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There is now an open conversation to prepare people in the U.S. to view it as their moral responsibility to allow their phones to be traced. Christian ethicists and religious leaders, including pastors, will be asked to support this as a way to contribute to humankind.
Francis Collins has been on my radar for over a decade, due to his connections with the National Prayer Breakfast and his funding from the Templeton Foundation. In the mode of never-waste-a-crisis, this will be an opportunity to sell surveillance to people as an act of love.
I was too tired last night to write about this as anything but farce. But it isn’t at all funny. It is dangerous. The success of South Korea has already been used in commentary as a model for the future, with Italy presented as individualistic and backwards.
On the Media ran a pithy essay on the conversation in Israel about surveillance. The ways that Christian spokesmen will be asked to convince Christians that surveillance is for the good of others may be formally similar. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/when-coronavirus-isnt-only-crisis
The pandemic is in some ways a perfect storm. Fear, conflicts between something obviously within the realm of SCIENCE and showcased examples of Christian people who were too outside the established norms of decency to comply with orders. These stories were broadcast repeatedly.
The intertwining of fear of the disease with fear of being perceived as an outlier nut job who just won’t stop worshipping and, now, a selfish cretin who just won’t wear a mask, is going on in real time. Eventually I will try to write about formal similarities to post-9/11.
But for now, please at least be informed that the Templeton Foundation, who funded Collins’s effort to connect RELIGION and SCIENCE, is problematic and very powerful. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/147470491100900111
And, PS, if you are happy with people tracing your phone for the good of humanity etc note that the Templeton Foundation has been happy to sell tobacco and fossil fuels, so, yeah, they care about humanity.
@ACLU please tell me you wonderful people are on this?
