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First the Old Were Chipped. Now Chipping the Young Starts
Are we in the last days of sights like this, of children freely blowing bubbles?
It looks like Denmark will be the first place to start keeping tabs on children with electronic chips. Since it’s troublesome to deal with demented people, some places are already putting chips in the shoes of the elderly so they can be tracked if they wander off. Now, the same sort of thinking is being applied to attaching chips to children. Denmark’s Jutland childcare centers are considering it right now. Fortunately, there’s some resistance to it…but we’ve seen where this sort of thing is going, so if it doesn’t happen right now, it looks like the writing is on the wall for these devices to be attached to people of all ages. The arguments for attaching these chips on bracelets—which presumably would not be easy to take off, or they’d be fairly useless—are twofold. One is for safety, so that a child who does wander off can be found. The other, though, is the heart of the matter. Why would a society choose to turn children (or the elderly, for that matter) into the equivalent of merchandise that’s tracked for inventory and sales purposes? When did it even become conceivable that a human of any age should be marked to allow every movement to be traced? Apparently, it’s conceivable when it saves money and means that fewer people are needed to care for the children (or elderly). In Denmark, the chip advocates talk of releasing time spent by educators, so that they can spend more time educating. Of course, such freeing of employees’ time tends not to end up serving the purpose originally stated. What nearly always happens is layoffs, also known as redundancies, smaller staffs, fewer employees—less money paid in wages. And the ongoing benefits to those who benefit from fewer employees and less to pay in wages? That’s fairly obvious: a generation of drones raised from the earliest ages to know nothing but complete control over their every movement. Another device being suggested is a cradle robot that automatically lulls children to sleep. Doesn’t that just warm the cockles of your heart? No longer does Mom or Dad need to waste precious time that could be better spent increasing their employers’ profits, nor need they risk getting muck all over them from babies spitting up or having diarrhea. Now, they can just be shipped off to the nursery, where a caring automaton, human or otherwise, can hook ‘em up to a cradle robot! And it gets better than that! Suggestions include a “whistling toilet” that cleans their bums, so teachers don’t have to do it. That saves even more time for the all-important “education” of the child. But, while we’re at it, why stop there? Why not put them on conveyor belts, plunk them into seats—with leg clamps so they can’t run off—and play 3D videos of robots telling them what they need to spew back on the next exam? Then, when the system can see that they’re too antsy to stay in their chairs without wounding ankles as they fidget, they can be put on a different conveyor belt and hauled off to the approved play equipment, where robots will gently nudge their little legs and arms in the right direction to assure that they play in the proper state-sanctioned manner. Where does it end? If the scenario in the previous paragraph seems outlandish, just consider that the ones in the earlier paragraphs are now being planned, but would have been thought completely inhumane just a few years ago. If attaching bracelet chips to children is accepted and the idea of toilets automatically wiping their bums can be sold now, what could possibly stop the next steps, shifting kids around on conveyor belts and controlling their movements in every detail? Convenient, certainly. Human? Not in the least. Save lives? Possibly, but at the cost of humanity. Truly, how can anyone seriously believe that it’s okay to chip the elderly because it’s inconvenient or even costly to have enough staff to keep an eye on them? Yet it’s being done…and children are just a step behind in the chipping process. Sure, there’s the financial excuse. In Denmark, the explanation is that there’s been a great deal of consolidation in municipalities for the purpose of saving money. So, childcare centers are supposed to become more efficient, too. And that means finding ways to provide for children’s needs without having to pay humans to do it. What we really need to ask is: What’s gone so desperately wrong that children and the elderly are now such a burden that there isn’t enough money to care for them, so that we now must automate their care? How did we come to that?
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