Danish writer Soren Korsgaard (editor of Crime & Power) has written a very long and detailed account entitled “One World Digital Dictatorship” that describes the accelerating movement by both Western-style democracies and one-party states (notably China) towards world-wide Digital Dictatorship (Digital Imprisonment) involving mass data collection on everyone, mass surveillance, facial recognition-based tracking, crypotocurrency-based cashless societies, and social credit-based disempowerment.
“One World Digital Dictatorship” by Soren Korsgaard is a vitally important, must-read and indeed scary essay that details the ongoing digital disempowerment and digital imprisonment of Humanity that is pertinent to all societies from the US and UK to India and China. In systematically reviewing this important essay I have followed the sub-headings of the author.
(1). [Introduction].
In the introduction to his extensive essay, Soren Korsgaard states the problem thus: “Rather than being dismantled, the establishment has openly added advanced surveillance technology to their arsenal in their cataclysmic War on Truth. The mainstream media now parallels Orwell’s Ministry of Truth that broadcasts official explanations, while it effectively neutralizes those who venture outside the parameters of government-approved thinking, which so often equates to threatening their interests. While the current Western population control via advanced surveillance technology and social engineering is unparalleled in history, China has nevertheless rolled out a system that sets new standards for government control, the so-called social credit system. In a few decades from now, if the Chinese government succeeds, those who are imprisoned by the social crediting system will have no reference point or conception of freedom; digital tyranny will have become the norm. To some extent, Western policymakers have been apprehensive of the Chinese program, but as we shall see, it is nevertheless evident that they themselves are working diligently behind the scenes to implement the same technology that makes the Chinese digital prison possible” [1].
Comments
It isn’t just China that is advancing in digital control of populations as illustrated by the major Anglosphere, Western, ostensible democracies, the US, UK, Canada and Australia. In George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” Big Brother asserted that war is peace, slavery is freedom, ignorance is strength and 2 plus 2 does not equal 4, but these evident falsehoods are de rigeur in the Anglosphere democracies in relation to war, civil rights, and climate change. Numerous examples can be given. Thus Australia, one of the world’s oldest and most progressive parliamentary democracies, has been involved in all post-1950 US Asian wars, atrocities associated with 40 million Asian deaths. But US-dominated and Orwellian Australian Mainstream media follow similarly mendacious US, UK and Canadian Mainstream media in asserting that the US Alliance “defence forces” have been invading all these countries to bring “peace” by war , “freedom” by imposed occupation or hegemony, “strength” through mendaciously-imposed ignorance, and extraordinary, anti-science denial of the massive and ever-increasing body count [2]. Similarly, Australian Western Mainstream media resolutely ignore the horrible reality that 32 million Muslims have died from violence, 5 million, or from imposed deprivation 27 million, in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s 9-11 false flag atrocity that killed 3,000 people [3, 4].
Western Mainstream media resolutely accept as an article of faith the “official US version of 9-11” proclaimed by successive mendacious US Administrations, notwithstanding its rejection by numerous science, architecture, engineering, aviation, military and intelligence experts [4]. Indeed the post-9-11 War on Terror has been associated with huge violations of civil rights, notably in the US via the Patriot Act [5], in Australia by over 70 anti-terrorism laws that have finally elicited Mainstream media opposition when applied to journalists [6-10], and in the UK as exampled by the outrageous persecution of truth-telling journalist and world hero Julian Assange [11, 12]. Western citizens are increasingly being compulsorily scrutinized, licenced, identified, digitalized, spied on, threatened and constrained in relation to compulsory ID, credit worthiness, privacy and civil rights. Numerous examples can be given. Thus millions of African Americans are excluded from voting by felony laws or inadequate ID [14-16]. In Australia huge numbers of welfare recipients have been persecuted by robotized debt collection (“robo-debt”) demands based on “statistical likelihood” rather than actuality [17]. And as for “2 + 2 does not equal 4”, the Climate Emergency is remorselessly worsening in 2 dozen areas [18-32] while the governments of corrupt, pro-One Percenter Western Corporatocracies refuse to take requisite action, and the king-making Murdoch Media Empire deceives half the population into actual or effective climate change denialism [28, 31-33].
(2). The Social Credit System
Soren Korsgaard describes the scary, high technology, Chinese ”social credit system”: “The Chinese Communist Party implemented the world’s first social crediting system in 2014, a dystopian and Orwellian surveillance-based program that rates citizens according to a set of rules defined by the government; for example, one will be punished for playing too much video game, eating food in the metro, criticizing the government, failing to sort personal waste correctly, swearing in public, and other offenses. On the other hand, one will be rewarded for spying on one’s fellow citizens and reporting to the authorities if people use profane language. At this time, the system has been rolled out in selected cities and declared a success by the government. Before the end of 2020, the Chinese government intends to have assigned a credit score to all of China’s citizens and private businesses, and, at this time, there is, therefore, some variability in the imposed set of regulations and rewards. If you lose too many points, you become a “blacklisted” individual… Blacklisted individuals become personae non-gratae: they and their children are banned from a long list of services, like getting out of the country, from specific schools, have their banking accounts frozen, and other people will by force not associate with them as it causes their rating to drop” [1]. Soren Korsgaard then proceeds to describe in great detail this insidious system, its dependence on highly intrusive and digitized mass surveillance including CCTV, face recognition and other monitoring, and its draconian consequences for individuals and families. In addition he comments on the death penalty in China, the associated abuses of organ harvesting from executed prisoners, and the inevitable execution of wrongly convicted people that also happens in the US.
Comments.
Aspects of the Social Credit System are already evident in the West and other societies. Thus, for example, Australia has a sensible driving licence system involving periodic renewal, a demerit points system for offences such as speeding that can eventually result in licence cancellation, licence removal for even more serious offences (dangerous driving, exceeding blood alcohol limits, a positive blood drug test), removal for incapacity due to age or illness, and need of a driver’s licence for ID in banking, social welfare, legal and other transactions. Australia has a very good universal healthcare system in which all citizens and authorized residents have a Medicare Card and which is complemented by private doctors, private specialists, private hospitals and private medical insurance accessed by an appropriate Card. However refugees who have not applied for or obtained a permanent residency visa or a permanent protection visa are not eligible to apply for Medicare Card. Boat-borne refugees who are highly abusively and indefinitely imprisoned without charge or trial on remote concentrations camps on Nauru and on Manus Island (Papua New Guinea) [34-36] were in 2019 legislatively granted (by the Opposition and minor parties) life-saving medical evacuation to Australian hospitals on the basis of the opinion 2 doctors – however the racist and human-right-abusing Coalition Government recently succeeded in abolishing this Medevac Law i.e. retaining the “right” to sentence refugees to slow death in the name of “Border Security” [38]. The same human rights-abusing Australian Coalition government has introduced a cashless welfare card for mainly Indigenous Australians who can only use it for limited, government-permitted purchases, this being described as a discriminatory and social control measure by Indigenous experts [39]. The Hawke Australian Labor Government proposed an Australian ID card (Australia Card) but this was quickly rejected [40] . However Australia now has several government-provided ID card systems (GovPass and Digital iD) that are predicted to save the economy tens of billions of dollars each year. However the Australian Strategic Policy Institute warns: “Neither GovPass nor Digital iD is governed by dedicated legislation, beyond existing laws such as the inadequate Privacy Act 1988, leaving Australians vulnerable to having their data misused. The lack of clarity about how the private sector will and will not be able to use the schemes will turbocharge the ability to gather detailed profiles of individual Australians. Controls are needed to prevent a Western version of China’s ‘social credit’ scheme emerging” [41].
The French Vichy Government introduced a compulsory national identity card in 1940 that was modified in 1942 to identify Jews, this enabling the rapid deportation of 76,000 French Jews to likely death in Nazi concentration camps [42]. This is the ultimate nightmare of information-rich ID and Social Credit systems. Thus it is estimated that 1 million Uyghurs (about 10% of the Xinjiang Uyghur population) are temporarily confined to re-education camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China in a Chinese Government bid to pre-empt any expanded Uyghur separatist insurgency in a province re-conquered by China in the 18th century and that is about 46% Han or Hui Chinese and 46% Uyghur. About 2 million Uyghurs live outside China [43, 44]. In contrast, of 14 million Indigenous Palestinians 7 million are Exiled Palestinians (forbidden to step foot in Palestine, the homeland continuously inhabited by their forebears to the very dawn of the Agrarian Revolution in 10,000 BCE), and 5 million Occupied Palestinians with zero human rights and highly abusively confined under Israeli Apartheid to the Gaza Concentration Camp (2 million) or to ever-shrinking West Bank ghettoes (3 million) and nearly 2 million “lucky” Palestinian Israelis (allowed to vote but subject to over 60 Nazi-style discriminatory laws [45, 46]), with all of this involving race-specifying ID analogous to the passes of Apartheid South Africa, numerous check-points and egregious and deadly Apartheid Israeli violence [47-56]. The Zionist-subverted, pro-Zionist, pro-Apartheid Israel and hence pro-Apartheid Anglosphere nations of the US, Australia, Canada and the UK rank number 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively, in the world for support of Apartheid Israel, the ongoing Palestinian Genocide and hence of the utter obscenity of race-based “zero social credit” . The “social credit” is zero (0) for Exiled Palestinians and Occupied Palestinians in Palestine just as it is for 1 million Rohingyas driven from their homes in Myanmar, and indeed about 70 million refugees in the world today (many of them Muslims and driven from their homes in the Zionist-backed US War on Muslims and the ongoing Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide [57]). Indigenous Australians have had a sustainable, continent-wide culture for 65,000 years [58, 59] but have been singled out by the racist Australian Government for a “cashless welfare card” crucial for physical survival [39].
(3). Big Brother is Watching You
In this section Soren Korsgaard outlines the technology behind the increasingly sophisticated “surveillance state” around the world from credit worthiness and trust worthiness to facial recognition and tracking: “The evidence is abundant that governments have systematically and deliberately undermined our liberties and secretly geared up their respective states for a tyrannical, digital prison… If governments are to create a “smart” or “digital” prison for all of us, it follows that as much as possible of human behaviour and interaction with physical devices must be readily quantifiable and internet accessible, preferably connected to large databases; this is often referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT). Government agencies that can process vast amounts of data, such as the National Security Agency (NSA), will then intercept the data to evaluate our interaction with the world… Surveillance is essential for the workings of a social credit system, in particular, facial recognition technology or biometric face scanners and similar technology… the same types of surveillance technology deployed in China are being set up by government agencies or in conjunction with private companies, in numerous countries, such as USA, France, Australia, Germany, Canada, India, United Kingdom, Russia”. Soren Korsgaard goes on to detail application of these technologies and concludes “In January 2009, India launched Aadhaar, which has become the world’s largest biometric ID system… India becoming a “total, permanent surveillance state”… The [US] NSA is well known at this time due to the media-friendly whistleblower Edward Snowden who revealed that the US engages in the activities specified above. Specifically, the NSA is the American part of the Five Eyes Alliance, a conspiratorial network designed to intercept data, share it between them, and thus commit espionage on as many people and governments as possible” [1].
Comments.
These developments were adumbrated not only in George Orwell’s 1949 novel “1984” but also in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “The First Circle” (a 1968 novel about a mathematician developing voice-recognition for the Communist KGB state in Stalinist Russia), “Blake’s 7” (a 1978-1991 UK TV science fiction series in which a totalitarian Terran Federation uses mass surveillance, brainwashing and drugs to control the Solar System)[60], “Enemy of the State” (a 1998 movie thriller starring Will Smith and Gene Hackman premised on the US government seeking new anti-terrorism powers backed with pervasive satellite surveillance technology) [61], and “Changing Lanes” (a 2002 movie in which a White lawyer (played by Ben Affleck) has a minor traffic accident with a Black insurance salesman (Samuel L. Jackson) and gets an IT whiz to access and then press the button to destroy the Black guy’s credit rating, finances, and mortgage) [62]. Indeed pervasive and pin-point state surveillance is now a routine key element in spy thrillers (e.g. the Jason Bourne series) [63].
While the pervasive surveillance powers of America, Russia, the UK and China are well known, less well known is the role of Australia as a US-linked surveillance state.US lackey Australia through its joint Australia-US electronic spying base at Pine Gap in Central Australia is a key element in US nuclear terrorism and also targets illegal US drone attacks in 7 countries (Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan)[64]. Indeed it is likely that Australia targeted the recent deadly American attack at Baghdad International Airport that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, Shiite Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and 8 others [65]. Australia legislated for mandatory acquisition of all electronic meta-data (who speaks to whom but with accessing what they say requiring a judge’s permission). However Australia has also passed a law making it punishable by up to 10 years in prison for anyone revealing any misconduct by Australian Intelligence i.e. giving the spooks carte blanche to do anything they like (see [65]). The US belongs to the 5-eyes intelligence-sharing Club (US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) but shares bulk intelligence on Australians with nuclear terrorist Apartheid Israel [67]. The incompetent, US lackey and terror hysteric Australian Coalition Government (with Labor support) has ignored expert scientific and corporate advice by legislating to allow Australian intelligence agencies to access encrypted corporate and other sites, this imposing a security weakness and hence a serious threat to all corporations operating in Australia and who will now be considering data storage elsewhere [68].
Soren Korsgaard outlines the process whereby India (population 1.3 billion) is becoming a “total, permanent surveillance state”. This has serious implications for hundreds of millions of Indians who live in poverty, are Muslims or are in disagreement with the neoliberal and Hindutva (fervently pro-Hindu) policies of the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) Government led by PM Narendra Modi. The demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes by the Modi government in 2017 disproportionately impacted the poor who are disproportionately not part of the digital economy. Presently 4 million Indians die avoidably from deprivation each year [2] and demonetisation would have made this worse by increasing poverty, deprivation and disempowerment [69]. The Citizens Amendment Act (CAA) of the Modi Government excludes Muslims from citizenship offered to those who sought refuge in India before 2015. This a serious threat to the stability and inclusiveness of India , a country that has a secular Constitution, and is particularly serious in light of India’s actions to update citizenship records in Bangladesh-bordering Assam that may render 4 million people stateless [71] (millions of Bangladeshis fled to India during the Pakistan-imposed Bengali Genocide and Bengali Gendercide in 1971) [2, 71].
(4). Collectivism and Censorship
Soren Korsgaard argues that censorship and propaganda in both democratic and one-party systems promote an altruistic collectivism “for the greater good” needed for popular acceptance of a digital prison: “While the technology is already available or will soon be to most advanced countries, it can be argued that its availability does not necessitate a rollout of a digital prison. However, for years governments have preconditioned the masses with the ideological underpinnings paramount to a totalitarian digital prison, namely collectivism and the related idea of free-speech restraints via political correctness, brute force, and censorship. By preconditioning the masses, they will slowly be guided into acceptance or compliance with such a system as it is being gradually rolled out. The Chinese social crediting system is rooted in collectivism” [1]. Soren Korsgaard then proceeds give examples of altruistic collectivism e.g. [my view in square brackets] mass vaccination [good], firearms control [good] , censorship [bad] and persecution of dissidents [bad] . Soren Korsgaard on censorship: “Silencing whistleblowers, government critics, and free thinkers is an essential component of any tyrannical regime in order to terrorize the public into compliance, and to keep them isolated from information that runs contrary to official dogmas; the greater the ignorance of human rights violations the lower is the chance of resistance and opposition. The digital revolution has equipped us with lightning speed communication, but ruling elites have weaponized the digitization to control, manipulate, and destroy information that is contrary to their interests” [1].
Comments.
I must strongly disagree with Soren Korsgaard’s libertarian reservations about mass vaccination and gun control. Mass vaccination has saved literally billions of people from suffering and death. Thus large-scale international vaccination programs have completely eliminated smallpox, almost eliminated polio, and saved billions of children from misery or death from measles, diphtheria, whooping cough and influenza in particular. A sophisticated international program of vaccination prevents deadly influenza pandemics of the kind that killed up to 100 million people in 1918-1919. Ebola vaccines are saving Africa and the world from a horrifying catastrophe. A papilloma virus vaccine developed in Australia prevents papilloma virus infection, genital warts and causally linked cervical cancer in women. By way of a singular and personally connected example, in 1875 the important Fijian chief (ratu), Ratu Cakobau, returned from a trip to Sydney with his entourage unwittingly carrying measles. Chiefs from all over Fiji came to see him and then returned infected to their villages – 40,000 Fijians died out of a population of 150,000. Because of the consequent labour shortage in Fiji, in the period 1879-1916 the British brought in over 60,000 Indian indentured labourers (5-year slaves) to work the British and Australian sugar plantations, this including all of the grandparents of my dear late wife, Zareena (née Zareena Lateef) [2, 72, 73]. In September 2019 a measles outbreak commenced in nearby Samoa and by January 2020 there were 5,697 confirmed cases of measles and 83 deaths, out of a Samoan population of 200,874. Urgent emergency action was taken resulting in mass vaccination of 94% of the population by December 2019 (about 95% is required to acquire herd immunity for measles) [74]. Similarly in relation to gun control (sorely needed in gun-mad America where gun massacres occur on a weekly basis), in April 1996 in my island home state of Tasmania, 35 people were gunned down and 23 wounded in the Port Arthur Massacre. This prompted rapid action with Federal gun control legislation that saw over 1 million guns collected and destroyed [75]. The similarly horrifying Christchurch Massacre in New Zealand in March 2019 (51 killed, 49 wounded) prompted immediate gun control legislation. We might not like dictatorship but conscious of potential emergencies and life-and-death situations we defer to authorities e.g. the captain of the ship or aeroplane, emergency services (e.g. in evacuation orders in the recent catastrophic Australian bushfires), and in relation to penalties for people refusing vaccination for their children and thereby endangering other children (e.g. non-vaccinated children are excluded from child-care centres in Australia).
On the other hand, in 2018 the Australian Government introduced a system called My Health Record that centralized all the health records of all Australian citizens and all other residents eligible for the Australian universal health care system (Medicare).The introduction was controversial because of the following concerns: a similar system in the UK called care-data was discontinued because of privacy and other problems; potential access to de-identified data by researchers, including researchers from pharmaceutical companies; financial incentives for General Practitioner (GP) doctors setting up databases on their patients for the system; potential access to data by lawyers involved in litigation; inevitable system glitches; and real concerns about cybersecurity, hacking, data security and privacy breaches leading to inappropriate use, malicious use, victimization, sacking or refusal of medical insurance. People were able to opt out of the system but about 90% of the population couldn’t be bothered opting out or otherwise, like me, stayed in because they could see the many advantages of the system (e.g. the GP, hospital doctor or medical specialist having instant and important access to the patient’s medical history, drug reactions, current drug prescriptions etc) [76, 77]. Nevertheless this is an example of “altruistic collectivism” that could and would be exploited not only by a digital dictatorship but also by security agencies in pre-police states like the US and Australia (indeed presently in pre-police state Australia a journalist reporting such abuses of My Health Record or other government data sets by Australian Intelligence could go to jail for 10 years).
Racism is evil because we cannot help to whom and where we were born and raised. However the non-fiction book “Black Like Me” (1961) by white American journalist John Howard Griffin describes how he deliberately took a drug to become “Black” and then travelled through the Segregated, racist Deep South of America to see what life was like for African Americans (a recurrent problem was where to find a public toilet that a Black person could go to). Conversely, the novel “The Human Stain” by anti-racist Jewish American writer Philip Roth is about an American university professor who, as a young, relatively light-coloured African American man being conscripted into the US Navy, decides to tick the Navy entrance form box for “Jewish” rather than for “Black” and thus throughout his successful life avoids all the horrible discriminations suffered by Black Americans. Beautiful and exotic-looking movie actress Merle Oberon kept her Indian mother as a servant in the UK and the US, used skin-whitening creams and hid her Anglo-Indian origin from racist Anglosphere societies by claiming that she came from remote Tasmania (as a child growing up in Tasmania I believed like everyone else that Merle Oberon was “our” Tasmanian Hollywood movie star )[78]. However in an age of personal genome sequencing ($1,500 in 2015) [79] and worsening digital dictatorship, They (aka Big Brother) can know everything about you from your lifetime medical record to your personal genome sequence.
Soren Korsgaard correctly slams censorship, propaganda and punishment of dissenters that pave the way for a digital prison in both ostensibly democratic states and one party states. Google is banned in China but Soren Korsgaard gives a damning example of censorship by Google itself: “In addition to imposing restrictions via legislation, governments have also allied themselves with the corporate juggernaut of Facebook, Google, Twitter, and YouTube for the purpose of censorship and social engineering. YouTube’s CEO, Susan Wojcicki, admitted in 2019 that 10,000 Google employees and artificial intelligence had succeeded in reducing the “amount of time Americans watch controversial content by 70%” and that instead of referring users to “controversial content” they would be directed to government-approved sources, like CNN” [1]. There is a growing and authoritative literature on Western Mainstream media censorship [80-91] and on censorship by Google in particular [87-90], noting that Alphabet, the owner of Google, is the biggest media company in the world [88] and 92% of Searches are on Google [92]. However the Google Robot can effectively “hide” progressive articles, noting that 90% of Google Searches stop at page 1) [92]. In contrast, Bing Searches can pick up progressive articles on page 1 of the results that are hidden by the censoring Google Robot – ergo, Bing it! [87].
There is massive government propaganda, not just in one-party states but also in the ostensibly democratic Western parliamentary democracies that have become neoliberal kleptocracies, plutocracies, Murdochracies, corporatocracies, lobbyocracies and dollarocracies in which Big Money purchases people, parties, policies, public perception of reality, votes and hence more power and more profit. As famed, anti-racist Jewish American journalist. I.F. Stone declared: “Governments lie” [93, 94].Great American writer and historian Gore Vidal stated more specifically: “Unlike most Americans who lie all the time, I hate lying. And here I am surrounded with these hills [in Hollywood] full of liars — some very talented” [95]. America has invaded 72 countries but always needs an “excuse”. Thus 9-11 was the US “excuse” for the US War on Terror in which 32 million Muslims have died from violence, 5 million, or from imposed deprivation 27 million, in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s 9-11 false flag atrocity that killed 3,000 people [3, 4]. However numerous science, architecture, engineering, aviation, military and intelligence experts reject the “official US Government 9-11 version” and conclude that the US Government must have been involved in the atrocity with likely Apartheid Israeli and Saudi Arabian involvement [4]. Soren Korsgaard comments: “There has been a strong move toward punishing intellectuals and public figures for voicing dissent of official narratives and a variety of ideologies, such as questioning the official 9/11 dogma” [1]. The US Center for Public Integrity has determined that the Bush Administration told 935 lies about Iraq between 9-11 and the war criminal invasion of Iraq in March 2003 [96]. There is massive lying by omission and lying by commission by Mainstream journalist, editor, politician, academic and commentariat presstitutes, noting that lying by omission is far, far worse than repugnant lying by commission because the latter can at least admit public refutation and public debate [84-86]. Thus, for example, in 1942-1945 the British with Australian complicity deliberately starved 6-7 million Indians to death for strategic reasons in Bengal, Assam, Bihar and Orissa but this immense WW2 Bengali Holocaust atrocity has been almost completely whitewashed from British history by successive generations of mendacious British historians [73, 97, 98].
While lying by omission and commission is rampant, the truth tellers are sidelined, exiled or victimized with, as correctly observed by Soren Korsgaard, the most celebrated examples being the American and world heroes Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, and Australian and world hero Julian Assange, currently obscenely imprisoned by the UK and facing death or life imprisonment if he is handed over to the war criminal Americans [99]. These three heroes follow in the footsteps of heroes like Daniel Ellsberg (who released the Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War) and have been persecuted by the Americans for the their truth telling. Remarkably absent from public discussion about the horrendous persecution of my hero Julian Assange is that it has been about the sheer magnitude of the secrecy violation (involving millions of secret US documents) and the violation of the integrity of the Secret State rather than the specific content. Thus for example, the most shocking revelation by Wikileaks was the video showing US soldiers in an Apache helicopter massacring a dozen Iraqi civilians and some journalists yet there is a vast amount of non-secret “video footage” about US atrocities from the napalming of villages, saturation bombing by B52s and the Mylai Massacre to the rare admission by US UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright that half a million Iraqi children had died under Sanctions and that “it was worth it”. Thus On May 12, 1996, Albright defended UN sanctions against Iraq on a “60 Minutes” segment in which anti-racist Jewish American journalist Lesley Stahl asked her “We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” and Albright notoriously replied “we think the price is worth it.” [100]. However Lesley Stahl was not persecuted or imprisoned for eliciting this rare admission of American mass murder – unlike Julian Assange she had merely asked a question on prime time TV and had not violated the sanctity of the American Secret State.
By way of personal example, in addition to science, art and humanitarian advocacy I have spent the last quarter of a century researching, writing and publishing about the magnitude of immense and variously ignored or forgotten atrocities, and notably those involving the British and the Americans with Australian complicity e.g. (with deaths from violence or war-imposed deprivation in brackets) the 1942-1945 WW2 Bengali Holocaust (WW2 Indian Holocaust, WW2 Bengal Famine; 6-7 million), the post-1950 Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust (1,500 million), post-1950 US Asian wars (40 million), the 1990-present Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide (5 million), the 2001 onwards Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide (7 million) and the post-9-11 Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide (32 million). I was able to achieve limited visibility in Australia on these and many other important matters for a dozen years but had to self-publish my huge books on these matters and about 12 years ago finally became “invisible” in my own country (via Australian Intelligence, Mainstream media gate-keepers, Zionists or all 3?) In the interests of humanity, I continue to carefully research, quantitatively analyse, write, and publish about 5,000 words each week about serious matters from climate change to genocide in progressive web magazines overseas but now the Google Robot minimizes the visibility of progressive media. People like me in the lovely West don’t have to be victimized , imprisoned or tortured like Julian Assange – they are simply rendered “invisible” and utterly sidelined from public life. Nevertheless I (and many others) continue in the Quixotic truth-telling quest to penetrate the Mainstream Wall of Silence . “Free speech” is a wonderful attribute of the Western-style democracies but “effective free speech” is largely absent in these pre-Digital Dictatorships.
As a scientist I am always optimistic about finding solutions, and thus despite the effective unavoidability of a catastrophic plus 2 degrees Centigrade rise in global warming I believe we must do everything we can to make the future “less bad” for future generations. Despite a worsening Climate Emergency I take great heart from the accurate and forthright words of Greta Thunberg and the future generations she represents [101]. Further, there are limits to the “invisibility” imposed on me – thus, for example, a Google Search for the phrase “free university education” (presently available in about 25 countries ) yields on page 2 of the Results (#20 out of 209,000 results) my detailed, 74-reference analysis entitled “50 reasons for Free University Education as we bequeath the young a dying planet” [102]. However coupling this same Google Search with the word polya (or countercurrents) yields this article as #3 (or #2) on page 1 – these magic words are like an “abracadabra” that can open a whole world of rational, science-based humanitarian analysis otherwise well hidden in our pre-Digital Dictatorships Thus resolutely dishonest and comprehensive public and private denial of “free university education” in Australia has enabled a huge and corruptly-based “education export industry” to Asia worth (in Australian dollars) about $32 billion ($22 billion for universities) in 2017-2018 [103], about the same as the annual national defence budget or the annual subsidy given to child-brainwashing religious organizations in Australia (intellectual child abuse).
(5). Cognitive Spyware.
Soren Korsgaard outlines the horrific Brave New World of surveillance technology: “Today’s most advanced cameras can monitor physical activity, identify a person, and via advanced algorithms, cameras can outline general characteristics of a person’s appearance, detect if someone is in possession of a gun, and even “detect motions that are commonly used to commit a crime”” and speculates that “In the future, cognitive spyware will likely be able to decode intent before an action has been undertaken, and thus we could be punished for thought crimes and crimes without any physical component based on intent… The success in regards smartphones is unparalleled, and billions of people now have one. Surveillance cameras and other equipment are advertised as needed for capturing criminals, but regular people are treated as criminals, and the technology can be used for excessive mental and physical control. The efficiency of a social crediting system largely depends on advanced technology. It follows that advances in brain decoding technology and other types of spying equipment will be integrated into social crediting systems to monitor as much of physical and mental activity as possible.” Astonishingly, it is now possible for neuroscientists to decode an image that a person had been instructed to think about [1].
Comments.
Only this week, Kashmir Hill writing in the New York Times described how the US Clearview company is selling to police and security agencies the Australian-invented latest in mass facial recognition technology that “might end privacy as we know it” (2020) : “But without public scrutiny, more than 600 law enforcement agencies have started using Clearview in the past year, according to the company, which declined to provide a list. The computer code underlying its app, analyzed by The New York Times, includes programming language to pair it with augmented-reality glasses; users would potentially be able to identify every person they saw. The tool could identify activists at a protest or an attractive stranger on the subway, revealing not just their names but where they lived, what they did and whom they knew. And it’s not just law enforcement: Clearview has also licensed the app to at least a handful of companies for security purposes” [104].
The remarkably perceptive Ancient Greeks had the story of Pandora’s Box – when she opened the box all kinds of evils escaped into the world. The Enlightenment opened Pandora’s Box in bringing rationality and science to the world but paradoxically also with unrestrained liberalism the development and use of horrendous war technologies, including weapons of mass destruction [105-112]. Neoliberal greed has succeeded for the One Percenters who now have more than twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion other humans [113], a massive wealth inequality that is associated with 15 million avoidable deaths from deprivation each year [2]. However that same neoliberal greed has now brought all of Humanity to the edge of the precipice – we are now existentially threatened by nuclear weapons and man-made climate change. Thus eminent physicist Stephen Hawking: “We see great peril if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change” [114, 115].
I have translated the 3 Laws of Thermodynamics, to whit, (1) conservation of energy, (2) entropy (chaos, disorder, lack of information) increases to a maximum, and (3) zero motion at Absolute Zero, to Polya’s 3 Laws of Economics, to whit (1) Profit = Price minus Cost of Production, (2) Deceit about Cost of Production increases to a maximum, and (3) no life, work, price or profit on a dead Planet [116]. Just as the Second Law of Thermodynamics condemns the universe to thermal death in billions of years’ time, so Polya’s Second Law of Economics has brought Humanity and the Biosphere to the edge of terracidal disaster. Unless extraordinary (and hence unlikely) steps are taken in the coming decade the world is set for a catastrophic plus 2C temperature rise disaster, a matter perceived by school children but not by the endlessly greedy One Percenters running the world [117]. If everyone in the world wants an American standard of living we need 7 planets, and 3 planets if we all want a European standard of living [118]. However there is no Planet B. Unless requisite action is taken there will be a worsening Climate Genocide en route to a sustainable human population of only 0.5-1.0 billion in 2100 [119]. Pope Francis has correctly declared that the environmental and social cost of pollution must be “fully borne” by the polluters [120, 121]. The IMF has declared that a Carbon Price is the best way out of the Climate Emergency and proposes rapid implementation of a $75 per tonne CO2-e Carbon Price, while noting that the recent global average is a mere $2 per tonne CO2-e [30, 31 ]. The best estimates of the damage-related Carbon Price is $200 per tonne CO2-e [25, 29]. For a sustainable future and to save the planet the world needs negative carbon emissions to get back to the pre-Industrial Revolution level of about 300 ppm CO2 from the present 412 ppm CO2, negative population growth to cut population by 50%, and a corresponding negative economic growth to cut an unsustainable world economy by 50% [122]. These science-demanded actions are unlikely to be implemented in a timely fashion or indeed ever, and thus the adumbrated Digital Dictatorships will have a hollow victory indeed.
(6). Blockchain Technology
Soren Korsgaard sees totalitarian exploitation in a future cashless society involving cryptocurrency blockchain technology (a digital concatenated record of transactions), the Internet of Things (IoT) and social credit control: “A growing list of countries, China, Russia, Venezuela, Estonia, Japan, and others, has announced their intention of launching a national cryptocurrency… Blockchain technology, if embraced by world governments, may become an integrated part of social crediting systems through tokenization and monetary control. For instance, the Chinese government may create a national, digital currency, and by means of facial recognition linked to one’s virtual cryptocurrency wallet, the need for physical cash is eliminated. Proponents of a cashless society could argue that it would eliminate a country’s shadow economy, and put an end to funding of illegal activities and terrorism as every record of every transaction is stored in the blockchain. A government-enabled blockchain-permeated society also fosters social engineering as dissenters, lawbreakers, and others could, in an instant, be cut off from services, if they venture outside the government established parameters… Token economies open up for a combination of blockchain technology, IoT [Internet of Things], and a social credit system. Modern blockchains are fast, efficient, and operating in real-time, and are considered superior to traditional methods of storage. Therefore, if blockchain technology is connected to IoT, the result could be a near-complete, digital record of one’s interaction with the world. In conclusion, blockchain technology may enable decentralized and autonomous totalitarianism” [1].
Comments.
According to Deloitte: “The Internet of Things (IoT) connects people, places, and products, and in so doing, it offers opportunities for value creation and capture… blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT), has the potential to help address some of the IoT security and scalability challenges” [123]. Government policy in China, India and the Developed World is towards a cashless society but this discriminates against poor people who are unbanked and the elderly not involved in Internet banking. However banking system failures due to “glitches” can leave people dependent on ready cash, people are wary of government scrutiny of their finances (demonstrators in Hong Kong could evade possible government scrutiny by purchasing train tickets with cash), and people are naturally concerned about “negative interest rates”(i.e. compulsorily having to pay banks to look after their money). Australia has laws demanding compulsory and timely reporting of bank transactions of $10,000 or more for laudable policing or security reasons connected with terrorism and other criminality (notably illicit tobacco, drugs, paedophile rings and money laundering) and there were recently huge scandals in Australia when several major banks failed to report huge numbers of such transactions. Now the Coalition Australian Government has introduced legislation to make it illegal (with punishment by draconian fines and imprisonment) to make purchases between businesses and individuals for $10,000 or more in cash [125]. Again this intrusion is justified on the basis of the “greater good” but comes from a human rights-abusing Coalition Government that was condemned by former Australian Human Rights Commissioner, Professor Gillian Triggs, thus (2017): “[Australia’s human rights are] regressing on almost every front… Whether it’s women, Indigenous, homeless and most of course asylum seekers and refugees … I think it’s partly because we have a [Coalition] government that is ideologically opposed to human rights” [125].
Why should people “trust” governments with all their personal, health and financial particulars? They simply should not as well illustrated by rich, democratic Australia (the “Lucky Country”) that was one of the first countries to have (a) parliamentary democracy, (b) female suffrage, (c) free trade unions, (d) free, secular and compulsory education, (e) the 8 hour working day, (f) free expression, (g) the “living wage” and (h) free university education. However lift the PR veneer and you will find a moral morass in so many areas. Thus (a) parliamentary democracy is a bad joke in US lackey Murdochracy, Corporatocracy, Plutocracy and Lobbyocracy Australia with a grossly mal-informed electorate, the Senate being grossly undemocratic and Indigenous people only recognized as citizens since 1967; (b) female suffrage (1901) has not solved huge gender inequity and only 32% of Federal MPs are women (however about 50% of Labor MPs are women); (c) free trade unions are under sustained attack from the neo-fascist, neoliberal Coalition and trade union membership of the workforce has dropped from 51% (1976) to 14% (2016); (d) free, secular and compulsory education is utilized by 2/3 of Australian children but it is grossly under-resourced in a system of Educational Apartheid and the 1/3 of children attending fee-paying but taxpayer-subsidized private, non-state religious schools are subject to outrageous intellectual child abuse; (e) the 8 hour working day is a joke because of massive under-employment, and massive unpaid overtime for full-time workers; (f) free expression is increasingly constrained (and variously subject to custodial punishment of up to life imprisonment under draconian anti-terrorism laws) and effective free speech is crippled in US lackey, anti-science Murdochracy Australia dominated by mendacious, neoliberal, and oligopoly Mainstream media; (g) the “living wage” has long gone with the need for 2 paid workers per family, stagnant wages and mass importation of temporary cheap labour ; and (h) free university education was abolished by the Hawke Labor Government in 1989 (for a comprehensive analysis of Australia’s shortcomings in all kinds of areas see my detailed essay on the wonderful “Australian values” to which patriotic, genuine (“fair dinkum”) Aussies are meant to adhere see [126, 127]).
Australian Coalition Governments with support of the Labor Opposition have brought in over 70 laws that constrain civil rights and human rights and have turned Australia into a pre-police state [6-11]. Australian Governments keep their Cabinet discussions secret for 30 years and each year Australians are told what they should have known 30 years before. The utterly mendacious British Government still refuses to release correspondence involving the Royal Family relating to the US- and UK-backed and CIA-complicit Coup that removed progressive Labor PM Gough Whitlam from office in 1975 [128]. “Look-the-other-way Australians were effectively unmoved over the prosecution of Witness K (a top intelligence officer who revealed Australian spying on the East Timor Government Cabinet meetings for the benefit of fossil fuel commercial interests) [129] but have now been told about Witness J (a top intelligence officer and distinguished veteran arrested, arraigned, remanded, tried, sentenced and imprisoned – and all of this in total secret [130]). The biggest lie of all from the present mendacious, corrupt, war criminal, climate criminal and grossly human rights-abusing Australian Coalition Government is resolute denial of expert scientific opinion that man-made climate change is significantly contributing to Australia’s present horrendous affliction with horrendous storms, horrendous heat waves, horrendous drought, horrendous bushfires, and mass killing of over a billion native animals [131, 132].
Indeed all Australian Governments lie egregiously (indicative of egregious malfeasance) and one supposes that bigger “security states”, whether one-party states or ostensible democracies, will lie even more egregiously. As famed US journalist I.F. Stone famously posited: “Governments lie”. In science there is zero tolerance for lying, and the same should apply to governments. No wonder little people are telling increasingly mendacious, authoritarian and intrusive governments: “Stop lying to us and hands off my privacy, my medical records and my money!”
(7). Centralized Government
The core of Soren Korsgaard’s fear of the digital dictatorship, the surveillance state empowered by an all-pervasive social crediting system, is most succinctly expressed by Lord Acton’s aphorism “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” and Professor Rudolph Rummel’s paraphrasing: “Power kills, absolute power kills absolutely”. Soren Korsgaard: “ In favor of a social crediting system, it can be argued that extensive surveillance may reduce violent crime and overall improve people’s moral character, and if the rules, regulations, and punishments are codified into law by a democratically elected government, then a social crediting system is sound. However, as we shall see in the following section, these arguments do not stand scrutiny or justify a totalitarian regime. Murders and other violent crimes committed outside the law are relatively rare phenomena compared to the violence meted out by governments. In fact, history profusely demonstrates a distinct correlation between the power of a government and atrocities. The more powerful a government is, the more capable it is, and more likely it is to kill its own citizens or foreigners”. Soren Korsgaard gives horrifying examples of mass deaths inflicted by both totalitarian and democratic governments. Soren Korsgaard concludes his essay thus: “If populations started being personally responsible for the actions of state officials, such as spending time in prison for war crimes, then the institution of government would presumably be abandoned rapidly. Governments’ abysmal humanitarian track record should be ample evidence for us to conclude that a social crediting system will, with little doubt, lead to atrocities. If, on the other hand, we believe that our elected government can and will solve problems for the benefit of the masses, an absurd belief, then as Voltaire said, “we shall commit atrocities” [1].
Comments.
Just as the Enlightenment was a poisoned chalice that brought Humanity mass murder and prospective man-made extinction of Humanity together with reason, liberty and science, so Western democracy, for all its wonderful Domestic attributes (peace, freedom, health, education and long lives in Western countries), has brought horrendous and genocidal mass killing of humans across the world through violence or deadly imposed deprivation [2]. War is the penultimate in murderous racism and genocide the ultimate in racist violence. Noting that the UK, Australia, France , the US and Canada achieved substantial parliamentary democracy by the 19th century, considered over the last millennium the British have invaded 193 countries, Australia 85, France 82, the US 72 (52 after WW2), Germany 39, Japan 30, Russia 25, Canada 25, Apartheid Israel 12, China 2 , Korea (arguably zero) and Iran (zero since 700 CE at the time of the Sasanian Empire) [2, 133-138].
People naturally enough have the greatest love and affection for their immediate family but the fervency of this altruistic sentiment progressively falls off as we go from family, to suburb, to city, to nation and thence to Humanity as a whole. Occupation of foreign countries immediately results in increased disregard of the rulers for their subjects. Note that “occupation” includes post-colonial neo-colonial hegemony, with African and Middle Eastern states being tragic examples (e.g. variously British- and thence US-invaded Iraq since 1914). 1950-2005 avoidable deaths from deprivation in countries variously occupied by the following imperialist nations as major occupiers are given in brackets: UK (727 million), France (142 million), US (82 million), and Apartheid Israel (24 million) (Chapter 3, pages 39- 42 [2]).
Here is an updated summary of genocidal atrocities deaths in holocausts, genocides and famines, with major emphasis on the last few centuries and deriving from actual violence or from imposed deprivation (estimated deaths given in brackets; various UK and/or US involvement is asterisked):
*1978-1997 Afghan Genocide and Afghan Holocaust (6 million),
*2001 onwards Afghan Genocide and Afghan Holocaust (7 million),
*15th – 19th century African Holocaust (slave trade; 6 million),
*16th century onwards Amerindian Genocide (90 million),
*19th century Argentinian Indian Genocide (1 million) (for beef to Britain) ,
1915-1923 Armenian Genocide (1.5 million),
*post-1950 Asian Holocaust due to Australia-complicit US Asian Wars (40 million),
1914-1924 Assyrian Genocide (Syriac Genocide; 0.2-0.3 million),
*1788 onwards Australian Aboriginal Genocide and Aboriginal Ethnocide (2 million),
*1769-1770, Bengal Famine (10 million),
*1942-1945 WW2 Bengali Holocaust, WW2 Bengal Famine and WW2 Indian Holocaust (6-7 million),
1971-1972 Bengali Holocaust and gendercide (3.0 million),
*1967-1970, Biafran Genocide (2 million),
1990s Bosnian Genocide (circa 0.1 million),
20th century Brazilian Indigenous Genocide (1 million),
*1969-1998 Cambodian Genocide (6.0 million),
*19th century Chinese Holocaust (Opium wars and Tai Ping rebellion; 20-100 million),
1937-1945 WW2 Chinese Holocaust (35 million),
1958-1961 Chinese Holocaust of the Great Leap Forward (20-30 million),
19th -20th century Congo Genocide (Belgian Congo) (10 million),
1960 onwards Congolese Genocide and Congolese Holocaust (20 million),
1984-1985 Ethiopian famine (1 million),
1939-1945 WW2 European Holocaust (30 million Slavs, Jews and Roma killed),
*1941-1950 German Genocide and German Holocaust (9 million),
*Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust (1,500 million since 1950),
1960-1996, Guatemala Mayan Indian Genocide (1.9 million),
*1757-1947 Indian Holocaust from famine and deprivation (1,800 million),
*1947 Indian Holocaust due to Partition (1.0 million),
*1918-1920 Influenza epidemic (50-100 million),
*1917-1919 Iranian Famine (2 million),
*1978 onwards Iranian Holocaust and Iranian Genocide (3 million),
*2003-2011 21st century Iraqi Genocide and Iraqi Holocaust (2.7 million),
*1990-2011 Iraqi Genocide and Iraqi Holocaust (4.6 million),
*1914-2011 Iraqi Genocide and Iraqi Holocaust (9 million),
1939-1945 WW2 Jewish Holocaust, Shoa (5-6 million),
*1950-1953 Korean Genocide and Korean Holocaust (5.2 million),
*1840s Irish Famine (2 million),
*1955-1975 Laotian Genocide (1.2 million),
*2011 Libyan Genocide (0.2 million),
*19th century Maori Genocide in New Zealand (0.2 million),
*2000 onwards 21st century Muslim Genocide and Muslim Holocaust (32 million),
1900s Namibian Genocide (0.1 million),
*17th – 19th century North American Indian Genocide (up to 18 million),
*1916 onwards Palestinian Genocide and Palestinian Holocaust (2.2 million),
1865-1870 Paraguay Genocide (1 million)
1939-1945 WW2 Polish Genocide and Polish Holocaust (6 million),
21st century Rohingya Genocide (circa 0.1 million),
*1921-1922 Russian famine, Povolzhye famine (5 million),
1930-1953 Russian Holocaust under Stalin (20 million),
1994 Rwandan Genocide (0.9 million),
*1992 onwards Somali Genocide and Somali Holocaust (2.2 million),
*19th century South Pacific Genocide via disease (0.1 million)
1930-1953 Soviet Union Holocaust under Stalin (20 million),
1955-2018 Sudan Genocide and Sudan Holocaust (13 million),
*2011 onwards Syrian Genocide (1.0 million),
1990-2018 Tamil Genocide in Sri Lanka (0.2 million),
1975-1999 East Timorese Genocide (0.3 million),
1930s Ukrainian Famine, Holodomor (7 million),
*1945-1975 Vietnamese Genocide and Vietnamese Holocaust (15.3 million),
*2015 onwards Yemeni Genocide (circa 0.1 million) (my sincere apologies for any absences or underestimates) (updated from [2, 139, 140]).
As pointed out by Soren Korsgaard, in rich countries of the West large numbers of people die preventably each year from “lifestyle choice” and “political choice” reasons from the major causal items such as adverse hospital events, smoking, obesity and air pollution to drugs, vehicle accidents, suicide and murder. It is estimated that such annual preventable deaths from such “life style choice” and “political choice” causes in the rich countries of New Zealand , Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US (the members of the Anglosphere 5-eyes intelligence club) total 16,000, 85,000, 101,000, 150,000, and 1.7 million, respectively, and total preventable deaths in these countries since 9-11 total 0.3 million, 1.5 million, 1.8 million, 2.7 million and 30.2 million, respectively [141-147]. Successive US Administrations have committed to a long-term accrual cost of $6 trillion for the War on Terror, a gross fiscal perversion involving killing 30 million Muslims abroad rather than trying to address 30 million preventable American deaths at home. Just to take 1 item from this list of preventable deaths, one can readily estimate that 1,400 Australian veterans and 130,000 US veterans have suicided since 9-11 (in which 3,000 civilians died) as compared to about 41 Australian war deaths and 7,000 US war deaths since 9-11 [147, 148]. Yet for all the Mainstream terror hysteria, jingoism, faux patriotism, and Anglosphere fraternity, this carnage is largely ignored by Mainstream journalist, editor, politician, academic and commentariat presstitutes.
The 4 main power groups of the US economy are set out thus by Professor Jeffrey Sachs (Director of The Earth Institute, Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University)(2017): “There are four great lobbies in Washington: big oil, Wall Street, the military-industrial complex, and big health care. These industries spend billions of dollars a year to control the levers of power in their narrow self-interest. Most of what they favour runs against the broad public interest. In total, the four sectors spent around $1.5 billion in lobbying and another $1.5 billion in campaign financing in 2016, according to OpenSecrets.org” [149]. Wasting $6 trillion on the War on Terror and killing 30 million Muslims instead of trying to save the lives of 30 million Americans at home would make absolutely no sense to an ordinary American (were he actually informed about it by mendacious Mainstream media), but it makes perfect sense from the perspective of these 4 major industries. Thus endless wars for oil and fossil fuel resource hegemony are good for big oil, the military-industrial complex, and Wall Street, and generate millions of physically and mentally damaged veterans (plus collateral damage to families) that, together with government failure to take assertedly “nanny state” actions to deal with horrendous preventable morbidity and mortality, means boom time for big health care and Big Pharma.
Rulers are responsible for the ruled. In rich countries like those of the Anglosphere, corrupt and mendacious governments that are increasingly violating civil rights and privacy rights in the name of “altruistic collectivism”, “national security”, “law and order” and “the greater good” must wear significant responsibility for such huge preventable deaths occurring as a result of lack of humane policies, preventive medicine, public education and legislated prohibitions.
Final comments.
Soren Korsgaard’s well-referenced essay “One World Digital Dictatorship”, is a timely, must-read warning to the world about massive loss of civil rights and human rights due to massive data collection on individuals, censorship and mass surveillance by governments. The technological developments enabling the Digital Dictatorship are variously being applied worldwide by governments and involve facial recognition, reporting via the Internet of Things (IoT), compulsory and detailed ID, compulsory acquisition of health records, widespread CCTV, compulsory metadata collection, detailed electronic intelligence of the kind collected by the US NSA as revealed by Edward Snowden, social credit systems utterly disempowering individuals, and cashless societies involving government-backed compulsory cashless transactions, compulsory record to government of transactions, and cryptocurrencies based on blockchain technology. The relevant technologies have already been developed and applied with inevitable improvements foreshadowed (notably in face recognition as exampled by the scary Clearview system). The elements of the Digital Dictatorship are already installed both in wealthy parliamentary democracies like the US, UK and Australia and in one-party states (most notably China and the Gulf States).
As Lord Acton famously averred: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. People in the West have passively surrendered to Big Government on the basis of an asserted “collective good” in providing useful services (e.g. in health service provision) and in enabling the authorities to deal effectively with criminals and terrorists. However the “rule of law” in the West now means draconian laws in pre-police states that can potentially be applied to ordinary citizens like you and me. Like the frog being slowly brought to the boil, rich Western citizens have progressively surrendered their civil rights to mendacious and grossly human-rights violating governments – the people must be informed and call a halt to this perversion before it is too late. In one-party China and multi-party India the “altruistic collectivism” for the “common good” is more serious because of the need for peace, security and a decent life for billions of relatively poor people. One hopes that one-party but economically pluralist China, having brought 800 million people out of poverty (zero annual avoidable deaths from deprivation), succeeds in finding a way to guarantee human rights as well as peace, security and public order. Conversely, multi-party, capitalist India still struggles to achieve the fundamental human rights of the right to life and a decent life for everyone (4 million avoidable deaths from deprivation each year) [2].
The worsening Climate Emergency and Climate Genocide adds an acute urgency to this worsening human rights dilemma. Indeed it has been cogently argued by Professor Jorgen Randers that only science-informed , top-down authoritarian action by China can save the world because the political short-termism of Western-style democracies (most notably in Trump America) has meant failure to urgently and requisitely tackle climate change [150]. That failure is reflected in inexorably increasing carbon pollution and collateral environmental damage in numerous areas [18-32], and a global average Carbon Price that is only $2 per tonne CO2-e as compared to the expertly determined damage-related Carbon Price of $200 per tonne CO2-e that needs to be applied around the world [29-31]. Professor Jeffrey Sachs has pin-pointed the problem thus: “The greatest problem in Washington is not polarization but lying. The legislative machinery has ground to a halt not because of the great divide between liberals and conservatives but because of the great divide between the lobbyists and the people” [149].
Science-based, rational risk management, that is crucial for societal safety and security, successively involves (a) accurate information, (b) scientific analysis (the Popperian critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses), and (c) science-informed systemic change to minimize harm when accidents inevitably happen. Unfortunately governments, lobbyists and presstitutes typically pervert this protocol by (a) lying, censorship and intimidation, (b) anti-science spin (involving the selective use of asserted facts to support a partisan position), and (c) counterproductive but “popular” blame and shame that prevents crucial primary reportage and in the worst case scenarios lead to war [151]. Thus, as noted by Soren Korsgaard, the Bush Administration told 935 lies about Iraq between 9-11 and the invasion of Iraq [152]. Leading US journalists Seymour Hersh and Dr Paul Craig Roberts have exposed the gross falsehoods of Obama’s “killing of Osama bin Laden” story [153, 154]. At the present Davos Summit anti-science buffoon Trump dismissed the serious concerns of nearly all scientists about the worsening Climate Emergency as “alarmism”. The governments seeking to impose total digital control over their subjects are pathologically dishonest, and utterly mendacious. We give our personal and financial data to our bank on the basis of trust, but we simply cannot trust the governments who are seeking to know “everything” about “everyone”. Governments lie and indeed the whole capitalist system is based on lying as described by Polya’s Second Law of Economics which states that Deception about the Cost of Production (COP) strives to a maximum [116].
Knowledge is power and Jewish Hungarian American investor George Soros has attributed his success to a Popperian scientific approach and exploiting situations when there is a big gap between reality and general public perception. As the window for crucial global action is closing, there is a huge asymmetry between the wealth and power of the pro-fossil fuels, neoliberal One Percenters and that of the rest of Humanity who are becoming increasingly alarmed. The presently dominant but unsustainable neoliberal ideology that has brought us to the brink demands maximal freedom for the smart and advantaged to exploit the natural and human resources of the world for private profit. Conversely, social humanism (eco-socialism, socialism, democratic socialism, the welfare state, a universal basic income) seeks to sustainably maximize human happiness, opportunity and dignity by evolving and culturally-sensitive intra-national and international social contracts [105-112]. Indeed in addition to the (country-based) UN General Assembly and the (power-based) UN Security Council there urgently needs to be a new element of World Government that is elected on a one-person-one-vote basis and is devoted to economic matters including the sustainable sharing of increasingly limited global resources [106, 122]. Presently we need to reduce atmospheric CO2 back to 300 ppm CO2, seek to halve the human population, and halve economic output (with the First World bearing most of the burden) [122]. An American life-style for all means we need 7 Planet Earths, and a European lifestyle for all means we need 3 Planet Earths [118].
Crucially, just as biological evolution by Darwinian natural selection requires mutation and genetic diversity, so social evolution and adaptation requires selection from a variety of ideas (memes) [155]. Ergo, at this critical time dissident views should be encouraged and not suppressed. Yet mass personal data acquisition and social credit systems in a Digital Dictatorship will not only violate human rights and civil rights but will suppress the very diversity of ideas that is crucial for tackling the present existential crisis facing Humanity. French philosopher René Descartes famously stated “I think, therefore I am” but in a Digital Dictatorship (Digital Prison) mendacious government will determine what we are allowed to think. What must decent people do? Decent people must (a) inform everyone they can, (b) urge zero tolerance for lying (including lying by omission), (c) insist on transparency and application of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights to everyone [56], and (d) urge and apply Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against all people, politicians, parties, corporations and countries complicit in the worsening digital imprisonment of Humanity.
References.
[1]. Soren Korsgaard , “One World Digital Dictatorship”, Crime & Power, 5 January 2020: https://www.crimeandpower.com/2020/01/05/one-world-digital-dictatorship/ .
[2]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, that includes a succinct history of every country and is now available for free perusal on the web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ .
[3]. Gideon Polya, “Paris atrocity context: 27 Million Muslim Avoidable Deaths From Imposed Deprivation In 20 Countries Violated By US Alliance Since 9-11”, Countercurrents, 22 November, 2015: https://countercurrents.org/polya221115.htm .
[4]. “Experts: US did 9-11”: https://sites.google.com/site/expertsusdid911/ .
[5]. “Patriot Act”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act .
[6]. Gideon Polya, “Redaction: Mainstream media censorship & self-censorship in pre-police-state Australia”, Countercurrents, 24 October 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/10/redaction-mainstream-media-censorship-self-censorship-in-pre-police-state-australia .
[7]. George Williams, “Sacrificing Civil Liberties to Counter Terrorism: Where Will it End?”, 2018 John Marsden Lecture, NSW Council for Civil Liberties, 22 November 2018: http://www.nswccl.org.au/2018_john_marsden_lecture_sacrificing_civil_liberties_to_counter_terrorism_where_will_it_end .
[8]. Gideon Polya, “50 Ways Australian Intelligence Spies On Australia And The World For UK , Israeli And US State Terrorism”, Countercurrents, 11 December, 2013: https://countercurrents.org/polya111213.htm .
[9]. Gideon Polya, “Terror Hysteria – Draconian New Australian Anti-Terrorism Laws Target Journalists, Muslims And Human Rights”, Countercurrents, 8 October, 2014: https://countercurrents.org/polya0810114.htm .
[10]. Gideon Polya, “Media lying, media censorship & Australian Federal Police raids on media in pre-police state Australia”, Countercurrents, 15 June 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/06/media-lying-media-censorship-australian-federal-police-raids-on-media-in-pre-police-state-australia ”
[11]. Gideon Polya, “Craven US lackey Australia betrays Australian & world hero Julian Assange & free journalism”, Countercurrents, 13 April 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/04/craven-us-lackey-australia-betrays-australian-world-hero-julian-assange-free-journalism .
[12]. “Julian Assange”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange .
[13]. Gideon Polya, “Truth & Boycotts, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) Can Overcome Huge Inequities Suffered By African Americans Under American Apartheid”, Countercurrents, 29 September, 2014: https://countercurrents.org/polya290914.htm .
[14]. Saki Knafo, “Voting rights of Black Americans trampled by “New Jim Crow”, civil rights advocates say”, Huffington Post Black Voices, 21 September2014: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/25/black-america-2013_n_3647789.html .
[15]. Michelle Alexander, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”, The New Press, 2010.
[16]. Michelle Alexander, “The war on drugs and the New Jim Crow”, Race, Poverty, Environment, Vol. 17, No. 1 | Spring 2010: http://reimaginerpe.org/20years/alexander .
[17]. Paul Farrell and Alex McDonald, “Centre Link robo-debt system is “extortion”, says former tribunal member”, ABC News, 27 June 2019: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-27/centrelink-robo-debt-system-extortion-former-tribunal-member/11252306 .
[18]. Timothy Lenton, Johan Rockstrom, Owen Gaffney, Stefan Rahmsdorf, Katherine Richardson, Will Steffen and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, “Climate tipping points – too risky to bet against” , Nature 575, 592-595, 27 November 2019: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03595-0 .
[19]. IPCC, “Global warming of 1.5 °C”, 8 October 2018: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/ .
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Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at a major Australian university for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contributions “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/australian-complicity-in-iraq-mass-mortality/3369002#transcript ) and “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide” in “The Plight of the Palestinians (edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html ). He has published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/social-economic-history/listen-the-bengal-famine ; Gideon Polya: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/home ; Gideon Polya Writing: https://sites.google.com/site/gideonpolyawriting/ ; Gideon Polya, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_Polya ) . When words fail one can say it in pictures – for images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/ .
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