I’m kind of surprised that some of the religious crowd isn’t unhappy about it.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_the_beast
Revelation also references a charagma (χάραγμα), translated as mark of the beast:
And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.— Revelation chapter 13:16–17
Some fundamentalist Christian groups, as well as various Christian writers in other traditions, interpret the mark as a requirement for all commerce to mean that the mark might actually be an object in the right hand or forehead with the function of a credit card, such as RFID microchip implants.[78] Some of these groups believe the implantation of chips may be the imprinting of the mark of the beast, prophesied to be a requirement for all trade and a precursor to God’s wrath.[79][80] Similar objections were raised about barcodes upon their introduction.[81]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, some groups associated COVID-19 vaccines and mask wearing with the mark of the beast, or that it was a microchip in the vaccine.[82] Some religious leaders spoke out against this as a misinterpretation of Revelation 13:16-18.[83] Medical institutions such as Hennepin County Medical Center noted this in their fact sheets about the vaccine.[84] A similar version was spread by Marjorie Taylor Greene, who referred to vaccine passports as being the mark of the beast.[85]
KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 4 weeks ago
Seriously, why aren’t all of the ‘Covid vaccines are implanting microchips’ conspiracy theorists losing their goddamn minds over Neuralink?
kami@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
Because 99% of them are Trump and Musk’s ass lickers
KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
Because when the antichrist (no seriously, look it up, i’m convinced Trump is the Antichrist) does it they line up and give him the good sloppy
AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Well you need someone to control the narrative, so if there’s no one being tasked by an administration to actively spread a conspiracy, it’s harder to get people to embrace it.
Reuters reported last summer that the Pentagon had a campaign to spread online disinformation about China’s vaccine Doesn’t really seem too far fetched to think something similar was used against Americans by the same people that would now benefit from Americans being blissfully unaware of how dangerous it is to put one of these chips in their brain. After all, it has an official breakthrough tag now, and if it was really so dangerous “why would the FDA approve it?”
Not sure if you remember, but we were also one of the only countries that tried to downplay the effectiveness of people wearing masks during the earliest days of the pandemic. That was one I never could figure out, but I’m pretty suspicious that was also part of a targeted disinformation campaign.
March 2020 White House seeks assistance from tech companies in fight against coronavirus
So with all those people and their resources controlling the narrative, why would we then be spreading misinformation about masking? Why would anybody care if large numbers of Americans were covering their face to stop the spread of disease?
I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I do feel like the public should be more aware that Trump’s former CTO and current science advisor, the guy who was also tasked with preventing online disinformation being spread during COVID, was also tirelessly promoting deregulated facial recognition technology long before anyone was considering masking in public would be common in the U.S.
Nov 2019: Trump CTO Addresses AI, Facial Recognition, Immigration, Tech Infrastructure, and More