Who is watching your kids?

What do you care as long as you don't have to!

Japan: Schoolkids to be tagged with RFID chips

The rights and wrongs of RFID-chipping human beings have been debated since the tracking tags reached the technological mainstream. Now, school authorities in the Japanese city of Osaka have decided the benefits outweigh the disadvantages and will now be chipping children in one primary school.

The tags will be read by readers installed in school gates and other key locations to track the kids' movements.

Do they have that many kids disappearing that they have to track them in and out of the school? Do the Japanese even have kids anymore? This sounds vaguely like a StarTrek episode in which members of the crew disappear some beiged-suited crewperson suggest they tag everyone with some chip so they can determine when and where the other crewpersons are disappearing. They then can rescue the missing crewpeople and maybe make first contact with some aliens from another dimension who want to do stem cell research on humans.

It's important to use inclusive language when writing about vaguely-remembered StarTrek episodes as it is in the liturgy when you don't want to offend anyone because we have such an easy-going, mellow God who made all us the exactly the same with trivial differences in biology and instinct that aren't really products of nature at all but rather a result of the environment: sociological factors, gender power-dynamics, and discrepancies in income. He doesn't have to tag us because He, I mean Mother Father Mighty Enabler of Humanity, knows where we are all the time but doesn't judge us about all the stuff we do, like treating our kids like cattle if we actually allow them to be born or engaging in unethical stem cell research and suchlike.

What are ethics anyway except a projection of sociological factors, gender power-dynamics, and discrepancies in income? We ought to abolish the word "ought" from our language and from our memory, individual and collective. And why would I even want to watch my kids? Am I my children's keeper? If the government wants to do that I'd be willing to pay more taxes and give up the freedom to raise my kids. A national nanny system can always watch the kids! I'm just one man, er - person - and I can't be depended on to look after my own hatchlings what with all the sociological factors, gender power-dynamics, and discrepancies in income that I grew up with.