Kerby Anderson

I recently saw an interview with E.B. Tucker, who usually talks about the economy and investments. He referred to a recent article about “The Good Old Days of 2023” in which he encouraged all of us to enjoy our families and our freedom.

The reason he wants us to enjoy ourselves now is due to his fear of a future digital dystopia, which he locates ten years from now. The Tesla 6000 we drive drops us at the office and then returns to the fleet of self-driving rental cars. Average people don’t own cars. They have eight cameras on the exterior and one on the interior collecting data on you. The same is true of your home. “It’s wired like an NSA safehouse.” He says it is more like a tattletale rather than a safe space.

But the most significant change is the use of the FedCoin. There’s still money, but most purchases are made with this digital money which tracks every dollar in existence. Suppose you want to eat some meat, not the stuff manufactured in a factory, but real cow meat. You try to buy it and your FedCoin wallet flashes a red X. You are prohibited from buying meat.

He suggests that a cyberpanic in the future ended paper money. A new federal Department of Digital Safety issued safe domains to authorized companies. The FedCoin was promoted to eliminate counterfeiting and tax avoidance. It also gave the government ultimate control because the digital money could be switched on and off.

His future scenario shows how surveillance cameras and digital money give authorities unprecedented power. All of this is promoted as a way towards a digital utopia, though it strikes me as a digital dystopia. This doesn’t have to happen, but in order to stop it, we must rein in power-hungry politicians and bureaucrats who desire to control every aspect of our lives.