Dystopian Neofascist, Neoliberal Worker State

SOURCE:  Persagen.com, 2020-10-21

• Excerpt:

  ... How Should We Respond? ... Yet gathering data and mounting critique is not enough. We need a bigger picture. While the onset of the pandemic and the resulting technological changes seem sudden, this is a moment for which people like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have been preparing. In a talk to the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence in 2019, Schmidt outlined his vision of the techno-future. For Schmidt, the lethal coronavirus has come along just in time to become the great enabler. Schmidt envisages a world in which big tech increasingly takes over the functions of government. In this model, more and more profits go to a small circle of tech firms, while disposable and semi-disposable workers of color deliver Amazon packages, health care and other services to those who can afford them. To ensure efficient delivery, these workers will be tracked by apps akin to Pokket for location, for productivity, and to check if they show any biochemical imbalances that might precede violent episodes, waves of lethargy or moments of rebellion. ...

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  UPDATE [2021-01-19] More on Eric Schmidt here.

  • [MIT Press Reader, 2021-01-14] Tech Companies Are Profiling Us From Before Birth  |  Hacker News

  • [2021-01-19 09:04:55 -0800 (PST)] Hacker News:

    • [flowerlad 16 hours ago] Children can change their names upon reaching adulthood, to escape tracking. (This is a serious suggestion made by Google's then CEO Erich Schmidt, see below). And maybe every 10 years thereafter.

      Google's Eric Schmidt suggests that young people should change their name upon reaching adulthood: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7951269/Young-...

      Of course, a better way may be to introduce new right-to-be-forgotten laws like in the EU.

    • [elmo2you 15 hours ago] Erich Schmidt's audacity is both telling and shocking. This is pretty much the equivalent of an armed robber saying that everyone can still be save from harm, as long as you just stay home and don't go outside. Probably the biggest shame here is how people like Schmidt still have platforms to suggest these kind of things unhindered, without any punishment.

      I do not know how this particularly works in the USA, but in most reasonable countries I know of, the ways in which anyone (company/government/etc) can interact with anyone who isn't a legal adult are limited. For good reasons too, I believe. I think it even is dictated by signed/ratified international treaties/declarations, but I don't recall any details right now.

      I'm pretty sure that the tracking of minors (or the unborn), essentially surveillance, is actually in violation of the legal protections those are supposed to have. I've heard plenty people argue that this tracking is somehow admissible, if their legal guardians sign off on it. Often based on the assertion that legal guardians are responsible for those under their care. However, the legal protects of minors are a thing on their own. As far as I know, guardians can not "give away" the legal protection of minors. No more than any person can "give away" their inalienable human rights (also not by consent), which is what makes them inalienable.

      So here we have an industry that in all likelihood is seriously violating the legal protections that minors (and arguably unborn too) are supposed to have. Instead of demanding that governments address these rogue corporations, which considering the systematic nature of their violations probably even warrant to be classified as criminal organizations, we instead listen to what key people in this industry say in an attempt to justify their actions, or suggest as remedy for their behavior.

      I'm not really all that shocked about people like Schmidt saying such things. About as predictable as a politician talking any kind of bullshit that will sell their agenda. However, I am appalled that this industry gets away with what it currently does. To me, that says a hell of a lot about the system, and how it apparently prefers to protects these interests instead of protecting the people it legally is supposed to protect.

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  Prison [Slave Labor] State

  William Barr: "The Case for More Incarceration"

  Barr is a longtime proponent of the unitary executive theory of nearly unfettered presidential authority over the executive branch of the U.S. government. In 1989, Barr, as the head of the OLC, justified the U.S. invasion of Panama to arrest Manuel Noriega. As deputy attorney general, Barr authorized an FBI operation in 1991 which freed hostages at the Talladega federal prison. An influential advocate for tougher criminal justice policies, Barr as attorney general in 1992 authored the report "The Case for More Incarceration," where he argued for an increase in the United States incarceration rate.Under Barr's advice, President George H. W. Bush in 1992 pardoned six officials involved in the Iran-Contra affair. ...

  

  [Image source. Click image to open in new window.]

  In 1992, Barr authored a report, The Case for More Incarceration (pdf)  [local copy (pdf)], which argued for an increase in the United States incarceration rate, the creation of a national program to construct more prisons, and the abolition of parole release.

  Barr argued that incarceration reduced crime, pointing to crime and incarceration rates in 1960, 1970, 1980 and 1990. A 1999 criminology study criticized Barr's analysis, saying "so complex an issue as the relationship between crime and punishment cannot be addressed through so simplistic an analysis as a negative correlation between the two very aggregated time series of crime rates and incarceration rates."

  University of Minnesota criminologist Michael Tonry said the data in Barr's report was deceptively presented; if Barr had chosen five-year intervals, then the data would not have supported Barr's argument, and if Barr had chosen to look at violent crime specifically (as opposed to all crimes as a category), then the data would not have supported his argument.

  Barr said in the report, "The benefits of increased incarceration would be enjoyed disproportionately by black Americans." In the report, Barr approvingly quoted New Mexico Attorney General Hal Stratton, "I don't know anyone who goes to prison on their first crime. By the time you go to prison, you are a pretty bad guy." Barr's report influenced the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which aimed to increase the incarceration rate.

  • [2020-05-26] Bill Barr Promised to Release Prisoners Threatened by Coronavirus -- Even as the Feds Secretly Made It Harder for Them to Get Out

    Celebrity prisoners like former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort have been granted home detention, but a secret Bureau of Prisons policy has kept all but 1.8% of federal inmates behind bars, where the virus rages

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  Additional Reading

• [theIntercept.com, 2021-12-29] The Price of Happiness. U.N. Power Broker Jeffrey Sachs Took Millions From the UAE to Research 'Well-Being'.  |  "The second you start taking money from authoritarian states to illustrate happiness indexes, dystopian doesn't even begin to describe it."  |  "I always had the sense that Jeffrey was not a person concerned about human rights and that he was often an apologist for abusive governments."  |  "By creating international partnerships with ... individuals like Jeffrey Sachs, they're trying to bring prestige but also establish for the UAE an international profile."

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