Social Media, Universal Basic Income, and Cashless Society: How China’s Social Credit System Is Coming To America
by Brandon Turbeville
Some well-informed Americans may be aware of China’s horrifying “
Social Credit System”
that was recently unveiled as a method of eradicating any dissent in
the totalitarian state. Essentially freezing out anyone who does not
conform to the state’s version of the ideal citizen, the SCS is perhaps
the most frightening control system being rolled out today. That is,
until you consider what is coming next.
Unbeknownst to most people, there appears to be a real attempt to
create a system in which all citizens are rationed their “wages”
digitally each month in place of a paycheck, including the ability to
gain or lose money. This system would see any form of dissent resulting
in the cut off of those credits and the ability to work, eat, or even
exist in society. It would not only be the end of dissent but of any
semblance of real individuality.
Here’s how the Social Credit System operates in China.
First, however, for those who are unaware of the Social Credit System
as it operates in China, we should briefly describe just what has taken
place there. The Social Credit System in China isn’t merely a
punishment for criticizing the state as is the case in most totalitarian
regimes, the SCS can bring the hammer down for even the slightest
infraction such as smoking in a non-smoking zone.
One summary of the SCS can be found in Business Insider’s article by
Alexandra Ma entitled “China has started ranking citizens with a creepy
‘social credit’ system — here’s what you can do wrong, and the
embarrassing, demeaning ways they can punish you,” where Ma writes,
The Chinese state is setting up a vast
ranking system that will monitor the behavior of its enormous
population, and rank them all based on their “social credit.”
The “social credit system,” first announced
in 2014, aims to reinforce the idea that “keeping trust is glorious and
breaking trust is disgraceful,” according to a government document.
The program is due to be fully operational
nationwide by 2020, but is being piloted for millions of people across
the country already. The scheme will be mandatory.
At the moment the system is piecemeal —
some are run by city councils, others are scored by private tech
platforms which hold personal data.
Like private credit scores, a person’s
social score can move up and down depending on their behavior. The exact
methodology is a secret — but examples of infractions include bad
driving, smoking in non-smoking zones, buying too many video games and
posting fake news online. (source)
The article points out that violating the “social code,” can result in being
banned from flying or using the train,
using the internet, decent schooling, getting a job, staying in hotels,
and having your pet taken away. China is also taking advantage of the
mob mentality by branding violators as “bad citizens.”
Almost everyone one of these “punishments” have already taken place
in China as of the writing of this article and the country has announced
its plans to have the system fully in place and functioning by 2020.
The most frightening part? That system is coming HERE. Soon.
While most Americans have scarcely noticed their descent into a
police state, they are quick to dismiss the idea that such a system
could be implemented in the land they still perceive to be free.
However, all the moving parts are in place in the United States. They
only need to come together to form the Social Credit System here.
And they are coming together.
Social media is one important method of judging “social scores.” This
is mainly because of the willful posting of social media users on
virtually every aspect of their lives.
This data is extremely useful
to governments who monitor and store the information acquired freely by
users who give away the most personal and intimate details of their
lives and do so without charge.
Whether it is political opinions, pictures of yourself and your food,
or private conversations over Messenger, that data is being sent
directly to the corporation and respective governments then have access
to that data via a variety of means and they put that data to good use.
But despite the fact that social media acts as a giant web, snatching users information and acting as a
useful tool of NGOs and
governments
in engineering social movements and human behavior, major social media
outlets like Facebook and Twitter have become ubiquitous and common.
They are nearly as essential communication tools for the 21st Century as
telephones were for the 20th.
The Social Credit System goes along with the dark side of social media.
This is also despite the fact that social media has been proven to
make its users depressed, angry, and less social. Much like any other
drug, however, social media is addictive, causing real-world loss of
quality of life while the user simply cannot tear himself away even when
he knows it is best for him to do so. For that reason, it appears
social media, whatever platform it may take, is here to stay. It’s also
an important part of the structure of the coming technological control
grid.
But beyond the negative effects social media has on the mind of the
individual or in the creation of top-down social movements, the “
internet mob mentality”
has now become a fact of American life. Any celebrity, business owner,
or just a regular person can be subject to digital flash mobbing simply
as a result of a 2-second picture ( see the
MAGA hat kids or the
Chipotle girl,
for instance) where a person’s reputation is destroyed, their
job/business is lost, or their career is over as a result of virtue
signaling and “outrage” by masses of people on the internet who are
simply following what they believe the rest of the herd is doing. We are
in the age of digital lynchings. It doesn’t matter whether the victim
was truly wrong. What matters is that he/she is punished as harshly as
possible.
The Social Credit System goes along with the move to a cashless society.
And then we must address the coming cashless society. Indeed, we
already live in a world that is replacing cash with digital currency. In
some cases, the move to become cashless is made by social engineering
and predatory marketing to convenience. In others,
such as India, the
cashless society has been
brought forward by law.
As I have written in many articles in the past, cashless programs are
almost always first introduced under the guise of convenience. Then, as
more and more people take the bait, the older methods of payment are
seen as cumbersome and, eventually, are phased out completely. Mandates
then replace what was once a personal choice.
Yet, what is so ironic about these programs is that, while the
program is touted as providing so much more convenience, even when
putting privacy and Cashless Society issues aside and, with the program
running at its optimum, they aren’t often really much more convenient.
But that doesn’t stop the rollouts and it certainly doesn’t stop the
mandates. It’s as if people believe that masses of scientists,
corporations, and DARPA are putting their noses to the grindstone for
their convenience and not some other purpose. Do we really believe that
those organizations have, as their top priority, our health, freedom,
convenience, or happiness? Do we really believe this or do we just not
think about it at all?
Regardless, with the disappearance of cash also goes the ability to
live outside the mandates of the State which has always been the goal of
moving toward a cashless system. The United States is rapidly
approaching the phase out of cash as a means of exchange. Don’t believe
it? Just go to your local convenience store with a $100 dollar bill.
Enter the Universal Basic Income scheme.
Then there’s
Universal Basic Income. The
UBI
has been tossed around as a legitimate solution to poverty and
violation of workers’ rights for some time. It’s an old idea and even
establishment philosophers/activists like Bertrand Russell espoused it
in the early 20th Century. But while economists debate the idea’s
success in regards to those two issues, no one seems to notice how the
UBI, taken in concert with cashless society and social media addiction,
will coalesce to produce just the world mentioned at the beginning of
this article.
Without getting into the details of why a UBI is a bad idea in terms
of society and economics, it is still useful to point out that the
building blocks of the technological control grid are already in place
and, with a UBI, those building blocks form a rather solid foundation.
Here’s how the Social Credit System is already being used in America.
With the ubiquitous presence of social media and the current culture
of social media outrage, the social credit scheme is already in place.
The State only needs to implement a coherent strategy that is no doubt
itself already in place and merely waiting to be rolled out. Already,
employers are able to check prospective employees’ credit scores on a
condition of hiring and many now require social media passwords for the
same reason. The SCS is right around the corner.
Pair the SCS with the UBI, however, and you can easily see how the
SCS can be the litmus test for whether or not you receive your
“benefits.” This means that, in the very near future, we will see
someone who dares say something politically incorrect, makes a bad
financial decision, or drinks before 10 am, literally frozen out of
society.
If the government (or some private corporation) is in charge of
doling out your “benefits” and the government/corporation is in charge
of rating your social credit, what do we think is going to happen to
violators? Already, governments are cutting social safety net payments
to individuals who do not meet what those governments deem to be
“acceptable” healthcare decisions. Similar schemes are in place where
recipients are drug tested as part of the requirement for receiving
“benefits.”
This is how society progresses into totalitarianism, by the way.
There are no doubt some readers of this article who were horrified at
the society described within it but who then reached the paragraph
above and justified the methods currently used against “welfare
families.” The truth is that those readers are just another step in
bringing this system about.
Now a younger generation is being used for the same purposes,
manipulated by social engineers and reinforced by the generation before
them, of bringing in the technological control grid, one giant leap at a
time.
Of course, many people who read dire predictions such as these may be
tempted to laugh at the idea that such a system could be implemented in
the United States, one thing is for sure – the Chinese aren’t laughing.
And we shouldn’t be either.
See also:
About Brandon
Brandon Turbeville writes for TheOrganicPrepper.com and his own website, BrandonTurbeville.com He is the author of ten books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and
Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to
Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, The Difference it Makes:
36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President, and Resisting
The Empire: The Plan To Destroy Syria And How The Future Of The World
Depends On The Outcome. His books can be found in the bookstore at BrandonTurbeville.com and on Amazon.
Turbeville has published over 1500 articles on a wide variety of
subjects including health, economics, government corruption, civil
liberties and, most notably, geopolitics and the Syrian crisis. His most
recent release is a book of poetry, “Dance, Amputee.”
Blogger's note: subterrnews.blogspot.com does not
send cookies, or collect any information on those using the blog.
However, the blogspot is on google, and google may collect information, and
send cookies. Many of the links that we connect to do not send out
cookies or collect information, but some do. Your keying in to this blog
you have agreed to this.
