Heard about this on the radio (on my way to Church Sunday), and it seems (at least) a little chilling.
foxnews.com/story/0,2933,520331,00.html
To really work, wouldn’t every citizen have to get such a device implanted?
Who knows who will become a criminal, terrorist, or political dissident tomorrow (pr-lifer’s, returning war veterans, Evangelical Christians?)
Yip!–I had seen this mentioned in my daily news digest outlet. (I like to use fark.com to find interesting internet news items and articles. 
)
As noted, it will probably fail pass in Germany (who tend to be touchy about anything that might smack of FINAL SOLUTION protocols anymore. 
) Not too surprising it would be invented at all. Would be interesting to learn why the inventor didn’t seek a patent in some Muslim country (like, for example, Saudi Arabia, which is one of the most repressive regimes on the planet.)
An end-times author of my acquaintance will doubtless be slotting this into place. 
Thanks Jason.
I think it’s interesting that at the very time this technology becomes available, there are major issues that must make it attractive to humanistic one-worlders (i.e. security issues such as Islamic terrorism, domestic terrorism, the threat of nuclear and biological terrorism; and political issues such as preparedness and accountability in the wake of 911 and Katrina.)
Pax.
I’m sure it was looked into (if rejected as too impractical) the last 72 times we’ve had such major issues in the modern world. 
(I lived through the 70s, 80s and 90s. Some people tell me the 60s and even the 50s weren’t exactly the millennial kingdom… 
And that’s only in the West; in the rest of the world, things have been worse.)
Which is not to say that it isn’t a sign of the coming end. But there will always be wars disasters and rumors of wars. We were certainly never promised otherwise. (On the contrary, we were warned that we will always have these with us and that they are not yet the end.)
That being said: this fellow developed it to meet the cultural environment we have. And he’ll have takers somewhere. (Indeed, someone is likely to take him, and take it from him, without paying for it…)
I lived through the 70s, 80s and 90s too, and I can testify to the fact that it wasn’t the millennium.
But I don’t think the technology we’re talking about existed then (and neither did the threat of nuclear terrorism from non-nation paramilitary organizations like Hamas, Hizballah, the Taliban, etc.)
Come to think of it, neither did the trend toward world globalization, serous talk of one world currency, or a public sympathy for the Palestinian cause.
(During the last Presidential campaign, John Edwards said he considered the United States and Israel the greatest threats to world peace.)
True
The point I was making is that it’s becoming practical now, when we have the current issues I’ve mentioned.
That just seems a little odd to me (hence the title of this thread.)
Thanks for your input Jason (and God Bless.)
I think things of this sort would have always been going on, whenever the technology became practical.
i.e., I might consider the technology itself to be a significant sign, rather like I would consider the re-establishment of the Temple and a one-world government to be checkmarks on things that have to happen. The uses for the chip, though, are pretty much perennial. The details alter, somewhat; their existence is not significant.
If I seem especially critical about this kind of thing, it’s because my church has always been pretty heavily invested in end-time predictions. And yes, back in the 70s and 80s, and the 90s, One World Government concerns were in the air (pro and con) just like it always had been since the founding of the United Nations; public support for the Palestinians (as rebel underdogs against Israeli oppressors) was pretty common everywhere but in the US (and if it wasn’t for our strong religious connections to Israel we’d’ve probably had public support here sooner); there was a lot of concern about rogue governments and terrorist groups stealing or building nuclear weapons (70s, Black Sunday, 80s Back to the Future, 90s The Sum of All Fears, Peacemaker, to give some highly popular entertainment versions of that trope out of very, very many that could be mentioned) or, more likely, being given nuclear support in an escalating war kicked off by Chinese and/or Soviet superpower governments; and there was even a lot of talk of one-world currency.
Believe me, Hal Lindsey and similar authors kept us quite stoked and up-to-date on all that kind of thing, altering their forecast every few years to adjust for current events. It didn’t slow down at the turn of the millennium, to say the least.
I like high-detail epic world-ending eschatological conspiracy plots as much as anyone. (I’m supposed to be editing a novel for a series of that, right now, instead of commenting here on the boards with my free time. ) I’m just saying, I had to learn to critically distinguish significant plot-points and timing cues.
A tracking death-switch finally being invented? Significant cue. Cultural malaise that would make people long for a one-world government that could be helped in its implementation by a tracking death-switch? Not a significant cue–we’ve had that forever. (Remote tracking identification with hey, maybe an execution option, was a staple of the end-time theorists when I was growing up, embedded in our heads or our primary hands, or both. Sure, it still had to be developed–and lo, here it finally is!–but the temptations to implement the thing were already long in place.)
Not serious talk of the kind I was speaking of.
Was it Obama or Timothy Geitner who said he’d be open to the idea of one world currency?
Can you imagine anyone in the Carter, Reagan, or Clinton administrations making a public comment like that (in the 70’s, 80’s, or 90’s)?
In evangelical and heterodox (i.e. JW) circles, yes.
But was the necessity and inevitability of world globalization the (almost daily) topic of discussion in college and university classrooms?
But that’s my point.
We’re not just talking about Hal Lindsey and similar authors anymore.
Again, that’s the point.
It would have been unthinkable for a U.S, presidential candidate to publicly state that he believed America and Israel to be the greatest threats to world peace in the 70’s, 80’s, or 90’s.
I’d like to read that when it’s published Jason.
You may be right, but something in the air still seems odd to me.
God Bless.
Sure! They called it some Dutch or French word dating back to the time of the settlement of eastern North America. “Dollar”, or something like that.
We were, and to some extent still are, the world’s currency–even today, as sucky as things look in the US, the dollar is miles ahead of anyone else in actual strength (not counting fluctuations due to speculation on the ForEx).
The main difference today is that with the widespread global national bankruptcy (which in fact we’ve been living in for many years now, just with continually deferred consequences, like drinking tequila to temporarily cure a hangover), there’s an increasingly good chance that everyone will default together; at which time a true joint operation among all the world’s governments to basically forgive each other’s debts (like a jubilee) and start over clean, would facilitate a new one-world currency, as well as lay positive groundwork for a cooperative one-world government. It wouldn’t even need all the nations to work, just a quorum (say 2/3 majority). If all the major players cash in, it’ll be virtually impossible for any small-to-tiny players not to go along for the ride–unless enough medium-sized players decide to form a competitive blok together, to give the small-to-tiny players another real option. (Possible, but unlikely. Or maybe not so unlikely, if “enough medium-sized players” includes all Muslim countries finally getting their act together on a global cooperation scale. Seriously scary in itself, even if they succeed only temporarily but then devolve into internecine warfare over who gets to be the true inheritor of Mohammad. “Hi!–I’m the 12th Imam!” says Obama, perhaps. Unlikely they’ll accept that, but I expect more than a few people to make the claim if the Islamic superstate finally gets going.)
Yes. It was called “world socialism”. Still is, by people who don’t like it.
It’s hard now to really comprehend just how much the ‘intellectual elite’ kept pushing socialism/communism, during the 70s, 80s and 90s, up to virtually the hour the Berlin Wall fell. (The conservative culture journal First Things had an interesting article on this last month.) Now that capitalism looks exposed to fall under its own abusive failures, it shouldn’t be surprising to hear neo-socialism back on the menu.
I’ll give you that one! It’s also a position that has managed to wildly annoy a lot of Obama’s supporters. (At which time they suddenly discovered that the “tolerance” of the Democratic Party only extends to those who support whatever Obama is doing and saying at any time.)
But, to be fair, during the 70s, 80s and 90s (and early 00s), there looked to be a two or three other huge “threats to world peace”. But now the Russians are only busy fighting with each other (instead of glowering across their borders at Western Europe and invading Afghanistan), and hey, the Muslim terrorists haven’t blown up any American office buildings in at least seven years or so. So who’s the only threat anymore? Must be us!
That first hyperlink in my sig goes to the Amazon page where Book 1 is for sale. (You can buy donated copies pretty cheap, too. ) It’s a nice hardback dust-jacketed book, 444 pages, standard size, standard market price (around $16.00 new plus shipping), available from pretty much any internet retail outlet known to man (though Amazon keeps some stocked in their warehouse.)
Won a small award for CSPA 2007 Novel of the Year, too. (I do mean ‘small’–although it was a retailer poll, I only had one competitor for the category, and for all I know one retailer voted and I got the vote. )
You can find a bunch of links to reviews, previews and articles, here at booktour.com. (Be aware that the pieces sometimes contain serious plot spoilers.)
You can also page through about 95% of the book for free (up through the final few chapters) at books.google.com.
I’m supposed to be editing Book 2 (and finishing composing Book 3) this summer. I’m currently two days behind schedule, though; largely because I keep coming back here to contribute during my free time rather than working! 
I said I’d like to read the book your working on now when it’s published (and I wasn’t being sarcastic I sain that Jason.)
Pax.
Does that mean you just want to read part 2 of a trilogy? 
??? … I hadn’t thought you were being sarcastic. I couldn’t tell from what you’ve said that you had already read Book 1; and it’s unusual for people (as Jeff said) to read Book 2 of a trilogy first. So I pointed you to the product already available (plus a bunch of information on it, pro and con, to help refine if you really wanted to read it before spending money on it. I try to be fair. 
) It isn’t terribly obvious that my hyperlink below connects to the product already available, and it’s the easiest way to get there from here; but you could order it from anywhere else on the internet, too, according to your preferences, so I didn’t want you to think you were locked into going through Amazon. (I would be quite pleased for people to order the thing through Target.com or Walmart.com or whatever. 
Maybe moreso than through Amazon! The shipping time won’t be much different; it’s only a matter of moving a piece of stock through one more warehouse. Amazon’s advantage, at the moment, is that they already have them in stock.)
No, it meant that I’d like to read the project Jason was currently editing when it was published (assuming that it wasn’t available online.)
I’m glad of that, and I’d like to thank you for correcting my typo.
I had to post that reply in hast (as I have no internet access at home, and Smith Hall’s computing center was getting ready to close when I posted it.)
No it isn’t, and I meant to ask you a couple of times (at the risk of sounding too cheep to buy a book) if any of your fictional work was available online.
Thank you.
There are full pdf copies for sale online from various sources, although I have to admit that at the moment I don’t quite remember where. (I suppose atlas.com would work as well as any, since they’re my distributors. But a search for the phrase “Cry of Justice” on the net should turn up some ebook retailers, too.)
I would have formatted the thing for Amazon Kindle long ago, but Kindle’s formatting rules wouldn’t work well with my book. Technical issues. (Kindle doesn’t like pdfs, and my format probably has to be locked for best reading–which Kindle doesn’t allow. Not a bad thing at all on Kindle’s part, but inconvenient in my case.)
Most of the first book is available for perusal as a pdf entirely for free at books.google.com, too.
Lastly, Amazon (as noted before) has several deals on full hardback dustjacketed copies for around US$4.00 + shipping (roughly another US$4 for stateside shipping. Some independent shops in Britain have some copies for sale, but the price will be much higher I think.) I would essentially lose two books’ worth of sales with the ultra-low Amazon independent sellers, because they’re selling off a few of the roughly 770 promo copies I’ve sent out (most of them in the autumn of 2007); but at least my Amazon ranking would be positively affected. (I don’t know that any promo copies are currently for sale outside the States. I’ve seen a couple over the years, but not currently. Good Lord I feel old, realizing that it will have been years, plural, this September… sigh. Extra-old feeling: the daughter of a girl I had a minor crush on in high-school, and would have dated except that she was already in a relationship the two or three times I was in a position to try, graduated high-school Friday night. Story of my life… 
Good for her, though. )
Thanks for the interest!