I got rid of mine when they brought in mandatory QR check-ins during the lockdowns and have never looked back. I still have a small tablet I use at home for reading ebooks and browsing Nostr, so I'm not going to pretend I'm entirely free of the smart trap, but it's a big difference from carrying a 5G surveillance device around in your pocket at all times.
Discussion
Man I don't blame you for any of that. It didn't get quite as prison-guard as that here, but almost until the free press turned it all around. There's still the threat of CBDC's here and £38bn (or something like that) was spent on some kind of new digital infrastructure in the name of safety that we haven't seen or heard of since. I can only imagine, and dread, what that was for.
Yeah I never joined the shartphone (no typo there) club. I'm probably being a little too harsh by calling it that. The tech is very impressive, but I've never wanted to take that step towards full-on interconnection. The web is already in my brain. I don't want it in my pocket, too.
I was becoming more radicalised against them before the lockdowns, having seen just how corrosive they've been to society and peoples' mental health but I kidded myself that I needed one for my business. When everything went to shit in Melbourne my focus switched to how many pandemic laws I could break (all of them, I'm proud to say) and what I could do to throw sand in the gears of the system and make life a little bit more miserable for those who were enforcing it.
For my own business, I placed the QR code (which I was required to display after a customer threatened to rat me out to the cops) upside down and as low as possible in the window so customers had to get down on their knees to scan it. Some of them still did.
😂 You're an apocalyptic shit disturber. Awesome, man! I'm proud of you too. I can't say I followed the rules. Actually, that's an understatement. I didn't even get any jabs. The more subversive part of me enjoyed wearing a mask in public. I felt like a ninja. Childish, but funny. I'd wear one now just for general anonymity (and for a laugh).
Isn't it so sad and ridiculous how the state managed to turn people against each other? Come to think of it I'm not sure they even did. Perhaps the lockdowns and all the societal oppression brought out something in fearful people - That panic response that causes people to try to control others, and of course the buzz people get when they think they have power. It's turning around now though, right? I don't want to be the one who says 'I told you so' but what I don't hear people saying to me these days is bullshit like 'you're selfish' and 'I don't agree with you' and 'you're killing people'. Those types avoid me now. It really sorted the boys from the men in my life.
Fly on, Brother!
It was fun at first, and I was pleased to discover that I was one of those who would stick to my principles. It did get exhausting though, particularly being a local business owner in a small community. When it became clear they were going to mandate the vaccines we shut down our businesses (my wife is self-employed too) and left the state.