gelotar

A society cannot "simply choose" to reject corporate and government mass surveillance. There was no public vote I'm aware of to decide whether to install cameras and sensors on every street and highway. Shall we vote to take them down now?

Before 2013, only lunatics were concerned with mass surveillance. Look how far we've come. Now the media gives lip service to "privacy advocates". And the result of all this "privacy advocacy" is a giant popup window reminding you that you must submit to tracking if you wish to engage. Engineering consent. Maybe we can meet up in the metaverse to organize a revolution.

So if some heavily armed stranger touches your neck and that makes you nervous, you're probably guilty of something?

Who is empowered when the masses are swallowed by fear? It is not some hooded maniac rubbing his hands together in his basement. It is the state, which maintains control. Control is maintained by fear; fear is engineered through psychological warfare. When did the state ever insruct us to stop fearing "terror"? Machiavelli wrote all about this.

I have a couple comments.

First, most people are not at all "well-educated about the effects of recreational drug use", including medical professionals who are mostly only versed in the effects of legal drugs... Or are you referring to "legal" drugs here?

Second, there is a whole pharmacopeia of drugs that elicit a wide range of effects, and many of these drugs are not necessarily particularly "harmful" (e.g., the psychedelics). But really, moderation is the key ingredient in mitigating many of the compounding effects of repeated use (like physical dependency, which is a symptom only of certain classes of drugs).

Third, drugs are fun and people like to do them. Alcohol is a potentially debilitating, life-ruining drug, but we advertise it on the television. I would bet that most medical professionals consume alcohol.

Freedom is about assuming risk. Pretty soon we'll have no risk though, if the Plans continue as Planned.

Let's see how far we can take "mental health issues". I'm pretty sure that we could make a case for every person in the world having "mental health issues". I think we can collectively agree that our society is profoundly sick; a sick society creates sick people. But "mental health" can easily be construed as a catch-all for anyone who has thoughts that do not align with the agenda of the overseers. As an aside, maybe not all mass shootings are "organic". Why do we never get a full picture of the events? Why are they "covered up"? For our safety, of course. Trust 'em! Maybe it's time that we start to take a hard look at how our smart phones and smart watches and smart homes and fitness trackers can be abused. How does anybody shrug off the implications of uploading the intimate details of your daily life to a corporate-owned, government-subpoenaed cloud (if such a subpoena is even necessary, and the data isn't simply siphoned immediately, or extracted and decrypted in-transit)? One common vision of a modern dystopia is the very real possibility of micro-chipping people, which we are already doing! We micro-chip our pets. Our credit cards, IDs, passports, which we carry with us, are micro-chipped. Our phones and our cars give up our location everywhere we go, and we're scared to turn them off, lest we miss receiving a text message immediately. Some people voluntarily microchip themselves, or are coerced into doing it by their employers. Some people have called this phenomenon the "mark of the beast". I am no scholar of religion, but that seems like a pretty salient analogy. Microchipping for reduction in health insurance premiums seems like an obvious next step.

Here's a great line from the article that sums up the moronic tone-deafness with which we treat our current climate: “Should we create a list of all men in the United States and keep tabs on them?” she said.

What? As if we do not already have this? Are we going to just act as if the intelligence agencies are not surveilling every single person, tracking phone calls, texts, emails, movements, purchases, associations? It's called "mass surveillance" for a reason. What do we think these ultra-secret spy agencies do all day with their billion-dollar budgets? Are we more content just to pretend there is no man behind the curtain, no curtain?

People want the smart homes because they're tired of raising and lowering the blinds, or having to use light switches. How on Earth are so many people content with live microphones in their homes? Can we not rise above and consider the implications in our mad pursuit of "convenience"?

We are being trained not only to accept this as our reality, but being trained to actively participate in its construction. We're being trained that it's "progress" and it's "good" because we need to be turned on to the internet at every moment in our lives. Please talk to each other in person. Turn your phone off and go outside. See what the world is becoming. Do you know any of your neighbors? Stop using these devices and "services". They will always be exploited. Governments historically institute "fear" as a matter of routine to control their subjects, and fear is synonymous with terror. Connect the dots.

Right? You either love vaccines or you hate humans. It's simple.