We spilled a lot of ink during 2017 discussing blockchain,
cryptocurrencies and our concerns surrounding these technologies. We
covered our the possibility of the dark side being the one true side to the
massive explosion in adaption of these technologies. We have seen banks, wine
and governments all moving onto blockchain technology.
Now we have fish being tracked on the blockchain.
The experience started by showing attendees a short documentary film
called “Bait to Plate,” that charted the journey of a person-sized Yellowfin
tuna caught in the waters off Fiji, an archipelago in the South Pacific
Ocean.
The documentary followed the fish from being caught to being packaged to
being shipped all the way to plates of attendees at the conference.
Viant co-founder Kishore Atreya told CoinDesk, “Those who ate the sushi
knew exactly where their fish was coming from.” Source
While this is all very exciting and shows the how a person can track their
food from seed to harvest to who’s eating it, we have seen, time and time
again, this type of technology developed for the good humanity be
turned on it’s head and find itself being used against humanity.
I understand this may be a bit of a stretch but what about your cell
phone, smart TV and “home assistant” like Alexa or google? How are these
technologies being utilized today? While they are awesome at their base, they
are extremely draconian at their core. These are the tools of the
surveillance industrial complex that provide the single largest piece of data
on each individual. Now we have blockchain technology that is being presented
as the coolest piece of technology since the PC and internet and we at The
Daily Coin continue to ask, what cost does this technology explosion come
with? Inevitably we don’t like the end result.
Atreya’s comment hints at the problem many blockchain enthusiasts believe
the technology can solve – that in today’s global economy, it’s hard for
businesses and consumers to know how their goods were acquired. This is not
only important for people interested in only supporting the eco-friendly,
sustainable and equitable trade of goods, but also in stopping the spread of
food-borne illnesses, which have thus far been hard to pinpoint and control.
As it relates to tuna sourcing in Fiji, consumers are becoming more aware
that some of the fisheries are using slave labor, and in an effort to cut
that off so it doesn’t continue, want better insight into the process at its
very beginning. Source
If these same perimeters are tweaked to track people from first encounter
(grade school, high school, church, work, online dating service, etc.) to
dating to conception to birth, all throughout life and ultimately death, each
person can be tracked and every aspect of their life detailed in a database.
I understand most people are going to write this off as being paranoid.
That’s fine. Once “social credits” move West and blockchain technology is more
incorporated into our lives we will see who is paranoid and who’s every
breath is being accounted for, literally, on a database.
