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While addressing a virtual summit of G20 nations on November 21, Chinese dictator Xi Jinping suggested the entire world should adopt a “QR Code” health tracking system similar to the one used in China.
The suggestion, if adopted, would mark Communist China’s latest effort to gain political advantage from the pandemic it unleashed, and bring the free world one step closer to implementing China’s totalitarian “social credit system.”
Xi told the G20 summit that a standardized global mechanism for certifying the health of travelers was needed to combat the Wuhan coronavirus and similar plagues in the future. He touted China’s use of a QR barcode system, which uses an app Chinese citizens are required to install on their cell phones.
The app displays a QR code – the square barcodes that have become widely used because they can easily be displayed on a phone screen and scanned by a wide range of devices – which can be checked whenever the individual enters a public venue or uses public transportation. The smartphone app connects to a central database that keeps track of when each citizen was last tested for the coronavirus and whether the results were negative.
The designers of the QR system defended its intrusiveness by saying its algorithms needed access to a great deal of information about each individual to flag those who were probably at risk of spreading the coronavirus. This brings the QR codes into the orbit of China’s “social credit system,” a massive authoritarian tracking system that monitors the behavior of Chinese people in countless ways and assigns them “credit scores” based on the quality of their citizenship.
“Why I Hope to Die at 75” is the title of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel’s 2014 Atlantic essay on whether “our consumption is worth our contribution” after a certain point in life. In it, he argues for “quality” versus “quantity” of life. President-elect Joe Biden announced a coronavirus taskforce's formation, tapping Emanuel as one of the board members. (It is an odd turn of events that Emanuel be selected for this by a man in his late 70s.) Emanuel is the chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
Emanuel co-wrote a piece in the journal "Science" this past September on the most ethical way to globally distribute a coronavirus vaccine. The Fair Priority Model, he and his fellow ethicists proposed prioritizes first and foremost the prevention of “premature death” (i.e., a death that “prevents someone's exercising their skills or realizing their goals later in life”), as premature deaths are worse than deaths later in life, they note. Their explanation evokes Animal Farm: “[this approach] regards all deaths as important but earlier deaths as particularly important.” Essentially, despite the fact that the elderly are at an exponentially higher risk of death than the young, they should not be a priority in vaccine distribution because their lives are not of equal value.
originally posted by: Daalder
Mother nature has it in for selfish, overconsuming and greedy people.
Go out and buy some more stuff you don't need.
It's black friday anyway.
originally posted by: Never Despise
True story: A street camera in China facially identifies you and taps into your phone, following which an AI bot crawls your daily routine of commuting and determines you are currently standing at a "suspicious distance" from your home and workplace. You are redflagged for human analysis. Later your cellphone microphone picks up a conversation you have in another outdoor location with somebody who has a Uigher accent; another red flag. Third and final straw is when an AI bot crawls your phone and determines from your cellphone calendar that you have been to fewer "volunteer" community meetings than 70% of the people in your building. With three flags in one week, your name is shifted to a watchlist and a cadre approaches you in the street, suggesting a "friendly cup of tea at the local party HQ" to get to know you better. This is your clue to slip him half your monthly rent to make the problem go away.
This AI/Streetcam/cellphone/facial ID system is active on a patchwork regional basis in China, more advanced in some cities and areas than others. It is not yet totally nationally centralized.
The anecdotes I posted are all true and are drawn from this book, which I read recently and highly recommend to everyone:
"We have been harmonised: Life in China's surveillance state"
By Kai Strittmatter
originally posted by: neoholographic
There's some very dark days ahead my friends.
...
Xi told the G20 summit that a standardized global mechanism for certifying the health of travelers was needed to combat the Wuhan coronavirus and similar plagues in the future. He touted China’s use of a QR barcode system, which uses an app Chinese citizens are required to install on their cell phones.
originally posted by: seeker1963
originally posted by: Daalder
Mother nature has it in for selfish, overconsuming and greedy people.
Go out and buy some more stuff you don't need.
It's black friday anyway.
Work for the Cohen Group?
The CCP social credit system is about much more than consumerism. It's about controlling the people from speaking out against the government.