Connect with us
[the_ad id="89560"]

Opinion

The Great Reset doesn’t care if you believe it exists and Canada is on the front line

Published

22 minute read

If you’re among the many people (can is possibly be the majority?) who still believe The Great Reset is an unfounded conspiracy theory, this article is for you.

The Great Reset ‘conspiracy theory’ has been around for years. If you don’t know what it is, here’s a brief explanation.  It basically submits that some of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful people are using some of the world’s largest companies (which they own) as well as many of the world’s richest nations (which they run) to execute a plan to completely change the way our society works (which they don’t like very much).  The theory is, these people who refer to themselves as “the elite” are planning to cripple the power of nation states and concentrate that power in a world governing body (like the World Economic Forum). This new powerful “elite” would exercise control over everyone, everywhere. They will completely change our supply chains, our economic systems and our energy systems in an effort to unite the world to protect the environment. There’s more to it, but that gets in most of the main points.

So this is the “theory”.  But is there a “conspiracy” around this?

According the the Merriam-Webster Dictionary ‘conspiracy’ means simply “The act of conspiring together”.  The Oxford dictionary spices that up a little.  According to Oxford, ‘conspiracy’ means “A secret plan by a group of people to do something harmful or illegal”.  Seems like it’s going to be easier to prove the Merriam-Webster version, but by the end of this article you’ll see how the Oxford definition might just work as well.

When it comes to all of the people who are not actively conspiring to change the world, there are roughly four categories of understanding The Great Reset.  Either you:

  1. Have no idea there is a Great Reset
  2. Accept there is a Great Reset, but doubt the ability and the organization of the people conspiring.
  3. Accept there is a Great Reset, accept the ability of the conspirators, but either agree with their intentions, or at least not oppose their intentions due to your concern for a more fair economic system and an impending world devastating environmental disaster.
  4. Accept there is a Great Reset, and oppose the intentions of the conspirators because you personally value individual freedoms above everything else.

Group 1 is huge. Recent US polling shows half of Americans aren’t even aware of the Great Reset. It’s not like the people behind the reset aren’t writing and talking about it.  It’s just that at least half of Americans haven’t seen them do it.  That means we need to establish how it is possible in this age of information, that information of this magnitude is not being distributed to everyone.  This part of my explanation is critical to understanding how very intelligent people can be completely unaware of information other people take for-granted.

It all comes down to this. We’ve all experienced the vast chasm of division and hatred in society of late. In this atmosphere of doubt and suspicion, there is really only one one thing in the entire world that absolutely everyone can believe in.  President Donald Trump is a capital A a-hole.  Even the “Don” would likely agree with that, right?  But here’s the thing. When the rude TV star began his stunning run through the primaries, the world quickly divided between those who backed Trump and those who absolutely despised the orange tsunami.

How did this happen?  Well a very large number of people, many of them living in ‘middle’ America had had it with the quality of the people running, to run America.  When a second Clinton announced a Presidential bid they collectively shouted NOOOO.  Then they set out in search of the exact opposite of the establishment. They found it in an orange sun rise of vitriol, emerging over the high rises of Manhattan.  When Donald Trump threw his hair, ehem.. his hat into the ring, they had their guy.  It wasn’t because of his experience, or that they believed he was ultimately qualified for the job.  Trump’s crowning quality was the exact thing most people hate about him.  You see it was that massive, bulbous, all encompassing ego that was the key.  Only someone with an ego this out of control would be capable of resisting and even going on the attack against the oncoming onslaught of opposition from the embedded establishment and the mainstream media who despise him with a passion.

Trump will likely claim differently, but he didn’t invent divisiveness.  The world was already moving in this direction. But like every huge event in history, it all starts with one bullet, one border crossing, and sometimes one very unusual Orange head of hair. Camps divided around Trump’s blinding ego. Guess which side the establishment was on? Guess which side the media was on? Guess what this would mean to the distribution of information?

Personally, when the orange glow emerged from Manhattan I tuned out. Not understanding what was happening, I dismissed the orange storm as a weather system that would fizzle out when people got sick of it. I tuned out of mainstream media because I only had so much time for the gong show that was (and remains) the media coverage of the orange blowhard. This is what saved me. I had to go looking elsewhere for information.  I would soon find there was more information here, and different takes on the information everyone ‘knows’.

If you still depend on mainstream media you may not know or have time for an entire new world of information that has developed on the internet over the last few years.  Comedians who used to turn to late night TV to analyze the daily news through humour (I understand they are still there), have turned to long form and as it turns out, extremely informing conversations in a series of compelling podcasts.  They are joined by former media types and some pretty sharp up and coming minds.  While their late night and daytime TV competition unite in their humorous hatred of all things Donald, these longer form conversations have tended to go deeper, due simply to the length of the presentation.  Conversations often run past two and three hours, and “sound bites” are more like 5 to 15 or even 30 minute explanations of single issues.  Yes it is wise to avoid a number of them, just like you would avoid a number of TV programs, but you dismiss many others at your own expense.

You don’t need to agree with them to find them compelling. They are talking about events, people, and issues (including The Great Reset) you will not even find on regular mainstream media.  It is not uncommon for these podcaster / interviewers to be covering topics that my friends who rely on mainstream media won’t hear about for months, or even years.  A great example of this is the Hunter Biden laptop.  If you’ve been paying attention to this new online media, you’d have known about this since the fall of 2020.  For those who rely on regular media, they only discovered the exact same information when it was finally confirmed by the New York Times in March of 2022.  The fact they call this breaking news is hilarious (and disturbing) for those who read the original articles from the New York Post, about 20 months ago!  Here’s a link to a retrospective look at Biden laptop news from The NY Post from December 2020!

Now on to The Great Reset.  If you haven’t already clicked on the link in the fist sentence of this article here’s another opportunity.

OK now at least you know The Great Reset is a real thing.  So we move on to people who find themselves in group 2 which doubts that the Reset will ever amount to any actual resetting.  This group would say these ‘elites’ live really far away, and they’re probably harmless to us because it’s not like they have any control over us.  Not in our country.  Well. That all depends on how far away you live from people like Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. Canada’s Deputy PM is also on the Board of Trustees of the WEF. If that’s not a conflict of interest, they probably need to redefine conflict of interest.  Don’t take it from me.  Take it from the founder of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab. (You mean the Klaus Schwab who researched, wrote, and published the book COVID-19: The Great Reset, less than 6 months after Covid-19 was a thing?.. Yes. that’s the guy.) In this short video from way back in 2017 Schwab brags about the success of a WEF program called Young Global Leaders. In Schwab’s own words, the WEF has “penetrated” Canada’s federal cabinet. Sounds kind of conspiratorial.. and a little bit less like a theory when he says it.

If we want to know if this should be disturbing to us we need to know what Earth’s elites are planning for us.  Well the WEF was kind enough to tell us exactly what The Great Reset will mean to.. well.. the rest of us. This (in)famous video reveals just how different life will be for the average person by 2030.  It doesn’t say how “the elite” will live, though we can expect they’ll have slightly different rules. Alas, I’m getting ahead of myself.  Here’s a list of the 8 things the WEF has been kind enough to let us know we need to prepare for by 2030.  I understand this video originally came out in 2016.  I first saw it in 2020.  In five years it’s been circulated widely.  Though it’s no longer featured on the WEF website, there are copies all over the internet.

Recap:

1) We’ll own nothing.  Ouch.  (Obviously the elite will own everything and since they’re smarter than us we’ll be very happy to know they’re taking care of us so well).  It’s being said by opponents of this idea that people who own a bit of land are perhaps the greatest risk to this environmental movement.  It’s bad for the environment for us to own property or even your own home. Especially because we decide what happens there.  Do we keep animals?  Do we cut down trees or burn around on recreation vehicles or inefficient farm machinery?  All bad for the environment. All that will change.

2) The US will no longer be the world’s superpower. (Hmmm… Don’t these things often change after brutal wars?)  Regardless instead of one superpower, there will be a few important nations.  Wonder if that will make the world more secure, or less secure?

3) They plan to use 3D printers to make human organs (lucky for us).

4) We will not be allowed to eat meat very much anymore (cows and pigs and sheep are bad for the environment).  Hey, speaking of conspiracies, I mean series of seemingly related facts that are probably just random.. Did you know Bill Gates is the largest private owner of ‘farmland’ in the United States?  Not sure when the software magnate and WEF “Agenda Contributor” took up farming.  I’m sure none of this is related to what Mr. Gates is going to allow us to eat in the future (nervous smile).  Although Gates also happens to be a big investor in synthetic meat.  Did I mention he’s an ‘agenda contributor’ with the WEF?

5) One billion people in the world will have to move due to climate change (Not sure if that applies to the beach homes of the elite). (Also not sure why scientists and engineers will stop doing what they’ve always done and help us cope and adapt if conditions are changing quickly and significantly.)

6) Polluters will have to pay to emit carbon dioxide. We already know how this feels in Canada.

7) We will be prepared to travel in space (I’m ready to go now).  The logic here is that the earth will be so ruined by us, that we better be prepared to go destroy an entirely different planet.  What could go wrong?

Finally and maybe most disturbing of all..

8) Western Values will have been tested to the breaking point.  Some probably like the sound of that. But in the history books I’ve read, when a society’s values are tested “to the breaking point” that tends to look incredibly violent and warlike.  (In my opinion number 8 is going to be really challenging to accomplish at the same time as the everybody will be happy part in number 1.  Maybe that’s why they put them so far apart in their list.).  By the way, you have to wonder what they mean by “western values”?  Is this finally being enlightened enough to turf Christianity and those silly laws that western societies adopted from those traditional religious beliefs.  Can’t wait to find out what the new traditions will be!  This outta go over well (Imagine Jerry Seinfeld saying that.)

OK.  If you don’t find this a tad disturbing that might mean you are personally in favour of The Great Reset.  It’s still a free country so that’s just fine with the rest of us.  However the introduction video above is very much prior to the official launch of The Great Reset.  That took place in the opening months of the Covid-19 pandemic.  It would be better to judge how this is actually going to work by looking at how this New World Order (that’s what they’re calling it now) is unfolding. Now that the resetters have been resetting for about two years, how’s it going so far?  Here’s a report from Glenn Beck.  Glenn is a conservative pundit and broadcaster. If you follow the mainstream media you will know him as a radical far right conservative (and maybe a lunatic). If you don’t see Beck through that filter you will acknowledge that he sometimes says very interesting things.  Things like this.  By the way, pay attention to the background behind the speakers at this “world government” conference.  Then ask yourself if this group might be planning a new world order.

 

It’s puzzling that the Canadian media doesn’t give this any coverage. I guess there are simply more important things to talk about than whether our own federal cabinet is working in our interest or in the interests of really rich people who plan to OWN EVERYTHING in just a few short years.  Oh this is probably nothing but you may have heard about the federal NDP party making a deal to secure the federal government right up to 2025.  That party is lead by the guy who now is Co-Prime Minister Jagmeet Singh.  Guess what?

Speaking of Canada.  You may find this conversation between the British podcast sensation Russel Brand and Nick Corbishley interesting.  Nick is the author of Scanned: Why Vaccine Passports and Digital IDs Will Mean the End of Privacy and Personal Freedom. As Canadians it is interesting to hear how people in other countries are seeing The Great Reset, and how Canadians are “world leaders”.  Yippee?

If you’ve managed to find your way through the longest article ever, you will certainly now be able to acknowledge The Great Reset or New World Order exists.  The question now is, do you believe this is a good thing or do you think we should resist it as things were working pretty well before they launched this? We can get into that later.  At the very least the massive number of people who dismissed the “conspiracy theorists” as slightly insane will see there is a reason many people are concerned.  In the end, as all philosophers know we need to establish the facts, before we can decide whether we agree with them or not.

Finally my wise friend Garett reminded about the joke that’s been circulating for many months now on social media.  Every time it turns out another conspiracy theory was actually a conspiratorial fact, someone passes it around again.  If you haven’t seen it yet it might help with your outlook in the future.  Goes like this.  “What is the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth?  — About 6 months!”

 

After 15 years as a TV reporter with Global and CBC and as news director of RDTV in Red Deer, Duane set out on his own 2008 as a visual storyteller. During this period, he became fascinated with a burgeoning online world and how it could better serve local communities. This fascination led to Todayville, launched in 2016.

Follow Author

More from this author

Energy

444,000 semi-loads of food? Just another day on planet Earth

Published on

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Terry Etam

At 100 million b/d, the world consumes a billion barrels of oil every ten days. Eleven billion barrels of recoverable reserves will meet the world’s needs for about 110 days, or just under four months. And global demand continues to grow.

The scope of this discussion goes far beyond oil demand. It is imperative that people understand energy demand, and particularly so on a global scale.

A friend of mine, always with a keen eye on interesting things, passed on an interesting quote from the CERA Week energy conference the other week. The head of the International Energy Forum mentioned a surprising statistic, as quoted by Javier Blas on Twitter: “Heathrow airport in London uses more energy than the whole African nation of Sierra Leone [population ~8.5 million].” Yikes!

Here’s another one that turned up randomly in the feed by a credible source: “If we keep growing our energy usage (2.9% CAGR last 350 years) we will use more energy in the next 25 years than in all prior human history. 3x in 39 years and 9x by the end of the century.”

Energy is an amazing topic, both sources and uses. The sheer scale of what we require for our present lifestyle is mind-blowing when placed in concrete contexts like above. In the abstract, the numbers don’t mean anything. The world consumes over 100 million barrels of oil per day. So what? Is that a lot? Sure it’s a big number but so is 8 billion people. Either stat is hard to wrap one’s head around.

Consider the following with respect to oil consumption/production: ExxonMobil made waves recently for a large oil discovery offshore Guyana, in an era when there aren’t that many discoveries being made (the flip side of the demand for oil/gas companies to return money to shareholders means exploration generally takes a back seat). Reuters picked up the story: ExxonMobil announced a new discovery, one of 30 since 2015, in a 6.6 million acre area that to date has been found to hold 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil, which also equals the country’s total. The results are significant, moving Guyana up to 17th on the world’s petroleum reserve rankings, similar to Norway, Brazil, or Algeria.

Now compare that number to consumption. At 100 million b/d, the world consumes a billion barrels of oil every ten days. Eleven billion barrels of recoverable reserves will meet the world’s needs for about 110 days, or just under four months. And global demand continues to grow.

The scope of this discussion goes far beyond oil demand. It is imperative that people understand energy demand, and particularly so on a global scale.

Look at this history of global energy consumption chart from Our World in Data:

It’s nuts. But it coincides very well with the rising standard of living attained by humanity, particularly in the west, an increase the rest of the world wants to emulate.

Consider the following statistics if you think that trajectory is going to slow down or reverse any time soon.

Africa has about 1.2 billion people, or roughly 15 percent of the earth’s population. Yet Africa accounts for 2 percent of global air traffic. By contrast, Europe has a population of about 740 million, and accounts for 31 percent of global air traffic.

What if Africans decide they want to live like Europeans, air-travel-wise, which is not just justified on moral grounds but actually more functionally logical, because Europe covers only 1/3 of Africa’s size of 30 million square kilometres?

What if the rest of the world wants to enjoy air conditioning to the extent the US does (and why on earth wouldn’t they)? According to the US Energy Information Agency, nearly 90 percent of US households use air conditioning, and virtually every office building does as well. The US has about 130 million households for 330 million people, or about 2.5 people per household. If Africa had a similar ratio, they would have 480,000,000 households, and if a similar proportion had AC there would be 430,000,000 households with AC. It’s safe to say that today in Africa the number of households with AC is far closer to zero than 90 percent. (Even communists/hardcore socialists support near-universal air conditioning, though they call it a ‘right’ by way of that fuzzy but firm ‘gimme that’ appropriation way of theirs.)

Now add in India, with another 1.4 billion people, and do the same math. A billion air conditioners  worth of global demand is not a ridiculous estimate, not when considering Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, parts of South America… in addition to Africa, India…

Consider even food, and the logistical magnum opus required to keep countries food-riot-free. A typical western website says that the average person consumes 3-4 pounds of food per day. Let’s say the rest of the world isn’t so lucky, and we’ll call it 2.5 pounds per day for a global average (each new cruise ship drags the world average up considerably). There are 8 billion of us schlepping around planet earth. A semi trailer can carry about 45,000 pounds of cargo. So every day, the equivalent of about 444,000 semis full of food are forklifted out of trucks and down the gullets of 8 billion upturned mouths. Every freaking day, without a break.

And that’s just food. What about IKEA. And Costco. And Home Depot. And Walmart. And all the other stuff in our world.

And billions more people are striving to fill up the SUV (yes, everywhere you go, SUV) at their local Costco/Home Depot/Walmart, as soon as one arrives in their community.

Ah hell, I give up. The scale of all this stuff is unfathomable. And yet it all gets where it needs to go, every day, as long as there’s energy.

Any singular household staple must be there, in abundance, or all hell breaks loose. Remember Covid > toilet paper? What happens as soon as there is even a rumour of a shortage? Social deviants, which are harder to eradicate than (and just as useful as) STDs, get into gear and begin hoarding in order to resell at a profit. It just happens, one of the unfortunate costs of living in a free society. (I’m not suggesting that those people should be found and beaten with a tire iron, but then again I’m not suggesting that they shouldn’t.)

When we think of energy consumption, we tend to think of our hilariously comfortable lives in western nations, where supermarkets are perpetually full, where gasoline and heating fuels are available 24/7/365 at reasonable prices, where flying wherever and whenever we want, with minimal hassle, is one step away from being viewed as a human right. We are correct in that our energy consumption per capita in the west is very high. But on an outright total consumption basis, individual country statistics are pretty wild. And saddening, in some ways.

First the wild part: You would expect (or I did anyway) the US to be either at the top of the consumption pile or close; it is and has been an economic juggernaut for a century. But not even close: in 2022, the US consumed about 96 exajoules of energy, which is a lot – that number equals the consumption of India, Russia, Japan and Canada combined. But way out in front is China, with 2022 consumption of 159 exajoules. No one should be surprised China leads the world in renewables installation and coal fired power plant construction. They need it all.

Where it gets sad is to wander further down the list to the lowest consumers. The site linked above shows a graphic of the world, with each country colour-coded for total energy consumption. The lowest on the colour scale is a pale yellow representing 20 exajoules per year. The scale rises up through blues and towards a dark navy which represents China at the top of the heap.

Most African countries, and some South American ones, do not even warrant a definition in the legend at all, and are simply greyed out. They have so little energy consumption they hardly even make it onto the raw data table. Hundreds of millions of people live like that. But only as long as they have to.

It is very sobering to see how much of the world lives, and how very far they are from the West’s standard of living. The West’s leaders push the concept of ‘electrify everything’, a concept that only makes sense if one is looking no further than their backyard and has zero feel for the true global situation. In much of the world, they would just as happily get behind the slogan ‘electrify anything’.

It is hard to imagine this energy consumption trajectory falling; we’d be very lucky if it stayed flat. But that seems like an unrealistic hope. The developing world clearly has every incentive and right to advance towards the West’s standard of living, and if they get close global energy consumption will head off further into the stratosphere. Here in the West, we play cute little games like a forced switch to EVs, while ignoring almost totally any common sense commentary on the subject (For example, Toyota’s 1:6:90 rule which states that for the same amount of raw materials to manufacture one EV, Toyota can make six plug-in hybrids or 90 hybrids, and in doing so would achieve 37 times the emissions reduction of a single EV. Yet Toyota is scorned for such logic on the grounds that “Toyota’s reluctance to fully embrace EVs can hinder innovation in the EV industry.” Note that there is no challenge to the facts themselves, just a bruising of the ego of the think tanks.)

Anyone that provides energy of any kind should roll up their sleeves, there’s a lot of work to be done, and those who wish to hunt for energy villains will get run over, in due course.

Terry Etam is a columnist with the BOE Report, a leading energy industry newsletter based in Calgary.  He is the author of The End of Fossil Fuel Insanity.  You can watch his Policy on the Frontier session from May 5, 2022 here.

Continue Reading

DEI

WEF report suggests digital ‘metaverse identity’ will become central to daily life

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Tim Hinchliffe

Your metaverse identity, with its digital ID, biometric data capture, and behavior profiling, will be central to your everyday life, according to a World Economic Forum (WEF) report.

“Metaverse identity” is a relatively new concept that the WEF and Accenture describe in great detail in a new 48-page report entitled “Metaverse Identity: Defining the Self in a Blended Reality.”

According to the report:

“As people spend more time exploring, playing and socializing in digital experiences, a person’s metaverse identity will be central to their day-to-day life as well as to the way they express their personal identity.”

But what exactly do the unelected globalists mean by “metaverse identity?”

Metaverse identity encompasses three components:

  • Representation: including personal, social and role identity, be it through avatars, pseudonyms or other digital expressions.
  • Data: capturing the intricate web of knowledge about individuals generated by metaverse supporting hardware and software.
  • Identification (ID): be it through driver’s licenses, government-issued IDs, passports, birth certificates, attestations, labels, or usernames and passwords.

According to the report, “Metaverse identity broadens ‘identity’ as it is known today and combines it with the digital underpinnings of the internet. It is a multi-layered construct of an individual or entity, including everything from representation to data and identification.”

[Source: WEF, Accenture]

With these three components, identity in the metaverse “connects and anchors a person to the physical and virtual world.”

 

Let’s break them down, starting with representation.

The notion of ‘representation’ is not just about pixels and graphics; it’s a reflection of societal values, inclusivity and the human desire for authenticity […] Representational design choices extend to the design of digital entities – from embodied virtual agents to non-embodied virtual assistant.

Representation has to do with how you present and express yourself in the metaverse, whether it’s a realistic likeness of yourself or an abstract, creative, or artistic version.

The authors say that, “These expressions may extend to include words, actions, behaviors and mannerisms,” so there is an element of behavior profiling going on in the representation category, which we will also see in the data capture and identification categories.

Representation in the metaverse will also take on a new meaning with the introduction of digital entities that act on your behalf.

According to the report, “Digital entities may represent humans, objects, systems or abstract concepts, and are capable of varying degrees of interaction, autonomy and behavior within digital experiences […] They are capable of mimicking human communication and may be used as sales assistants, corporate trainers, social media influencers and more.”

[Source: WEF, Accenture]

Like non-player characters (NPCs) in videogames, these digital doppelgangers attempt to mimic human behavior.

And like a virtual voodoo doll, if something goes wrong with your digital entity, it could spill over into your personal life in the real world.

Now let’s dig into the data category.

Identity goes beyond ID, like a passport or driver’s license. Metaverse identity includes data points.

The data category of metaverse identity is aimed at gathering and analyzing data to make inferences about you, and it will be used to predict your behavior, thanks to AI and Machine Learning.

“Paired with artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) models that can analyze a person’s interactions, movements and preferences further generates identity,” the report reads.

Whether these (inferred) data points are capturing a person’s current activities, predicting their next action or future preferences, these data-based breadcrumbs provide information into one’s identity.

These attributes may influence the way the virtual environment responds to an individual, and outsiders perceive an individual or entity.

This data aspect of metaverse identity is important to unelected globalists who are obsessed with manipulating human behavior and controlling what people think and do.

There is a risk that governments could use aggregated inferred data for surveillance, monitoring dissidents, or suppressing certain groups without their active consent.

[Source: WEF, Accenture]

Inferred data, “now aided by AI/ML, can examine seemingly unrelated behaviors, actions and choices to draw meaningful conclusions about a person’s preferences, background and intentions,” according to the report.

Once you know intent, whether of an individual or an unelected globalist think tank, then it becomes a lot easier to predict what they’ll do or say next, even if they deceptively try to mask their true intentions.

And, “While this data is collected to enhance the person’s experience, it could also be analyzed to make inferences as to their real-world identity or preferences and used for targeted advertising or other purposes without their consent.”

Making inferences for “other purposes” without the user’s consent is what defense and intelligence agencies are after in the metaverse.

A recent RAND Corporation report suggests as much with respect to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) looking to spy on users in the metaverse, stating, “As DHS grapples with emerging challenges by monitoring and analyzing users’ activity in metaverses, it should undertake legal and ethical reviews of what information is collected and how it is managed.”

Now, we shall move on to the identification category.

The concept of identity is contextual, flexible, complex and fluid […] Identity extends into the intricacies of an individual’s behaviors, actions and choices.

[Source: WEF, Accenture]

Perhaps the most confusing part of metaverse identity is the identification or ID aspect because digital ID and digital identity are terms that are often used interchangeably, including by yours truly, but they are quite different.

Identification is about identifying, verifying, and authenticating who someone is.

Identity on the other hand, “consists of layered aspects of cultural heritage, ethnicity, age, professional and social roles, hobbies, gender identification, sexual orientation and much more,” according to the report.

Now that we’ve taken care of the distinction between the two, your digital ID will be your passport to the metaverse, and like with a passport, there will be certain areas that you will not be able to access.

According to the report, “Similar to today’s traditional identification systems – like passports and driver’s licenses – IDs may evolve to include unique avatar designs, new body-based attestations or unique virtual signatures that validate one’s existence and grant access to specific realms or activities.”

To illustrate how digital ID plays into digital identity, the authors say, “Forms of ID – such as passports and government IDs – formalize an individual’s identity; additionally, these can serve as credentials or means of authenticating and verifying individuals across physical and digital spaces.”

Metaverse identity is integral to future internet interactions.

 

[Source: WEF, Accenture]

Now that we’ve gone through the three components that make up metaverse identity, what are some of the potential drawbacks?

For starters, the report says, “There is a risk that governments could use aggregated inferred data for surveillance, monitoring dissidents or suppressing certain groups without their active consent.”

Your metaverse identity can include your real-time biometrics, such as pupil dilation, heart rate, and brainwaves, so that companies and governments can infer how you are feeling and reacting to their goods, services, or policies.

Historian Yuval Noah Harari spoke of this same technology falling into the hands of dictators at the 2020 WEF Annual Meeting in Davos. There, he said:

Just imagine North Korea in 20 years where everybody has to wear a biometric bracelet, which constantly monitors your blood pressure, your heart rate, your brain activity 24 hours a day.

You listen to a speech on the radio by the ‘Great Leader,’ and they know what you actually feel – you can clap your hands and smile, but if you’re angry, they know you’ll be in the gulag tomorrow morning.

Having a biometric data capturing device attached to your body that knows what you’ll do before you do it raises serious ethical questions about how the data is collected, where that data goes, and who has access to some of the most intimate details of your life.

For the past few years, Meta has been working on Project Aria, which combines augmented reality with artificial intelligence to create realistic 3D renderings of people, places, and things, including living spaces.

When Mark Zuckerberg explained his vision for the metaverse at Connect 2021, he highlighted how Project Aria could map a person’s apartment, including everything in it (see video below).

Imagine how valuable that information would be to companies – knowing which products you use, which ones they think you’ll want, and how you organize your living space, so they can manufacture extremely personalized ads.

What could insurance companies do with that data? How would landlords react?

Now, think about how governments, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement would love to get their hands on that type of data.

With the data collected from someone wearing a pair of AR glasses, who needs facial recognition, geolocation tracking, or contact tracing when governments and corporations can see what you see, hear what you hear, and know where you and what you are doing in real-time?

Of course, these dystopian scenarios need not come to pass, and indeed great efforts are being made to safeguard privacy in the design of these tools and systems – at least for now.

The metaverse identity report is replete with cautionary tales and references to building systems that are fair, just, diverse, equitable, inclusive, privacy-preserving, and every other type of virtuous buzzword they think you want to hear.

Over time, however, goalposts may shift, emergencies may be declared, and laws and regulations may be circumvented.

And what do the authors of the metaverse identity report propose to safeguard the metaverse and its integrity?

Their solution is to put “the onus on the global community.”

The metaverse could be fertile ground for powerful manipulative tactics, putting the onus on the global community to establish robust frameworks that not only facilitate the growth of the metaverse but also safeguard its integrity.

Is “the global community” ever defined in the report? No, but the WEF calls itself the “International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation” and has its Global Innovators, Young Global Leaders, and Global Shapers communities, which might give us a clue as to whom they are referring.

The metaverse will no doubt change the way we work and play, leading to exciting cross-disciplinary collaborations, scientific discoveries, and untapped marketplaces.

But if the unelected globalists and unaccountable technocrats are in charge of governance, the metaverse will be nothing more than a digital playground for the great reset agenda where your digital identity determines your level of entry and where anything you say or do in the virtual world will come back to haunt you in the physical one and vice versa – there will be no distinction between the two.

Once everyone is hooked up to a digital identity while plugged into the metaverse, all that is needed to quash dissent is a simple flick a switch on someone’s digital identity and voila! it’s like that person doesn’t exist anymore.

Your metaverse identity, with its virtual voodoo dolls, autonomous avatars, and digital doppelgangers will be your passport in the metaverse, where it will be used to surveil, predict, and mimic your behavior while determining your level of access to information and spaces.

But not to worry, your metaverse identity will only be essential to your day-to-day life and will only be integral to all your future internet interactions.

Reprinted with permission from The Sociable.

Continue Reading

Trending

X