This line is a ditty from a children’s television show that gave clues to her whereabouts. Today, there is no question – everyone always knows where Carmen Santiago is. Between the cellphone, Wi-Fi, the GPS, car radio, doorbell technology, health tracking, drone surveillance, street cameras, facial recognition, gait recognition, tollbooth cameras, gadgets like Fitbit, etc., everyone knows where the reader is at any given moment. Even one’s pets are tracked.
To older generations, tracking seems unnecessary, invasive and controlling. The newer generations have been born into the tracking world and generally find it a convenient tool and are not bothered by Big Brother aspects. This difference in attitude between the generations is truly significant despite its subtlety and, sadly, any sense of how to manage the ethics of corporate and government manipulation of individuals without their individual authorization.
Cognizance of Big Brother is spawning a new movement to live off-the-grid. Move to the Northwest; move to Alaska; move to Central America; live below the radar of electric service, telephones and other implied intrusions by Big Brother (Big Brother is synonymous with government regulations and corporate capitalism). Of course only a small minority can accomplish an escape from tracking.
The industry that is making the largest splash at the moment is the insurance industry. Today, policies are being rewritten to include tracking as an element of premium cost and even whether one can purchase insurance. Don’t skip one’s exercises or eat unacceptably, or have to use COPD or have a pacemaker – the rates are higher or, God forbid, one is denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions or … one has a history of not complying with tracking devices.
As 5G emerges, industry will be able to track an individual’s wear cycle of clothing, that is, one does not determine for themselves that it is time to recycle a shirt, refrigerator or automobile. A new one will arrive when Big Brother decides it is time by tracking electronics built into one’s clothing and devices. In that time, the last drop of profit will be sucked from the human cash flow creature.
For the sake of decency, mariner will not describe the centralization of income, debt or personal investment. Simply, there will be no need to carry a few dollars in one’s wallet. Yet, everyone must pause while we endure Donald – an individual who has no sense of the broad reality that confronts the entire human existence on this planet because of technology, environment, the ethics of individuality, and the economy of diminishing returns.
Please vote intelligently in 2020.
Ancient Mariner