Songdo, South Korea. The Smart “Big Brother” City of the Future, Today

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On a $55bn budget, the city of Songdo is currently the most technologically advanced on the planet. It is, what some people call, a Smart City where technology is predominant in every aspect of a resident’s (and tourist’s) life.

There are well over 1200 surveillance cameras in a city of 200,000 residents spread over 20 square miles of reclaimed land. The ratio between these cameras to resident is the highest in the western world!

Not only that but being a smart city means that every home and business has superfast broadband and the most advanced comprehensive range of Internet of Things, including fridges, cookers, smart meters, waste disposal chutes, televisions, environmental air quality sensors, video conferencing, card readers, online e-commerce and a host of things that residents have come to accept.

There is a master control centre in the heart of the city that monitors, collects and collates all this information. It most definitely knows who you are, where you are, where you have been, where you might be tomorrow, what you have eaten, what you have bought and who you have met with.

It also knows everything about your health, your education, who you voted for, your criminal record, your family, your friends, your finances,  your interests and even what you threw away in the rubbish chute and estimated carbon footprint.

In essence Songdo is Big Brother in the here and now. Most residents don’t seem to mind the intrusive invasion if it means feeling more secure and safe from criminal activities. City officials believe that intensive surveillance is a good thing and should be encouraged by other cities and countries.

The fact that most homes have inbuilt CCTV cameras controlled by the very same master control centre, operated by the city, is most concerning at all because you can’t rent/buy a home in the city unless you accept having these Big Brother “eyes” watching, listening and even smelling your domestic activities 24/7

If someone said Songdo was situated in Russia, China or North Korea, I could accept this overbearing surveillance. But we’re talking of South Korea – a so-called democracy with Western ideologies.

And even more worryingly, it is known that many cities in the West, especially in France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden and Germany (and perhaps even the UK) are keen to adapt some of those “monitoring” technologies, for the greater good of society and the planet!

Scary Times

Bloomberg News Link

Nominated by: Technocunt

101 thoughts on “Songdo, South Korea. The Smart “Big Brother” City of the Future, Today”

  1. Not to worry,Koreans are all mad dog eaters and if they tried this caper here the National Grid would collapse under the strain in five minutes.

    • Songdo is my idea of hell.

      Technology seems to get a bit epileptic around me,
      We don’t like each other.

      Your Chinamen,Japs, slants,slopes and gooks all seem to love technology don’t they?

      Little yellow weirdos.

      I got off the technology race around the age of steam.
      It’s been downhill since.

      • Indeed Miserable, the team of street urchins pedal powering your removals van nationwide deserve some recognition.

      • I’m contracting to a chink company. Wouldn’t join their little gang with some “chat” app. Not having that shit on my phone so they can monitor where i am and what i’m doing (especially as it’s mostly “fuck all”).

      • Isn’t just, Sammy?

        It’s really rather frightening.

        Thank Dog our pathetic electricity network wouldn’t support anything like it, unless they start putting criminals on power generating treadmills.

        Now, there’s an idea, instead of 150 hours community service.

  3. Spain is keen to adapt some of these monitoring technologies?

    Good luck with that!

    Almost every speed camera here has been spray painted.
    Last year they tried to introduce parking meters on the roads close to our beach.

    They didn’t last overnight.
    All of them were cut down.

    There are still people here who lived under Franco.

    But I suppose there will be the usual cretins that will say, “If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear”.

    Well I fear losing my privacy and my right to live a peaceful life without state intervention.

    • Good luck with that in my part of Spain. Even my nearest traffic light is 25kms away, nearest speed camera is on the 92 near Granada, over an hour away. It would be locals with flaming pitchforks if they tried that sort of thing here. One thing I don’t mind that I always thought I would when I lived in England is the ID card, photo and fingerprints on it. Can’t do jack shit without it, even pay as you go phones. Stops a lot of illegal immo crimes

      • True.

        I ordered some printer ink online yesterday.
        NIE required.

        Photo ID must be carried by you anywhere and everywhere.
        SIP card if you want any medical treatment.

        It’s not an imposition.
        I don’t know why the British are so against a system that stops people from scrounging, yet they moan about scroungers.

        What they should be upset about is the fact that their every move is being captured on video.
        Walk around any town in the UK for an hour and there will be 100 hours of you stored on the many cameras that are there.

        If those cameras are there to reduce crime then why is crime so prevalent and increasing year on year?

        It’s sinister and it encourages the police to be reactive at best and bone idle at worst.

  4. Songdo is an anagram of “So Dong”.
    Which succinctly sums up this slope hellhole🤔

  5. It does remind me of the past, when the first family holiday camps were available.
    “Mrs Bloggs, you child is crying in chalet 13. Oops, to late, its been stolen”. “Never mind, with all that bonking we’ve heard, you’ll be have another one along soon”.

  6. It looks and sounds ghastly, completely characterless.

    I like places like Bakewell, not Futurama.

  7. “ He loved big brother, big brother was everything to Winston”. G Orwell.
    Scary times indeed techno

  8. Fucking love it, can’t wait for it to be introduced here 😂

    There is no f’ing chance whatsoever, why, cos it’s Waaaaaaaaacist

    ‘it will disproportionately disadvantage Blicks (and others effnicks)’ they (the left) don’t even want voter ID, cos it’s voter suppression, ie Waaaaaaacist.

    If only we had garbage disposal tubes for the dinghy cunts 🤨

    • In songdo there’s little crime.
      The price is your privacy and freedom.

      Was there much crime to start with?

      I’m no expert on south Korea,
      But don’t think they’re awash with criminal types anyway?

      Maybe I’m wrong?
      It’s been known.

      I won’t be visiting you can take that as a fact.
      I’m reluctant to eat Pot Noodle®
      Way out of my comfort zone eating a Labrador.

    • Now, now SOI.

      You know it’s “small boat” people.

      A phrase that never fails to make me laugh out loud.

      • Vulnerable individuals fleeing war and oppression (I know France can be a bit rough but not quite a war zone)😂

  9. Sounds like Hell. I wouldn’t live there if you paid me.

    Security is not worth trading your freedom for.

  10. The same thing is happening in Europe. The EU Reich wants to build a web of these cunt cities across vast swathes of Holland, Belgium and Northern France. This is why the Dutch government is going to compulsory purchase just about every farm in the country. Get back in your matchbox apartment, keep yourself to yourself, do as you’re told. The screen is watching you watching the screen.

    • I hear Jacinda Ardern is free to oversee that everyone keeps to their designated living quarters and doesn’t interact with their neighbours unless to snitch on them for not having a govt approved pass to travel out of their zone for (healthy) food shopping or work.

      • The Guardian -‘how the world fell in love with Jacinda’ or something. The first ‘woke politician’ or something.

        Fuck me. I dont know anyone or have never read anything about that has not been viscerally critical.

        Says so much about the people at The Guardian.

        Totally the opposite of reality.

      • Here Klaus’s Daughter & heir-a complete fucking fascist, just like the cunt in Canada.
        Two tiered society for the vexed/unvaxed-single source of information-I hope she dies a slow, painful death ☹️👎

      • Just wait until Justin Trudeau resigns or is kicked out of office Miles, he survived ‘Blackface Gate’ and oppressive Coved measures so is surely a shoe-in for a UN or WEF role.

      • I wonder for how many centuries The Groaniad will keep Polly Toynbee alive. She must be a wheelie-bin full of stinking mush by now, with Moaning Owen’s jizz all over her…

  11. They`ll be putting cameras up our bottoms next. Although I rather think our fellow brethren who `take their peas minted` would rather welcome that intrusion.

    • How far will this go? Maybe they’ll be able to tell who we’re wanking about and announce their findings in the morning.

      • The last census was quite intrusive, Al.
        I wonder how many of the “non declared” for the sexuality part were just people who felt, as U did-“It’s none of your fucking business!”-of course they have claimed those for the Alphabet mob👎

      • They’ll not only know, they’ll be able to control the object of desire. Brain chips are coming. Elon Musk has already invented one that controls pigs.

      • If you wear a smart watch whilst having a wank, chances are they already know…and it’s now part of your digital fapprint…

  12. Wow!

    This place sounds so wonderful that I bet the gang from the WEF, boots that shithole Davos and starts holding all their meetings in this modern urban utopia!

    Plus it has the added benefit of being much closer to the Pinhead’s Republic of China.

    A Brave New City for a Brave New World.

  13. Good, I can’t wait…it sounds a vast improvement on the Barratt-box “Country-Living” estates and trash-central inner-city housing that we have at the moment….throw in a monthly Purge Night when horse-mounted,red-coated,horn-tootling Gentry can thin the weaker members from the child-benefit offices and they’d get my vote….not that they’ll need my vote,of course.

    Frankly, I can’t wait for The Shadowy Cabal to make their move.

    • Its times like these that you must thank your lucky starts for the moat around Fiddler Tower, Dick. I think the dog eaters would be calling in special forces if they monitored your online activities, eating habits and environmental ‘crimes’.

      • They won’t bother my sort,LL….even dastardly Shadowy Cabals know to respect their Betters.

    • 55 Billion dollars cost ?…seems like a bargain compared to the 150 Billion Pounds that the Govt. apparently spent supporting business through Covid.

  14. Crime exists in every society. You can develop technology to reduce it but the criminal simply adapts to the problem and innovates new forms of crime. Who had ever heard of or anticipated “internet crime” twenty years ago? Also, in order to control us the elites will invent new crimes………”hate crime “ for example. Whoever saw that coming?

    • @Freddie

      Excellent point about hate crimes!

      They have invented hate crimes, hate speech and soon hate thought.

      All to keep the great unwashed underfoot and under control.

      • We’ve already got hate thought.

        That daft cow who, when asked if she was praying, said maybe in my head.

        I’d of said, why is it your business, Muppet?

  15. “Those who would surrender essential liberty for a little temporary security deserve neither.”

    Ben Franklin

  16. Does anybody remember James Burke the historian, once had a programme on tv around the 70s, showing all the latest gadgets. He got a woman from the audience to wear something on her head that could record what she would be looking at with lasers. He then brought out this bodybuilding in tight shorts. The woman gave him the once over and later it showed by lasers, she’d obliterated his crutch area. Everybody pissed themselves and the woman went home and committed suicide.

    • To be fair, those shorts were fucking tight. The producer made me wear them.
      Biddy Baxter, she was called, Percy old cow☹️

  17. ‘Most homes have inbuilt CCTV cameras, controlled by the master control centre and operated by the city…’.

    Christ, how far does this go? Does it mean that you can’t have a shag on the carpet in front of the fire, have a shit or eat your dog cutlet and noodles without some cunt being able to see you?

    Where’s a bloke supposed to go when he fancies a quiet wank to a bit of Korean girl band pop?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S24-y0Ij3Y

  18. For the love of God no.7 years until we are part of “Big Brother”. Adolf Klaus wants shooting.9mm aspirin please.I genuinely fear for our future.

  20. Depressingly, what’s happening is that a bunch of nerds invent the technology and then the politicians eagerly grab it for their own ends. If only it was the other way round.

    But see:

    https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/voter/voter-id/accepted-forms-photo-id

    I’d missed this latest legislation somehow. It went through very quietly, tucked into a slew of other measures. – but face it, it’s needed. The trouble is that it opens the door to further abuses by the state.

    • Yeah, apparently 61% of cunts are unaware of this photo ID and I was one of them until about a week ago.
      This is outrageous! I was a man when my. ID photos were taken. Now I’m a woman what the fuck am I going to do?
      Fucking transphobes!

    • I am praying Penny Mordaunt grabs me by my end and uses me. She looks good fun in her uniform. A bit of Navy Lark.

    • Thank fuck I always have my travel pass in my wallet.
      And I will go and vote.
      Possibly for the most useless tosser in creation, but as long as they are Independent.

  21. I for one can’t wait for this to be implemented to our society.

    All you terrible racist, sexist,transphobes on this site should be worried.

    And before you ask, someone’s hacked my account. And that’s the story I’m sticking to.

    • Rule of thumb Baz is we all blame Fiddler.

      When the axe falls I’ll be playing on the fact I’m easily led and possibly mixed race.
      .

  22. I don’t give a shit.

    My opinions are my own, and I stand by them.

    I’ll refuse the blindfold, but accept the cigarette.

  23. How do they “know who you voted for”?
    Circumventing the secret ballot would be unlawful and unconstitutional.
    Unless you freely volunteered the information.
    I may have to reconsider my move there if evidence of this criminality can be demonstrated…

  24. When you vote, you take your voting card.
    It has a unique reference number on it.
    The volunteers who man the voting station note the reference number on the voting slip they give you.
    They also note the voting slip number against your name ( didn’t you notice?)

    They know who you vote for, and who you are if you spoil your ballot.

    Bare that in mind.

    • Exactly so Jeezum. It always seemed an obvious contradiction to me that they knew for whom I voted but simply took my word for it that I was who I claimed to be.

  25. Furthermore, most people would not accept a video camera in their home connected to some outside monitoring system but how many millions of “smart speakers” are out there? “Smart listening device” would be a more appropriate name. They give me the creeps. I was at someone’s house in conversation when one of these fucking things suddenly joined in. If it had been mine I would have thrown it in the cut.

  26. South Korean women are fit as fuck.

    Having everything near is a good idea, but we have that already, don’t we?

    The Fred West ‘Cundrysoide’ types should worry as the likes of millionaire Greta will claim their land.

    Put me in a ‘pod’ with 3 hot Korean 20 year old birds and I’ll not go out much anyway.

  28. Interestingly, quite a lot of the UK population are already connected to the “Matrix” in terms of being monitored, vetted and logged by our political masters and secret services.

    Your smartphone
    Your SmartTV
    Your Tablet/PC/Laptop
    Your Microphone
    Your Web Camera
    Your Smart Meters
    Your Smart Fridge/Freezer
    Your Digital Assistants
    Your Smart Energy Devices
    Your Smart Watch
    Your Smart Debit/Credit Card
    Your Router
    Your Smart Camera-doorbell
    Your Home Security System
    Your WiFi Signal
    Your 4G/5G Network Signal
    Your Smart Car (both ICE and EV)

    In fact most modern gadgets carry a shtload of PI that can be gathered with or without your knowledge, and forwarded to whomever is prepared to buy/use that data.

    One known fact is that a typical user in the UK who uses a smartphone for 6 hours a day, uses a tablet/PC for 2 or 3 hours per day, and travels around in a smart car for 2 hours a day, generates between 800Mb to 1.1Gb of PI data per day from those devices. That information goes either to social media sites and/or government agencies.

    Scary stuff

    • What is scarier is that the state cannot legally access this data without a ‘warrant’ (probable cause) but the companies themselves can do whatever they please with the data, including its sale to lord knows who or what.

  29. I live nearly under the radar, not been on a census for 18 years not registered to vote dont have a permanent address just a C/O live in a legalish mobile home only use Duckduckgo for internet access never had location on phone switched on ever.
    The cunts in control have to much power and to much time on their hands to think about more exciting ways to turn the screws, bet you most of em were the really weird unpopular kids at school now getting their own back.

    • It’s not the good life I had before a one sided divorce and illness fucked me over and I lost everything but I dont get any brown envelopes and next to bugger all phone calls unless its hospital or doctor, and officialdom never darkens my vardo Moosh.

    • Quite right Civvy. I can’t remember who it was, but it was some woman, who said to kids…..” be nice to nerds, one day they’ll be your boss.”

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