Exhibit #1 :
As Trump Threatens Tehran Over Censorship, Facebook's
Thought-Police Censor Pro-Iran Posts
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/trump-threatens-tehran-over-censorship-...
https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/while-trump-warns-tehran-of-censorshi...
The hypocrisy is unbelievable. In order to comply with United
States sanctions on Iran, Facebook’s thought police have taken to
censorship on behalf of the government. At the same time,
President Donald Trump warns Iran not to use censorship.
...
“These massive Big Tech corporations are Thought Police for the
US government: Facebook and Instagram are removing posts
expressing support for Iran’s top general Soleimani,”
journalist Ben Norton tweeted. “They say it’s to comply with US
sanctions, but how do posts violate sanctions? –RT
https://www.rt.com/news/478044-instagram-iran-trump-censorship/
...
----- Forwarded message from Zenaan Harkness -----
From: Zenaan Harkness
To: cypherpunks@lists.cpunks.org
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 21:46:06 +1100
Subject: The flip side of UBI/ Universal Basic Income - beware what you ask
for - [MONEY]
UBI, what could possibly go wrong?
IOW, be (very) careful what you ask for ...
Universal Basic Income: A Dream Come True For Despots
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/universal-basic-income-dream-come-true-d...
...
“What do you think the potential disadvantages of the basic
income would be, then?”
[My neighbour] replies, “There aren’t any.”
Trade-Offs Are Inescapable
...
But the universal basic income seems unaffected. It’s going to
cure poverty, eliminate stress, reduce crime, unleash
entrepreneurship, emancipate women, save us from AI, and fight
climate change. I’m not not exaggerating. I googled, and there
are multiple articles claiming that, not only will the UBI save
the economy from flatlining due to a lack of consumer demand by
increasing consumption, but somehow also put a halt to global
warming as well — contradictory as these two aims may seem.
...
Trusting the World's Regimes to Do Good?
Most people agree that politics is a dirty game and that
political powers will inevitably be used to further the agenda of
officeholders and their cronies. That said, despite being
immersed in the current thinking regarding UBI for three years
now, I have seen precious little worrying as to what the
government — or a future government — might actually do once it
has seized control over everyone’s purse strings.
After all, these governments are composed of the same people who
launched a permanent war in the Middle East, wasting trillions of
dollars on destroying millions of lives. These governments bailed
out the banks from the public purse and gave themselves raises
after telling the rest of the nation we had to tighten our belts.
They have robbed the young of the opportunity to own a home by
sending house prices through the roof and mean to leave them a
nation in ruinous debt. They continue locking away huge numbers
of people for decades for victimless crimes, leaving their
children to be raised single-handed. They created an oligopoly of
higher education provision forcing generations into student debt
that cannot be defaulted on, and healthcare systems that are so
restrictive that people must pay inordinate sums to get care or
are otherwise forced onto government waiting lists so long that
many of their conditions are chronic or untreatable before they
are seen to.
Am I the only one who thinks these powers may be used for evil
rather than good?
China’s “Credit System”
One such cautionary tale may be found in China.
...
[ -------------- money quote --------------- ]
Now a basic income guarantee may begin universal, but as the
years wear on and it proves expensive to provide, it might be
that corners have to be cut in order to ensure its continued
fungibility. Hardly anyone will object to the UBI being withdrawn
from criminals, for example. And then perhaps for antisocial
behaviour. People may have their universal basic income docked
for committing petty crimes like littering the street. A few
might moan that this is the beginning of a government social
engineering program, but to most people this will seem like a
quite a sensible and reasonable measure. After all, we all
“benefit” from the benevolence of society providing our roads and
schools, and now our basic income. So if some choose to repay
society in disrespect, with such vulgar behaviour as littering,
throwing away the ends of cigarettes, spitting on the street,
failing to remove their dog foul, or what have you, why should
society continue to furnish them with the fullness of a basic
income? Besides, if their basic income is docked for several
months they are unlikely to repeat the crime — they will soon
learn their lesson. It will save money on law enforcement,
lengthy court trials, and prison sentences as well, all of which
are costly. Clipping people’s basic income will soon seem the
most sensible and appropriate response to many crimes and
misdemeanours. People may be sanctioned for things like not
sorting out their recycling. After all, the government provides
garbage disposal for us, and the environment is at stake.
Governments are already looking at sanctioning people for this
kind of behaviour, so the step would not be much of a leap. These
steps will simply be designed to acclimatize people to the idea
of being “nudged” in the right direction before more radical
measures are taken to use the UBI to shape their behaviour.
...
In China people can have their social credit score docked for
posting fake news online. We may, of course, ask, fake according
to whom? After all, the Chinese government maintains that the
Tienanmen Square Massacre of 1989 was “fake news” drummed up by
the West to undermine the regime. Closer to home, the mainstream
media was entirely complicit in selling the war on Iraq to the
public, but I very much doubt we will see people being sanctioned
for posting news from mainstream sources such as the BBC or
MSNBC. Our leaders are above falsifying our historic records and
sending embarrassing incidents down the memory hole for permanent
deletion. The purse strings of the universal basic income also
present a grave threat to freedom of speech. Anyone who has been
following the “woke wars” on Twitter and other social media
platforms will have heard of people receiving lifetime bans for
tweeting things like “Men are never women.” Now whether you
believe such a message is transphobic or otherwise, you may at
least believe that someone has the right to tweet it, and be duly
educated as to the wrongs of their action by other users. The
universal basic income could easily become the new weapon to
wield against those who hold unpopular opinions or those that are
simply no longer politically correct. It will be first used to
strike against unpopular groups such as racists, misogynists,
homophobes, and bigots. Not many people will come to their
defense when they lose their basic income for spreading hate. But
one day you yourself may hold an unpopular opinion that is
relatively benign. Maybe you will say that people shouldn’t have
their basic income docked just because they say unpopular things
on the internet. You will not just be slapped with a Twitter ban,
you will potentially lose $1000 a month.
...
The UBI will institutionalise the state as each of our patrons —
and us as wards of the state. Once this relationship is
established we will enter into a frightening era where the
government is our provider and the UBI can easily be weaponized
by our rulers to shape us into compliance.
----- End forwarded message -----
