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Microchip implants are dystopian, but they’re coming to a store near you

By Mecca Fowler

Editor’s note: The opinions expressed here are those of the authors. View more opinion on ScoonTV.

Merging human beings with technology has long been science fiction. But as technology progresses and the internet advances in ways previously not thought possible, there is a genuine desire to have humanity microchipped coming from multiple angles. Most people in the world probably still believe that it is a conspiracy or that there aren’t people with a vested interest in microchipping humans, but that is sadly not the case. Others argue that because we are already accustomed to tech wearables that track our health and movements like Apple watches and Fitbits, microchipping is the natural next step in evolution. 

In fact, Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), stated openly in a 2016 interview that he believes by the year 2026 we could all be wearing RFID chips on our clothes and eventually in our brains and under our skin. He talks about using “neuro-technological brain enhancements” soon in his book “The Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

Pekka Lundmark, President of Nokia, has plainly stated that as technology advances and the sixth generation (6G) network is developed, smart devices will be implanted inside human bodies, forgoing the need for smartphones.

In 2013, Motorola executives showed off an ingestible chip manufactured by Proteus Digital Health that makes your entire body an “authentication token.”

Many of these ventures start by making the offer to purchase their products voluntarily. They persuade the public by promising safety, health, and convenience among other things. There may be an initial excitement about the new product, but when the dust settles, public acceptance of their product is limited. The company then gets in the pockets of politicians and the media (if they weren’t already) to persuade the masses to adopt the new technology. Eventually, the company’s mask slips after trying to wear the public down and they state the obvious. They want to normalize everyone purchasing their product regardless of need.

Such was the case of a company called VeriChip in the early 2000s. VeriChip set out on a mission to get people to take their injectable RFID chips initially under the pretense of health. It was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2004. Coincidentally, Tommy G. Thompson, the Secretary of Health and Human Services at the time, was made a board member a year later.

It was first advertised as a health device that users might choose to use, similar to how a medical alert bracelet provides life-saving details about a wearer’s medical history. It eventually grew to offer the chip to do other things. 

In 2004, VeriChip was offered to guests at Baja Beach Club in Spain to gain access to their VIP area. VIP patrons could scan the chip upon entry and make purchases within the club, foregoing the need of carrying identification and payment cards.

Scott Silverman, then-CEO of VeriChip, admitted to wanting to use the technology beyond its original stated purposes. Silverman once touted that the chip might be used as a credit card. Additionally, he appeared on Fox & Friends in 2006 to advocate for the chipping of foreign guest workers so that their tax records could be tracked. There were even rumors of using the technology to track inmates.

In 2010, CBS revealed many of the VeriChip critics’ worst fears were true. The company was not simply aiming to capture medical patients as its target audience. They wanted everyone implanted. Around this same time, VeriChip, going by the name Positive ID, acquired a national credit monitoring service. This further raised suspicions that the microchip could be scanned to show a person’s credit rating.

There were protests and growing resistance to RFID technology in the early 2000’s. Once the company realized that the public had no interest in their product, it faded out of the public discourse and headlines. There are however still elements of what the company tried to do being paraded in niche science and health communities. The efforts to get humans microchipped will not go away. 

Currently, there are two similar initiatives (that I am aware of) attempting to go mainstream. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has provided funding for an effort to store people’s medical history under their skin via “infrared quantum dots.” The agenda to push this technology under the pretense of health is all too familiar. Then there’s Elon Musk. The billionaire’s startup Neuralink, a device implemented into the brain promising to be a brain-machine interface, is currently under investigation for allegedly killing 1500 animals.

The concept of microchips being inserted into humans on a large scale may sound ridiculous, but it could happen. The more sectors this technology ventures into, and the more public acceptance becomes normalized, microchipping could become standard. Look at how easy it was for Apple to get us to gradually accept facial recognition and thumbprints forgoing passwords to unlock our iPhones. Societal and peer pressure could persuade even those who think they are too smart to fall for such gimmicks. 

In fact, VeriChip CEO Scott Silverman detailed how the technology would gradually become normalized. When asked about people that had concerns over the technology, he said,

“When the acceptance rate of the product goes up significantly like it has, some of the privacy concerns go down. What most people are concerned with is the invasiveness of this. That it goes in your body and as we know with pacemakers and other medical devices that when people accept it for its applications and for its ability, it’s going to work its way into society. It won’t be tomorrow it won’t be next week but two, three, five years from now slowly but surely, it’ll work its way into the mainstream.”

We should never normalize making microchips in humans the standard of society. RFID microchips are not safe, not ethical, and an erosion of civil liberties, personal security, and privacy. They have been shown to cause cancer and tumors in rodents and dogs. The end goal is to usher in the ultimate surveillance state where everyone is chipped, and all their movements and financial transactions are monitored.

In conclusion, we were never meant to be cyborgs. The next step in human evolution cannot be fusing with technology. It is impractical and goes against the divine laws of nature. Although technological advances in the medical field such as pacemakers may have saved lives since their inception, the key difference is they were confined on a case-by-case basis and have not been nudged or obligated onto the public in mass.

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Mecca Fowler

Writer

Mecca Fowler is a passionate writer with a background in journalism and social media management. She is a free-speech advocate who hones in on her ability to reach across political spectrums to have engaging and transformative conversations to push the conscious of American culture forward.

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