Under the guise of anti-terrorism, and/or anti-crime, within
a short time (shorter than you can imagine) we will be
implanted, starting with children (via painless injection at
birth) with a nano-computer/transmitter/controller. What
parent would not want the perfect solution to prevent
kidnapping, SIDS, even crying?
Seriously now, how could RFID possibly prevent crying? I assume that is a joke. It would not do much to prevent kidnapping either, because the readers do not work a few meters away from the target. I suppose if readers were everywhere, in every store entrance, the kidnapper could not bring the kid anywhere . . .
RFID chips have been implanted in pets for years.
There is no doubt that things like RFID and credit cards would make it easier to implement Big Brother government surveillance. But you do not need such things. The Tokugawa regime in Japan kept much tighter control over the population than any modern fascist state, and it collected accurate information on everything from the number of people to the number of trees in the forests (see J. Diamond, "Collapse"). It was like the Reformation Calvinist government in Switzerland: it regulated every person's life in minute detail, decreeing the names people were allowed to give their children, the type of clothing they were allowed to wear, and the dishes and building materials each social class was allowed. It imposed swift and harsh punishments. (Calvin probably went further than the Shogunate in this; two of his own stepchildren were executed for adultery.) The Tokugawa instituted many laws to improve surveillance, data collection and control. For example, it ordered that all houses be made porous and easy to infiltrate, so that government agents could eavesdrop on conversations within. Democracy would not prevent the growth of such intrusive institutions. The habits of tight, top-down control of society never died out in Japan, even though it is now a democratic society.
The point is, the Swiss and the Japanese imposed harsh Big Brother governments with premodern technology, and any other country could have done likewise, but they did not. Even though our ability to monitor people is now enhanced to an unprecedented extent, that does not mean we will necessarily start doing it. People do not always do every terrible thing they are capable of. In the 1950s and '60s some people, including Richard Feynman, assumed that nuclear war was inevitable. For some reason, they believed that people always end up doing the worst thing they are capable of. Marxism is predicated on the same notion. I see no reason to believe it. No one would assert that people will inevitably do the best, kindest, most compassionate things they are capable of, so why should anyone think that people always go to the opposite extreme?
- Jed
