Sometimes I wish I had no conscience or morals. Then I could go to work for the government writing fear propaganda.
Killer robots are the latest terror. But there are so many takes on it! It’s like Josef Goebbels’ dream to have so much material to work with. All the “possibilities” and “predictions” just make you want to curl up in a ball and let the government handle everything!
The spokesman for Stop Killer Robots campaign then warned the consequences of deadly tech winding up in the wrong hands would lead to catastrophic consequences.
He said: “Authoritarian dictators getting a hold of these, who won’t be held back by their soldiers not wanting to kill the population.”
…
“This capability is out there – scaling it up to swarms of drones doesn’t need any huge inventive step, it’s just a question of resources, time, and scale.
“I think that’s an absolute certainty that we should worry about.”
Hmm… okay? Doesn’t seem like dictators have had too many problems in the past getting their soldiers to kill the population. Automating death and destruction is certainly a scary thought though. World War One was a testament to the damage that soldiers can do with automatic guns, tanks, and chemical weapons. 20 million military and civilians died.
And yet, in the same time frame, the Spanish Flu swept across the globe killing at least 20 million people. Some estimates suggest upwards of 50 million deaths caused by the virus.
And the government likes to use fear of global pandemics in their propaganda too. That is why they passed a regulation that allows the Centers for Disease Control to detain indefinitely anyone suspected of carrying an infectious disease. That was the big payoff for all the fears of Ebola, Triple E, Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Sars, Zika and so on.
This year they warn against a possible “flu-pocalypse.” Turns out only about 10% of flu vaccines were effective this year during Australia’s flu season. But the CDC still urges everyone to get a flu shot, claiming they saved 40,000 lives over a ten year period.
(I urge everyone to eat lots of garlic and ginger, which naturally provide the body with dozens of antiviral and antibiotic compounds, according to The Green Pharmacy, by James A. Duke)
The government even dabbles in getting people to fear outbreaks of salmonella from backyard chickens. The self-sufficiency trend is certainly something they want to stamp out.
Yet none of these public health tragedies panned out in recent years! People are going to stop listening to the outbreak propaganda.
Is the government losing its touch?
The real terror is what the government will do with this killer robot technology. After all, they are generally the ones who create it! Nuclear weapons likely wouldn’t exist without government pouring countless dollars and man hours into developing them. And that was the big end-of-world fear of the 1950s.
The first step, create a monster. The second step, use that monster to scare people into giving you power.
So when videos of killer robots come out, some people might fear terrorists getting their hands on them. But it is even more terrifying for the government to have them!
Have you ever read Farenheight 451? Killer robot dogs patrol the streets, ready to inject you with various serums, or simply tear you limb from limb. Look at this video from Boston Dynamics.
That, by the way, is the company’s effort to make their creepy dog robot less terrifying.
But Farenhight 451 came out in 1953. And killer robots are so 1980s! Plague-like viruses are an old standby. But the government has cried wolf too many times.
These tactics are growing stale. The government needs something really creative!
Artificial intelligence is coming back into style as a doomsday possibility. This is because we are actually getting closer to AI becoming mainstream, even challenging the brainpower of humans.
Apparently intelligent people like Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have warned of the threat to human existence artificial intelligence presents.
This seems like a promising development for the fear-porn creators. But it needs a new take! Terminator, I Robot, and even 2001: A Space Oddysey written back in 1968 all involved self-aware robots and computer systems that try to overthrow or control their creators.
You know what they haven’t done in a while: aliens. In the 1980’s Reagan mused about how great it would be if aliens invaded Earth, and humanity could finally unite against a common enemy.
So will aliens be the next major threat to Earth, recycled by the elites to instill fear into the populace?
Maybe they will start getting creative. They could combine some of the most successful fear tactics of the past. The new threat: artificially intelligent swarms of cyborg nano-bots injected into the human body with the intent of curing disease, that instead mutate like a virus to become self-aware bio-technical agents which infect the brain, and take control of the human body.
But surely if we give the government oversight on all injections, they can make sure that whatever enters our body is safe and effective.
You heard it here first, folks.
The Point
There is always a new apocalyptic prediction… and the government always has the solution.
Someday one of these terrifying scenarios may prove to become real… and it is unlikely the government will be able to stop it. In fact, the government is the most likely entity to start it–whatever it ends up being.
Yet every solution to these doomsday scenarios involves giving the government more power. People say they need to regulate and pass laws on drones, robots, and artificial intelligence. The government needs the power to violate our rights in the event of a contagious outbreak. The government needs robust defense systems capable of thwarting an alien invasion.
It is all too much for us peasants to comprehend and deal with. So we just need to hand over control of our lives–and wallets–to the government. That will keep us safe.
What is your prediction for the next phase of government fear mongering?
