Digital Pound: Have your say on CBDCs in the UK
This month marks the close of the UK government’s “consultation” on the planned digital pound. This is your chance to have your say on plans to introduce a Central Bank Digital Currency to the UK.
According to the UK government’s website:
The way we use money is changing. This Consultation Paper sets out our assessment of the case for a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) – a so-called ‘digital pound’. It has been overseen by the joint Bank-HM Treasury CBDC Taskforce that was announced in April 2021.
At this stage, we judge it likely that the digital pound will be needed in the future. It is too early to decide whether to introduce the digital pound, but we are convinced preparatory work is justified.
We have covered the rise of CBDCs – and the concomitant dangers to personal freedom – in detail for a while now.
As a quick refresher, or for the uninitiated, CBDCs are a form digital money that would allow both surveillance of every transaction as well potentially Orwellian control through a function they call “programmability”.
Essentially, CBDC would hypothetically allow either the state or your employer to control where and how you spend your money.
If that sounds like a bad idea to you, well then good news – you get to make yourself heard.
Part of the UK’s consultation process leaves an opportunity for members of the public to submit their feedback on the proposal. The orginal deadline for this was June 7th, but just today it was pushed back to June 30th, apparently because they added a new question at the last minute.
To respond to the original form [click here].
Or to respond to the brand new question 9 [click here]
NOTE: For some reason you have to do both separately. Question 9 is not included on the main form.
They are also accepting written responses both by email:
…and post:
Digital Pound Consultation
CBDC Unit
Bank of England
Threadneedle Street
London
EC2R 8AH
If that’s you’re preferred option, Big Brother Watch have prepared a template you can use.
Honestly, we all know how the world works, and orders to implement CBDCs come from someone way above the UK government’s pay grade. Whatever the inclination of the bureaucrats or politicians in Westminster, the digital currency will almost certainly be pushed through. But apathy only greases the wheels of that machinary, while civil objections from an informed populace will hold up and stall and irritate the process.
They will probably ignore it, but we can still make it really really hard to ignore.
Let’s make sure the man behind the curtain knows we can see him.
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Oh dear another conspiracy theory now fact…
Beg to your masters until you’re blue in the face- they get what they want, not what you want.
You fear cbdc, yet you fear life devoid of government even more.
You get what you want….and all that comes with it….
Another thing to keep in mind is that once a programmable CBDC is in place, you’ll not be able to boycott or refuse to spend money at “woke” or ESG/DIE companies (such as the current boycotts of Target/Disney/Bud Light in the USA). In order to force your obedience and compliance, they’ll simply program your CBDC to tell you that you may ONLY spend it with those companies. You will no longer be able to “vote with your wallet.”
They will do what they can get away with.
If they offer £20,000 to switch to CBDC who would refuse.
Maybe £2,000 would be enough or possibly just £200.
But as with the poll tax and with 15 minute cities and low emission zones
If enough people say NO they will have to rethink.
Most laws are not implemented, those that are implemented are done so on an arbitrary bases. Most laws are in truth only a threat not can not be imposed on a large scale.
They work by fear so people self impose the restriction required by the threat of the law.
But if the consequence of obeying the law out ways the perceived threat then people will disobey the law.
It’s not the CBDC alone (which is both evil and stupid) but the digital identity that excites these control freaks. They insist that every living being be subject to them.
My country, Kenya, has also put out a “consultation” paper about which no one is aware unless you just happen to go onto the central bank’s website. It is an exact “copy and paste” job of the UK one and the multiple choice “answers” are designed along the Delphi technique designed to solicit a positive consensus in the bank’s favour. I did not follow the format but wrote a registered letter addressed to the Governor of the bank with copies to the CEOs of 2 commercial banks. I do not expect to get a response to my letter. I showed the letter to my relationship manager at one bank before sending the letter on and surprise surprise he had never heard of CBDCs. Africa is always the Guinea pig of the West’s machinations – digital IDs, digital driving licence both with biometric photos. Cheaper Interoperability seems to be paper’s key carrot throughout. If the central bank controls everything, at the end of the day there’d be no need for commercial banks, challenger banks, phone app payment schemes etc. So, does this mean that a bankrupt country can just create money at will? Perhaps they do already.
Am from Kenya too and have been observing with some concern how Kenya is fast-tracking some of this globalist agendas. The government is even buying into the climate change stories.
I like the way they write “The way we use money IS changing” full stop.
CBDC (aka, central digital ledger) is well on its way to being fully implemented; but not necessarily via said machinations spouted by msm and alt news sources. In effect, said invocation will be actualized via the NY Fed; and its largest stake shareholder (i.e., JP Morgan); viz, as a result of its past and current rampant acquisition and consolidation of other banks (see First Republic), JP Morgan will be in a position to essentially own the Fed Reserve; and, in this scenario, the lines between the central bank and commercial bank would blur, potentially paving the way for the issuance of a central bank digital currency. [see article on this topic via site, ‘georgegammon.com’] That is all! RGB-Y3 out!!
Gammon is highly recommend viewing & doesn’t mince his words. 👍
We the People do not have any say in what the Central Bank Cartel directs their puppets to enact.
The only voice, or action, we have is noncompliance. If you are not prepared to drop out of, and refuse to participate, in their system, then you suffer the consequences.
CBDC is the hill worth dying on, and we will all have to make a choice.
Risk life and property for individual freedom and liberty, else live on your knees sucking on government peter.
I have made my choice.
The Tree of Liberty is thirsty.
Totally agree, non compliance would have stopped the covid bollocks in its tracks but most people seem to be absolutely spineless when it comes to taking any form of action.
My entry:
“Digital cash, the pound or the dollar or any conversion of currency use to digital form, is totally unacceptable. For me, my family and friends, we all realize the incremental economic developments during this new 21st C have been unequivocally mismanaged by the ruling elite and their public-private-partnership Central Banks. Every decision, every policy, has been made purely to advance the profitability of the top 5% of society while sacrificing the lives of the bottom 80% of society.
“Digital cash will be used to track every move we make and eliminate any privacy, freedom to act as we see fit, and to turn corporations and government into Humanity’s overlords, rendering us corporate serfs. Digital money merely makes life easy for the 1% and their Bankster class. There is NO benefit to Humanity. There is only slavery to idiot decision making of the greedy to control Humanity and stay as corporate rulers over every society. The mistakes, the forced behaviors and constant fear of an angry totalitarian government punishing anyone for virtually anything cooked up out thin air from a supposed AI surveillance GODS, is absolutely terrifying. Nothing you will say or do will convince any of us you folks have any different intent in mind.
“The WARS, the poverty, the racism, the totalitarianism of an obsolete capitalism will not stop until we solve Humanity’s problems instead of the rich’s riches. The only thing you CAN do, is step down and hand over policy and budget making to The People. We will create limits to poverty & wealth and make a world of peaceful, self-sufficient societies free of sociopathic rich “deciders”.”
I am not a big fan of the Book of Revelation and its author, John of Somewhere. He spends much of his book describing how angels and such spend most of their time dancing around God’s throne, praising him to the highest, and God just sucks it up like some demented, narcissistic asshole. However this criticism of John’s efforts is not meant to imply in any fashion that there is not a benevolent Creator of the universes. And he really nailed it with his Mark of the Beast.
And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
It will be ushered in by the standard Problem (crisis)>Reaction>Solution ploy. The crisis will be the collapse of the current debt based global financial system and the hyper inflation of all the fiat currencies under their own weight of warp speed fiat printing by central banks, which is already under way. One major objective of the scamdemic was to destroy any semblance of a middle class, especially those with small, independent businesses, making the vast majority of people dependent on government handouts which will be dependent on their “good” behavior and compliance for their families very survival. The reaction will be the panic of the vast majority of people, appealing to the very malevolent governments who engineered this crisis to “save” them. They will sound like a chorus of the last words of the hybrid creature in the original The Fly film as the spider approaches to eat him. “Help me, help me!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up6g0SDMJ7A
And the solution, of course, will be the Mark of the Beast (CBDC). Will they succeed? If the scamdemic is any indication of the brain dead status of the majority, probably. On the positive side, according to official statistics, in the USSA fully 30% of the population refused to allow the bioweapon’s poison to be injected into their blood stream even once. That is not an insignificant number.
I wish governments would just drop this “democracy” dogshit. For me it would be far preferable instead of pretending that people have any say in their agenda (beyond non-compliance to their dictates and attempting preparations against it), that they would just say, “Hey serfs, this is what we are going to do to you and you just better comply, and like it, or else.”
The 30% could be too drunk or too confused or living in nowhere to get the shot. Its the figures from the “democratic” election.
The 70% vote for Trump or a sucker, and the 30% sit home in an armchair with a can of beer.
I wouldnt count too much on the 30%. Sorry for being so pessimistic on behalf of the American people.
One aim of global Operation Covid was to drop all pretence of demcracy rapidly.
The money we use is petty cash to the ruling psychos. They wheel and deal in billions. Weapons, drugs, illegal and legal, tax avoidance, gold, silver, diamonds, rare metals, sex slaves, slave labour and a thousand other cashless transactions.
We are so much ‘dog shit’ on their shoes.
Make sure you tell them that you know all about digital ‘back doors’ always incorporated by the snoops, so that unaccountable murderers like Mossad, MI6 and the CIA can hack in. Mark Zuckerberg knows all about them, so does Elon Musk and so does Bill Gates.
There’s no privacy in digital currencies and liars that say otherwise need to be told so in robust, unequivocal terms.
Apparently, they propose that this is just for mere humans, corporations might be excluded.
Why’s that? Most crime is committed by corporations, they’re the ones needing watching over like prisoners….
The questions are fairly specific and geeky. They don’t ask ‘what do you distrust about this’ or ‘what do you really think we are after’ etc…I only saw one question where you can point out that it offers no function to the end user that they can’t already do with electronic transactions. I tried to mention tally sticks as an alternative, but I couldn’t see a good place to say it.
I respect your comment … but how much use will that be, to let them know that we know?
Best way to beat CBDC, lads – local trading for cash. If we do it enough we get a whole invisible, untaxable “black market economy” the bastards can’t detect or control. Gotta be worth a go.
It’ll work if people pull their heads from their asses and wake up.
I think the trading of home grown food and other tangible goods will become the norm sooner or later.
Digital money is not money. It is not even paper, it is a belief system. VALUE is the only money. Marx knew that, and even further back so did John Locke. When you mix labour with stuff it becomes VALUE.
Look at it like this.
A tree in Canada is potential value. The the logging firm cuts down a tree and floats it downstream. The timber firm cuts up the tree into smaller parts, the the furniture manufacturer produces furniture and the final nail is with the furniture shop. That is the value creation process.
Digital ‘money’ is essentially a bullshit promise. Stock up on gold instead.
First you had assets.
Then you had asset backed tokens
Now we have “promise” backed tokens but still tangible and convertible.
CBDC is trust backed tokens. Intangible and non convertible dependant on trusting the government.
What on Earth could go wrong ?
Fill in the questionnaire. I did, didn’t hold back in any way and gave them seven barrels of ‘what are criminals, corrupt sociopaths and squid banksters doing tell honest people how to manage transactions?’
Rhys Jaggar….Name added to ‘Ze List’….
Dissenter harvest.
You have to put your email address.
They may not need to use it now but it will be of use in the future when the CBDC algorithm recognises it and refuses you a purchase.
I’m not saying don’t rebel. Far from it.
But lists of dissenters like this will be very useful to them.
So you are suggesting that no one says anything – what could possibly go wrong?
No.
I filled in the form and wrote stuff that will possbly come back to me in the future.
Afterwards, I thought of the futility of official petitions and of the honey trap that they are for gathering information.
What I’m saying is that there are better ways of getting our message across such as direct action.
Pussy. And who’s going to start the direct action you speak of, you?
Yes. Me.
Future you say. You won’t have one if you duck & dive all the shit that’s being thrown our way. Perhaps the children of the future gulag’s will erect a piece of stone in honor of those who voiced their concerns.
A shame your name won’t be on it.
Do you really think they will consider what we put on forms? Oh my.
Look mate, most of us are already on watch lists by the organised crime syndicates in London. One more round of vituperative invective isn’t going to change that….
Can’t deny what you say but in hindsight I would have not filled in anything that gave away my identity.
Keep the bastards guessing.
Interestingly, they haven’t sent any email back, so what was their justification?? As you say it’s just a blacklist.
Everyone should set up a junk email account, or several. They are very useful.
They will, The I.T departments gets messed with at the weekend and during ungodly hours. Listen, junk email or not they can get your I.D if they wanted to. Stop being so paranoid, voice your opinion and accept you are now on ‘Ze list’
Being connected to the web & the hardware / software backdoors in almost every device give away your identity and much more.
Their list of dissenters will be Enormous, any questioning of the ‘official’ narrative dating back to the advent of Internet formerly Arpanet as created by DARPA has been recorded and stored.
BIRDS OF A FEATHER..1997
Google’s true origin partly lies in CIA and NSA research grants for mass surveillance.
The intelligence community named their first unclassified briefing for scientists the “birds of a feather” briefing.
Birds of a Feather.
Their research aim was to track digital fingerprints inside the rapidly expanding global information network, which was then known as the World Wide Web. Could an entire world of digital information be organized so that the requests humans made inside such a network be tracked and sorted? Could their queries be linked and ranked in order of importance? Could “birds of a feather” be identified inside this sea of information so that communities and groups could be tracked in an organized way?
https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-cia-and-nsa-research-grants-for-mass-surveillance/
This is the Hill to Die On..
This invite to have an opinion on the Digital Pound is equivalent to an invite to pound sand.
97% of all the money is already digital money.
It’s not the digital money that I am afraid of. It’s the potential to provide digital money by social status (conformity) only that’s troublesome.
You can go much deeper in pondering this issue.
Suppose that we eliminate nefarious ulterior purposes, suppose that people are generally acting in good faith.
Considering that people, like any species, have a tendency to consume whatever stuff is available to them in their habitat in an unbridled manner, go into population overshoot, and then go up in smoke/down the drain when the supply of stuff is depleted, where this phenomenon is exacerbated by the fact that humans have the intellectual capacity, expressed in technologies, to extract more shit out of nature than other species, which generally just devour what’s hanging from the tree, so, considering all that, is it wise for humans to have individual freedom or is it wise that humans be subjected to collectivist control that prevents them from getting too fucking gluttonous?
So, which is it? Allowing people to be completely free in consuming as they wish (actually, it’s worse than that – capitalism very actively encourages over-consumption and the consequent plundering of resources, pollution, etc.)? Or putting people under control, for instance through digital currency, forcing them to behave in a certain manner?
Note that I’m playing the devil’s advocate here because I like my freedom just like the next bloke. But that doesn’t stop me from considering all the possibilities.
Anyway, the best solution would be if everybody behaved moderately, but that’s simply not the case. Also, individuals can’t see the long-term, large-scale adverse impacts of their actions, which might otherwise make more restrained.
I don’t like this fucking totalitarian shit anymore than anybody else, but I don’t like the mad consumerism either.
Totalitarianism requires consumption by the majority.
Ah right, so “owning nothing and being happy” is actually a gateway to freedom. Who knew right.
In many ways, it actually is. If things were available on a rental basis, whether free or for a fee, it would in many ways not only make much more sense (why would everybody need their own car, if you could simply go to the nearest parking lot with public cars and take one? So much easier! You could pick the suitable vehicle for the occasion, you wouldn’t have to worry about repairs, this shit, that shit, the other shit.
Ditto a whole bunch of other things.
It would be more problematic with some other commodities, such as your home, because people like their little nests, but that could probably be worked out somehow.
In a lot of ways, not owning shit does make you happier. Or, conversely, owning a bunch of crap won’t make you any happier.
Be that as it may, you don’t really own anything anyways. In the sense of having entirely unlimited ownership. The ownership of the vast majority of shit you have is none other than a government certificate. Most things you can’t use in an unrestricted way.
To TLDR your little essay –
“I’m just a fella who likes his freedom as much as the rest of yez, but I dunno lads, I’m torn, maybe a financial gulag isn’t so bad if it saves the planet?”
We’ve all been here before, Kunda me ole mate. It’s the ole soft sell concern trolling bullshit that our pal Martin does so badly. “I’m one of yez, honest, but I dunno these vaccines look pretty tasty to me, so why don’t we all give em a go”
You’re starting to look a bit fake is what I’m saying. A bit crafted, if ye know what I mean. All that swearing and stuff looks more and more like a personality you glued on, a mask you’re hiding behind to fool the eejits like me on here.
Sorry, and all that, just the way I see it.
https://darkfutura.substack.com/p/intellectual-vanity-the-lost-art
The planet will survive just fine, no worries there. Humanity? Not so sure. It’s pretty much certain that the current trajectory of ever-increasing consumption and expansion is not sustainable.
Try to be less of an ad-hominem idiot and actually think about stuff.
Quoting you (Kunda Sem Kunda Tam):
And…
And…
Looks to me like Simon summed you up pretty accurately
Looks to me like Matt is the same kind of idiot like Simon.
FYI, not everybody is such a fucking imbecile like the two of you to be grunting in approval, regurgitating meaningless drivel. Some people actually like to think and consider various possibilities.
Addendum:
Assholes like Simon and Matt are either government shills or useful idiots.
For every time somebody’s voicing an actual thought (as opposed to paranoid whimpering), they spring up spewing ad hominem bullshit which one cannot but respond to by telling them to go fuck themselves.
This is a common tactic for breaking up and preventing debate on discussion forums.
The standard propaganda is:
(a) keep consuming, even if you have to drown in debt
(b) it is the “planet” and “environment” that is in danger, not humanity.
Yesterday, I drove for over an hour in the French countryside and beautiful it was, too.
The odd house here and there. I passed about 5 cars. All old bangers.
The other week I drove a couple of hours around the M25.
Thousands of people, all looking glum, trying to get to XY and Z for some reason or another. Lots of cars worth £50,000 plus
Two ends of the spectrum and I know where I felt more comfortable.
“Growth” is the bogeyman.
In the context used by politicians “growth” is no more than a Ponzi scheme.
For “growth” to continue new recruits to the worship of Mammon have to be continuously created.
It maybe, as you say, that there is an altruistic element to reforming the currency.
-I sincerely doubt it.
Even if there was, it is simply a method to continue the “growth”.
All Ponzi schemes ultimately fail.
In the recent years and decades, digitization and the Internet have provided vast amounts of data on global goings on. These data make it possible to evaluate stuff on the global level in much more efficient ways than before.
Humankind is at the early stages of doing that – trying to manage shit on a global level – and who knows is this is even possible or how it will turn out. Nonetheless, it’s happening. It’s erratic, stupid, (seemingly) malicious.
I will not assume the stance that everything the ‘government’ does is malevolent, nefarious. Sure, there are cocksuckers trying to take advantage of stuff, that’s always the case.
Digital currency is one of the manifestations of these efforts.
Anyways, consumerism will stop one way or another – either it will be brought to en end artificially, or nature will put a stop to it, sooner or later.
The benign globalism that you speak of is demonstrably bullshit.
The richest and most powerful peopla in the World have written books and provided hours of footage of their meetings telling us exactly what they’re going to do.
In a court of law there are three criteria for guilt
Means, motivation and opportunity.
They have all three.
I strongly suggest that you read this essay (https://off-guardian.org/2023/06/02/digital-pound-have-your-say-on-cbdcs-in-the-uk/#comment-607074) and see if you’re not a victim to the dogmatic kind of thinking described therein.
I don’t speak of no benign globalization. I’m trying to describe the processes happening in the world without a priori assigning a value to them.
I have no issue with digital currency. I have a BIG issue with PROGRAMMABLE CBDC.
CBDCs will be part of a vast “ecology of cryptocurrencies” and “Purpose Driven Tokens.” The “resistance” is being mislead to think that TPTB want a hyper-centralized monetary system.
Read this Report from the European Chapter of The Club of Rome written by Bernard Lietaer et al.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271506661_Money_and_sustainability_the_missing_link_a_report_from_the_Club_of_Rome_-_EU_Chapter_to_Finance_Watch_and_the_World_Business_Academy
«We recommend a monetary ecosystem, in which exchange media other than a monoculture of bank-debt money are allowed to play a role. This would provide greater structural diversity in both the media of exchange and in the institutions creating them. If and when such complementary systems are in place, more spontaneous adjustments to economic instability and/or sudden scarcity of bank-debt money become possible. Such complementary arrangements would also reduce the extraordinary stranglehold the banking system exerts now on governments and the entire economy.»
Bernard Lietaer et al.
Coincidentally it’s the same approach adopted by R. F. K. Jr.
«Just as a biodiverse ecosystem is a resilient ecosystem, so too will our economy be more resilient if it has a diverse ecology of currencies, not just a single, centrally controlled one. We are seeing today how fragile our over-centralized system is.»
https://twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/1653809022531780609
Why they want a decentralized-centralized and “diverse ecology of currencies”?
Erich Jantsch, member of the Executive Committee of the Club of Rome explain it in his book “The Self-organizing Universe”:
«Social systems, corporations and states are natural multilevel systems and accordingly should not be organized as control hierarchies, in which decisions and orders are handed from the top down. A rigid and centralized world government is not the proper solution for the emergent world problematique. Elsewhere (Jantsch, 1972) I have elaborated on the principle of decentralized initiative and centralized synthesis in the management of complex human systems, as it already works in well organized corporations.»
Erich Jantsch
That’s why Distributed Ledger Technologies like Blockchain, Holochain or Neural Distributed Ledger are so important towards the completion of the Sustainable Development Goals.
https://research.wu.ac.at/en/publications/sustainable-development-report-blockchain-the-web3-amp-the-sdgs-5
They want to guide the Self-organization of the Planetary Superorganism and catalyze the meta-system transition towards a Global Brain Regime.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283637923_Information-energy_metasystem_model
This Planetary Superorganism will have its own Immune System:
«The Internet of Impact design is based on the bio-mimetic principles of natural immune systems.
It enables decentralised, autonomous localised sensing of social, environmental, economic and climate threats or opportunities.
With response mechanisms for coordinating, targeting and amplifying both localised and systemic actions.
In the process this builds innate intelligence, latent memory and preparedness, to speed up and replicate future responses.
Using tokens like antibodies to carry information and potentiate, aggregate, neutralise, or catalyse changes in the state of the world.
This is the Digital Immune System for Humanity.»
https://holbrook.no/share/papers/Internet%20of%20Impact%20White%20Paper%20Working%20Draft%20May%202021.pdf
“Innate intelligence, latent memory, replicate future responses, tokens like antibodies, catalyse changes, for the Digital Immune System for Humanity”.
So half of our awakening life must be occupied with this bs. An excel sheet melted into the human body.
Just look at one of the “use cases” of this tokenized “Immune System for Humanity”:
«As an example, an Alphabond can be configured to direct Outcome Payments into a community currency reserve, to incentivise and reward participants for achieving shared development goals—such as a community immunisation coverage target—which increases the value of the community currency token and makes everyone richer.»
Imagine a scenario where you become automatically poorer just for saying NO to the last update of the “software of life” provided by Pfizer or Moderna
At the very least, insurer vultures will get notified of those resisting the jab, and raise charges. Not thst I subscribe to the scam of medical insurance.
«The effects of our actions, including our “externalities”, can now be measured at low cost: noise, stress, CO2, emissions, waste, etc., but also desired outcomes such as job creation, social cooperation, education, health, and the reuse of resources. These would receive a price or value in the socio-ecological “finance system 4.0”. With the addition of numerous new currencies, existing alongside today’s one-dimensional monetary system, one could increase the desired effects and activities and reduce unwanted ones. Social and ecological commitment would no longer be expensive—it would pay off. With such an approach, a circular economy would basically emerge by itself, driven by new market forces rather than a digital command economy.»
Dirk Helbing
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317279118_Digitization_20_A_New_Game_Begins
Checked this guy Erich Jantsch and stumbled on an interesting review he wrote in 1971 on Jay W. Forrester’s World’s Dynamics published the same year. It remarkably but unsurprisingly reflects the pessimism of the Club of Rome’s intellectual regarding the sustainability of “the system” – to use the current terminology, – whatever reforms are attempted on it, and ventures forecasts for the future. (Italics in original text):
“By all what we know, it is inconceivable that we develop all of mankind to a material standard of living which is characteristic of the highly industrialised countries now, because the world system cannot possibly sustain such growth. In Forrester’s estimates, each person in a highly industrialised country already places 20 to 50 times the pollution and natural resource usage load on the world environmental system, compared with a person in a developing country. There is only one conclusion to be drawn from that, namely that the highly industrialised countries will have to lower their material standard of living, long before world population can be effectively reduced in a controlled way (and thus permitting higher average standard of living). In other words, our benevolent development strategy – “grow and let grow !“ – is radically wrong.
“There are other important lessons to be drawn from Forrester’s initial studies: The decades separating us from the end of the century, are indeed the decisive ones to act on the basis of choice. Industrialisation is perhaps the single most dangerous factor in current world dynamics, and it should be questioned in relation to both economic growth in advanced countries and development. The average worldwide quality of life has reached a peak in the past two decades and can only decline from now on, except for a very precarious planned course into the future which would depend, above all, on population stabilisation. However, a straight birth control programme, standing on its own feet, would have only low leverage. Technology can relieve internal system pressures only temporarily, and generates only more pressures; its further development has to be questioned deeply and perhaps purposefully deemphasised. The naive belief that quantitative growth may continue unchecked and qualitative growth may simply be superimposed, is totally unrealistic – like any linear, non-systemic thinking.”
Follows the description of five scenarios for the future world system, with the following headings:
Let things go or mechanistic system dynamics;
Social reason: (a) Social instinct or social subconsciounes;
(b) Social awareness or social consciousness;
Social system engineering;
Direct control.
The review ends with the following paragraphs proving that, after all, the best the guys at all the think tanks can state with certainty is we don’t know:
“With an unclear potential of ‘social reason’, ‘social system engineering’ may be left as our greatest rational chance. System Dynamics is potentially the most important methodological approach to guide us in such a precarious undertaking. ‘But to develop the more promising modes’, Forrester cautions, ‘will require restraint and dedication to a long-range future that man may not be capable of sustaining.’
“If we fail to respond to the challenge of reason, there may be just one alternative left, the one which Robert Oppenheimer considered shortly before his death, and in deep despair: Let world dynamics continue its present course and go astray as quickly and as massively as possible, so that Nature gets another chance to build up a new ecology.”
The Book and the review may be found at Anna’s archives website.
These people are experts in Hegelian Dialectic, they have been playing this game for a long time and you can check it out with just one example: I’ve been reading today some articles and papers by Dirk Helbing
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/authors/dirk-helbing
He is the proponent of the “Planetary Nervous System” and was affiliated with the Global Brain Institute.
https://www.nervousnet.ethz.ch/
Basically, he claims that we are heading towards a digital dystopia where we will be subjected to the “Big Nudging” of a “Digital Wise King” (AGI) unless we stop thinking in mechanism and start thinking in SYSTEMS:
«The local interactions between the many components of a complex dynamical system can produce emergent structures, properties, or functionalities based on self-organization. However, as traffic jams, crowd disasters, financial crises and “tragedies of the commons” show, self-organization does not always create desirable outcomes. Nevertheless, these phenomena are now reasonably well understood and can be replicated using mathematical models and computer simulations. Those simulations tell us that the negative outcomes of self-organization can often be avoided by changing the interaction rules, i.e. the mechanisms by which the components of the system interact. In some cases such as traffic flows or the financial system, simply altering the system’s parameters (such as the vehicle density or interest rate) can avoid or reduce undesirable consequences.»
He even says that the WEF and the ONU are acting to impose the centralized control system but if you look carefully you can find that the control system of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is based on a SYSTEMIC approach through Web3 technologies, and is exactly what Helbing proposes as and alternative to save the world:
«Generally, to reap the benefits of the digital revolution, I recommend engaging more in distributed storage, processing, and control. In complex systems, a decentralized kind of organization can be superior to a centralized system.»
Dirk Helbing
And this:
«Now, a new game is about to begin.To get there, it was important to not only criticize mass surveillance and manipulation, but to come up with an alternative, better model for our future—a world in which capitalism and democracy would not fight with each other, but where they would be married together to unleash the benefits of both. Such a new socioeconomic framework, which could dramatically improve our future prospects in a world of limited material resources, can now be built by combining Internet of Things with Blockchain Technology and Complexity Science.»
Dirk Helbing
The first quote sounds like they are not trusting the possibility of ‘Social Reason’ and arguing for ‘Social System Engineering’. Of course, being a wage earner at the WEF, one always favours scenarios one can get busy working about instead of, as Robert Oppenheimer had recommended, ‘Let things go’ or ‘mechanistic system dynamics’. Read some of the articles. What I see there is a lot of people at the WEF fascinated by technology and its allegedly being the key to human emancipation on Earth; we know the type. It reminds me of those children who don’t want to keep quite unless their parents get them *that* toy over there; and once they got it they keep quite for some time then throw that toy and fixate on yet another one, promising *that* is it, and so on. Trouble is of course, they are financially backed and are listened to by politicians and business people alike , both knowing the current system as it is ‘unsustainable’.
What these attempts represent? Obviously they realise at the WEF, and at other think-tanks I shouldn’t wonder, that unbridled technology is enslaving humanity and is not the way to go; they even talk negatively about surveillance, and privacy- and freedom-related issues in the institutional use of technology; odd considering what the Great Reset and CBDC are about – by the way there is a distinct sense that the GR has lost much of its initial impetus in the media. So, there is a permanent auto-critique to find out how to best reform, restrain, direct technological advances so as to serve humanity rather than enslaving it. I think they are trying to ‘humanise technology’ if that has any meaning at all, use it in a decentralised – meaning to them ‘democratic’ – way. ‘planetary nervous system’, ‘integrate ethics into autonomous systems’, etc are invented concepts to try to shape reality-perception in a one-sided way; so the planet has a nervous system and the www network are its nerves, etc, etc, and humans are served in an ethical and moral way by this AI to make their live happy…; what these conceptions don’t factor in is human consciousness (scenarios number 2 and 3) which won’t be satisfied being served in any way, for human consciousness has a nature of its own and all these attempts are imperfect ones and won’t last for long, and the guys at the WEF shall be looking for some other concepts to use; these attempts try to put onto technology as a medium what we ought to be a direct human experience, and consciousness won’t rest until, by trial and error, it gets there. Today we are still at wanting to realise human emancipation mediated through technology rather than being a direct conscious experience. The goal they are trying to achieve is commendable but the concrete planned state wherein it is achieved is not the ultimate state; it’s a cheap, fake imitation, quickly to be replaced by the next one; “improved means to unimproved ends”, as Thoreau would have said.
RE: Hegelian Dialectics. Connected with the above, I wonder why so many people call the popular “problem-reaction-solution” Hegelian Dialectics; it’s an elementary trick to get what one wants and must have been used long before Hegel’s time; just think of the trick of storing up wheat for a time to make it scarce then release it at a higher price. A crisis is created by making wheat scarce; people will ask the government to solve the crisis which will allege all sort of problems local and international; after a time, as by magic wheat is abundantly present on the market, only 40% more expensive but people at that point will likely justify the high price as per the recent crisis; done. What most fail to see is that the sequence crisis-reaction-solution as a historical period is itself inscribed within a larger world History, and Hegel’s philosophy of History tries to understand where the whole historical development is heading. In other words, in the sequence crisis-reaction-solution, the actors are only concerned about the solution they’d like to impose and use this trick to impose it; Hegel’s dialectics makes rational and intelligible the general movement of History in which several of these crisis-reaction-solution sequences may or may not be present. Hegel’s dialectics may explain why some actors resorted to such a sequence and not to another depending on the context. Hegelian dialectics is a philosophy that makes intelligible the succession of events of human History as a whole and gives it purpose; crisis-reaction-solution is an elementary trick to create favourable circumstances to one’s schemes.
Jimmy Dore, having his say.
Only three minutes, but it’s spot on:
https://twitter.com/fivetimesaugust/status/1660462873443794944/mediaviewer
Erased.
Thanks for this masterful mini-rant! 😎👍
The Central Bank of Nigeria’s efforts to make citizens move away from cash and adopt the eNaira CBDC have been unsuccessful.
Restrictions on cash usage and shortage of money ticked off Nigerian citizens, with people taking to the streets and protesting against the enforced policies.
In Great Mitten protesting by its subjects has been outlawed as is happening to the citizens of the USA (United States of Atrocities).
“Rights aren’t rights if someone can take them away. They’re privileges. That’s all we’ve ever had in this country is a bill of temporary privileges.” — George Carlin
A year after the launch of the eNaira, less than 0.5% of Nigerians were using it, Bloomberg reported.
The arbitrary authority to decalre a state of emergency helps.
Why this persistent belief in voting and petitions. They’re going to do it anyway. When so many people believe that voting and signing petitions are going to work…. They’ll just keep doing it.
It seems “The Nudge” doesnt always work, people cant be nudged to cut back on, or give up eating red meat to “Save The Planet !”…So Ireland intends slaughtering 200,00 cattle, to help “Save The Planet !””
Such will create a red meat shortage, prices will skyrocket, and meat will become too expensive for workers to buy…It wont affect those with Money…Talk about blatant discrimination !!!
It is similar to the issue of cars and even short flights being bad for the majority, but personal planes good for the self-important people.
I would add, since there isn’t ads (!), this site is no fun.
Neither am I, of course, but come on !
https://www.google.com/search?q=house+of+all+band&source=lnms&tbm=vid&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwir56yU3qX_AhUSacAKHW90AFcQ_AUoAnoECAEQBA&biw=1538&bih=797&dpr=1#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:37dc5558,vid:bflFFUzxfDw
Actually, I mean I’m not fun just like OffG ,
(there is a pretty good record label, ‘not not fun’,)
Got to laugh with them, we could all be dead soon/ we are all going to die.
Not laugh with them, of course, laugh at them.
What do you think, Wardropper, Howard, George Mc ?
Well, I completed the questionnaire, and I let them have both barrels, but I doubt they have the wit to understand any of the points I was making, since awareness of those things would entail some uncomfortable introspection.
If the overwhelming majority is against it, it will be put to the vote again, and again, and again, until the correct decision is arrived at …
That’s what regular elections are for…
In the UK you get to have “a say” – (Just like voting?)…
Down Under everything is being kept under wraps…Could be the polititians are waiting for an Economic Crisis, or another “viral” pandemic, as cover to impose a CBDC ?
They also do that with committees, consultants, etc. they appoint who return inconvenient reports. I.e., repeat until the solution is “correct”.
We could probably count on it.
Could be a women.?
Is this the U.K Brit coin.? that Snuake mentioned when he was chancellor.?
More likely two or more.
Such things no longer matter.
It’s all up for grabs now, although not literally or physically…
You dumb fuckers are never going to learn the British Isles. Forget that…
Now, since 1998 Dec. I’m completely open to listen about money. I only want to see that Royal Mint quid Coin in a Lads pocket.
Right.
Be positive say something …please.
I had to be a bit sweary on the consultation as the questions basically exclude anyone other than economics professors from making any reasonable comment. OK, maybe Im exaggerating, but if they expect input from a cross section of the population then they’re not going to get it – which I’m sure is the idea.
No you’re not exaggerating at all. The consultation was based on mental gymnastics and crafted to bamboozle the average joe into giving in and excepting it.
there is a reason there is a “response form”, as those of mankind that complete it are then “respondents”; which is a title so is a disminishment of status from that of a man, or woman; and titles come with duties or obligations;
whereas a man, or woman, may instead send a notice or correspondence to the man: Andrew Griffith; who at times acts as Economic Secretary to the Treasury; and to the man: Andrew Bailey; who at times acts as Governor for the Bank of England;
Why will it be needed, & why is it justified?
Many more questions need answering but don’t expect a reply. We know why this is being implemented and we know what the end goal is.
I guess the trade off is : fill in the form and put your head (and identity) above the parapet or………stay schtum.
It’s a conundrum
Another factor you failed to mention is that a CBDC can be programmed to include a negative interest rate to encourage consumption and discourage saving.
They can do that now. Japan had it, and EU may have it.
This is going to accelerate the re-adoption of physical money, silver and gold coins, community currencies.
The State can no longer be trusted to act in our best interests, let alone the global banking system.
And who owns all the mines and giant fortified piggy banks?
And it will be illegal to trade in alternative currency and you’ll be jailed for it. Try introducing a currency and see how far you get.
They have to get used to it. Physical money (gold, silver, cobber, other physical land, cows, m.m.) is the only real money. Their money is fake.
But “The State” still likes to think it CAN be trusted to act in our best interests.
And who is going to tell it otherwise?
Dollar World Dollar. The World Reserve Dollar…flat out thats what you mean US Dollar.
“accelerate the re-adoption of physical money”
My conclusion also, but I suspect that new laws will introduced to thwart it.
Since it seems to be a forgone conclusion that it will be implemented. I am very interested to know how robust the infrastructure will be. How easily defended against foreign or other saboteurs. How quickly will it be implemeted and how long will cash and other forms of payment be kept running alongside it and as back up systems in the event of shut-downs.
What value would that information have for you? The only option is opposition, not trying to ensure it works well for our rulers. That’s like saying since fake vaccines for fake virus’ are a forgone conclusion, how can they be made more effective.
O.K. I agree. Giving up or rolling over is not the best response. The value in knowing the weaknesses is in being able to debate the merit of the new systems. I’m sure the actual financial costs of these new digital infrastructures is much higher than we are led to believe.
I see where you’re coming from and agree that information could be used maybe to mitigate the circumstances. I’m kind of with some others in thinking that no way in hell this is going to work universally, so the question of how long cash and other forms of payment will be kept in place may be a moot question. Then again, George Orwell, man. They aren’t going to stop. Prep for anything.
Orwell wrote his book to warn people. Instead people used his book as a bible to live after…………………LOL.
Additionally, how many times have we all gone into some shop and been told the system is down and they are only accepting cash. Any notion of removing physical currency is bound to be problematic. Exactly why physical money, gold, silver or community currencies are so important (as Portonchok above mentions). Also, I imagine the actual cost of running digital systems is incredibly high. The mining of scarce or difficult to extract minerals, replacing the hard drives and other digital infrastructure, electric systems, etc…all just more of the money syphoning grifts currently in play.
Sweden has bee way ahead in phone-based money, like China. Some Swedish authority has advised that they should slow down as the situation is vulnerable to some disasters.
Those devilish foreign saboteurs, they’ll find a way in; perhaps because they own the bank.
Of course they do.