u/grafting_ace

This isn’t meant to be a partisan post. I’m genuinely looking for discussion because I’ve been paying attention to a few recent laws, and together they make me uncomfortable.

TLTR: I’m worried that recent federal and provincial decisions are moving us toward more surveillance, more control over public institutions, and more use of personal data than most people realize.

Three things caught my attention. Bill C-22 at the federal level expands lawful access powers and has raised concerns from privacy advocates, cybersecurity experts, and companies like Signal about encryption, metadata retention, and government surveillance. Alberta’s Bill 25 gives the government more control over education, restricts certain forms of expression in schools, and removes references to diversity while promoting what it calls “neutrality.” Alberta’s recent AGLC privacy exemption allows customer data to be sold under certain circumstances, despite the province’s broader privacy legislation generally prohibiting public bodies from selling personal information.

Individually, people can debate each of these.

But when I step back and look at them together, I see a pattern.

The federal government wants broader access to our digital lives.

The provincial government in alberta is increasing its influence over what happens in classrooms.

At the same time, government-held personal information is becoming something that can potentially be commercialized.

That combination worries me.

I completely understand that governments need tools to investigate crime, keep people safe, and run public institutions effectively. I’m not arguing that there should be no surveillance, no laws, or no regulation.
What I’m questioning is where we draw the line.

How much government access is too much?

How much oversight should exist before personal information is accessed?

Should encryption ever be intentionally weakened?

Should governments be able to monetize data they collect from citizens?

Should governments have greater authority over what schools can or cannot express?

These aren’t left-wing or right-wing questions. They’re questions about the relationship between citizens and the state.

Maybe I’m overthinking it.

Maybe these bills really are isolated policy decisions with no broader implications.
Or maybe we’re gradually becoming accustomed to giving up small pieces of privacy and freedom one law at a time because each individual change doesn’t seem significant on its own.

I’d genuinely like to hear other perspectives.
Am I missing anything? Do these concerns seem reasonable to you, or do you think I’m connecting dots that aren’t actually connected?

This isn’t meant to be a partisan post. I’m genuinely looking for discussion because I’ve been paying attention to a few recent laws, and together they make me uncomfortable.

TLTR: I’m worried that recent federal and provincial decisions are moving us toward more surveillance, more control over public institutions, and more use of personal data than most people realize.

Three things caught my attention. Bill C-22 at the federal level expands lawful access powers and has raised concerns from privacy advocates, cybersecurity experts, and companies like Signal about encryption, metadata retention, and government surveillance. Alberta’s Bill 25 gives the government more control over education, restricts certain forms of expression in schools, and removes references to diversity while promoting what it calls “neutrality.” Alberta’s recent AGLC privacy exemption allows customer data to be sold under certain circumstances, despite the province’s broader privacy legislation generally prohibiting public bodies from selling personal information.

Individually, people can debate each of these.

But when I step back and look at them together, I see a pattern.

The federal government wants broader access to our digital lives.

The provincial government in alberta is increasing its influence over what happens in classrooms.

At the same time, government-held personal information is becoming something that can potentially be commercialized.

That combination worries me.

I completely understand that governments need tools to investigate crime, keep people safe, and run public institutions effectively. I’m not arguing that there should be no surveillance, no laws, or no regulation.
What I’m questioning is where we draw the line.

How much government access is too much?

How much oversight should exist before personal information is accessed?

Should encryption ever be intentionally weakened?

Should governments be able to monetize data they collect from citizens?

Should governments have greater authority over what schools can or cannot express?

These aren’t left-wing or right-wing questions. They’re questions about the relationship between citizens and the state.

Maybe I’m overthinking it.

Maybe these bills really are isolated policy decisions with no broader implications.
Or maybe we’re gradually becoming accustomed to giving up small pieces of privacy and freedom one law at a time because each individual change doesn’t seem significant on its own.

I’d genuinely like to hear other perspectives.
Am I missing anything? Do these concerns seem reasonable to you, or do you think I’m connecting dots that aren’t actually connected?

I’ve been thinking about a different way the global economy could work and wanted to share the idea.
Instead of having separate national currencies, everything would run on a single global credit system tied directly to real economic output (goods and services produced). People and businesses would earn credits based on contribution, and those credits would be the universal measure of value worldwide.
The main goal is to reduce inefficiency from exchange rates, fragmented financial systems, and speculative finance, while making value tracking more consistent globally.
On top of that, AI would be used as a coordination tool—not a governing authority. Its job would be to optimize logistics and distribution: predicting shortages, improving supply chains, and reducing waste using global-scale data.
Banks wouldn’t function as independent money creators anymore. Instead, they’d become infrastructure systems for transactions, identity verification, fraud prevention, and account management. Credit creation would be tied more directly to real production and system-wide rules rather than decentralized lending.
This would also reduce a lot of speculative financial activity like currency trading and arbitrage, since there would only be one global credit system.
The biggest shift is where economic power sits. Instead of banks controlling capital flow, influence would move toward the institutions that define credit rules and AI optimization parameters. That creates a new kind of power structure based on system design rather than money control.
The biggest risks I see are:
-Centralization of control at the system design level
-Transition instability between old and new economies
-Over-reliance on AI models for economic coordination
Overall, I think it would drastically improve efficiency and global coordination, but it comes with serious tradeoffs in control and system resilience. What's your thoughts?