My selected highlights:
"Will the social engineers of the future use social engineering tools such as social credit scores and social impact finance to co-create a more equitable and just world?
Or are all of the buzzwords simply another mask for the next stage of colonialist-corporate-capitalism?
... Between 1978 and 1995, Theodore John Kaczynski, or simply Ted Kaczynski, launched a coordinated bombing campaign in an attempt to raise awareness about the threat digital technology poses to the planet and all life.
Kaczynski’s bombs resulted in the deaths of 3 people, 23 persons injured, and him being sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars in the supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.
On September 19, 1995, The Washington Post and The New York Times co-published Kaczynski’s manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future, and quickly catapulted the terrorist to cult status among certain radical anti-technology activists and anarcho-primitivists.
It was the publication of Kaczynski’s writing that ultimately led to his capture and imprisonment.
Since that time, his words and ideas have been heavily debated, dissected, praised, and scorned.
For many Millennials and Gen-Z who grew up with the Internet (or in some cases “on the Internet”), the issues that Kaczynski speaks to are very real — isolation, over-socialization, disassociation.
... Numerous studies over the last decade have clearly highlighted the negative effects of spending too much time on the Internet, comparing and contrasting our lives against largely fictionalized versions of other peoples lives.
This disassociation — along with mass surveillance — was exactly what Ted Kaczynski warned about.
" ... if the system survives, the consequences will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying the system so as to prevent it from depriving people of dignity and autonomy. If the system breaks down the consequences will still be very painful. But the bigger the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later.” ― Theodore John Kaczynski, Industrial Society and Its Future
... By understanding the concerns of Kaczynski, is it possible to better comprehend the dangers posed to us by rapidly emerging digital technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), biometrics, facial recognition databases, and the Technocratic philosophy which guides The Great Reset initiative?
This essay is the first of several efforts to understand the coming threat of these technologies — specifically, social credit scores and social impact finance — in relation to the warnings of the brilliant but fractured mind of Ted Kaczynski.
The World Kaczynski Warned About: Social Credit Scores
Kaczynski warned about the dangers of using digital technology in a way that forces humans to mold themselves into the machine, as opposed to molding the machines to the desires and benefits of humanity.
When he writes, “our society tends to regard as a “sickness” any mode of thought or behavior that is inconvenient for the system,
and this is plausible because when an individual doesn’t fit into the system it causes pain to the individual as well as problems for the system.
Thus the manipulation of an individual to adjust him to the system is seen as a “cure” for a “sickness” and therefore as good”, he speaks to a feeling expressed by many thinkers before him.
Perhaps most famously, Krishanmurti said, “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” ...
The area where Kaczynski might be most prescient is his prediction is that society would compel people to change their behaviors and actions to suit the needs of the technological system.
This can be seen most clearly with the introduction of social engineering programs such as social credit scores.
... Starting in 2009, the Chinese government began testing a national reputation system based on a citizen’s economic and social reputation, or “social credit.”
This social credit score can be used to reward or punish certain behaviors.
The idea is that the state can give or takeaway points from a social credit score in order to engineer good behavior from the people.
... By late 2019, Chinese citizens were losing points on their score for dishonest and fraudulent financial behavior, playing loud music, eating on public transportation, jaywalking, running red lights, failing to appear at doctor appointments, missing job interviews or hotel reservations without canceling, and incorrectly sorting waste.
To raise one’s social credit score a Chinese citizen can donate blood, donate to an approved charity, volunteer for community service, and other activities approved by the government.
The Chinese government has begun to deny millions of people the ability to purchase plane and high-speed rail tickets due to low social credit scores and being labeled “untrustworthy.”
... According to a 2020 report from cybersecurity experts Kaspersky, 32 percent of adults between 25 to 34 have had issues getting a mortgage or loan due to their social media activity.
The denial of loans comes as part of “social scoring systems” which are being used at an alarming rate by government and businesses to determine customers or citizens “trustworthiness.”
Kaspersky surveyed more than 10,000 people from 21 countries and found that 18 percent of those polled had issues accessing financial services because of assessments of their social media data.
“Based on these scores, systems make decisions for us or about us, from travel destinations and the associated costs, to whether we are allowed to access the service itself,” the report states.
... it’s fairly easy to see how concepts like social credit scores can be used to punish those who reject vaccines and similar therapies.
For example, let’s say you are one of the people who refuse to wear masks in public.
Once one of the thousands of facial recognition cameras scan your face, they will send the faceprint to the local data analysis center and immediately identify you while deducting points from your social credit score.
The government and partnered corporations might also broadcast your photo and identity to your local surroundings, individual phones and digital billboards, to alert the people they are in the presence of an anti-social, anti-science, anti-mask idiot.
... associating with an individual with a low social credit score can also cause one’s own score to drop.
This means family and friends might choose to change their relationships with those who display so-called anti-social behaviors for fear of losing points on their social credit score and suffering the consequences.
... In many ways humans already accumulate and spend “social credit” in our current relationships.
For example, when a person develops a reputation as a liar or a thief, word spreads.
Community members become aware of the anti-social habit and begin to spread the word to other community members who associate with this person.
... Unfortunately, we live in a world where men and women in positions of authority exercise their power by attempting to control the lives of the masses using digital technology and propaganda.
This means that governments with a track record of authoritarianism and deception, and corporations with less than trustworthy histories are the likely architects of the social credit schemes of the near future.
... The reality is that certain individuals believe they can use the concept of social credit scores to encourage positive, empowering behavior.
However, we must always ask, who is the judge of what behavior constitutes positive and negative?
Social Impact Finance:
A Tool for Positive Outcomes or for Social Manipulation?
... The system HAS TO force people to behave in ways that are increasingly remote from the natural pattern of human behavior.
For example, the system needs scientists, mathematicians and engineers.
It can’t function without them.
So heavy pressure is put on children to excel in these fields.
It isn’t natural for an adolescent human being to spend the bulk of his time sitting at a desk absorbed in study.
The system does not and cannot exist to satisfy human needs.
Instead, it is human behavior that has to be modified to fit the needs of the system.
If social credit scores are a tool that can be used for good or ill — but increasingly likely to be used for ill — then social impact finance is the infrastructure upon which social credit scores will rest.
... The terms social impact finance, social impact bonds, social impact investing, pay for success, or simply impact investing
describe a specific investment strategy that ostensibly aims to benefit society or the environment in a positive way,
in addition to reaping financial gains. SocialFinance.org explains Social Impact Bonds in the following way:
“Social impact bonds are unique public-private partnerships that fund effective social services through performance-based contracts. Impact investors provide the capital to scale the work of high-quality service providers.
Government repays those investors if and when the project achieves outcomes that generate public value.
... a social impact bond (SIB) is a contract with the public sector or governing body in which the institution pays for “better social outcomes” and passes on the savings to social impact investors.
In this way, social impact bonds are not traditional bonds since repayment and return on investment are dependent on achieving a desired social outcome.
If the investors and institutions fail to achieve said outcomes, they receive neither a return or repayment of the principal investment.
These types of investments are part of a growing trend where corporations seeking to rebrand themselves spend large amounts of money to prove their efforts.
... One specific method for measuring the success of these programs is to base them on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria.
ESG investing is also sometimes referred to as sustainable investing, responsible investing, or socially responsible investing (SRI).
The practice has become an increasingly popular way to promote the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Environmental, social, and governance standards give socially conscious investors an opportunity to screen which types of corporations they want to endorse.
... In the best case scenario, a wealthy philanthropist who truly cares about the state of the environment and advancing equity amongst corporations decides which companies to invest in based on their ESG standards.
... the reality appears to be starkly different than this imagined best case scenario ... remember that in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, investors were using financial tools to make profits off the losses and bankruptcy of individual homeowners.
... In November 2016, Tim Scott, writing for Dissident Voices, described how the early philanthropists used their charitable giving to advance unseen agendas.
Scott elaborates on the true nature of these so-called philanthropic schemes and how they are evolving in today’s technocratic climate:
... The article goes on to outline how the usual suspects — the Rockefeller Foundation — were directly involved in spawning Impact investing.
Scott reports that in 2007 the Rockefeller Foundation organized two meetings of leaders of finance and philanthropy to build the “structural framework for an efficient worldwide social and environmental impact investment industry”.
Those in attendance agreed to a global network of leading impact investors, as well as a “standardized framework for assessing social and environmental impact”.
The result of these meetings was the creation of the Global Impact Investment Network (GIIN) in 2009, as a tax-exempt non-profit organization based in the United States.
As Scott notes, the membership of GIIN is made up of “the luminaries of global finance and philanthropic foundations”, including The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Goldman Sachs, J.P.Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Ford Foundation, Deutsche Bank, International Finance Corporation, Root Capital, UBS Financial Services and many more.
Many of these same organizations involved in the promotion of the GIIN and impact investing are also partners with the World Economic Forum, the institution behind the push for a Great Reset.
The Nexus of Social Credit Scores and Social Impact Finance
To understand how social impact finance and social credit scores form a two pronged attack on individual liberty and sovereignty, let’s turn to a presentation by Charles Hoskinson at the World Economic Forum in January 2020.
Hoskinson is the co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain and founder of the Cardano blockchain.
During his short presentation, Hoskinson elaborates on the ways in which he envisions social impact finance and social credit scores interfacing with blockchain ledgers.
... Hoskinson envisions a world where social impact investors place their money into programs which they allegedly believe will improve the planet or a specific local population.
They do so with the hopes that they will receive their initial investment, plus some gained profit.
Then, as outlined by Hoskinson, you can partner these investments with technology that allows for “tracking and tracing” of individual’s purchases to make sure they are “spending money correctly”,
i.e., according to the terms set by the social impact investors as part of their original arrangement.
... let’s see what is meant by a “self sovereign identity” as mentioned by Hoskinson.
The so-called “Sovereign Self Identity” project was launched by IBM and involves the creation of a privately held identity which is “owned” by the individual, as opposed to a government sanctioned identification.
This is achieved by individuals securely storing their own identity data on their own personal devices and providing it to those who need to validate it, without relying on a central repository of identity data.
In this situation, the individual must consent to the sharing of their identities and any related data.
Once again, this is a technology that has the potential to eliminate the need for government and central authorities, if done in a way that respects individual privacy and autonomy.
However, it appears the organizations behind the concept are part of the same cabal of technocrats racing towards a Great Reset.
... While the Sovrin Foundation is clearly talking about a privately held identification, stored on a private blockchain, which only the holder can reveal to 3rd parties, it’s obvious this technology could be used for nefarious purposes.
It’s true that Sovrin pays lip service to keeping the infrastructure of such an identification “diffuse” or distributed, preventing any single organization or small group from turning off the ID and preventing an ID holder from being “locked out” of society.
However, their partnerships with IBM and the WEF belie an ulterior motive.
The worst part of this whole “sovereign self identity” scheme is that it plays on the use of a word like “sovereign”, which in recent years has come to be associated with the truth and health freedom movements, especially in the context of COVID1984.
However, this corruption of language is par for the course for the Predator Class.
Just as the elitists at the WEF and UN mask their agendas with the use of words like “sustainable”, “diverse”, “equitable”, etc, they are now attempting to hijack the language of individual liberty and bodily autonomy.
This does not mean we can not or should not use these words, but rather that we should fight to ensure their true meaning is understood.
If we do not fight to preserve the true meaning of these powerful words we are allowing the Technocrats to continue their word manipulation, doublespeak insanity.
If we are not careful, these criminals will erase and pervert the meaning of these concepts so that future generations do not know what it means to be a sovereign, autonomous human being.
Which World of the Future Are We Creating?
... Will humanity find a balance of nature and digital technology, striking harmony between permaculture, indigenous wisdom, and emerging technologies?
Or will we fall prey to the desire to use these tools to forget about our humanity and falsely believe we can escape the limitations of our human existence?
Each of us must answer this question for ourselves, and our communities.
As I outlined in my book How To Opt Out of the Technocratic State, I believe the only long term solution is to Exit from these technocratic systems and Build systems which align with our values and principles.
While I wholeheartedly reject the acts of violence used by Ted Kaczynski, I echo his call for more attention and awareness on the dangers of pervasive digital technology."
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