- Digital ID -

 

 

The UK government recently announced plans to introduce digital ID. They claim that this will help tackle illegal immigration (how?). Initially, they said it will be required to work in the UK, but since then they have expanded what it might be used for, to include accessing welfare services, medical services, opening bank accounts, and renting property. 

The government claims this will save money because it will reduce fraud and streamline processes. 

But critics argue it is a dystopian authoritarian power grab and will be used to control the population, similar to China's social credit system. They suggest that in the future it could be connected to your purchases, meaning that a future extreme environmentalist government could limit and/or restrict purchases of environmentally damaging products like meat.

The idea of this kind of ID has been proposed in the UK before, by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and some suggest he is actually behind this current government's plans for digital ID too.

So is it a good idea? Will it help tackle illegal immigration and fraud? Do you think there is a risk for government to abuse this system? Just because it's a left wing government proposing it, doesn't mean there will always be a left wing government in power, what if an extreme far right wing party got into government?

Finally, is any of this truly necessary when we already have other forms of identification, such as passports, driver’s licences, and National Insurance numbers? For example, we currently need to show our National Insurance number when starting a new job to communicate with the tax office and organise our tax payments..

 

We often talk about the problems of depopulation in Japan, such as immigration, pension funding issues, labour shortages, etc. But what if depopulation wasn't actually that bad? What if we have been living in a state of overpopulation for the last few decades, and now we are rebalancing the population to a more sustainable level? Do you think it's possibly all just going to be ok? 

Think about in nature. If one species gets too populous, a predator will also increase to reduce the population. When the first species reduces, the predator doesn't have enough food to continue surviving, so their population also decreases, and a balance is achieved. 

Do you agree with this logic? What about societal issues, financial promises that were made (e.g. pensions and welfare, etc)?

 

 

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