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I'm vital! I know it. I'm a vital statistic! I'm an important part of this earth’s gigantic concord of electrical circuits that have a name, number, and some data; I have some of my own little electrical currents orbiting this planet, too. Now isn't that mind-boggling! Long after I'm dead and buried, these electrical circuits with all my life's information on them—now stored on some computer somewhere and with someone continually doing something to them—will still be orbiting the earth and probably bumping into satellites and space trash and probably elbowing somebody else’s vital statistics out of the way. People don't change, it seems. Anyhow…
How many people are there in the world? Dunno! How many white, black, red, yellow, brown, brownish black, brownish white, tall, short, stout, thin, overfed, underfed, educated, happy people are there in the world? Now I bet you don't know either, but someone, somewhere, with some computer in some office in some city in some country protected by a whole lot of gadgets and whatnot, has information on most of the people in this world. Now isn't that impressive?
That means that someone is paying someone else with someone else's money (probably tax money) to keep up to date on someone else's vital statistics! Oh well, I guess it's a job!
Now that leads me to think about what this poor, tired old world did before we knew how many people live on the east coast of some place or other, how much they earn, how much they eat (or don't eat), how many kids they have, whether or not they keep a pet, what religion they are, and whether or not they are in debt—and if not, why the heck not!
Now I was always taught not to be nosey when I was a kid, in fact, it seems to be a part of good manners wherever you go in the world, but this is taking nosiness a bit too far. It seems to me that “they” (whoever they are) have poked their noses into the homes of the world and brought out the old skeletons in the closets and can now tell me what my old man worked at when he was first out of school, how many kids my poor old grandfather had, and, I bet, even tell me how many teeth my dear old granny had!
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Now what I want to know is, why? Where is this information kept and who keeps it? Why on earth do they bother doing all that? Then again, I wonder what would happen if I refused to tell. What if I just stood there with my hands behind my back, whistling a merry tune and completely refusing (even stomping) when they start interrogating me about my life’s history. I wonder what they'd call it? Anyway, I don't feel brave enough to try that today, but it does make me wonder what mankind did before he wasn't civilized, I mean organized … well, you know what I mean; before there were planes, trains, red lights, traffic tickets, take-away junk food, and high suicide rates.
Some people would answer, “but today's world is privileged! And with all preferential treatment comes responsibility!” Hmm. But is it my responsibility to give out my information, my vital statistics, and is it their responsibility to take it? What after that? What are they supposed to do with my, and everyone else's, vital statistics? Now if “they” were using this information to feed the world, eradicate poverty, stop wars, mend families, give people hope, take care of the environment, stop pollution, and stop killing and raping and stealing and drug abuse and gang wars and child labor, and, and, and, then I think I wouldn't mind so much if they knew how old I was when I left home, when I got my first job, when I had that operation, and when I got married.
Yes, we modern day, noble members of the human race are largely confined within borders and invisible barriers, like so many chickens in a cage, with our feathers clipped, claws blunted, and beaks shortened. We've been given numbers—and the battery-chicken conveyor-belt factory “good citizen” award goes to Mr. and Mrs. Docile and Mr. and Mrs. Apathetic and their 2.2 redundant, doped out, brainwashed, consumerized offspring.
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But it seems the motive here is to keep tabs on you and me and everyone else. Keeping tabs on all those busy business people, the harassing and the harassed of the world, takes endless rolls of white-washed sugar-coated bureaucracy that actually keeps the loggers (you know, those brave men who are raping the last rain forests of the world, all in a good cause of course—money) in business and maintains the existence of the pen-pushing, button-clicking, mouse-moving computer whizzes of the bureaucratic system, which lies at the heart (it was probably a transplant) of the smooth-running, well-oiled, rigid, no-holes-barred system of universal control that probably belongs to some remote island paradise’s government—a place that you or I will never see.
There was a time when great scholars would go out in search of knowledge; trekking the world to find the foundation of the modern-day information explosion. How much knowledge does the world need? I guess they have already got that worked out. It seems that enough is enough, because they have put a system into motion to curb it, throttle it, douse it, suppress it, and generally extinguish it out of existence. And they did it in one easy move—yes, the invention of the modern day passport and visa!
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Now what do you think would have happened to Doctor Livingston had he been stopped at the border and not allowed to go through, refused a visa, or he didn't have enough bribe money on him at the time to continue in his quest for knowledge and human development? How much knowledge would the world have got, or not got? I wonder if they've worked that out yet. Again, how much knowledge is the world missing out on today because of our checkpoints, conditions, visas, borders, rules, regulations, and the guys with either guns or pens that enforce them—I guess we'll never know. I wonder how many budding Einsteins are digging ditches in some banana republic to keep paying the taxes that are needed to keep those heavy-duty computers purring along.
But the comforting thing is this. All this high-tech, phobic means of identifying, stamping, labeling, and valuing the population of the world is largely digitalized, so if some day, someone, for some reason, decides to inadvertently pull the plug, then things will get back to normal!
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