…if every strategy today is that of mental terror and of deterrence tied to the suspension and the eternal simulation of catastrophe, then the only means of mitigating this scenario would be to make the catastrophe arrive, to produce or to reproduce a real catastrophe

— Simulacra and Simulation, Baudrillard

by Sanjay Perera

The convenience of the dubious pandemic cannot be overstated. The Oligarchy must be pleased as pie with how they have aborted people’s spiritual practices especially on auspicious occasions by getting their stooges (read: most governments) to restrict gatherings and prayer. Just as the world moves closer towards an Orwellian scenario of control with greater social coercion; mask mandates; electronic tokens and mobile phones deployed ostensibly to monitor vaccination status but to track movement, violate privacy and enhance surveillance; increasing persecution of the unvaccinated; and inevitable scare mongering due to the rise of so-called variants (perhaps linked to the bizarre and foolhardy practice of mass vaccination)—we are also reminded of Huxley’s prescience perhaps more than he would have dared credit himself with.

Then comes the Oligarchy’s coup de grâce: the transmutation of the reprehensible platform known as Facebook into Meta, and so the most sinister addition to the metaverse. Those who may be inclined towards introspection rather than frittering away life on social media have pointed out that ‘meta’ in Hebrew signifies ‘death’; this cannot be coincidence for a platform known increasingly as “‘a system that amplifies division, extremism, and polarization—and [for] undermining societies around the world [and in] some cases…has led to actual violence that harms and even kills people’” (as one brave woman states).

As a concerned man adds:

‘…how much more dangerous might social media pile-ons, or online bullying, become in the metaverse? I’d argue it has the potential to be far, far more extreme. The visceral experience of immersion can be exceptionally emotive…

Many current MR [mixed-reality] prototype systems have face, eye, body, and hand tracking tech. Most have sophisticated cameras. Some even incorporate Electroencephalogram (EEG) technology in order to pick up brainwave patterns. In other words, everything you say, manipulate, look at, or even think about can be monitored in MR. The data this will generate will be vast…. and extremely valuable.’

And an early Facebook investor now says: “‘Facebook should not be allowed to create a dystopian metaverse…Facebook should have lost the right to make its own choices. A regulator should be there giving pre-approval for everything they do. The amount of harm they’ve done is incalculable.’” Indeed.

Not much is said about the metaverse’s origins in relation to a work of fiction (again it is fiction that describes the reality to come). And it is worth noting:

The metaverse was born in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 Snow Crash, where it serves as entertainment and an economic underbelly to a poor, desperate nation that is literally governed by corporate franchises. 

You will see no trace of the metaverse’s origins [from those promoting it]…which so far seem to hint mostly at creating and uniting more immersive digital environments in which entertainment might be consumed and work carried out—and advertising displayed, workers surveilled, and branded NFTs and loot boxes sold.

…the book from which the current metaverse craze originates, not only is our world in ruins and most people are eking out precarious lives in dire poverty, but the metaverse itself is a place that is addictive, violent, and an enabler of our worst impulses.

What happened with the seemingly fortuitous pandemic is that people have been shunted into their homes, small businesses and enterprises ruined, massive gains for large corporations, and a populace forced into relying on handouts from the government which in the case of the US is leading to excessive printing of dollars (which will lead to inflation) thanks to debilitated Oligarchy puppet Biden and his handlers: this strategy will continue with a vengeance when the chorus ‘Let’s go Brandon’ is transformed into an equally effective chant for Harris who is waiting to replace the duffer.

That is when it will become clear why there is cryptocurrency for that is the digital currency for the virtual world that entraps people into a state of ultimate servitude. To be clear, metaverse-linked cryptocurrencies surged by 37,000% this year (beyond gains by bitcoin):

Macro Hive put cryptocurrencies in four emerging categories: bitcoin, smart contract platforms, metaverse, and decentralized finance (DeFi). 

While metaverse coins were the ‘clear outperformer,’ those related to smart contracts, which include applications based on ethereum, solana, cardano, avalanche, and polkadot, came in second with a whopping 2,355% rally in 2021…

In third was DeFi, which counts services like Uniswap and PancakeSwap built on top of blockchain networks. The group rallied 584% this year…Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency equivalent of gold, is up 97%, a meager gain when compared with the rest of the bucket…

The metaverse-crypto entanglement is the virtually perfect web of entrapment that the Oligarchy has spent years preparing for. It makes dystopias look like fairy tales.

The purpose of this scheme is to create a dead world with people living in a state of virtual and hypnotic fantasy; a world in which the human spirit is killed, and the Oligarchy allowed to triumph with its death driven agenda of the ultra-elites über alles. It is to make existence for the rest of us a virtual nightmare, literally; if there is still doubt do note the creeping and overt totalitarian takeover of the world by the Oligarchy through the coordinated efforts of its minions which include the mainstream media, mega corporations (Big Tech, Pharma, etc.), most governments, key politicians worlwide (not Trump whom they removed for resisting them), many experts, and bureaucrats strategically placed (WHO being a prime example) in oppressing ordinary folk and limiting genuine interaction between people.  

…it is God who through his cataclysms unknots the equilibrium of terror in which humans are imprisoned. Closer to us, this is what terrorism is occupied with as well: making real, palpable violence surface in opposition to the invisible violence of security…therein lies terrorism’s ambiguity.

— Simulacra and Simulation, Baudrillard

What the manufactured pandemic does:

• Force people to live, work, shop and interact online as much as possible.
• Force people into living off digital transactions and credit.
• Force people who are not technologically savvy to undergo as much stress as possible.
• Push people into cryptocurrency and gambling in it.
• Force people into being treated like criminals, especially the unvaccinated, through a system of hyper surveillance intensified via monitoring everyone’s vaccination status. Encouraging divide-and-rule by heightening blame shifting between the vaccinated and unvaccinated.
• Eventually denying people the right to digital currency, a livelihood and purchase of anything if the latest round of vaccination is not complied with.
• Invent variants when needed to keep people in fear and the unhealthy mode of constant vaccination thereby ensuring a mentally and physically ill society simultaneously increasing death rates due to ‘underlying medical conditions’ (a vicious form of population control). That most people die from underlying health conditions other than accidents is not mentioned: but then calculated murder through injection is hardly an accident and ‘underlying health/medical condition’ is an effective periphrasis to bamboozle with.
• Showcase crypto millionaires et al. and make them role models for the young.
• Promote online gaming (an addiction) and champions in this area to ensnare youth into losing a sense of reality and responsibility; wean them away from reading and thinking. Create a generation co-dependent on such activities.
• Inveigle people into heavy social media usage and become a captive of the metaverse with cartoonish avatars that replace their real personalities and push them further into a false world controlled by those shaping the metaverse.
• Use avatars and virtual personalities to represent authority figures and move into ‘electing’ virtual politicians or avatars; the use of Dominion voting machines and the rigged election that ousted Trump being a testbed for keeping in place unelected representatives who become unelected officers, personnel, bureaucrats and technocrats who answer ultimately to the Oligarchy. This is part of a massive disenfranchisement of citizens. Biden-Harris are exemplars of such unelected personnel of the Oligarchy.
• Force people to stay home via quarantines and discourage exercise; online addiction and metaverse immersion guarantee deteriorating health at all levels.
• Exploit the inability to travel by getting people to travel and entertain themselves virtually and so pay for this virtually and facilitate addiction to the metaverse.
• Make the metaverse the escape route from a never-ending war on the virus (war on terror), perpetual pandemic, mask mandates, frightening people into vaccinations in a world which increasingly becomes a killing zone of minds, souls, and humanity itself.
• Create a constant state of distraction through news of the pandemic and addiction to mobile devices, online gaming, and the metaverse which leads to the death of critical thought and discussion, brutal censorship, the downward spiral of artistic endeavour. Even with movies: witness the countless film sequels and endless stories based on comic book characters; the countless remakes of superhero films are the death of cinema (an extension of Scorsese’s point); how many reimagined origin tales of Batman and others are needed? This is to promote theme park movies rather than actual cinema that has artistic merit. And that destruction of James Bond who is killed off in his last outing from friendly fire with a soft toy under his belt in the politically correct No Time to Die: only to have the words ‘Bond will return’ flashed in the final credits in preparation for another cycle to cash in on (thank heavens we still have Connery as Bond—for the moment).
• The deterioration of language and communication through the constant use of meaningless phrases and non-intuitive abbreviations that fit the space of a mobile device keyboard and so shrink the capacity of the mind further.

Notwithstanding, a form of resistance would be to ignore the mainstream media and major online news content providers and thereby not listen to the propaganda machinery of the Oligarchy. It must reach a point that governments (organs of the Oligarchy) force people to listen to the media by threatening, as is their habit, to impose sanctions on those who do not listen and follow their edicts blared out by their flying monkeys: that will clearly reveal the lines of control between governments and interests pulling their strings and the media.

One of the ominous moments of the Kennedy years was the attempt by the Oligarchy controlled military-industrial complex to force an invasion of Cuba that could have resulted in nuclear conflict between the US and the USSR: the term for the rejected plan was Operation Ortsac which is the reverse of ‘Castro’, the name of the former Cuban president. Kennedy stood up to the Oligarchy during dangerous days and that soon cost him his life.

Today this poorly disguised wordplay by the Oligarchy is starting to show open contempt for people in the form of the so-called Omicron variant: which is an anagram for—moronic. If people want to move beyond being cattle for slaughter, then they must stand up to the diabolical stratagems of the Oligarchy and the totalitarian tactics of its henchmen. There must be enough resistance so that the record will show future generations that not all of the people were duped all of the time.

[This is the 10^th anniversary of Philosophers for Change. Featured picture: getty images.]

The writer is the founding editor of Philosophers for Change.

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