April 22, 2025
Genesis of the Mark
Timothy Birdnow
Sam's club is about to phase out checkers in favor of an ap that will have customers "scan and go" as they shop.
This means that anyone without a smart phone will be out of luck as it will require you scan a QR code with your smart phone.
Sam wants to eliminate human checkers in favor of this approach and no doubt if they succeed with this it will spread like a plague and everyone will be doing it. That means you will have to have this technology or die. Old folks (increasingly like me) will not be able to buy necessities. You have to join the Beast and take the mark thereof.
It would be fine if it was just an option, but it's been an option for almost a decade now. What Sams wants to do is make it mandatory.
And soon Sam's will refuse to take cash as well in all probability, making the control of the consumer complete. Why not just tattoo a QR code on everyone's hand or forehead? It's the logical next step.
I don't have a smart phone nor do I especially want one at this point. I find myself increasingly believing they are a great evil that will be our ruin in days to come. Certainly they have destroyed people's attention spans, destroyed human relations, and destroyed our ability to function without some sort of external direction. Who knows how to get around on highways anymore, outside of their limited areas? Who can read a map? Who can actually compose a blogpost like this one? I can and you, my readers, can too no doubt, but the young certainly are unable. Conversation is a lost art among them too. Increasingly the young simply obey machines and cannot function without them. This way leads to utter disaster.
The problem with this amazing technology we now have (and it IS amazing) is it is so convenient and you wind up using it for everything. But human beings are not intended for the easy path, and we lose our adaption to our environment when times are too easy. God didn't make us for paradise on Earth; we are here to struggle. Even if you do not believe in God you probably believe in evolution, and all of the history of life on Earth has been about struggle and the adaptation that that struggle gives us. What is happening now is our technology is eliminating or greatly reducing that struggle, and we grow ever more dependent on the machines that have revolutionized our lives. I do not begudge anyone that. Certainly agriculture made life easier for the starving hunter-gatherers who suddenly had a steady supply of food. Horses made life better (and allowed us to build armies capable of wiping out our neighbors and stealing what was theirs.) Fire made life better (and burned down people's homes or burned them). I am no luddite. But like anything else it must be the servant and not the master, It is becoming the master now. And it is too much, there is too much of it, we can no longer do things for ourselves. Ruin usually comes on the heels of that.
Take the Bronze Age. It was a great time - technology was revolutionizing society, there was more than enough food, and the world was largely at peace. But the great nations of the Bronze Age became too dependent on international trade; when the Sea People showed up they disrupted supply chains and all the great nations fell. The world was thrown into chaos.
Our era now is much like that, or like the last days of Rome. The machines have given all that to us, and they may just as likely take that all away. When society crumbles the majority won't be able to problem solve because they are so addicted to machines, to the machine telling them what to do. Tthe fall will be terrible.
Take going on a trip. When I was young you went to AAA to get a trip tick, a map (or series of maps) showing you how to get where you wanted to go. You had to be able to read maps and understand how to translate that into what you did with your car. You often got lost but usually could find your way back to a road that would take you back to your route. You had to have a good spatial sense; it was a skill everyone developed.
No longer. Most people can't go a mile without the GPS sytem to tell them exactly what to do. They are the servants and the machine is the master, and if the machine should fail they will be completely lost. You see that with young people today when their phones are out of power; wandering around helpless. They are like the Borg on Star Trek Next Generation; cut off from the collective and they are lost.
When the modern equivalent of the Sea People come and supply chains are broken and there is chaos most folks will just lay down and die - or accept the worst form of tyranny just to be safe. The Middle Ages started that way and we call it the Dark Ages yet the dark age that is coming will make the six hundreds look positively cheery and enlightened.
So I find this to be not just a bit disturbing a development. Maybe I'm just an old coot, incapable of change. But I have reasons for not liking these machines.
The Bible warns that in the last days everyone will have to take the mark of the Beast or he won'tbe able to "buy or sell". I think this is the beginning of the mark.
Sam's club is about to phase out checkers in favor of an ap that will have customers "scan and go" as they shop.
This means that anyone without a smart phone will be out of luck as it will require you scan a QR code with your smart phone.
Sam wants to eliminate human checkers in favor of this approach and no doubt if they succeed with this it will spread like a plague and everyone will be doing it. That means you will have to have this technology or die. Old folks (increasingly like me) will not be able to buy necessities. You have to join the Beast and take the mark thereof.
It would be fine if it was just an option, but it's been an option for almost a decade now. What Sams wants to do is make it mandatory.
And soon Sam's will refuse to take cash as well in all probability, making the control of the consumer complete. Why not just tattoo a QR code on everyone's hand or forehead? It's the logical next step.
I don't have a smart phone nor do I especially want one at this point. I find myself increasingly believing they are a great evil that will be our ruin in days to come. Certainly they have destroyed people's attention spans, destroyed human relations, and destroyed our ability to function without some sort of external direction. Who knows how to get around on highways anymore, outside of their limited areas? Who can read a map? Who can actually compose a blogpost like this one? I can and you, my readers, can too no doubt, but the young certainly are unable. Conversation is a lost art among them too. Increasingly the young simply obey machines and cannot function without them. This way leads to utter disaster.
The problem with this amazing technology we now have (and it IS amazing) is it is so convenient and you wind up using it for everything. But human beings are not intended for the easy path, and we lose our adaption to our environment when times are too easy. God didn't make us for paradise on Earth; we are here to struggle. Even if you do not believe in God you probably believe in evolution, and all of the history of life on Earth has been about struggle and the adaptation that that struggle gives us. What is happening now is our technology is eliminating or greatly reducing that struggle, and we grow ever more dependent on the machines that have revolutionized our lives. I do not begudge anyone that. Certainly agriculture made life easier for the starving hunter-gatherers who suddenly had a steady supply of food. Horses made life better (and allowed us to build armies capable of wiping out our neighbors and stealing what was theirs.) Fire made life better (and burned down people's homes or burned them). I am no luddite. But like anything else it must be the servant and not the master, It is becoming the master now. And it is too much, there is too much of it, we can no longer do things for ourselves. Ruin usually comes on the heels of that.
Take the Bronze Age. It was a great time - technology was revolutionizing society, there was more than enough food, and the world was largely at peace. But the great nations of the Bronze Age became too dependent on international trade; when the Sea People showed up they disrupted supply chains and all the great nations fell. The world was thrown into chaos.
Our era now is much like that, or like the last days of Rome. The machines have given all that to us, and they may just as likely take that all away. When society crumbles the majority won't be able to problem solve because they are so addicted to machines, to the machine telling them what to do. Tthe fall will be terrible.
Take going on a trip. When I was young you went to AAA to get a trip tick, a map (or series of maps) showing you how to get where you wanted to go. You had to be able to read maps and understand how to translate that into what you did with your car. You often got lost but usually could find your way back to a road that would take you back to your route. You had to have a good spatial sense; it was a skill everyone developed.
No longer. Most people can't go a mile without the GPS sytem to tell them exactly what to do. They are the servants and the machine is the master, and if the machine should fail they will be completely lost. You see that with young people today when their phones are out of power; wandering around helpless. They are like the Borg on Star Trek Next Generation; cut off from the collective and they are lost.
When the modern equivalent of the Sea People come and supply chains are broken and there is chaos most folks will just lay down and die - or accept the worst form of tyranny just to be safe. The Middle Ages started that way and we call it the Dark Ages yet the dark age that is coming will make the six hundreds look positively cheery and enlightened.
So I find this to be not just a bit disturbing a development. Maybe I'm just an old coot, incapable of change. But I have reasons for not liking these machines.
The Bible warns that in the last days everyone will have to take the mark of the Beast or he won'tbe able to "buy or sell". I think this is the beginning of the mark.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
11:21 AM
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1
Whoa, Tim, you're panicking for no reason. Yes, those of us who have the Scan-and-Go app can continue to use it -- just as we have for the last four or five years, everywhere in the store except at the pharmacy counter for drugs you've ordered (that's because of insurance regulations).
But for those who don't have Smartphones, there has always been, and will continue to be, the checkout lines where those of us who know how to use them will continue to use them -- and those of us who don't (or, like yours truly, who have forgotten how) can stand looking helpless until an assistant comes up and shows us how to flash our Sam's Club membership card, then use the barcode reader to read every item we want to check out, finally where to insert our debit or credit card, just like we always did. She'll be very pleasant and cheerful, since she has to do this many times a day, usually for the newbies.
The last time I had to do this, by the way, the checkout assistant was a foxy, leggy blonde babe who looked nothing like Satan. We are not in trouble yet, Tim.
We'll have to use this scanning technique on the off-chance that the store's Wi-Fi is down, too, as it was for me a few months ago. Nothing's perfect.
But for those who don't have Smartphones, there has always been, and will continue to be, the checkout lines where those of us who know how to use them will continue to use them -- and those of us who don't (or, like yours truly, who have forgotten how) can stand looking helpless until an assistant comes up and shows us how to flash our Sam's Club membership card, then use the barcode reader to read every item we want to check out, finally where to insert our debit or credit card, just like we always did. She'll be very pleasant and cheerful, since she has to do this many times a day, usually for the newbies.
The last time I had to do this, by the way, the checkout assistant was a foxy, leggy blonde babe who looked nothing like Satan. We are not in trouble yet, Tim.
We'll have to use this scanning technique on the off-chance that the store's Wi-Fi is down, too, as it was for me a few months ago. Nothing's perfect.
Posted by: Dana Mathewson at April 22, 2025 10:31 PM (QSsdw)
2
Agree with Dana. When they start planting chis under our skin then panic.
Posted by: Mike at April 22, 2025 11:14 PM (bl/qr)
3
But Dana the article said they are phasing out human checkers for this. It's not the end of days yet but it's the beginning of it.
BTW Satan can appear as an angel of light, so why not a leggy blond? If you ever saw the movie The Ninth Gate (starring Johnnie Depp) Satan was a leggy blond, and she slept with Depp.
Maybe Mike, but the time is coming and it is this kind of technology that will wind up doing it.
BTW Satan can appear as an angel of light, so why not a leggy blond? If you ever saw the movie The Ninth Gate (starring Johnnie Depp) Satan was a leggy blond, and she slept with Depp.
Maybe Mike, but the time is coming and it is this kind of technology that will wind up doing it.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at April 23, 2025 08:18 AM (DhjQS)
4
I didn't go far enough with my explanation above. At least at this time, Sam's Club still has one or two human check-out lines, and I think they will continue to, for the following reasons:
1) There is a line for people who want to use (ready, gang?) CASH!
2) There is a line, or maybe two, for people who have phoned in their orders and want to pick them up and have them brought to them in the store, not out to the parking lot.
They are going to need human interaction for both these situations, and I seriously doubt that they are going to cease either of these. Perhaps they will phase out the cash line -- I can't say just how much action they get there.
Their gas stations use the "old-fashioned" pay-at-the-pump card readers.
1) There is a line for people who want to use (ready, gang?) CASH!
2) There is a line, or maybe two, for people who have phoned in their orders and want to pick them up and have them brought to them in the store, not out to the parking lot.
They are going to need human interaction for both these situations, and I seriously doubt that they are going to cease either of these. Perhaps they will phase out the cash line -- I can't say just how much action they get there.
Their gas stations use the "old-fashioned" pay-at-the-pump card readers.
Posted by: Dana Mathewson at April 24, 2025 12:54 AM (pdDZ2)
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