Future Faith
Future Faith
Under-the-Skin Surveillance
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Under-the-Skin Surveillance

Christians must ask three fundamental questions of all new technologies

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In late 2018, NPR broke a story about how thousands of Swedes are inserting microchips under their skin to make payments without the need to carry a credit card.

British companies have already started micro-chipping employees
Bill Gates is funding a remote-controlled contraceptive microchip
Indonesia has debated forced implantation for sex offenders
Elon Musk is already implanting computer chips in pig’s brains.

Earlier last month, the Pentagon revealed it has developed a disease-detecting implant for under-the-skin monitoring of the human population. Their stated intention is to protect the populace from future outbreaks and pandemics.

In a twist not seen before in science-fiction dystopian fantasies, rather than appearing as a dreaded microchip, the Pentagon’s new technology is a “tissue-like gel engineered to continuously test your blood” with a transmitter to relay the data.

It’s a conspiracy theorist’s dream scenario, and for many apocalyptically-minded Christians, it can send them into paroxysms of fear.

But we’d like to take a more reasoned approach to the growing trend of under-the-skin surveillance. Like all technologies, this one has obvious and non-obvious costs, some clear benefits, and a laundry list of unforeseen risks.

Don’t believe the techno-evangelists who can forecast no harms.

Don’t believe the conspiracists who can see no good.

Like the Amish and other faith communities, we must weigh as a society whether or not we should adopt new technologies on a global scale. (I, for one, don’t believe the convenience of ditching my credit card outweighs the risks of embedding Visa or Mastercard in my wrist. Nor do I believe we need to fall prey to the false dichotomy that there aren’t other non-under-the-skin ways to prevent pandemics, store passwords, prove digital identity, or unlock our cars.)

Regardless, I’m just one vote among eight billion.

In order to judge the sum total merits of any new invention or innovation, we must understand three fundamentals about all forms of technology:


1. Technology isn’t neutral

Never believe the popular delusion that technology is neutral.

Guns are designed to kill mammals, not wash your dishes.
Push notifications weren’t created to leave you alone with your thoughts.
Nukes weren’t created to fold your laundry.

All technologies can be judged based on their long-term “tilt.”

Sure, a stainless steel water bottle can be used to bludgeon someone to death, but the more likely scenario in the case of widespread adoption is less sea plastic and a better-hydrated populace.

Over maximal human terms (think: 100+ years), technologies tilt in either a net-negative or net-positive direction.

The question Christians must ask is: Which way does under-the-skin surveillance tilt over long-term scenarios?

The answer is unclear.


2. Technologists have an agenda

The makers of new technologies always have an agenda.

Always.

Social media was designed to addict you and advertise to you.
Monsanto seeds are engineered to maximize farmer reliance.
Netflix wants you to binge.

Sometimes the technologist’s agenda is good. Sometimes it’s bad. Sometimes it’s misguided. Sometimes it’s downright malevolent.

The question Christians must ask is: What is the agenda of those who control under-the-skin surveillance technology?

The answer is unclear.


3. Technology is easily weaponizable

Even when the technology is a net benefit over the long term and the makers have a fairly benign agenda, we can never rule out the predator parties that hijack the original intention and attempt to weaponize each new technology.

Not all technologies are equally weaponizable. Gunpowder has the ability to kill more people than, say, paper origami. Ricin gas is more easily weaponizable than Dawn dish detergent.

The easier it is to weaponize something, the higher the likelihood that sociopaths will find a way to do so.

The question Christians must ask is: How easily weaponizable is under-the-skin surveillance technology?

We have an answer for this one.

Without a doubt, under-the-skin surveillance is one of the most easily weaponizable technologies ever invented. It has the potential to track and surveil every single person on earth for the rest of human existence.

It is therefore a near-mathematical certainty that under-the-skin surveillance will be weaponized by powerful elites and the governments they control.

Within ten years, totalitarian regimes like China and North Korea will likely microchip their subjects whether they like it or not. In corporatocracies like the U.K. and the U.S. — land of the autonomous and home of the distrusting — expect adoption to move slightly slower… and likely under the fear-fueled guise of safety.

Which is exactly how the Pentagon is framing the conversation.


So what is the Christian response to under-the-skin surveillance?

First things first: Paul says in 2 Timothy that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control.

Under-the-skin surveillance is an opportunity to practice these things:

  • To let perfect love cast out any fear

  • To live in the power of His Spirit regardless of circumstance

  • To love others by sharing the truth of reality

  • To practice self-control against our instincts to lash out at authority

There are so many things outside of our control. Secularist corporate states will continue to enact their anti-human agenda, but that shouldn’t surprise us or scare us. 

Each of us must prayerfully discern how God is calling us to individually and communally respond to this growing threat. 

We also need to remember that we know how this story ends — with the presence of God flooding the earth. It’s an exceptional vision; an outcome so bright that it completely floods out this present and growing darkness.

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Future Faith
Future Faith
A podcast, newsletter, and publication for followers of The Way (and friendly haters) about how to live faithfully in the age of democratic destruction, ecological collapse, and economic irrelevance.