Perspective

   By L. Jim Tuck

   July 13, 2023

From Smart Phones to One World Government?

                   Most people are totally unaware of what is possibly coming as a result of computers, smart phones, and AI. The smart phones nearly everyone has are just one step among many towards Smart Cities. Smart cities are a step towards a Smart nation where everyone is connected to WIFI. Could the next step be a Smart One World Government?

Perspective                                                                                                                                                     

                   The development of the computer has revolutionized everything around us. The computer age seems so exciting.  It does things quickly and makes some things easier. Huge tasks of yesterday can be done in mere seconds.

                   Cuneiform is the oldest known form of writing in history, but it is so difficult to read that only a few hundred experts around the world can decode the clay tablets filled with wedge-shaped symbols. Now, a team of archaeologists and computer scientists from Israel have created an AI-powered translation program for ancient Akkadian cuneiform, allowing tens of thousands of already digitized tablets to be translated into English instantaneously.

                   With the rise of computers, we also have the coinciding ascent of the information age. How could information be so wrong? Using computers to unlock history by translating cuneiform isn’t wrong.

The Rise of the Computer-Information Age

 

                   Where the computer-information age goes off track is when the information that is being gathered is about you. With the invention of the hand-held smart phone, gathering information about people became so easy. Social media with websites like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and the massive behemoth search engines, and AI have combined to find out more information about citizens than ever before.

                   Many cities have cameras everywhere so there can be facial identity and your whereabouts and the places you frequent on a daily basis are known. Even voice recognition is being used in some ways. These are called smart cities. Wikipedia gives this insight into Smart Cities: “The Institute for Management Development and Singapore University of Technology and Design rank cities in the Smart City Index according to technological, economic and human criteria (e.g., the quality of life, the environment and inclusiveness). In the Smart City Index 2023, the top 15 smart cities were, in order, Zurich, Oslo, Canberra, Copenhagen, Lausanne, London, Singapore, Helsinki, Geneva, Stockholm, Hamburg, Beijing, Abu Dhabi, Prague, and Amsterdam. Since the first publication of the index in 2019, Zurich and Oslo have always been in the first place and second place.”

                   The goal is to make it possible for citizens to access public and private services to pay via smart phones. This will enable even more information to be collected. Little did anyone know how sinister it could turn out to be. 

 

Testing the Social Credit System

 

                   China is pioneering a social credit system. The Wire article, “China’s Social Credit System Puts Its People Under Pressure to Be Model Citizens” states, “One shared focus of the country’s existing pilot schemes is to generate a standardized reward and punishment system based on a citizen’s credit score. Being a ‘good citizen’ is well rewarded. In some regions, citizens with high social credit scores can enjoy free gym facilities, cheaper public transport, and shorter wait times in hospitals. Those with low scores, on the other hand, may face restrictions to their travel and public service access. Most pilot cities have used a points system, whereby everyone starts off with a baseline of 100 points. Citizens can earn bonus points up to the value of 200 by performing ‘good deeds’, such as engaging in charity work or separating and recycling rubbish. In Suzhou city, for example, one can earn six points for donating blood. At this stage, scores are connected to a citizen’s identification card number. But the Chinese internet court has proposed an online identification system connected to social media accounts. Publishing the details of blacklisted citizens online is a common practice, but some cities choose to take public shaming to another level. Several provinces have been using TV and LED screens in public spaces to expose people. In some regions authorities have remotely personalised the dial tones of blacklisted debtors so that callers will hear a message akin to: ‘the person you are calling is a dishonest debtor.’ It is important for a country to be able to enforce court orders, but when the judicial and legislative systems sometimes malfunction, as they do in China, it raises questions about whether the ability to expose and punish without due process can lead to abuses of power. Liu Hu, a vocal journalist who has criticised government officials on social media, was accused of ‘spreading rumour and defamation’. While seeking legal redress in early 2017, he realised that he was blacklisted as ‘untrustworthy’ and prohibited from purchasing plane tickets.”

                   If other nations adopt this Social Credit System, climate change and a nation’s drive to reduce a person’s carbon footprint could be an issue which might in the future reduce one’s social credit score. You might not be able to catch that flight or board the train to your destination until you are a better citizen in taking care of the planet.

                   The United States is moving fast towards a digitized currency, and some are predicting it will begin in December, 2023. The utilization of a digital currency and the abolition of hard currencies will allow the government to have control. They will be able to see everywhere the ebb and flow of all business transactions, public and private. This kind of digital currency could infringe even more to restrict the lives of people who do not comply with social credit issues; your digital account could be frozen, and you may not be able to buy or sell.

Heed and Beware of the Beast System Snare

 

                   Though we do not know how the Beast system and the mark will come about, the Social Credit System, the tracking of citizens by information, and a digital fiat currency could very well lead to a scenario that we find in Revelation 13:16-17: “He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”

                   What is coming will take place step by step, and people will be trapped by it. Luke 21:34-35, “But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth.”

                   A snare is a trap meant to lure the victim in so the prey cannot escape. Satan has been planning a great trap for the end time.  Adam Clarke Commentary gives this note about a snare, “Man acts so heedlessly, notwithstanding all his wisdom, and all his warnings, that he is often taken, as a fish is, by the baited hook; and the bird by the baited snare. And thus, an evil time, like the snare, gin, trap, hook, falleth suddenly upon them; and they are taken in a moment, and have no means of escaping.”

                   King Solomon spoke of the snares of this world, and he wrote, “For man also does not know his time: Like fish taken in a cruel net, like birds caught in a snare, so the sons of men are snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly upon them.” (Ecclesiastes 9:12) 

            Have a beautiful and delightful Sabbath and weekend.