Signs of the end - Uber (yes, really!)

[tango]

It might not be immediately apparent what Uber has to do with signs of the end times, but roll with me a while.

A friend recently linked a post on Faceache that described the plight of one particular Uber driver. The gist of the story was that he was a member of an ethnic minority who refused to carry a passenger who was racially offensive towards him. The passenger complained, and Uber cut off the driver. In keeping with much of modern so-called journalism the article focused on the driver's side of the story while printing little more than a very standard "corporate fluff" statement from Uber about how no, they would never do such a thing.

Regardless of the merits or otherwise in this particular story, it's an eye-opener for a few reasons if we scratch the surface of the story.

Here we see a man, largely reliant on a particular software platform to support his family, cut off with apparently no right of appeal by the corporation who presumably have no shortage of other drivers waiting to fill his shoes. Without wishing to focus exclusively on Uber (as Uber is merely the company that happens to have been highlighted here) the increasing trend towards the so-called "gig economy" where software platforms bring a willing buyer and a willing seller together could be either a dream or a nightmare. A dream in the sense that people don't need to be tied to any particular employer, any particular working hours, and can work as many or as few hours as they see fit. A nightmare in the sense that a computer glitch could stop you earning for a time, and a falling out with whoever manages the platform could mean your income goes away with little more than a click of a mouse.

Thinking about how this sort of power, concentrated in relatively few hands, could be misused leads to all sorts of dystopian visions. Quite aside from one man finding himself unable to continue to make a living as an Uber driver, the way more and more communication is done via Faceache and Twitter leaves us vulnerable to becoming social outcasts in the event of having our accounts deactivated there. In a society that is ever-more tolerant of everything except disagreement, it's not hard to see how people who maintain a Christian line can look forward to being removed from social media.

Taking it a fairly small step further, given the relentless move towards a cashless society what happens if someone in a faceless corporation decides to deactivate your credit card or your debit card? Now you can't buy or sell, because there's no cash any more and your card doesn't work.

This clearly isn't trying to say that Uber in particular has any theological significance, but the article that related to Uber does, I think, highlight one possible way the mark of the beast could fairly easily be enforced.

 

[Andrew]

I bought a cd boxset of an audio book "the world is flat" from a library used. It has nothing to due with the world being flat but its a business man rambling on about the age of hardware removed and replaced by software. It gets into the core mind of social networking and faceless corporations. Its not meant to be scary but it does boggle the mind how easy economy can collapse with a computer bug.

Sent from my LGLS755 using Tapatalk

 

[tango]

I bought a cd boxset of an audio book "the world is flat" from a library used. It has nothing to due with the world being flat but its a business man rambling on about the age of hardware removed and replaced by software. It gets into the core mind of social networking and faceless corporations. Its not meant to be scary but it does boggle the mind how easy economy can collapse with a computer bug.

Sent from my LGLS755 using Tapatalk

Yep, when you think that something as simple as taking down the power grid for 72 hours would cause such widespread chaos there's a significant chance society would simply cease to function. Take it down for a month and you'd most likely have anarchy. Heck, look at the way some folks struggle if the power is out for even a couple of hours to get a sense of what it would be like after a week.

 

[NewCreation435]

We are all more vulnerable than we realize when you look at how Equifax was hacked and much of their information was compromised, which affects most of us in America.
Years ago I worked with a credit card company where several bags of trash was not thrown away properly and ended up being found in a public park. It has account numbers and all kinds of personal info in it. That made the front page of the paper and led to a lot of shredding boxes being placed around the office from that point on.

 

[Imalive]

Ken Peters dreamt that about the trib in the eighties:

At that point, all electronic devices including televisions, telephones, radios, and computers all over the world were shut down for two weeks. I don’t know what caused them to shut down. The shutdown caused people everywhere to be alarmed. It was very disruptive to businesses everywhere.
After about two weeks electronic devices started working again. However, everything had changed. The content of what was being broadcasted was completely different. The message being broadcast was depicting a coming new world government and leadership. They announced that a man to lead the new world government would soon appear.