Do you think Dictator Dan will incorporate this in Victoria? Have parts already been incorporated?
This is not a case of 'if' this happens, it is a case of 'when' this happens. We are already on the slippery slope, it just so happens that the Chinese this time are ahead of us, no doubt with the aid of Western technology. The Chinese are also ahead with their citizens complying without thinking twice. That shouldn't come as a surprise since the Chinese have been using rigorous brainwashing of a certain kind on a large scale, ever since the father of modern communist China Mao walked the earth.
(Did I just say
'communist' China? - hm... what has that got to do with it?)
It seems that our modern style democracies are not that much different to communism after all. We are headed the same way, albeit not as blatantly as China. Where the Chinese authorities simply slap new rules on their citizenry without bothering to give an explanation, we in the West use the carrot and stick approach. "If you do as we ask, you'll get a little reward."
'Sign up' or 'open an account' and you'll get a discount on your first purchase and notifications in your inbox for special offers. Who could resist that?
...or, get our latest smart phone with facial recognition and you won't have to remember a pass code. Cool!
...and so it goes. We just lap it up - anything to make our lives 'easier'.
We are so lazy that we'd rather hand over even more of our private data to Google by buying into Youtube's special account, which we have to pay for, to be able to stream videos without the annoying advertisements... when a free app such as adblock gets rid of ads without having to tell Google what colour bloomers grandma is wearing today.
We also know that in China credit ratings are already being used. In short, if you fall below a certain credit rating, you can no longer buy train and plane tickets etc. In supermarkets what you purchase is fed to that credit rating center and when for example your shopping basket contains alcoholic drinks, that too is registered and noted. Needless to say, alcohol consumption diminishes your credit worth.
How awful! ...we exclaim. Yet we too have already been conditioned into giving ratings freely - like - or dislike... friend or unfriend. Like children in a candy store we grab everything we can and consume as much as we can, oblivious of the health risks.
So WHEN this happens to a degree we longer can control, it won't be down on Dan... or any other leader. It will be down to you and me.