Hello fellow time traveller, I also come to you from 5 - 10 years ago.

Back in this time children and families playing AR games are actually just data collection for GPS-denied military drones [1]. ~70% of the world's population voluntarily carry continuously connected GPS trackers, multi-camera, multi-microphone devices with fairly advanced sensor suites and send this into a plethora of 'social' platforms. This includes when they're jogging/tracing the outline of aircraft carriers [2] and military bases [3]. Vehicles are internet connected, laughably insecure and record every movement, and the movement of everything else in their vicinity [4]. And, for some reason, everything in your house is 'smart' and the building you work in is filled with 'advanced IoT' sensors and high precision wifi-tralateration that provides a firehouse of data to countless third parties.

We've been steadily descending for a long time and seem intent of speed-running dystopia.

[1] https://www.nianticspatial.com/defense-and-intelligence

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd9vdel17wqo

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/fitness-tracki...

[4] https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-10-09/car-brands-ar...

So my ISP was hijacking my DNS