Or will be really soon.
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2018/09/...-everyone.html
We've discussed this elsewhere, but this is just stunning. The Chinese are very close if not there to tracking basically the movement and activity of every citizen in their core nation (they probably aren't getting this done yet in the outskirts but it's coming).
Buy too much booze? Jaywalk? They know it, and it reduces your "social credit score". Obey the rules and your children get better schooling opportunities, don't and they are punished.
Post on social media too much? Too many video games? No travel approval for that vacation you wanted to take, or maybe you lose out on that apartment you wanted near work.
This is serious, for real. they have 200 MILLION cameras online, and this article says it will triple to 600 million in less than 2 years. With facial recognition software and phone/electronics tracking and filing of every shred of everyone's movement and activities.
It's a level of efficiency even Orwell didn't fully anticipate. In 1984 the Proles were largely ignored by the party apparatus, as they weren't a threat. Not so with China, they will control everyone with an efficiency far beyond two way TV screens and training children to turn in their parents.
China has an historic tendency to turn inward on itself, becoming obsessed with its own "All Under Heaven". I have to wonder if this is part of that tide turning once again. Of course simultaneously China is making fast inroads in trade and foreign influence, but I wonder if this will work against that in the long run. It may reinforce it, giving them total power over their economic might at the most minute, individual worker level.
Fwiw, this is why dismissing our own "deep state" is so foolhardy. CIA director Brennan, who makes a living accusing others of treason now, lied outright to Congress, our direct representatives, about the NSA collecting mountains of data and recordings of our conversations and movements, and yet there was minimal outrage and this guy is still treated as a respected thinking instead of being in jail as a criminal.
Are we really so far behind China? Sure it's less palatable here, so it's more quiet, but Google and Facebook and surely the NSA know everywhere we all go every day with our phones. Every liquor store, every shop, every civic meeting. All that data is there, and we're also bringing facial recognition and tracking online as well, just not as robustly.
As college indoctrinate the next generation with the abhorrent notion that speech should only be tolerated if you agree with it and it doesn't offend you, and branding anyone who disagrees as a racist and guilty of "hate speech", is it too far fetched that the fact that you went to a "subversive' or "racist" meeting gets used against you? It's already happening on college campuses, with students singled out and punished for it.
The Chinese at least are honest about it, they sell it as a feature and reward for their citizens. I have a feeling we have plenty of reasons to worry here b/c clearly those in power think they know what's best for us, and they seem really good at covering their tracks.
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