The tyranny of digital currencies

Central banks are creating their own surveillance state

Should we really be surprised that the Treasury and Bank of England are exploring whether to launch a state-issued digital pound? Sunak, after all, was the chancellor who first floated the idea of backing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) — already dubbed “Britcoin”. Nor was he alone: 11 countries, including China, Nigeria, The Bahamas and Jamaica, have already launched their own digital currencies, while more than 100 others, representing over 95% of global GDP, are deciding whether to follow suit. In the United States, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has launched a pilot programme; the European Central Bank hopes to make a decision about the creation of a digital euro this autumn.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Digital Currency", "Surveillance Society"

Bill Gates: ChatGPT Is an Historic Tech Moment

The release of the chatbot ChatGTP in November 2022 has made the once science-fiction-esque and frightening potential of artificial intelligence an everyday reality.

The tool is only a chatbot, a type of software already widely used that can produce texts in interaction with humans, usually through the internet. Most internet users have already interacted with many websites—using chatbots—to answer basic customer questions, for example.

But ChatGTP has caused a stir through its uncannily intelligent abilities. It can write poems, jokes, and intricate paragraphs so well that it is usually impossible to tell that a machine produced it.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"AI - Artificial Intelligence"

MPs threatened me to force gay marriage on the church, says Archbishop of Canterbury

Justin Welby said he was summoned twice to Parliament and threatened with parliamentary action to force same-sex marriage on the Church

The Archbishop of Canterbury claims he was “threatened with parliamentary action” in an attempt to “force same-sex marriage” in the Church of England.

The Most Rev Justin Welby said that he was twice summoned to Parliament over the issue as he blamed rising secularism for triggering the historic debate on blessings for gay and lesbian couples.

He also warned that the church should not be “dictated to”, “blackmailed” or “bribed” over the issue.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inBig Gay, UK, WTF?

Don Martin: Three ethical lapses tarnish the brand of all politicians

There’s been a sudden outbreak of queasy and sleazy ethical shortcomings as three senior politicians recently made headlines for having stretched, bent or broken the rules.

The premier of Canada’s most populous province, one of the prime minister’s favourite cabinet ministers and Canada’s biggest-city mayor faced difficult questions over their ethical conduct. One denies all wrongdoing, one admits to an oversight oopsie and the other quits over lousy moral judgment.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, Canada's Corrupt Political Class

Anthony Furey: China’s ‘Unidentified Objects’ Over North America: Let’s Talk About Canada’s Defence Capabilities

The initial news that a spy balloon from China was hovering over the continental United States caught many people by surprise. We’re just not used to seeing that sort of thing happen.

It seemed so out of place for our times. It had the feel of something either historical, like out of the Cold War, or something futuristic, like in a science fiction novel.

We’ve grown accustomed to thinking that sort of stuff just doesn’t happen. Here’s the thing though: Now it does. Times have changed.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"CAF - Canadian Armed Forces", Canada

Exactly What Are We Shooting Down Over Canada?

There are conflicting reports of what exactly we’re shooting down over Alaska and Canada. We’re reasonably sure that a balloon with a car-sized payload was shot down over Alaska on Friday. The balloon was flying at 40,000 feet — about the same altitude as commercial jets. But the Pentagon doesn’t think the balloon was from China, given that it flew over the North Pole.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Canada's China Class", "China - Communist Slave State", Canada, USA

AI song generators threaten ‘lasting harm’ to artists, warns Universal

Musicians face an artificial intelligence nightmare from the rise of ChatGPT-like song generators, the world’s biggest record label has said.

Universal Music warned that AI-created music threatened “widespread and lasting harm” to artists and threatened a Napster-style crisis without robust copyright protections.

So-called generative AI models have already caused uproar among illustrators for using human-produced work without compensation to create art. The rise of ChatGPT, which produces authentic-seeming poems and essays, has caused concern from publishers about a tidal wave of AI-generated material.

It won’t take much to top the crap that passes for modern pop music.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"AI - Artificial Intelligence"

Roger Waters: Anti-Israel but pro-Russia

After years of trying to sell his Antisemitism and anti-Israel hate, Roger Waters has turned his attention to convincing the world of his feelings about the Russian invasion of Ukraine (Russia good, Ukraine bad).

Roger Waters, the man who broke up the band Pink Floyd, sang the above song on “Dark Side of the Moon,” one of the greatest albums ever. Note for some of you, who are in their 30s or younger when Dark Side came out, an album was a collection of audio recordings issued on a vinyl disc. packaged in a cardboard sleeve. “Dark Side of the Moon” holds the record for being on the Billboard top album/tape list longer than any other album in Billboard history, 969 weeks (18.5 years).

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAnti-Semitism and the Left

Grieving a daughter’s Covid death in Wuhan – while being surveilled

It’s been three years since Yang Min’s only child, Yuxi, died. The 24-year-old had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was admitted to hospital in mid-January 2020 in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the earliest coronavirus cases were detected.

Wuhan was the first place in China – and the world – to be locked down to stop the spread of Covid. The announcement came in the early hours of 23 January and it sent people, scared and uncertain, fleeing into the night.

That city-wide lockdown, lasting 76 days, would become integral to China’s zero-Covid playbook. The country has now scrapped the policy and recently announced that the current wave, driven by a hasty reopening, is drawing to a close.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"China eats weird animals disease"

‘Woke’ companies risk inciting ‘hostile’ public, research finds

Britons ‘cynical’ and ‘tired’ of attempts by big business to force political views on employees and customers, according to Policy Exchange

Corporate culture wars are making the public “hostile”, companies have been warned as a major piece of research is launched into the rise of “woke” in the workplace.

Britons are “cynical” and “tired” of attempts by big business to force political views on employees and customers, according to Policy Exchange.

New polling by the think-tank reveals that the majority of the public (58 per cent) reject the suggestion that companies should be able to demand that their employees declare gender pronouns.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Corporate Social Justice Warriors", Uncategorized

“I was sold for $200 as a sex slave… And they say they’re oppressed because people can’t follow their pronouns they invent every day?”

North Korea defector compares woke US ideology, education to regime tactics

“They were in Manhattan, living in the freest country you can imagine, and they’re saying they’re oppressed? It doesn’t even compute,” Yeonmi Park told The Post of students at her alma mater, Columbia University. “I was sold for $200 as a sex slave in the 21st century under the same sky. And they say they’re oppressed because people can’t follow their pronouns they invent every day?”

The 29-year-old defected from North Korea as a young teen, only to be human-trafficked in China. In 2014, she became one of just 200 North Koreans to live in the United States — and, as of last year, is an American citizen.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Peak Woke"

‘Unidentified object’ downed over Lake Huron, 3rd this week

WASHINGTON (AP) — An “unidentified object” was shot down Sunday for the third time in as many days, this time over Lake Huron, after earlier ones in Alaska and Canada, U.S. officials said.

Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., tweeted that “the object has been downed by pilots from the U.S. Air Force and National Guard.” The shootdown was confirmed by two U.S. officials who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

U.S. and Canadian authorities had restricted some airspace over the lake earlier Sunday as planes were scrambled to intercept and try to identify the object.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA, WTF?

Antifa Clash with Protesters Outside Drag Queen Story Hour

Far-left Antifa radicals clashed with protesters outside a performance of Drag Queen Story Hour for small children at the Tate Britain museum in London on Saturday.

At least one arrest was made as leftist counter-protesters clashed with people demonstrating against a Drag Queen Story Hour show for young children hosted by the Tate Britain museum in Central London by infamous ‘Aida H Dee’, an autistic biological male born as Sab Samuel.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"They really do want your children", Antifa, Big Tranny, WTF?