What if you lived in a Digital Dictatorship...or are we already?

A society where individuals are under round-the-clock surveillance. You gain or lose -social credit- according to your behavior, actions and even thoughts.

It sounds like an episode of Black Mirror or the 21st Century version of Orwell's 1984 but, trust me, it's real. It's a mandatory ranking system of citizens in China, due to be completed by 2020. If you have a bad social credit score, you'll lose privileges. For example, you may not be able to book a flight or train ticket. You'll have trouble getting your children into the best schools. The most lucrative jobs will be closed to you. Banks won't want to lend you money. Your mortgage interest or internet speed may go up or down, depending on your social score. Your love life may slide if your low score shows up on a dating website. Your score may go down if your friends' score is low.

We like to shudder and point the finger at China over dictator-like control. But really, are Western societies so different? In many cases, we're only a step or two away from the kind of surveillance China is now implementing. It appears their social credit system depends on being linked up to databases that reveal citizen behavior - what they purchase, their traffic violations, failure to pay taxes or loans and so on. Some of this data is kept in private enterprise systems and others in government records. Google, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, to name a few. What's troubling is when those private systems link up to the government rankings.

Some define fascism as the merger of the corporation and the government, but are we entering an era of digitocracy; a digital dictatorship: the merger of government and Big Tech for full spectrum social control?

This is a VERY candid conversation about the digital age, new red flag laws, the social credit score-like system the Washington Post announced this week Trump is considering putting into place as a solution to gun control and so much more!

There is an addendum at the end of Part 2. It's material I received a few years ago but did not want to release until I felt people were ready. Listener discretion is advised.