Of course it makes me wonder if this is just history repeating in some sense. People came to the new world in part to flee European monarchist tyrannies. Now people will go to space to flee the Earth technocracy.
This is one of the primary reasons that I'm planning an exit from software development. I see most of what we do as being a useless waste, and at worst we're building our own enslavement. I'm fortunate to be working on something harmlessly entertaining, but I want to exit all together and start a business that will actually help people.
The unbounding optimism of technologists is pretty disturbing. We can see for ourselves how tyrannical those at the top of our industry can get, yet we are easily chatteled into helping them because of the paycheck and the prestige. It should become less socially acceptable for us to assist tech zealots who want to involve data warehousing technology and AI into every single problem and facet the world is facing.
International waters have already seen a lot of creative uses to avoid governments.
So yeah, China...
This is already the case, and has been for almost a hundred years.
Govt spending/taxation is 38% in the US! So, I we're already there.
No cash mean you can't do anything that has not been validated by the state first.
It means kids will have less options to foul around without the parents checking it.
It means you won't be able to pay in a gay bar anonymously.
It means any new (and hence controversial) political concept will have no way to financially grow to acceptance.
It means no living off the grid.
It means hobo will be even more excluded.
It means in case of crisis, the financial system is paralyzed.
It means if powerful people wants something bad for you, you can't be on the run.
It means easy censorship against unpopular activists or artists.
It means no way to test a weird idea off the record to see if it's worth it.
It means no escape if the gov raises taxes in an unjust way.
It means no workaround for paralyzing bureaucracy.
It means no grandpa selling his home grown vegetable at the farmer market on the side.
It means everything you do, where you do, at what time and with whom is tracked, permanently recorded, then passed to algo or AI for analysis.
No grey area. No margin of error.
Just the immovable, inflexible structure of current society imposing itself to everybody.