The Four Pillars of Control

Posted on by
Reply

Throughout recent history, world events have been used (and in many cases engineered) to exert greater control over citizens, with globalisation and centralisation being key components in that control. The American banking crash that gave rise to the great depression resulted in independent banks being swallowed up by large chains, the removal of the gold standard resulted in money with state-malleability and allowed mechanisms to fund perpetual wars, so-called terrorist activities were used to erode our freedoms in the early part of the 21st century, and more recently, pandemics have been used to threaten even our individual bodily autonomy.

Based on the perceived successes of previous control initiatives, we are fast heading towards even more innovative and wide-sweeping control measures, made possible by the rapid technological advances we’ve witnessed over the last few decades. In my view, there will be very few places to hide from these new programmes of virtual slavery, so it’s vital that we understand what’s coming and what it really means for our everyday lives.

The coming advancements will be sold to us as solutions to problems; problems which likely already evoke strong emotions, especially fear. Promises to assuage these latent fears, trumpeted and parroted through the mainstream media, will gain mass consent.

I believe that four new, technocratic solutions will be phased in over the next few years, which will form the basis of our future slavery. I call them The Four Pillars of Control. In this article I’ll be exploring each pillar in turn, considering the problems they are purported to solve and the ways in which they will be leveraged as tools of control.

Pillar 1: Digital ID (DID)

When political stalwarts such as Tony Blair, Stephen Kinnock, William Hague, and many others associated with both sides of the UK House of Commons are busy trying to convince us that we need DIDs we should be concerned. DIDs will act as a unique identifier for every person, allowing all information relating to the individual to be collected and stored nicely in a single, virtual pot. We’re constantly being assured, even prior to rollout, that any such scheme would store only minimal amounts of data, whereas in reality, it won’t be long before they’re linked to our biometric data, and made available to facial recognition surveillance networks.

They will be sold to us as an enabler of frictionless international travel, as a way to manage migration and aid identification of illegal immigrants, and to eliminate all forms of fraud and impersonation, such as voter fraud. The promise to prevent illegal immigration alone will have the support of those triggered by the fallout of Brexit.

In reality, DIDs form the first, vital step to the implementation of the subsequent three pillars, and as is already the case in China, will be linked to the facial recognition cameras to build a picture of our daily lives. It is estimated that today, China has at least 200 million surveillance cameras enabled with facial recognition. As an aside, many people are worried about the health implications of 5G, but I would suggest that a more pressing area of concern around 5G is that it is a necessary enabler for real-time facial recognition camera networks. China has had mobile internet speeds way ahead of most western countries for a long while now, particularly in big cities, and I believe this is entirely to support their facial recognition surveillance system.

The introduction of DIDs also feels like a component of the World Economic Forum (WEF) plan for everything to have its own DID – every toaster, car, house, pair of shoes, etc… in which people will rent everything (and be happy). I believe this is already in motion. For example, how many of today’s 18-year-olds have ever owned a music album, movie or piece of software? The days of paying a one-off fee to own the latest copy of Microsoft Office are over, and even BMW are getting in on the act, requiring car owners to pay subscription fees to use the seat warmers in cars they paid a premium for.

Pillar 2: Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)

CBDCs are simply state-regulated digital money, and even two years ago, Rishi Sunak in his then capacity as Chancellor of the Exchequer was keen on them being introduced. Since then, with Rishi having moved one address along Downing Street, the Bank of England has published articles on its plans to introduce a Digital Pound. Across the pond, our friends in America are exploring the same, with the introduction of the affectionately named Biden Bucks.

According to the Bank of England, CBDCs like the Digital Pound will solve many problems. They will be totally safe and secure, and will prevent illegal activities including theft, money laundering, fraud, and tax avoidance/evasion. We’re told it will also be energy efficient and will allow our financial transitions to become frictionless.

In common with established cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, CBDCs will need a digital address to identify each person’s virtual wallet, which would be the DID outlined above. It is there that any similarity with Bitcoin ends; Bitcoin was built on the concept of decentralisation, and it is beyond the power of any individual or group to change its implementation, conversely, as the name suggests, CBDCs would be entirely under the control of the central banks, and therefore the state.

Modern economics has become a battle against inflation. Since the removal of the gold standard, central banks and governments have three levers they can pull to control inflation: interest rate changes, the creation of new money through quantitative easing and policy changes, both nationally through taxation, and internationally through trade tariffs and controls. It is my view that the efficacy of these levers is waning, as evidenced through the current cost of living crisis which is impacting the entire developed world, and the inability to stop inflation. CBDCs provide a fourth lever allowing more effective control by, for example, applying expiry dates to certain sections of the monetary system. What better way to stimulate spending than to literally have a use-by date on people’s money? It would be possible for certain digital wallets to be switched off entirely (a feature Justin Trudeau would have found extremely useful a few months ago), and it goes without saying that every transaction made using a CBDC would be fully transparent to the state.

Going further down the rabbit hole, CBDCs could be used to further globalise production, forcing smaller companies unable to benefit from economies of scale out of business through increasing transaction and infrastructure costs. My guess is that the hardware needed for vendors to support CBDCs would be leased rather than purchased.

The Bank of England press release is quick to point out that if introduced, CBDSs would not replace cash, and that they would prevent the further adoption of new forms of money that pose risks to the UK’s financial stability, referring of course to Bitcoin. Can we really trust these claims?

Pillar 3: Universal Basic Income (UBI)

The third pillar of control is Universal Basic Income. UBIs are not intrinsically good or bad, and I can imagine UBI implementations that would massively benefit humankind. However, the implementation I’m led to envision, following in the wake of the first two pillars and leading naturally to the fourth, would be anything but benevolent.

It would be sold to us as a massive simplification of the welfare system in which the state would give everyone enough money to fund a basic existence, and given that it would be tied to our DID and paid using a CBDC, it would be impossible for illegal immigrants to receive a UBI, effectively preventing them from playing any part in a society in which they were not welcome.

In reality, it would ensure that every citizen would be entirely dependent on the state to survive, with any infringements against the law or state resulting in UBI being reduced. Given that taxes would inevitably need to increase to fund a UBI scheme, I suspect that the direction of travel would ultimately be for companies to stop paying workers directly, and instead pay governments for labour, leaving the distribution of income via UBI as a matter for the state. Unpaid internships of a year or more, and low paid apprenticeship schemes are becoming more much common in the UK, and I suspect this being used to pave the way towards a UBI.

So far, proposed pilots have come to nothing, apart from a trial in Finland, but I suspect the debate will reopen again once we’re further down the road with the previous two pillars.

Pillar 4: Social Credit Scoring (SCS)

Once again, I find myself looking to China for a glimpse into the future and what’s to come in our so-called western democracies. China is uniquely placed as a totalitarian state, peppered with alumni of the WEF young leader programme, so that it can act as a proving ground for technocratic control measures. First trialled over seven years ago, SCS is now a reality in around 80% of China. Citizens are encouraged to maintain a high social credit score by following desirable behaviour patterns, with their score being reduced for infringements of the law and anti-state behaviour. Scores are reduced in proportion to the severity of the crime, starting with minor infringements like dropping litter and being drunk in public, all the way up to tax evasion and anti-state protests, which attract the largest deductions.

This initiative is already being used as a system of punishment, with poor performers having their faces shamed on digital billboards in urban centres, their travel options restricted, and even their choice of available employment limited. In extreme cases, the children of repeat offenders are being denied access to certain schools.

Once again, this is sold to people as the end to crime and public disorder, and the foundation on which a just and honest society can be built. In practice, it is a way to implement complete top-down control over human behaviour. Proponents for such schemes can often be heard parroting the line that those that do no wrong have nothing to fear from such schemes, but are naïve to the fact that the definition of “wrong” is flexible in the hands of their captors.

It is difficult to judge how such schemes are perceived by Chinese nationals, given how advanced China’s own version of Orwell’s anti-thought crimes programmes have become, and how it’s take on Newspeak, installed through generations of a rote-learning and a compliance based education system, is all invasive in its ability to shape thought and speech. The Chinese SCS system is already integrated with artificial intelligence engines, and the country’s extensive surveillance camera network, meaning that the control can be marshalled autonomously by the authorities.

People in western democracies deceive themselves that no such system would ever be allowed in their homelands, and yet Italy last year announced their intentions to trial a pre-cursor system in Bologna, and closer to home, Wolverhampton trialled a system to give trackers to citizens which rewarded exercise with cinema vouchers.

The fact that InfoSys (a huge Indian IT company with links back to Rishi Sunak through his wife’s father, and also a WEF partner) already runs large projects in China makes me fearful that we’re heading down the same path in the UK faster than one might imagine.

Future developments

I refer to these advancements outlined above as pillars for very good reason. It is my belief that they form a foundation for further control mechanisms. A prime example, regularly referenced in the mainstream media at present, is 15-minute cities. It is no great mental leap to see how much easier they would be to implement with the four pillars in place. It would be simple to prevent subjects making purchases more than a certain distance from their own neighbourhoods if CBDCs were the only form of currency, and DIDs could be used to track travel between districts very easily if they were required at checkpoints.

Those that take arguments regarding manmade climate change at face value will almost certainly vote for the creation of 15-minute cities in the false belief that they will ensure habitable places for their children to live. The authorities clearly think people will accept them, as trials are planned to start in Oxford in the next year or two.

If one mistakenly assumes that our government today is relatively benign and thus, we have nothing to fear in accepting the implementation of the four pillars, consider that governments change. Future rulers may not be so benign and will have the data and the systems already in place to make life very difficult.

Certain well-known luminaries like to compare where we’re heading to dystopia portrayed in The Hunger Games series. Implementation of the four pillars is certainly a step in that direction.

Solutions?

Stopping the technological advances outlined above is not going to be easy, but here are some suggestions that might help slow down their adoption at the very least.

The first thing is simply to be aware. Look out for paradigm changes that are sold to us as solutions to problems that mass-media tells us we need to be afraid of, and be suspicious.

As well as being aware, make sure friends and family are aware too. Tell them your concerns about technocratic developments. Many will likely brand you a conspiracy theorist, but it’s only through heightened awareness that we can hope to build a critical mass and defeat or delay these measures.

Although it’s becoming increasingly difficult, I would encourage people to use cash rather than credit cards. This sends a clear message to the Bank of England, and to the government, that they cannot simply phase out physical money. We need to send a clear message that phasing out physical cash won’t be a frictionless initiative for them. Also consider exploring other forms of money. I personally think Bitcoin is an excellent form of currency which should be seen not as an investment, but as a protest vote against failing fiat currencies. I would thoroughly recommend reading The Bitcoin Standard to educate yourself as to what it’s about. If everyone converted just a few pounds into Bitcoin, it would send another clear message that we’ve had enough of centralised, manipulable money.

To ensure you have a say in how you would like to be compensated for your employment, make sure you join a union where possible. This will give you the power, through safety in numbers, to withhold your employment if you don’t agree with the terms under which your time is being utilised and rewarded.

Think very carefully about signing up for anything that promises rewards for certain behaviours, like the health tracking system they tried to implement in Wolverhampton mentioned above. There is no such thing as a free lunch; you are effectively trading your freedom to act autonomously for something worth a lot less.

Write to your MP and let them know that you won’t be voting for them in future should they decide to support any of the above measures in House of Commons. They need to be reminded that they are our servants, not our masters.

Finally, stay informed about protest marches demonstrating against the introduction of any of the four pillars. The mainstream media won’t tell you where and when these take place, and it certainly won’t report on them after the fact, but you can keep up to date by following organisations like the World Wide Freedom Rally on Telegram. For example, there was a sizable anti-CBDC protest march in the Netherlands recently, but it was only through Twitter that I was made aware of it. Large, organised marches can make a difference. They send a message to the government that there are going to many, many unhappy people if certain policies are implemented. A great example is the NHS 100K marches that took place in January 2022 in London. Many thousands of people marched against vaccine mandates for NHS workers, and as a result, the government revoked their policy.

In closing, I recently saw a video of a 12-year-old talking at one of the anti-15-minute city rallies in Oxford. Best described as the antithesis of Greta Thunberg, her excellent speech talked about how once planted, seeds will grow, and that is why we need to resist all such control measures now before they are given chance to take root. I suspect some parental involvement in her well delivered words, but the existence of people and families that oppose the current direction of travel so vehemently gives me a glimmer of hope for our future.

Holiday Reading

Posted on by
Reply

This year I was fortunate enough to be able to spend two weeks in Brazil. One of my selected holiday books was Lenin’s “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism”, which I’ll be the first to admit isn’t your typical light holiday read.

Although I can’t say I “enjoyed” reading Lenin’s predictions as to the future decay of capitalism in quite the same way I would enjoy a David Mitchell say, I found the book immensely interesting and equally unsettling. Read against the backdrop of one of the world’s fastest growing economies, the book seemed particularly poignant; it felt like Brazil was reinforcing Lenin’s view of capitalism thundering along on its almost predestined path.

With “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism” being my first dip into the history of global economics, I have no doubt that as I become more widely read the fledgling views and theories stated here will seem naïve and childlike when reviewed in the future. This is inevitable; I’m told that even Marx massively contradicts his earlier work as he matures. However, I digress.

So, here is my summary of Lenin’s book:

In capitalist economies, companies strive to run at higher and higher efficiency levels in order to maximise profit. Processes are gradually streamlined over time, and technology leveraged to reduce labour costs. These technological advances made industrialisation and mass production inevitable.

Around the end of the 19th century, the trend of companies cooperating with other companies in order to become even more profitable became more widespread, leading to the formation of cartels and trusts. There are many reasons why this is advantageous, some examples being economies of scale, the sharing of logistics and centralisation of research and development.

These organisations were collectively very powerful, and could work together to eliminate competition and free trade; one of the very foundations of early capitalism. A rise in acquisitions and mergers, and ultimately the formation of massive corporations followed. The monopoly was born.

As these corporations grew, so did the capital required for continued growth. In a world where cash-flow and shareholder dividends are paramount, capital is rarely held in reserve. So it falls to the banks to provide required corporate capital.

Thus, the banks became very powerful, elevated from mere transaction brokers to stakeholders in big business.  The boundaries between the boards of directors in the corporations and the banks became blurred, with banks providing “advisors” to the businesses they lent money to and influencing corporate policy. In controlling the capital, the banks control the corporations.

Lenin states that capitalism is destined to plateau and stagnate. This is inevitable; as markets saturate there is no longer the demand to drive profit producing production. The formation of large corporations extended the lifetime of capitalism by maximising profits, while putting power into the hands of the fortunate few in the banks and corporations. However, the decay continued, and yet more inventive ways were needed to perpetuate the economic paradigm. One such way was imperialism.

By moving into and controlling third world and developing countries, the developed capitalist world gained access to a massive yet incredibly cheap (sometimes free) workforce, controlled a large percentage of the earth’s natural resources and opened up new and untapped markets for its products. And so the already ongoing colonial race stepped up a gear in the 20th century, with countries like the UK, America and France leading the way.

It’s now almost 100 years since Lenin wrote “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism”. Where are we now? As Lenin suggested, the colonies would only take oppression from their capitalist masters for so long; nowadays Imperialism is a dirty word, and a cause of national embarrassment rather than pride.

With the ex-colonies self-governing once more, I still can’t help feeling that the playing field still isn’t level, and that oppression from the developed world is far from over. Sure, these countries are politically independent, but in a world in which bankers rather than politicians call the shots, what does political independence mean when business is still controlled by first world corporations?

concise

And what of capitalism? Our global economy is in trouble once more, but this time there are no obvious directions in which capitalism can turn in order to revive itself. World debt is out of control, austerity has become an everyday expression and people are rioting on the streets of developed countries. I am fearful for the future. The powerful few that pull the strings behind the scenes in our world banks and corporations have shown time and time again they are both ingenious and totally lacking in empathy. It is common knowledge that the world’s most profitable business is war.

So what can be done?

I believe we have to try and break the consumerist cycle on which capitalism depends. Here are some ideas:

  1. As pointed out by the brilliant Zeitgeist movies, don’t support the two largest world banks, JP Morgan and Citibank.
  2. Don’t be sucked in by advertising and don’t be a habitual consumer. The next generation of iPhone may have richer colours and a better resolution than the last, but will it really make your life better and you happier? If your current phone is still perfectly fine, why waste money on upgrading? You work hard for your money so use it wisely.
  3. Re-use and repair where possible. Modern society is becoming more and more “throw-away”. Extend the serviceable lives of the things you own where possible. Most of the natural resources on which we currently depend are finite; it is criminal that they should end up in landfill sites.
  4. Use small businesses and cooperatives where possible to ensure that profits are put back into the pockets of people associated with the business rather than those who deal in shares.
  5. Don’t support anything related to war. Don’t join the armed forces and don’t allow your friends and family to do so.

Why I don’t watch the X-Factor

Posted on by
2

I was asked the other day whether I’m watching the X-Factor this year. This is not an unreasonable question given that in previous years I have avidly followed the handpicked hopefuls, hitherto unheard of, in their attempts to achieve celebrity status and that lucrative recording contract. This year, my equally unreasonable and negative answer was met with surprise.

But why did I turn my back on the show, resplendent in its glitz, glamour and glitter? It’s undeniably entertaining; a masterpiece in weekend television, cunningly crafted to take us along with the contestants on their emotional rollercoaster. We laugh, cry, cringe and even dream with them.

My first and most obvious reason is time-related. In our brave new “I need that email in my inbox in 10 minutes” world, who can justify devoting around three weekend hours to keep up with developments in this newest of British institutions?

I’d also like to be able to say I’m boycotting the show for reasons of principle, although I suspect I’m guilty of retrofitting my ideals to an already done deal. Either way, my ideological argument still holds: We live in a land that has constantly defined and re-defined popular music.  Our islands have inspired the likes of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, The Sex Pistols, Queen, Iron Maiden, Radiohead, The Stone Roses, Oasis, Pulp and Blur (to name but a few) to shape the music listened to by many across our planet. We owe our rich musical heritage to groups of musicians travelling to smoky pubs in beat up old vans, etching out names and reputations for themselves, building up loyal fan bases, scraping together the cash to get demos recorded and hoping that one day chance and tenacity combine to get them a recording contract. Thanks to their months, even years spent sleeping on grubby mattresses in equally grubby bedsits, surviving on a pittance and doing casual work to keep their landlords happy while they plug away with their art, we now have albums such as “OK Computer”, “Definitely Maybe”, “Never Mind the Bollocks” and “Dark Side of the Moon” to enjoy forever.

So, it seems questionable that we now choose our future pop-musicians via a mass-media, advert infused talent show, in which hairdressers, mechanics and postmen all compete for a chance at getting the Christmas number one single as they skyrocket onto the front-pages of our tabloid newspapers.

However, I believe there is another, yet more compelling reason not to devote a good percentage of my autumnal weekends to Simon Cowell’s growing empire: the X-Factor is detrimental to our emotional well-being and the way we view our place in society. It highlights our social inadequacies, suggests that we’re entitled to lifestyles beyond our means, and implies that it is consumption and not effort that will ultimately elevate us out of the working classes.

As I elaborate on my conspiratorial musings, don’t for a minute think that I’m suggesting that the X-Factor is to blame for the global financial crisis; that would be almost as ridiculous as the fact that such suffering can arise from a manmade concept in the first place. I am however suggesting that the X-Factor contributes towards the mind-set that has caused the crisis. We are constantly being bombarded by advertising designed to fuel the voices in our heads, which tell us we’re too ugly, too fat, too unfashionable, too poor, and that our cars are inferior, our houses too small and our phones obsolete. We are led to believe that the path to social acceptance is consumption. After all, capitalism is based on the fundamental assumption that people labour, earn and consume. Our celebrity “role models” appear to have almost limitless means to consume; society believes it deserves the same. Consumption is a necessary condition for happiness. In order to obtain that bigger apartment, flat-panel OED HD 3D TV or designer handbag people borrow, and the banks have been only too keen to oblige. Everyone gets to have their taste of celebrity life, but with the sour, lingering aftertaste of debt.

The X-Factor, as an instant shortcut to celebrity status, constantly reminds us that we’re not living the dream, leaving disappointment and an empty feeling of worthlessness in its wake.

So what can be done?

Instead of watching the X-Factor, I’m going to use my time for good, spend quality time with loved ones and take a moment to be grateful for the amazing things I do have in my life.