It is why I removed several vital-to-today's-social-experiment apps from my phone.
My eventual plan after retirement is to go the second story of my home and throw my phone out the window. Seeing it shatter into a million pieces is kind of a bizarre fantasy of mine.
"Most of us wore our face diapers and followed orders."
By my reckoning, "most of us" screeched about masks like they were The Mark of The Beast, but said fuck-all about the largest upward transfer of wealth in this country's history, and the fact that wealthy assholes across the political landscape benefitted at the expense of regular people from across that same landscape.
"Donald Trump’s ICE raids devolved into South African or Russian-style pass sweeps, Democrats responded to Covid by hunting the Bill of Rights with a flamethrower, neither party has done a thing to eliminate mass abuse of FISA or National Security Letters, and the private sector increasingly forces public political displays on its employees."
Very well said. Anyone who thinks "their party" or "side" is the hero in this situation is either delusional, stupid or part of the problem.
Vaccine passports and other types of medical surveillance are an additional concern. I remember when medical records used to be considered very private. Now they are vastly more accessible.
"Proof" of vaccination for international travel has been a requirement for a very long time. What's different about the new push for vaccine passports is:
1. Lots of in country and local uses planned for it, whereas nobody here in the US ever demanded to see my yellow card before.
2. The primary rationale was protecting you, the traveler - - "You are coming to a place where yellow fever / typhoid / cholera may be encountered; we won't let you come unless you're protected against it." Protecting others was very much a secondary aspect, especially for things like yellow fever for those of us who would be returning to areas outside the habitat of the mosquito vector.
(Did you ever get the cholera vaccine? Yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck!)
It's like the Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life" where everyone has to say nice things in front of Anthony or he gets sent to the corn field. "That's a real nice war you started there, Anthony! Real nice!"
The portion of this discussing the Sovok interested me. I am in a large progressive California firm that is hypersensitive to workplace conduct or speech that could give rise to claims of hostile work environment etc.
When I find myself in one of those random workplace encounters in which I am supposed to chat, I endeavor to find the blandest topics upon which to blather. Weather and traffic are the reliable choices. Nobody is compelled to hear my opinions about anything. The chilling effect is cryogenic.
When I still worked at the office, back before 2020, this was how it was. I had one or two people that I could (very quietly) talk to about how messed up our country and government and society was (one had an office so we could close the door for some bit of privacy). I remember another coworker saying to me at one point, "guess we gotta be careful what we say now", after some sort of diversity lecture from the university.
Our kids gave us an Alexa 8 years ago… she didn’t last 24 hours. However, it was funny when my husband asked me “ who sent you that joke?” And I said “ Dick “… and Alexa chimed in and said “ that’s not nice”. 😂 Into the garbage she went.
I'm not arguing with this viewpoint Mstt, but Ryan's article was weak as supporting your viewpoint. I'm sure you can see that the disclosure and payment provided to the study subjects stands in contrast to a dark conspiracy.
Read Rufo's piece today as a comparison. I don't think he has the resources that Racket has.
I'm not seeing any new article from Rufo on surveillance; today an article on fraud in Ca. Just wondering where to find the article you are referring to. Thanks.
Yes I am referring to that article as something important and well researched. Agreed its not on a silly twins study where informed consent was done and subjects paid.
Indeed, I watched you write the post. You were suspiciously slow typing it out, as if you were burdened by guilt. We are going to have to pay more attention to you.
I will say, that I noticed in the short video posted with that story that someone at the twins event recorded, that one of the people at the "research" tent was telling the woman that they were doing it for the FBI and a university and another one of the people at the tent says, "we're not supposed to tell people about the FBI being involved". Anyway, I found that interesting.
The funny thing about all these programs is that they are approved at the highest levels. I had a speaker at a conference detail the human irradiation experiments done during the cold war. Of course people were taken advantage of (test subjects), but the decisions were made on high and it was deemed important enough for them to approve OTHER PEOPLE assuming the risks. That is what we pay our government for. Our government makes all sorts of decisions like this every day and we should be paying attention to it. Unfortunately most of our "news" is really just cutting and pasting from government spokespeople and politicians. When I was working in Government, we were always warned about being called to the "green table". I never saw it actually happen....
I was talking to a friend the other day and I started whispering because I didn't want my phone to hear me both because it was a sensitive issue and because I didn't want to get bombarded with ads. It's hard not to feel the inevitability of more surveillance. Sometimes I just want to throw my hands up and say "Fuck it," but then I read a post like yours and realize we all need to be more vigilant. Thanks Matt.
Thanks Matt—the surveillance state keeps us from our Constitutional right to privacy as sovereign individuals. This frog is feeling the boiling point coming.
Remember when Obama campaigned against the Patriot act and surveillance in 2008? Seems like a lifetime ago. Withe advent of AI privacy is a joke to its creators. Glad to be a gen x kid who grew up in maybe the last era of freedom .
AMEN and Hell Yes!! The proverbial “ you’re not paranoid if you think they are “ doing whatever… because they sure as shit are and increasingly so. We are moving … we have been inundated with realtors here and there, moving companies, Amazon recommending moving supplies.. it’s endless. I hurt my shoulder lifting boxes… orthopedic procedures, balms, steroids, exercises… so between a few clicks and evidently talking in the privacy of our home…. We are being “steered”. I’m at the point of my caring for the welfare of our country isn’t changing anything, so why keep exposing myself to being “ nipulated” .. as my three year old daughter used say decades ago. The constant monitoring only increases my already borderline anxiety.
Why should they care if they already gave up their privacy to Google, Meta, and what not? And they didn't even get a $50 gift card - just some shitty app that's intentionally designed to be addictive, and to make you anxious and insecure.
The timing of this piece about government spying in conjunction with a judgment in CA against these companies does make me wonder.
Agree. But this is mugshot and DNA via a saliva swab. Invasive. Physically not digitally. Police procedural stuff from any streaming show. Again, they don't care.
Yea. Did the Chinese end up buying that? They didn't care then and they don't care now. So Matt and everyone else can write articles about this everyday, all year long and these people still won't care. Glenn Greenwald can talk about his work with Edward Snowden a decade plus ago and they don't care. Again, how ya gonna make 'em care? Until these Matt, Glenn, etc., can connect the dots as to why they should care, they just get to keep churning out articles.
As for me, I care. If I were sitting across a table from Jim Clapper, I would want to grab him by those big forward facing fleshy bits called ears and pull them toward me to beat his face into the table. Bloody. So no I never used 23andme, social media and you won't find me in line like some younger version of Joe Biden, slurping on a cone and looking for the 'free stuff'.
It is why I removed several vital-to-today's-social-experiment apps from my phone.
My eventual plan after retirement is to go the second story of my home and throw my phone out the window. Seeing it shatter into a million pieces is kind of a bizarre fantasy of mine.
One has to dream.
Why was Fauci pardoned?
Most of us wore our face diapers and followed orders.
The problem is us.
Sheep who get angry only when they are called sheep.
I didn't wear the mask or follow anybody's orders. I knew we were being scammed after hearing Fauci talk one time. My instincts were correct
"Most of us wore our face diapers and followed orders."
By my reckoning, "most of us" screeched about masks like they were The Mark of The Beast, but said fuck-all about the largest upward transfer of wealth in this country's history, and the fact that wealthy assholes across the political landscape benefitted at the expense of regular people from across that same landscape.
Precisely.
Harmlessly passing our time in the grassland away, only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air.
No he wasn’t and he won’t be and that is the origin of my anger. Why care? The6 got away with it.
"Donald Trump’s ICE raids devolved into South African or Russian-style pass sweeps, Democrats responded to Covid by hunting the Bill of Rights with a flamethrower, neither party has done a thing to eliminate mass abuse of FISA or National Security Letters, and the private sector increasingly forces public political displays on its employees."
Very well said. Anyone who thinks "their party" or "side" is the hero in this situation is either delusional, stupid or part of the problem.
Vaccine passports and other types of medical surveillance are an additional concern. I remember when medical records used to be considered very private. Now they are vastly more accessible.
They've been pushing for us to put all our medical info online for 10 or 15 years now, which always made me nervous.
I'm sure it's totally safe.
To say nothing of effective.
(wink)
When I was a kid we had to show vaccine cards to travel internationally. I still have mine.
"Proof" of vaccination for international travel has been a requirement for a very long time. What's different about the new push for vaccine passports is:
1. Lots of in country and local uses planned for it, whereas nobody here in the US ever demanded to see my yellow card before.
2. The primary rationale was protecting you, the traveler - - "You are coming to a place where yellow fever / typhoid / cholera may be encountered; we won't let you come unless you're protected against it." Protecting others was very much a secondary aspect, especially for things like yellow fever for those of us who would be returning to areas outside the habitat of the mosquito vector.
(Did you ever get the cholera vaccine? Yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck!)
It's like the Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life" where everyone has to say nice things in front of Anthony or he gets sent to the corn field. "That's a real nice war you started there, Anthony! Real nice!"
The portion of this discussing the Sovok interested me. I am in a large progressive California firm that is hypersensitive to workplace conduct or speech that could give rise to claims of hostile work environment etc.
When I find myself in one of those random workplace encounters in which I am supposed to chat, I endeavor to find the blandest topics upon which to blather. Weather and traffic are the reliable choices. Nobody is compelled to hear my opinions about anything. The chilling effect is cryogenic.
That is so creepy.
So everyone is babbling about nothing, in order to avoid speaking about anything important.
When I still worked at the office, back before 2020, this was how it was. I had one or two people that I could (very quietly) talk to about how messed up our country and government and society was (one had an office so we could close the door for some bit of privacy). I remember another coworker saying to me at one point, "guess we gotta be careful what we say now", after some sort of diversity lecture from the university.
"Hey wiretap, what's a good recipe for pancakes?"
I quit asking my phone questions and never had Alexia in my house.
Our kids gave us an Alexa 8 years ago… she didn’t last 24 hours. However, it was funny when my husband asked me “ who sent you that joke?” And I said “ Dick “… and Alexa chimed in and said “ that’s not nice”. 😂 Into the garbage she went.
See?!
That's what I'm talking about!
Well done!
That's okay Tim, they're listening anyway.
I'm not arguing with this viewpoint Mstt, but Ryan's article was weak as supporting your viewpoint. I'm sure you can see that the disclosure and payment provided to the study subjects stands in contrast to a dark conspiracy.
Read Rufo's piece today as a comparison. I don't think he has the resources that Racket has.
Just saying, you can and should do better.
I'm not seeing any new article from Rufo on surveillance; today an article on fraud in Ca. Just wondering where to find the article you are referring to. Thanks.
Yes I am referring to that article as something important and well researched. Agreed its not on a silly twins study where informed consent was done and subjects paid.
I think I agree with Gary. There is a far more pervasive surveillance on which we engage willingly, like right now as I post this.
Indeed, I watched you write the post. You were suspiciously slow typing it out, as if you were burdened by guilt. We are going to have to pay more attention to you.
🤣🤣🤣
Now that was funny.
I will say, that I noticed in the short video posted with that story that someone at the twins event recorded, that one of the people at the "research" tent was telling the woman that they were doing it for the FBI and a university and another one of the people at the tent says, "we're not supposed to tell people about the FBI being involved". Anyway, I found that interesting.
I really appreciate your observations based on your own experiences in the USSR, Matt.
I had never realized that the result of mass surveillance would have been incessant babbling, but the way you explained it, it makes sense.
Really intriguing observation.
The funny thing about all these programs is that they are approved at the highest levels. I had a speaker at a conference detail the human irradiation experiments done during the cold war. Of course people were taken advantage of (test subjects), but the decisions were made on high and it was deemed important enough for them to approve OTHER PEOPLE assuming the risks. That is what we pay our government for. Our government makes all sorts of decisions like this every day and we should be paying attention to it. Unfortunately most of our "news" is really just cutting and pasting from government spokespeople and politicians. When I was working in Government, we were always warned about being called to the "green table". I never saw it actually happen....
I was talking to a friend the other day and I started whispering because I didn't want my phone to hear me both because it was a sensitive issue and because I didn't want to get bombarded with ads. It's hard not to feel the inevitability of more surveillance. Sometimes I just want to throw my hands up and say "Fuck it," but then I read a post like yours and realize we all need to be more vigilant. Thanks Matt.
I've learned to love the bomb.
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
Thanks Matt—the surveillance state keeps us from our Constitutional right to privacy as sovereign individuals. This frog is feeling the boiling point coming.
Remember when Obama campaigned against the Patriot act and surveillance in 2008? Seems like a lifetime ago. Withe advent of AI privacy is a joke to its creators. Glad to be a gen x kid who grew up in maybe the last era of freedom .
AMEN and Hell Yes!! The proverbial “ you’re not paranoid if you think they are “ doing whatever… because they sure as shit are and increasingly so. We are moving … we have been inundated with realtors here and there, moving companies, Amazon recommending moving supplies.. it’s endless. I hurt my shoulder lifting boxes… orthopedic procedures, balms, steroids, exercises… so between a few clicks and evidently talking in the privacy of our home…. We are being “steered”. I’m at the point of my caring for the welfare of our country isn’t changing anything, so why keep exposing myself to being “ nipulated” .. as my three year old daughter used say decades ago. The constant monitoring only increases my already borderline anxiety.
The twins stand in line eating ice cream waiting to give up their privacy for a $50 gift card. Nobody seems to care. How ya gonna change that?
Why should they care if they already gave up their privacy to Google, Meta, and what not? And they didn't even get a $50 gift card - just some shitty app that's intentionally designed to be addictive, and to make you anxious and insecure.
The timing of this piece about government spying in conjunction with a judgment in CA against these companies does make me wonder.
Agree. But this is mugshot and DNA via a saliva swab. Invasive. Physically not digitally. Police procedural stuff from any streaming show. Again, they don't care.
Ever heard of 23andme? Now, that wasn't invasive at all (not).
Yea. Did the Chinese end up buying that? They didn't care then and they don't care now. So Matt and everyone else can write articles about this everyday, all year long and these people still won't care. Glenn Greenwald can talk about his work with Edward Snowden a decade plus ago and they don't care. Again, how ya gonna make 'em care? Until these Matt, Glenn, etc., can connect the dots as to why they should care, they just get to keep churning out articles.
As for me, I care. If I were sitting across a table from Jim Clapper, I would want to grab him by those big forward facing fleshy bits called ears and pull them toward me to beat his face into the table. Bloody. So no I never used 23andme, social media and you won't find me in line like some younger version of Joe Biden, slurping on a cone and looking for the 'free stuff'.