How to escape Worldcoin

Hundreds of fans were recently seen queuing up for the latest consumer tech gadget. No, it wasn’t an iPhone. It was the Orb.

The Orb? How weird?

Yeah, there is something eerie about the name of this Death-Star-looking contraption whose sole function is to scan deep into people’s eyes.

As for Worldcoin?

Bless them for trying.

You can tell when a brand name reeks of committee meetings and risk mitigation. But they have no choice; this thing has to sound harmless enough to appeal to everyone.

You see, Worldcoin is supposed to solve a big problem.

That problem is, old people.

If there is one thing that slows down our technocrat overlords is that old people don’t grok technology. They are not good at downloading apps, scanning QR codes, and producing digital IDs at a moment’s notice.

Old age, disability, digital ineptitude are a stubborn barrier to their absolute aspirations — decommissioning cash, for example, or mandating digital IDs and electronic health passports for everyone. As long as there is a 5%, or even 1%, that is unable to comply, then all their coercion efforts are rendered mute.

That’s what makes Worldcoin so appealing and urgent.

Eye authentication requires zero input from humans. Neither do chip implants. The burden of operating those technologies lies with those who design them.

Notice the power dynamic here?

When I walk into a supermarket and purchase things with nothing but my eyes, the power of this transaction lies entirely in the hands of those who designed the system. As for the end user? You may as well stop referring to them as user because they are not using anything.

Now here is the important part.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if Worldcoin succeeds.

To get our heads around Worldcoin we need to stop looking at it as a distinct product or a distinct company. They are small and disposable parts of a grand and timeless vision.

As Orwell wrote, “if one is to rule, and to continue ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality.”

What the architects ”our democracy” ultimately want is to replace reality (and natural law) with their own synthetic world that is entirely under their control. Here is their playbook:

1. Design: Give billions to DARPA subcontractors, three-letter-agencies and others, to experiment with technologies that compromise the foundations of the reality inhabited by the masses.

2. Inception: Hollywood spends decades planting those technologies into the minds of audiences — from Soylent Green in the seventies to Black Mirror in the present, the list of forewarnings is endless.

3. Choice: When the time is ripe, a contemporary young man drops out of Stanford and founds a company with an avant-garde product which uses that technology (AI, iris scanning, etc). If enough early adopters bite (Facebook, Google), great. If not (MySpace, Yahoo), repeat the same step using different personas and brands.

4. Acceptance: In time, adoption reaches critical mass; Foxconn kicks in high gear and “smart” plastic trinkets are dispensed to the masses for a seemingly negligible cost. Case in point: There are 6.92 billion smartphone users in 2023.

5. Compliance: As growth plateaus, authorities pick up the baton and make the technology mandatory. Refusal to comply may be labeled as a risk to public health. Access to food, movement, and money may become conditional to compliance. Case in point: average hours using technology permanently increased as a result of c0v1d health measures.

6. Disclosure: When it’s too late to reverse the process, (some of) the true cost of those technologies is revealed. “Can’t say we didn’t tell you.”

It’s all a big theater production.

Mainstream narrative tells us that Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Tesla, and now Worldcoin, were built by tireless geniuses who, against all odds, created something revolutionary and disruptive. They hire biographers and film directors to manufacture emotional narratives that inspire the masses.

In reality, the founders of those companies are mere front-men; handpicked and installed to enact a well-defined and rehearsed script.

Are you trying to tell me that a millennial who seemingly came out of nowhere, is now running not one but two world-transforming companies: OpenAI and Worldcoin?

Are you trying to tell me that Musk was involved in … checks notes . . . Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, StarLink, Neuralink, Twitter, the Boring Company, and also OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT)? In between tweeting about Dogecoin and cage-fighting Zuckerberg?

Please.

Those people are performers; charismatic and idiosyncratic stars that capture the imagination of millennial gear-heads and early adopters. Mind you, personas like these are not easy to find (until AI CEOs catch on, that is), so the successful ones must be re-used. It’s easier to direct a handful of players, than hundreds or thousands.

As for the good technologies, you know, the ones that actually serve the interests of humanity — in healthcare, transportation, energy, to name a few — those were and continue to be suppressed, their inventors silenced, and the mere mention of their technologies vilified. Look into it.

“Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist [. . .] Technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty.”

1984, George Orwell

But let’s get back to Worldcoin.

“For every human,” says the motto on their home page, positioned right above a spinning globe of colorful dots resembling each new “human” that scans their eyes.

“The Worldcoin community is building a more human economic system,” the marketing spiel continues as you scroll down. And “a more human internet,” it reiterates, in case you didn’t get it.

Or consider Anthropic, an AI company whose name derives from the Greek word for human (Anthropos). It would seem those AI companies are driven by an unbounded concern for humans. Hmm . . .

Let’s pause for a minute.

For most humans, truth is considered a virtue. Gandhi inspired hundreds of millions with his precept of Truth is God (Satyagraha). Indeed, truth is God for the vast majority of humans.

Not so, for the predator class and their compromised underlings. What is the opposite of truth? Deception, lies, trickstery? Where have we seen those before?

Well, pretty much everywhere:

• The C0v1d vacc1nation programs in some countries were branded as “operation freedom”.

• Keeping humans isolated was branded as “s0cial” distanc1ng.

• L0ckdowns, gym closures, and fining the elderly for not getting the needle, were branded as “public health” measures.

It’s not like we’ve not been lied to before. So when I hear those AI companies extol their products as “human,” I cannot help but cringe just a little.

In any case, let’s carry on because this rabbit hole runs deeper than most people think.

“Will Worldcoin succeed?”

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter.

You see, Worldcoin is not the only company invested in your eyes. Apple’s version is called Optic ID and it’s a key part of their upcoming Vision Pro headset. If Apple’s most important product in a generation succeeds, then Optic ID will become as ubiquitous as Face ID.

One way or another, iris scanning will go mainstream within a few short years. Banks and KYC institutions will adopt it in the name of security. Dating apps and taxi hailing services will require it in the name of safety. Eventually, governments will mandate iris scanning, to “preserve our democracy”.

“But isn’t Worldcoin supposed to be private?”

Worldcoin insists that their blockchain-based technology is private and secure.

“Completely private. Forever.” says their privacy page. But you don’t have to take their word for it because Worldcoin is all about open source. In other words, as the open source proponents keep saying: don’t trust; verify.

Well, here is the truth.

Any time you hear a tech company make a big deal about how open source they are, your bullshit detector should be flashing red.

“Our investigation revealed wide gaps between Worldcoin’s public messaging, which focused on protecting privacy, and what users experienced. We found that the company’s representatives used deceptive marketing practices, collected more personal data than it acknowledged, and failed to obtain meaningful informed consent.”

MIT Technology Review, April 6, 2022

Does open source guarantee a product is kosher? Not really.

Even if you are an expert who can read and understand code, it’s hardly possible to verify everything. There is infinite ways software can (be made to) break. ChatGPT was recently hacked through a vulnerability in some open-source library. Indeed, companies are constantly “discovering” backdoors in their products — open source or otherwise — often several years after they were exploited.

Ultimately, it’s never about technology.

When assessing complex systems the only thing you can realistically rely upon is trust.

“A preliminary review of Worldcoin's operations has raised concerns, Communications Authority of Kenya and the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner said, among them being that obtaining consumer consent in return for a monetary award bordered on inducement.”

Reuters, August 3, 2023

In other words, they dangle free money in front of poor and illiterate people. But it’s perfectly fine because the folks at Worldcoin believe “in the inherent worth and equality of every individual.”

Wait, where have we seen those practices before? Oh yeah, two years ago, authorities were doling out donuts, burgers and free money to poor people, to get them to sign up for “safe and effect1ve” medical treatments.

But I digress.

Let’s get back to Iris scanning.

Needless to say, iris scanning is irreversible, unless you resort to what the Minority Report hero did — he swapped his eyeballs.

The entire premise of World ID relies on building an immutable record of every single iris. Worldcoin says that using the Orb is completely anonymous. But what they also say is that they are making their invention available to any company or government who wants to use it.

So yeah, Worldcoin is anonymous, but when authorities borrow this technology, they will use it for the exact opposite purpose. Want to use public transport? Want to buy food? Want to use public toilets? Every single thing you do will automatically be associated to your official personhood.

Does it sound dramatic?

Good. Movie narratives are always dramatic, otherwise we wouldn’t watch them.

“What does this mean?”

“It means buckle your seatbelt Dorothy, because Kansas is going bye bye.”

Cypher, The Matrix

This is where it gets interesting, so please pay attention.

What follows may sound a bit “out there” or “off-topic” but please bear with me — it all ties up nicely in the end.

The cinematic drama of choice

Iris scans, palm scans, and chip implants, will eventually be everywhere. As the cost of non-compliance becomes untenable, human populations will eventually be faced with a “dramatic” choice.

In the Equilibrium sci-fi movie, the world has already chosen. The compliant masses chose to live in urban centers of safety, convenience, and medicated contentment. On the other side, the so-called “resistance” chose to live as outcasts in places far away.

Do you see it now? What’s unfolding is a narrative, or script rather, which culminates into a dramatic choice. And it doesn’t matter what you choose, as long as you choose.

In Matrix, Neo has to choose between the red pill or the blue pill. This thesis-antithesis dichotomy is part of a preordained narrative, an ancient drama the architects of “our democracy” directed for us. And humanity keeps falling for it.

“The matrix is older than you know [. . .] This will be the sixth time we have destroyed [those who reject the Matrix], and we have become exceedingly efficient at it.”

The Architect, Matrix Revolutions

Contrary to what the Hollywood Matrix script would have us believe, our choice is not between the good guys vs. bad. It’s not between an eye-scanning dystopia vs. defiant “resistance”. Why? Because any side you choose (red pill or blue pill) continues to be on the same script. Their script.

The key is to escape that dichotomy; break from the narrative, and flip the script.

When we hear about Iris scanning, CBDCs, and 15-minute cities, we are compelled to think of “bad” guys and vilains. But when we acknowledge the vilains, we have to accept the heroes in equal measure. Trump, RFK Jr., Musk, Carlson, Alex Jones and hundreds of others, are enacting (acting) the other side of the same coin. The coin of duality, light / dark, good guy / bad guy Hollywood movie narrative prison.

Think of it this way, you can shift from first gear to second gear in your car, but that doesn’t mean you switched cars. It’s a different function of the same mechanism [. . .] When the dark is the only thing we’ve ever known, the light side would feel like a whole new world. But it’s just the other side of the same coin.

ProbablyAlexandra

The answer lies not in choosing the new ideology, the new movement, the new “resistance” or revolution. Revolutions always cycle (revolve) from one puppet leader to the next, from one ideology to the next, leaving the invisible puppeteers firmly in control.

Want to subjugate humans? Corral them into massive groups (left vs. right, rich vs. poor, men vs. women, black vs. white) and keep the pendulum swinging from one side to the other, generation after generation, revolution after revolution, for ever and ever.

Dispersed and autonomous individuals cannot be controlled that way. In March, 2022, I wrote:

Peer-to-peer file sharing company, Napster, was shut-down because it was centralized and visible. Torrents, on the other hand, cannot be shut-down because they are decentralized and invisible.

The answer is to unplug, not from the so-called Matrix, but from the gunk of illusion that creates masses out of humans (you cannot have masses without illusion).

Which brings us back full circle. Want to escape Worldcoin, iris scanning, and Hollywood’s Dark Fate? Then:

• Hold on to your individuality: Individual humans, families, and tight groups of ancestral bonds.

• Hold on to what is real: Go for a hike, start a campfire, grow something, distill your own water, make your own toothpaste, go cowboy camping, go fishing. Fall in love with nature because it’s the only material thing that is true.

• Hold on to your faith: No human is coming to save us. Contrary to what the New Age script wants us to believe, true faith is not in humans (ourselves or others). No human can ever become god or goddess. True faith is not communal or inclusive. True faith is exclusive. True faith is in God.

Oh, and if you are still itching at the idea of queuing up for the Orb, please don’t worry. Unlike the Apple Store, Worldcoin will probably never run out of stock. The stock of suckers runs in the billions.

If you enjoy my work, feel free to send me some sats or buy me a coffee.