What will you do?

[Smok]

That my friend is one point , the Govt is trying to put people back to work and those people need something to do , what better then to do this . They would start off looking for ?????? what ever the Gov wanted , just name the Poison or person LOL

[Rick]

What do you think the purpose of this would be? What would the government gain?

[chiangmaimav]

I used to work for a private organization which worked on a consultant basis with Dept. of Homeland Security. One of the major problems with domestic intelligence is there is already much more information collected than there are people to organize and analyze it. And this is just concerning terrorism suspects, which thankfully are a small percentage of the population. To try to do this with every person in US is physically impossible, and what would be the point? And going along with this hypothesis, if govt. were to hire the number of people it would take to do this, do you have any idea what that would cost, just in salaries and benfits, never mind the cost for the computers that would be required. on top of this, these billions of employees would all have to have security clearances, and who would do these millions of background checks. The Democrats had a breakdown over the NSA and military listening to phone calls to Afghanistan. Do you really think this Democratic administration is going to attempt this Big Brother scenario? What you are suggesting was pretty much what the Stasi did in east germany during the Cold War. it is posssible in a small, Communist state, but it is not in a large democratic one.

[trax]

AH HA! chiangmaimav, you're basing your premise on the notion that America is still a democratic state then!

(how was that Crash?)

[Rick]

Trax, watch Ken. Ken, watch Crash. Crash, watch Sarge. Sarge, watch Coot. Coot, keep an eye on the liqueur. Tennecedar, you watch Coot, too. Can't be too careful with the liqueur.

Pity the guy that has the job to chase down Native Dude and stick an RFID in him. He had better be well acclimated to the cold. He may be layin' out there a loooooong time.

[MatthewnOK]

Remy, I just thought of something. If are computers are going to be like you say, well then XP might mean Extra-*****. If you know what I mean :innocent

[Alpine_Sapper]

http://www.digitalangel.com/

We've talked about those guys before. They had a test program in south america where they were trying the GPS stuff. Mysteriously enough it went quietly away. Probably lack of funding.

[grundle]

I think Remy gave a nice summary of the possibilities. I think he is right on the mark.

If we examine the available technologies today we have multiple forms of wireless communication, we have extremely high throughput data pipes for consolidation of massive amounts of information. We have efficient storage capacity and amazingly we have strong search, analysis, and filtering algorithms for sorting all of that information.

I am not confused about where this will go. Being a technologist I can see the "direction of the road". More importantly all of this technology is growing at an exponential rate.

Look at how fast we have come from horse drawn carriages to being able to communicate with each other through "air waves". It took less than 100 years. The computer age has swept the world in less than 20 years. I do not think it will take much time for an "implantation/marking" movement to sweep the globe.

First I must say that it will be some sort of communication technology, but I cannot say what it will be. I cannot say it would be RFID for sure, but maybe something similar? With nano-tech growing rapidly it could hang on that technology. The main thing is that there are several pre-conditions that will have to be met.

1) The world will make a shift to a "global economy". This means that there will be a unification of currencies to make trade, commerce, etc. more convenient. We have already seen a huge step in this direction with the institution of the Euro. If the U.S. subjugates itself to "International Law" we could see a change in our currencies, although that seems so highly unlikely at this point in time. Russia and China recently began to talk about their desire to do just this.

2) There will have to be a compelling "altruistic" reason for these new technologies to be implanted or instituted. For me it is not so hard to believe that it could happen. Just as vaccinations seemed to be some brutal arcane method the world was quick to embrace it when the results were so powerfully apparent. Most likely this compelling reason is going to hinge on point number 1. With a global economy the implant will grant people accessibility to interacting into this new advanced, global, "one-world' (each one reach one) system.

It will be touted as a way to keep track of family and friends, for consolidating all your bills, transactions. Keeping current on your insurance, medical history, personal assets, submitting your taxes, tracking job history, credit history, etc. etc. With technology today we can have everything related to one person maintained in a central database for ease and convenience.

3) This movement will of course start voluntarily, but slowly gain momentum. As it grows a new shift will occur where governments will start to mandate participation. Rationale being that with the advent of technology and modern commerce paper currency is outdated. In order to give the earth and environment a break the destructive practice of minting mined metals and using paper for currency should be phased out and electronic currency would be the norm. At that point people would have no other alternative but to join or they would not be able to participate in the commerce system.

That is how I see it happening. I give this movement about 10 years to start and that is a conservative estimate.

[trax]

Trax, watch Ken. Ken, watch Crash. Crash, watch Sarge. Sarge, watch Coot. Coot, keep an eye on the liqueur. Tennecedar, you watch Coot, too. Can't be too careful with the liqueur.

Pity the guy that has the job to chase down Native Dude and stick an RFID in him. He had better be well acclimated to the cold. He may be layin' out there a loooooong time.

Native Dude's out there alright, he's watching Rick!

[Rick]

@ grundle. There is a huge leap that has to be made between technology and moral acceptance. I could see the scenario you described having greater potential than anything being forced on the population. To some degree, it's already here. This one is several years old.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3697940.stm

How about the cop who's weapon will only fire if his RFID is next to the weapon?

How about home security or vehicle security?

How about no credit card? Just an RFID.

There are a lot of scenarios one can dream up that would make them acceptable. My only disclaimer has been I don't think the gov't will be able to force its use.

As for a world base currency? Just a matter of time. It's the natural progression in a global economy. There really isn't any reason to have as many currencies has the world has. If 100 dracmas are equal to one dollar then do away with the dracmas and give the guy a dollar (or Euros or Yin or whatever it turns out to be). Then he competes one to one in the world economy.

Good post. You did a nice a job.

[grundle]

Rick - I agree its usage will not have to be enforced. My premise was not that governments will have to force people to use it, but rather the impetus to be able to participate in economy will naturally "herd" most people in that direction.

In today's society when things become inconvenient people "fall in line". Most people would rather take the easy way than suffer any sort of inconvenience. Heck most people have no clue what to do if their most basic life necessities suddenly disappeared.

You are right about possible scenarios. I really don't know the specifics, I can only point in the general direction.

[chiangmaimav]

This scenario would never be accepted by American public. Not only that it would be impossibly expensive and noone has the time, the money or the inclination to stick chips in everyone and monitor their every movement. Anyone who has worked in intelligence or surveillance can testify to this. There may someday be elimination of hard currency in America but it will be a long time b efore the rest of the world gets to that point. In some countries here in SE Asia they dont even have ATM machines.

[grundle]

This scenario would never be accepted by American public. Not only that it would be impossibly expensive and noone has the time, the money or the inclination to stick chips in everyone and monitor their every movement. Anyone who has worked in intelligence or surveillance can testify to this. There may someday be elimination of hard currency in America but it will be a long time b efore the rest of the world gets to that point. In some countries here in SE Asia they dont even have ATM machines.

That is why it has to be a progressive movement. Starting first as a voluntary program and slowly evolving to the scenario I described.

The idea is not to "monitor every movement". You would run pattern analysis algorithms. Anything that deviates from an acceptable pattern curve would raise a flag that might be considered for further checking.

I don't think that this would be a terribly expensive venture from the "implanting" side of the project. The major expense would be the back-end infrastructure for consolidating all the personal information and maintaining the various transactions and pertinent daily logged activity. This is also a very doable project from todays technological perspective.

What I am describing is not out of the realm of imagination. You do bring up a very compelling point though. There are plenty of countries in South East Asia, Africa, and South America that are far behind technologically speaking.

[Alpine_Sapper]

That is why it has to be a progressive movement. Starting first as a voluntary program and slowly evolving to the scenario I described.

The idea is not to "monitor every movement". You would run pattern analysis algorithms. Anything that deviates from an acceptable pattern curve would raise a flag that might be considered for further checking.

I don't think that this would be a terribly expensive venture from the "implanting" side of the project. The major expense would be the back-end infrastructure for consolidating all the personal information and maintaining the various transactions and pertinent daily logged activity. This is also a very doable project from todays technological perspective.

What I am describing is not out of the realm of imagination. You do bring up a very compelling point though. There are plenty of countries in South East Asia, Africa, and South America that are far behind technologically speaking.

The infrastructure will already be in place from the drivers license, and as far as third world countries, if you don't let them leave without the id, then they are kept in the jungle in a primitive lifestyle and really no threat to anyone until their resources run out, and then they are assimilated.

[crashdive123]

Tomorrow I'm cutting the grass.

[tennecedar]

You not having ATM machines does not prevent us from having them.

Tomorrow, you will need a "passport" to enter Manhattan.
Tomorrow, you will have no more plane tickets on paper or needs for your paper/plastic ID.
Tomorrow, worlds lagging technologies will fall into deeper depth...we will eventually forget about them.
Tomorrow, you will think actions, and they will materialized inorganically.
Tomorrow, failing body parts will be repaired through nano-technology.
Tomorrow, your children will have holographic companions.


Tomorrow, the connected world, the only world, will disconnect us from nature to a point where being will mean existing, and existing will mean hive-ing.
All connected, yet all disconnected.
All seeing, yet all blind.


Didn't Keanu Reeves star in that?

[grundle]

The infrastructure will already be in place from the drivers license, and as far as third world countries, if you don't let them leave without the id, then they are kept in the jungle in a primitive lifestyle and really no threat to anyone until their resources run out, and then they are assimilated.

You misunderstand Alpine Sapper. The infrastructure from the Driver's License is only one aspect of a person's life. You still have to consolidate their salary, their assets including credit holdings (such as mortgage and car loans etc.) All of that must be connected with a banking institution(s). Don't forget any stock holdings, mutual funds, retirement benefits, any and all insurances held by that person.

All of those things which involve multiple companies would have to be consolidated and organized. That entails writing up a standardization document and then submitting it to those organizations so that they can update their systems to comply with the new standard.

The most recent event that followed a similar vein, but not quite as extensive, that I can think of would be Sarbanes Oxley compliance.

As for the third world countries, they would have a huge burden to establish an adequate technological infrastructure before being able to cooperate. Not an easy task for many of them, who are more focused on infighting and local politics than engaging in the world economy.

This is definitely an interesting discussion. There are many sides that deserve to be explored, but I do think that what I outlined as the end-result is ineviteable

[Rick]

We have that, to a large extent, today. Although fragmented between agencies, departments and retailers. The marketing card you use at the grocery store, driver's license, social security and all the rest are really the very same thing we are talking about. It's just not consolidated into a single platform, whatever that might turn out to be. I must have 30 travelers cards between various airlines' frequent flier miles, rental car and hotel frequent stay cards. One device that could intelligently handle all of my transactions would be an interesting offering. Add in some of the things above such as home and car security, passwords for investment and financial institutions and it would almost sell itself. You wouldn't have to develop a bizarre scenario such as implantation either. Just carry on your person. If it becomes impossible to operate without it you've accomplished the same thing essentially.

[trax]

Didn't Keanu Reeves star in that?

Yes he did. And far be it from me to take a thread off topic, but apparently he's now starring in "the Day the World Stood Still" I'm thinking if it's based on anything Keanu does, how will they know?

[Ole WV Coot]

I don't worry much about our government controlling me or much of anything else. My personal experience having taken money for services rendered to them is very simple.
Our Government can screw up a two car funeral without outside help.