Why we should be wary of a smart future
If SMART was an acronym: Surveillance Methodology/Advanced Reset Technology
Here’s the way it looks: smart phones → smart (ID) cards → smart meters → smart cars → smart homes → smart (digital) currency → smart cities → smart subjection.
Most of the population could find itself ‘smarting’ from this in the not-too-distant future. The potential for increased surveillance and control by centralised government and bureaucracy intensifies at each stage, with power falling into ever fewer hands.
We could become the inmates of a digital prison. Every aspect of our lives — and I mean every aspect — could be monitored and managed with Orwellian rigour, and vigour. A taste of such authoritarianism came our way under covid-19 lockdown policies (see my article of February 2021, ‘Covid 19/84: are we entering an Orwellian dystopia?’).
More of the same is on the cards unless the populace at large wakes up to an increasing threat and uses its electoral muscle — while it still has it — to minimise adverse outcomes. I say ‘minimise’ because I doubt that adverse outcomes can be avoided altogether. And now, please read on.
The European Commission website defines a smart city as ‘a place where traditional networks and services are made more efficient with the use of digital solutions for the…
