to keep it that way.
The Mayne Lads 