Category Archives: Transhumanist

Natasha Vita-More

It is nearly 40 years since Natasha Vita-More wrote the first version of the Transhumanist Manifesto. She was drawn to transhumanist ideas from an early age, but she felt they were too radical to gain widespread acceptance at the time. She was also disinclined to pursue the career in medicine which her family favoured, and went into the arts instead. She spent some time living with a group of Navajo Indians, travelled to the Amazon Jungle, and produced a film about escaping social norms. Since then she has worked as a designer, a philosopher, an educator, a scientist, and a movement builder.

She joined the London Futurists Podcast to discuss how her work has seeded the global growth of transhumanism.

Transhumanism is the idea that technology and evidence-based science can and should be used to augment and improve humans in order to overcome the limitations that evolution has left us with. As the name suggests, it stems from humanism, but it adds an optimism that cognitive and physical improvement is both possible and desirable.

On the face of it, the idea that humans should be permitted to use technology to live healthier and happier lives does not sound dangerous, or even contentious. But it does provoke strong opposition: in 2004, Francis Fukuyama called transhumanism the worlds most dangerous idea. The force of that claim is somewhat undermined when you consider how wildly wrong his previous big idea turned out to be: in 1992 he declared that because the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, history had come to an end. Nevertheless, Fukuyama is not alone in fearing transhumanism.

Some people object to transhumanism because they think we should strive to be natural, and to be content with what evolution or their god - have given us. But of course the definition of what is natural changes over time. Nature didnt endow us with spectacles, and few people now argue they should be banned. Now we have cochlear implants, and many people feel that their smartphones are extensions of themselves. In the future we will have the option of raising our IQ with smart drugs or with gene therapy, and these will be hotly debated.

Transhumanism has more support today than it did 40 years ago, but it is probably still a minority opinion. Most people have given very little thought to whether it is possible or desirable for humans to improve their minds and bodies using technology Of those who have, it is probably only a minority who think it is definitely a good idea, subject to debate and regulations.

This is partly because most religious leaders oppose transhumanism, fearing that it is heresy, or that it could erode their standing. They propose instead that we put up with the condition of life as we have it, and look to an afterlife for improvement.

Others fear that inequality will be exacerbated and entrenched by cognitive and physical improvements, because they will be available only to the rich. This ignores the fact that rich people tend to be guinea pigs for early versions of new technologies, enabling producers to go up the learning curve and produce cheaper versions. Companies make far more money selling affordable goods and services to everyone than they could by selling diamond-encrusted versions to oligarchs and celebrities. The iPhone was a rich persons gadget in 2008, but today, smartphones are an essential item for billions of us.

However reasonable the basic idea of transhumanism may be, there are likely to be profound disagreements between its proponents and its opponents, as technologies become available which enable us to improve ourselves substantially. These disagreements could lead to conflict.

In a lifetime of advocating for transhumanism, Vita-More has been obliged to rebut its opponents on numerous occasions. In 2004, a group of renowned bioethicists contributed to a major report on gene therapy that was submitted to President George W. Bush. It argued that gene therapy and other forms of human enhancement are immoral and unethical. Vita-More produced and chaired a virtual conference with key transhumanist scholars to rebut the report. This meeting was the origin of the Proactionary Principle, which argues that the freedom to innovate is essential to human welfare, and points out that throughout history, the most significant innovations have not been recognised as such at the time.

In 2011, Vita-More was surprised to read disparaging and misleading comments about transhumanism by noted scholars including Katherine Hayles, Don Ihde, and Andrew Pickering, in an academic journal article published by the MetaNexus Institute. Vita-More called the editor-in-chief to protest, and he invited her to edit a response edition, which she did with the help of half a dozen other transhumanist scholars. This exchange was the best-known academic debate about transhumanism to that date, and it led to the publication of a book called Transhumanism and its Critics, which remains highly cited today.

Vita-More grew up in the 1950s, at a time when women had to work twice as hard as men to achieve any recognition. Her father didnt want her to go to college, so she worked three jobs to do it. She was a feisty radical, and instinctively confronted the discrimination against women.

When Vita-More wrote the Transhumanist Manifesto, her friend FM Esfandiary (who famously re-named himself as FM-2030 because he thought he had been born too early) was opposed to her writing it. As well as being an important contributor to transhumanist thought, Esfandiary was a very handsome Olympian athlete, and a diplomat at the UN, but it seems he disliked having attention drawn away from him by a woman. He had encouraged her to launch a TV show in Los Angeles, but as she became more successful, he became less supportive.

There has been a great deal of progress since the 1950s in the level of opportunities for women, but there remains a long way to go. This is especially true in futurism, and indeed in technology generally, where women are under-represented. Vita-More thinks there are many women active in transhumanist circles, but they dont promote themselves as assiduously as men often do.

Vita-More has an abiding interest in memory, and as she grew older, she became increasingly concerned about the loss of memory due to aging. This led her to undertake some scientific research in cryobiology, using a very small, simple animal called C. Elegans. This nematode (roundworm) has no brain but it has 302 neurons, and it can be trained to learn tasks. Vita-More taught hundreds of baby worms to associate food with a particular non-toxic chemical odorant and later, at their adult stage, she vitrified them by using a technique similar to embryo freezing, placing them in cryonic suspension. When she revived the nematodes she was delighted to discover that they retained the association between the food and the odour. This proof that memory can survive cryonic suspension has important implications for the future.

Today, Vita-More is executive director of Humanity Plus (abbreviated as H+, formerly known as the World Transhumanist Association), a non-profit organization that advocates the ethical use of technology to expand human capacities. It organises the H+ Academy Roundtable, a bi-monthly discussion and debate, which is available on YouTube. It also sponsors Transvision Summits around the world, including one in London which is organised by London Futurists Podcast co-host David Wood. Vita-More hosts Transhumanist studies group every Friday, which is like a graduate studies group, and H+ will shortly publish a new journal called Rejuvenation Revolution and a book called Beautiful Science.

Clearly transhumanism is alive and kicking, and it is not limited to the West. H+ is active in Africa, with projects in Ethiopia and South Africa, where it is organising a Longevity conference in August 2023.

London Futurists Podcast

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Pioneering Transhumanism: a conversation with Natasha Vita-More

American political party

The Transhumanist Party is a political party in the United States. The party's platform is based on the ideas and principles of transhumanist politics, e.g., human enhancement, human rights, science, life extension, and technological progress.[3][4][5]

The Transhumanist Party was founded in 2014 by Zoltan Istvan. Istvan became the first political candidate to run for office under the banner of the Transhumanist Party when he announced his candidacy for President of the United States in the United States presidential election of 2016.[4] As part of his campaign Zoltan and a cadre of transhumanist activists and embedded journalists embarked on a four-month journey in the coffin-shaped Immortality Bus, which traveled on a winding cross-country route from San Francisco to Washington D.C. The Transhumanist Party has been featured or mentioned in many major media sites, including the National Review,[6] Business Insider,[7] Extreme Tech, Vice,[8] Wired,[9] The Telegraph, The Huffington Post,[4] The Joe Rogan Experience,[10] Heise Online,[11] Gizmodo,[12] and Reason.[13] Political scientist Roland Benedikter said the formation of the Transhumanist Party in the USA was one of three reasons transhumanism entered into the mainstream in 2014, creating "a new level of public visibility and potential impact."[14]

Following the end of the 2016 presidential election, after Zoltan's 2016 presidential campaign was completed, Gennady Stolyarov II became the Chairman of the party and the organisation was restructured. Under Chairman Stolyarov, the party adopted a new Constitution,[15] which included three immutable Core Ideals in Article I, Section I:[16]

New positions were founded, including Pavel Ilin became Secretary, Dinorah Delfin Director of Admissions and Public Relations, Arin Vahanian as Director of Marketing, Sean Singh as Director of Applied Innovation, Brent Reitze as Director of Publication, Franco Cortese as Director of Scholarship, and B.J. Murphy as Director of Social Media.[17] Restructured advisor positions included Zoltan Istvan as Political and Media Advisor, Bill Andrews as Biotechnology Advisor, Jose Cordeiro as Technology Advisor, Newton Lee as Education and Media Advisor, Keith Comito as Crowdfunding Advisor, Aubrey de Grey as Anti-Aging Advisor, Rich Lee as Biohacking Advisor, Katie King as Media Advisor, Ira Pastor as Regeneration Advisor, Giovanni Santostasi as Regeneration Advisor, Elizabeth Parrish as Advocacy Advisor, and Paul Spiegel as Legal Advisor.

The U.S. Transhumanist Party held six Platform votes during January, February, March, May, June, and November 2017, on the basis of which 82 Platform planks were adopted.[18] The U.S. Transhumanist Party holds votes of its members electronically and is the first political party in the United States to use ranked-preference voting method with instant runoffs in its internal ballots.[19]

In May 2018 the New York Times reported the U.S. Transhumanist Party as having 880 members.[20] On July 7, 2018, the U.S. Transhumanist Party reached 1,000 members and released a demographic analysis of its membership.[1] This analysis showed that 704 members, or 70.4%, were eligible to vote in the United States, whereas 296 or 29.6% were allied members.

During this time, the Transhumanist Party hosted several expert discussion panels, on subjects including artificial intelligence,[21] life extension,[22] art and transhumanism,[23] and cryptocurrencies.[24] Chairman Stolyarov has also hosted in-person Enlightenment Salons, which were aimed at cross-disciplinary discussion of transhumanist and life-extensionist ideas under the auspices of the U.S. Transhumanist Party.[25][26][27]

On August 11, 2017, at the RAAD Fest 2017 conference in San Diego, California, Chairman Stolyarov gave an address entitled "The U.S. Transhumanist Party: Pursuing a Peaceful Political Revolution for Longevity", which provided an overview of the U.S. Transhumanist Party's key principles and objectives.[28] In October 2017 Hank Pellissier founded the "Transhuman Party" following a trademark dispute with Zoltan Istvan's continued ownership of the 'Transhumanist Party' trademark. In response to Pellissier, the U.S. Transhumanist Party published its FAQ, where a significant portion was devoted to explaining the history of the U.S. Transhumanist Party, its current interactions with Zoltan Istvan and the scope of his involvement, and the reasons for his continued ownership of the 'Transhumanist Party' trademark.[29] The Transhuman Party became defunct in late 2017 due to lack of activity and its domain name and Facebook page were acquired by the US Transhumanist Party.[2]

By September 2017 the Party had appointed a number of international ambassadors, from Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Egypt, England, Hong Kong, India, Nigeria, and Scotland.[30] On November 9, 2017, in a virtual presentation at the TransVision 2017 conference in Brussels, Belgium, Chairman Stolyarov gave an overview of the U.S. Transhumanist Party's achievements in 2017 and future aspirations.[31] On March 31, 2018, Chairman Stolyarov was interviewed by Nikola Danaylov, a.k.a. Socrates, of Singularity.FM during a three-hour session, the longest of all of Danaylov's interviews.[32]

The Transhumanist Party presidential primary attracted media attention from BioEdge[33] and the Milwaukee Record.[34] While some media outlets reported Zoltan Istvan was considering running again,[35] ultimately he did not join the party's primary. After a protracted primary process with nine candidates, featuring numerous debates,[36] Johannon Ben Zion was elected as the party's nominee. After winning the primary, Ben Zion gave his acceptance speech at RAAD Fest 2019 in Las Vegas.[37] and filed with the FEC.[38] Shortly thereafter, film producer, entrepreneur, and longevity organizer Charlie Kam became Ben Zion's running mate. On October 19, 2019, Ben Zion spoke to the DC Transhumanists meetup in Arlington, VA.[39] On November 3, 2019, he spoke at the Foresight Institute's Vision Weekend Event in San Francisco. On November 24, 2019, he spoke to undergraduates at Princeton University as part of the Princeton Envision conference.[40] On March 4, 2020, Ben Zion participated in the Free & Equal Elections Foundation's Open Presidential debate in Chicago, Illinois.[41] Zoltan Istvan also participated in the debate, running as a Republican.[42]

On June 12, 2020, it was announced that Ben Zion had left the Transhumanist Party, with him declaring that his belief in Techno-progressivism was incompatible with the party, and that he would instead be pursuing a run for the Reform Party nomination. Kam was declared the replacement presidential nominee.[43][44] In June 2020 Charlie Kam participated in a panel with London Futurists and in July 2020 his campaign received press coverage in the Daily Express.[45] On August 21, 2020, Kam announced his selection of Elizabeth (Liz) Parrish as his vice-presidential running mate.[46]

A few days after his departure from the party, Ben Zion published a video purporting to show him eating a cellular culture of his own skin cells which reportedly were grown in the lab of a startup he is affiliated with, Quixotic Life Sciences.[47][48] In a statement disavowing the stunt published on the USTP website, it was noted that USTP officers previously warned Ben Zion that he would be disavowed if he pursued this reckless project.[49]

A core tenet of the USTP platform is that more funding is needed for research into human life extension research and research to reduce existential risk. More generally, the goal is to raise awareness among the general public about how technologies can enhance the human species.[18][51] Democratic transhumanists and libertarian transhumanists tend to be in disagreement over the role of government in society, but both agree that laws should not encumber technological human progress.[52]

The Transhumanist Party platform promotes national and global prosperity by sharing technologies and creating enterprises to lift people and nations out of poverty, war, and injustice.[53][54] The Transhumanist Party also supports LGBT rights, drug legalization, and sex work legalization. The party seeks to fully subsidize university-level education while also working to "create a cultural mindset in America that embracing and producing radical technology and science is in the best interest of our nation and species."[4][55]

In terms of foreign policy and national defense, the party wants to reduce the amount of money spent on foreign wars and use the money domestically.[3] The party also advocates managing and preparing for existential risks, eliminating dangerous diseases, and proactively guarding against abuses of technology, such as nanotechnology, synthetic viruses, and artificial intelligence.[3][4]

The USTP expressly supports the rights of Artificial General Intelligence entities that are sentient and/or lucid. The Transhumanist Bill of Rights Version 3.0 recognizes 7 levels of sentience, and requires entities to exist at level 5 or higher to be considered as having rights. At level 5, the main criterion is that the entity be "lucid", meaning the entity is "meta-aware", or aware of its own awareness.[56]

The various policy points of the US Transhumanist Party's platform have attracted both praise and criticism from sociologist Steve Fuller. For example, Fuller has praised the centrality of morphological freedom in the US Transhumanist Party's bill of rights,[57] but on the other hand he has also written that the party is too critical of the US Department of Defense, which he argues could be an ally for some transhumanist initiatives such as human enhancement and existential risk reduction.[58] In 2018 the party as a whole was reviewed favorably as an example of a successful "niche" party by Krisztian Szabados, a director at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.[59]

The Transhumanist Party in Europe is the umbrella organization that supports the national level transhumanist parties in Europe by developing unified policies and goals for the continent.[61][62] Among them is the UK Transhumanist Party, which was founded in January 2015.[63][64][65] In October 2015, Amon Twyman, the party's leader at the time, published a blog post distancing the UK party from Zoltan Istvan's campaign.[66]

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Transhumanist Party - Wikipedia

Biological evolution takes place over generations. But imagine if it could be expedited beyond the incremental change envisaged by Darwin to a matter of individual experience. Such things are dreamt of by so-called transhumanists. Transhumanism has come to connote different things to different people, from a belief system to a cultural movement, a field of study to a technological fantasy. You cant get a degree in transhumanism, but you can subscribe to it, invest in it, research its actors, and act on its tenets.

So what is it? The term transhumanism gained widespread currency in 1990, following its formal inauguration by Max More, the CEO of Alcor Life Extension Foundation. It refers to an optimistic belief in the enhancement of the human condition through technology in all its forms. Its advocates believe in fundamentally enhancing the human condition through applied reason and a corporeal embrace of new technologies.

It is rooted in the belief that humans can and will be enhanced by the genetic engineering and information technology of today, as well as anticipated advances, such as bioengineering, artificial intelligence, and molecular nanotechnology. The result is an iteration of Homo sapiens enhanced or augmented, but still fundamentally human.

The central premise of transhumanism, then, is that biological evolution will eventually be overtaken by advances in genetic, wearable and implantable technologies that artificially expedite the evolutionary process. This was the kernel of Mores founding definition in 1990. Article two of the periodically updated, multi-authored transhumanist declaration continues to assert the point: We favor morphological freedom the right to modify and enhance ones body, cognition and emotions.

To date, areas to improve on include natural ageing (including, for die-hards, the cessation of involuntary death) as well as physical, intellectual and psychological capacities. Some distinguished scientists, such as Hans Moravec and Raymond Kurzweil, even advocate a posthuman condition: the end of humanitys reliance on our congenital bodies by transforming our frail version 1.0 human bodies into their far more durable and capable version 2.0 counterparts.

The push back against such unchecked optimism is emphatic. Some find the rhetoric distasteful in its assumptions about the desire for a prosthetic future.

And potential ethical problems, in particular, are raised. Tattoos, piercings and cosmetic surgery remain a matter of individual choice, and amputations a matter of medical necessity. But if augmented sensory capacity, for instance, were to become normative in a particular field, it might coerce others to make similar changes to their bodies in order to compete. As Isaiah Berlin once put it: Freedom for the wolves has often meant death to the sheep.

In order to really get to grips with the meaning of all this, though, an example is needed. Take the hypothetical augmentation of human hearing, something I am researching within a broader project on sound and materialism. Within discussions of transhumanism, ears are not typically among the sense organs figured for enhancement.

But human hearing is already being augmented. Algorithms for transposing auditory frequencies already exist (common to most speech processors in cochlear implants and hearing aids). Research into the regeneration of cilia hairs in the cochlear duct is also ongoing. Following this logic, augmenting unimpaired hearing need be no different, in principle, to correcting impaired hearing.

What next? Acoustic sound vibrations sit alongside the vast, inaudible electromagnetic spectrum, and various animals access different portions of this acoustic space, portions to which we as humans have no access. Could this change?

If it does, this may well alter the identity of sound itself. Speculations as to whether what is visible as light might under other circumstances be perceivable as sound have arisen at various points over the past two centuries. This raises heady questions about the very definition of sound. Must it be perceived by a human ear to constitute sound? By a sentient animal? Can a machine hear sufficiently to define sound beyond the human auditory range? What about aesthetics? Aesthetics itself as the (human) study of the beautiful may no longer even be applicable.

The technologies for broaching such questions are arguably already at hand. Examples of auditory sense augmentation (broadly conceived) include Norbert Wieners so-called hearing glove, which stimulated the finger of a deaf person with electromagnetic vibrations; an implanted colour sensor that for its colour-blind recipient, Neil Harbisson converts the colour spectrum into sounds, including ultraviolet and infrared signals; and a cochlear implant that streams sounds wirelessly from Apples mass market devices directly to the auditory nerve of its recipients.

The discussion is not entirely hypothetical, in other words. So what does all this mean?

There is a famous scene in the film The Matrix in which Morpheus asks Neo whether he wants to take the blue pill or the red pill. One returns him unawares to his life of total physical and mental enslavement within the simulation programme of the Matrix, the other gives him access to the real world with all its brutal challenges. But after experiencing this, he can never go back to life within the Matrix, and must survive outside it.

Advocates of transhumanism face a similar choice today. One option is to take advantage of the advances in nanotechnologies, genetic engineering and other medical sciences to enhance the biological and mental functioning of human beings (never to go back). The other is to legislate to prevent these artificial changes from becoming an entrenched part of humanity, with all the implied coercive bio-medicine that would entail for the species.

Of course, the reality of this debate is more complex. Holding our scepticism in abeyance, it still supersedes individual choice. Hence the question of agency remains: who should have the right to decide?

Editors note: this article was updated on March 29 to clarify that acoustic sound is not part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

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Transhumanism: advances in technology could already put evolution into ...

by Ramon Tomey, Natural News:

An executive order (EO) by President Joe Biden calledfor natural biologyto be programmed like computers a clear push for transhumanism under the guise of public health.

On Sept. 12,Biden signed EO 14081that sought to bolster the U.S. biotechnology industry. It proposed the use of biotechnology to aid human health, citing the role of such biotechnologies during the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the vital role of biotechnology and biomanufacturing in developing and producing life-saving diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines that protect Americans and the world, the EO stated. The power of these technologies is most vivid at the moment in the context of human health.

Given this, EO 14081 called on the secretary of health and human services to submit a report assessing how to use biotechnology to achieve medical breakthroughs, reduce the overall burden of disease, and improve health outcomes. According to the edict, the report shall identify high-priority basic research and technology development needs [alongside] recommendations for actions to enhance biosafety and biosecurity to reduce risk throughout the biotechnology R&D and biomanufacturing lifecycles.

The EO also mandated the establishment of a Data for the Bioeconomy Initiative, which requires biological data sets including gene-related information deemed critical for social advances. In line with this, it called for a plan to fill any data gaps and to make new and existing public data findable and accessible.

EO 14081 tried to allay the fears of critics by implementing adata-protection plan to mitigatesecurity and privacy risks. However, the initiative raises the question of whether and how individuals genomic information might be publicly disclosed, and whether it would be done so only with informed consent.

Bidens call for the programming of biology the way we program software, if applied to humans, would facilitate [the] transhumanist vision of the creation of superhumans through various kinds of technology, including biotechnology, wroteEmily Mangiaracina forLifeSiteNews.

Bidens transhumanist EO 14081 oddly echoed the concept of hackable humans promoted by Israeli intellectual Yuval Noah Harari.

Today, we have the technology to hack human beings on a massive scale, said Harari, a lead advisor for the World Economic Forum (WEF).Everything is being digitalized [and] monitored.

According to Harari, the pandemic serves asa chance to bring hackable humans closer to reality thanks to the COVID-19 vaccines, which he branded as tools to facilitate surveillanceunder the skin.

The vaccine will help us, of course. It will make things more manageable, [such as] surveillance. People could look back in a hundred years and identify the [COVID-19] pandemic as the moment when a regime of surveillance took over especially surveillance under the skin, he said.(Related:Yuval Noah Harari: Humans are now HACKABLE ANIMALS thanks to vaccines.)

This ability to hack human beings, to go under the skin, collect biometric data, analyze it and understand people better than they understand themselves is the most important event of the 21st century.

During a separate lecture, the WEF advisor explained how this ability to hack humans can be achieved.

Biological knowledge, multiplied by computing power, multiplied by data equals the ability to hack humans.If you know enough biology and you have enough computing power and data you can hack my body, my brain and my life, he said.

In the past, many tyrants and governments wanted to do it. But nobody understood biology well enough, and nobody had enough computing power and data to hack millions of people. Neither the Gestapo nor the KGB could do it. But soon, at least some corporations and governments will be able tosystematically hack all the people.

Read More @ NaturalNews.com

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Bidens transhumanist EO calls for natural biology to be programmed ...

There is a lot of work going into creating the next generation of the web. Most of it is focused on the concept that, rather than traditional web pages, well have a very different experience that is far more immersive. Lets call it Web 3D.

I had a chance to talk with Nvidias CEO Jensen Huang who shared his view of Web 3D. While it blends elements of the metaverse, its tied more to the AI implementation that will front-end the next generation of the web than it is to the emulation of reality increasingly fund on that new web.

Confused? You arent alone, let me try to untangle the concept.

Then well look at my product of the week, a very different Amazon Kindle called Scribe. It shows promise but needs a couple of tweaks to become a great product.

Interestingly, I think Microsofts Halo game series got this right to begin with because Cortana, Microsofts fictional AI universal interface, is closest to what Huang indicated was his vision of the future web.

In the game and TV series Halo, Cortana is what Master Chief interacts with to access the technology around him. Sadly, even though prototypes like the one in this YouTube video were built, Microsoft hasnt yet taken Cortana to where it could be.

Right now, Cortana lags behind both Siri, Apples digital assistant, and Google Assistant.

Huang envisions that an AI front end will become reality with the next generation of the web. Youll be able to design your AI interface or likely license an already created image and personality from different providers as they step up to this opportunity.

For instance, if you wanted the AI to look like your perfect boyfriend or girlfriend, you could initially describe what you want to an interface and the AI would design one based on what you trained that AI to look for.

Alternatively and this isnt mutually exclusive it could design it based on your known interests, pulling from the cookies and web posts youve made during your life. Or you could choose a character from a movie or an actor, which would come with a recurring charge, that would, in character, become that personal interface.

Imagine having Black Widow or Thor as your personal guide to the world of information. Theyd behave just as they do in the Avenger movies while getting you to the information youre looking for. Rather than seeing a web page, youd see your chosen digital assistant which would magically bring up metaverse elements to address your questions.

Search as we know it would change as well.

For instance, when looking for a new car, you might go to different manufacturers web sites and explore the options. But in the future, you might instead say what car should I now buy? and, based on what the AI knows about you, or how you answer questions about your lifestyle, it would then provide its recommendation and pull you into a metaverse experience where you virtually test drive the car that is based on the options the AI thinks youll want.

During this virtual drive, it will add other options that you might like, and youll be able to convey your interest, or lack thereof, to come to a final choice. Finally, it will recommend where you should buy your car, faving whatever outlook optimized to whether you valued things like low price or good service more. These options would include both new and used offerings depending again on what the AI knows about your preferences.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Time and effort spent on the project would be massively reduced while your satisfaction, assuming the information the AI has on you is accurate, is maximized. Over time, this Web 3D interface would become more of a companion and trusted friend than anything youve seen on the web so far.

Once it reaches critical mass, care will need to be taken to assure it isnt compromised to favor the interests of a political party, vendor, or bad actor.

This last is important. It may turn out that instead of being free like browsers are today, the interface ends up being a paid service to make sure no other entity can take advantage of your trust, because there is a substantial opportunity to use this new interface against you. Assuring that wont happen should be getting more focus than it is currently.

According to Huang, the future of this front end call it the next generation browser is an increasingly photorealistic avatar that is based on your personal preferences and interests; one that can behave in character when needed; and one that will provide more focused choices and a far more personalized web experience.

Perhaps we should be talking less about the next generation of the web in terms of its visual aspects, the 3D part, and more about its behavioral aspects, the Transhumanist Web. Something to noodle on this week.

Ive been using Kindles since they were first released. Mine had both a keyboard and a free cellular connection.

Theyve proven to be interesting products when traveling, have days-long battery life, and perform better in the sun than LCD-based tablets or smartphones. Some are water resistant, allowing you to use them during water recreation activities. For instance, when I float on the river near my home, Ill bring my water-resistant Kindle with me so that I can read during the boring parts (for me, the entire float is the boring part).

But they have always been limited to being able to read books and certain digital files (you could email .pdf files to Amazon to put on your Kindle). That just changed with the new Kindle Scribe. Its similar in size to the 10-inch Amazon Fire tablet and allows you to mark up the documents and books you are reading.

While the Kindle Scribe is still a reading-focused product, this latest version has optional pens that can be used to draw or annotate things you are reviewing and it will, as most similar products do, allow you to draw pictures if that is your interest.

Kindle Scribe (Image Credit: Amazon)

As with all Kindles, it leads with the e-paper display that works well in the sun, and the large size means that you can better adjust the font to address sight problems, potentially removing the need for reading glasses for folks who have only slight vision loss.

Shortcomings that limit the product are that it currently doesnt support magazine or newspaper subscriptions, it doesnt play music (probably better left to your smartphone anyway), and, as noted, the refresh rate on the technology is too low for video. It doesnt currently do email either.

It has a web browser, but that browser doesnt display web pages as intended. Instead, it lists the stories vertically like a small-screened smartphone might. In fact, using it, you get a lot of page load problems. For instance, I was not able to bring up Office 365 or Outlook web sites.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Finally, it doesnt support handwriting conversion to text, making it less useful for note taking than products that have this functionality, but I expect this will improve as the product matures.

The person that will most appreciate this product is someone who wants a bigger reader and occasionally needs to markup documents as part of an editing or review process. If you want a more capable tablet, the Amazon Fire tablet remains one of the best values in the market, but it wont work as well outside, nor does it have battery life anywhere near what the Kindle Scribe provides.

For the right person, the Kindle Scribe could be a godsend. But for most, the Amazon Fire tablet is likely the better overall choice. In any case, the new Kindle Scribe tablet is my product of the week. At $339, its a good value that I expect will get better over time.

Kindle Scribe will be released Nov. 30. You can pre-order it now at Amazon.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ECT News Network.

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Nvidia and the 3D Future of the Internet - TechNewsWorld

Douglas Rushkoffs newest book, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, grew out of a brilliant 2018 Medium article of the same name, which went viral and had people (aka his US editor) clamouring for a full-length treatment.

Review: Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires Douglas Rushkoff (Scribe Publications)

In both pieces, Rushkoff recounts being invited to speak about the future of technology, only to find himself at a luxury desert resort in an undisclosed location, speaking to a select audience of five unnamed hedge fund billionaires. Within minutes, the conversation takes on a distinctly prepper-ish tone. One of the CEOs tells Rushkoff about his newly completed underground shelter, then asks, How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?

Rushkoff is bemused, but also grimly amused by it all. Here they were, asking a Marxist media theorist for advice on where and how to configure their doomsday bunkers, he writes. Thats when it hit me: at least as far as these gentlemen were concerned, this was a talk about the future of technology.

Read more: With threats of nuclear war and climate disaster growing, America's 'bunker fantasy' is woefully inadequate

So far, so head-spinningly good. Unfortunately, however, Rushkoff moves away from the billionaires and their intriguingly delusional self-preservation tactics, into a realm of high ideas.

Over the next 12 and a half chapters, Rushkoff offers a Grand Unified Theory of tech billionaire ideology. Inspired by a 1995 article, The Californian Ideology, he chooses to call this The Mindset a frustratingly vague term that doesnt really clarify things.

At times, The Mindset is roughly synonymous with the ideology of libertarianism; at others, it is much more amorphous referring to everything from growth-based capitalism, to colonialism, to narcissism. And as Hugo Rifkind notes in The Times, while the Mindset is interesting, its not nearly as interesting as the bonkers escape plans to which it leads.

If youre after a primer on the various ills of late capitalism, then strap yourself in and enjoy this wide-ranging, freewheeling romp by one of the USs most entertaining digital culture raconteurs.

His subjects include but not are not limited to monopolies, financialisation, behavioural science, scientism (Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker et al.) and the sex crimes of Jeffrey Epstein. Theres the 1980s business savvy of General Electric CEO Jack Welch and the Western, linear drive towards progress. Our estrangement from nature. The persistence of Aristotelian plot structures. And even Western language systems, which tend to be more noun-based than many of their counterparts.

Rushkoff is an accessible, pithy writer, with no shortage of examples, analogies and anecdotes to string together. That said, his relentless synthesising and breathless proclamations also make the book feel a bit shambolic, a bit over-reachy. (For instance, The Mindset prefers straight lines, linear progress and infinite expansion over the ebbs and flows in the real world.)

This is especially so if youre searching for the what-it-says-on-the-label bits the tech bros and their bizarre survival plans.

Case in point: Rushkoff tells a quite-long story about arguing with Richard Dawkins about morality at a Manhattan dinner party in the 1990s. Great. He then claims that Stephen Pinker and Daniel Dennett believe the brain is mere hardware and humans are just robots running programs. Sure. Next, he points out that Dawkins, Pinker and Dennett were all photographed on Jeffrey Epsteins private jet on their way to a TED talk. Guilt by association fallacy, but okay. As a finale, Epstein is described as truly the model, self-sovereign, transhumanist billionaire prepper.

Heres the problem: while Jeffrey Epstein was a lot of terrible things, he wasnt a prepper, in the proper sense of that word. Theres no record of him saying he thought society was about to collapse, or that he was making any just-in-case plans. More generally, none of the aforementioned four are Silicon Valley titans, or billionaires theyre three scientists and one multimillionaire Wall Street financier/paedophile. And theyre only tangentially relevant to the matter at hand.

Read more: How to survive a tactical nuclear bomb? Defence experts explain

Also, given how much other ground is covered, it is a little surprising that Rushkoff doesnt name check that ur-text of cyber libertarianism, The Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive During the Collapse of the Welfare State (1997), by James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg.

Davidson and Rees-Mogg dream of a time when individuals will be freed from the shackles of government, fiat currency (government-issued paper money, not backed by a commodity such as gold) and law in general. (William Rees-Moggs son, UK politician Jacob Rees-Mogg, was one of the most vocal cheerleaders for Brexit.)

In this thrilling new age, a cognitive elite will be able to rule or ignore the rest of the world, as they see fit. The Sovereign Individual is a hugely influential text in the start-up world; early Facebook backer, Paypal co-founder and conservative libertarian Peter Thiel, who is infamous in New Zealand for buying his citizenship and attempting to build luxury bunkers in the wilderness wrote the foreword to the 2020 reprint.

Survival of the Richest contains an excellent anecdote about Rushkoff being in a Zoom meeting with some tech developers on 6 January 2021, which is derailed by the breaking news of an attempted coup at the Capitol building (if you think thats bad, wait till you hear how the programmers react!).

Theres this jaw-dropping factoid:

Jeff Bezos has a yacht with a helipad that serves as a companion yacht to his main yacht, which has large sails that would get in the way of his helicopter during takeoff and landing.

There are some extremely sharp reflections on artificial intelligence:

Whether AI will develop human and superhuman abilities in the next decade, century, millennium, if ever, may matter less right now than AIs grip over the tech elite, and what this obsession tells us about The Mindset.

Regarding the prospect of artificial intelligence putting millions of people out of work in the near future, entrepreneurs such as Reid Hoffmann (LinkedIn CEO) and Mark Cuban (startup dude, billionaire) are worried that unemployed humans might coalesce into vengeful, billionaire-resenting mobs and attack them. Though theyre not worried about ruining all those peoples lives in the first place.

But and this is a little ironic theres precious little biographical detail about Mark Cuban, or Reid Hoffmann, or any of the other bros in the book. Their function is purely as symbols of rapacious greed: embodiments of The Mindset. They are not examined as deeply flawed, but nonetheless complex human beings.

Read more: What do we owe future generations? And what can we do to make their world a better place?

In some ways, this is a question of method, and access. While Rushkoff mixes in some pretty wild company on his global speaking gigs, and has serendipitous encounters with some outlandish figures, hes not doing any journalistic or enthnographic legwork here.

In short: he hasnt interviewed any of tech billionaires he writes about. He doesnt really know what motivates them or at least, not all of it. When it comes to these wealthy, selfish peoples strategies to survive the event, Rushkoff is dismissive rather than curious. He is adamant that a billionaires prepper scheme any scheme just wont work.

In Chapter One, he contends that the probability of a fortified bunker actually protecting its occupants from the reality of, well, reality, is very slim, because the closed ecosystems of underground facilities are preposterously brittle. If your underground hydroponic garden is overrun by mould or bacteria, theres no do-over; youll just die.

Similarly,

small islands are utterly dependent on air and sea deliveries for basic staples [] the billionaires who reside in such locales are more, not less, dependent on complex supply chains than those of us embedded in industrial civilization.

Seasteading the libertarian idea of building autonomous, floating mini-states, which operate outside of state control is mentioned, but not discussed in any detail. And the modest proposals of Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos et al. to commercialise space travel and colonise Mars are rejected with the observation only trillionaires will actually make it to space to terraform planets, anyway.

This might be true enough but its also the ostensible subject of the book, and as such, perhaps worth spending a bit more time on.

For Rushkoff, then, the billionaire bunker strategy is less a viable strategy for apocalypse than a metaphor for this disconnected way of life a canny insight, to be sure. But those bunkers arent only metaphorical; theyre also very real, and large, and expensive, and fascinating in their logistic intricacies and (im)possibilities.

If Survival of the Richest had told us more about this insane infrastructure, and about the people who dreamed it up, we might be able to better understand the unmistakably phallic spaceships as symbols, too.

Readers with specific interest in doomsday bunkers, and what they might represent in ideological terms, should seek out Bradley Garretts Bunker: Building for the End Times (2020). Mark OConnell writes insightfully about Peter Thiels New Zealand boltholes as a symptom of extreme libertarian misanthropy in Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back (2020).

Those wishing to learn more personal details about the computer nerds and venture captial bros who hold such outsized sway in contemporary life should read Max Chafkins 2021 biography The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valleys Pursuit of Power, or Ashlee Vances 2015 book Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Is Shaping Our Future, as well as David Runciman and John Lanchesters incisive essays about Thiel and Musk respectively in the London Review of Books.

Or, what the hell, rewatch The Social Network.

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Doomsday bunkers, Mars and 'The Mindset': the tech bros trying to outsmart the end of the world - The Conversation

If anyone needed proof that the powers pushing the levers behind the mindless moron who sits in the Oval Office are fully on board with the World Economic Forum/United Nations agenda of biomedical tyranny and transhumanism, look no further than theexecutive order that Joe Biden signed on Monday, September 12.

By quietly getting Bidens signature on this document, his handlers may have given us the most ominous sign yet that we stand on the threshold of a technocratic one-world beast system. Prepare to make your stand because its about to get much more intense.

This documents Orwellian title,Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure American Bioeconomy, will assure that its significance will fly right over the heads of 99 percent of the media, even the conservative media.

They will read it and yawn. I plead with everyone reading this article to please not make that same mistake.

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Because of the arcane scientific language in which this document is written, even most of those who take the time to read and study it (I assure you Biden did not) will not fully grasp what is being ordered by the White House.

Thats where we strive to help.

Karen Kingston, a former Pfizer employee and current analyst for the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries, helps us decipher whats going on in this executive order.

Kingston stated in a Twitter post:

Let me read between the lines for the America. Bidens Sept. 12, 2022, executive order declares that Americans must surrender all human rights that stand in the way of transhumanism. Clinical trial safety standards and informed consent will be eradicated as they stand in the way of universally unleashing gene-editing technologies needed to merge humans with A.I. In order to achieve the societal goals of the New World Order, crimes against humanity are not only legal, but mandatory.

Were ed.https://t.co/qjuf8MUXIO pic.twitter.com/3irdwjuEnx

NEWSNANCY (@NewsNancy9) September 13, 2022

Patrick Wood, an economist and author of several books on technocracy, has been following the transhumanist and global technocracy movements for four decades. He told me that Kingston is not overstating the issue.

He said this E.O. is proof that the executive branch is now owned lock, stock and barrel by the biomedical/pharmaceutical industry. It will be Katy bar the door from here on out.

The transhumanists within Big Pharma have completely taken over government policy and taxpayer funds to promote their own anti-human agenda of hacking the software of life, Wood told me. It also clearly demonstrates who has the power, and who sets the policies in America.

The mRNA injections that have already gone into the bodies of at least 70 percent of adults in the U.S. mark the gateway to transhumanism. We have been told this by Kingston as well as by the late Dr. Zev Zelenko and Dr. Robert Malone, a co-inventor of the mRNA platform.

LeoHohmann.com was one of the first sites to blow the whistle on Modernas former chief medical officer, Tal Zaks, who told the world straight up in December 2017 that We have hacked the software of life, and that this mRNA gene-editing biotechnology would be incorporated into vaccines to treat and prevent all manner of illnesses. Weve seen how well they work, with millions getting sick and even dying after getting two or more doses of the Covid injections offered up by Moderna and Pfizer. With the FDA and CDC now totally on board, this mRNA technology is being included in scores of other vaccines, including flu shots.

The September 12 executive order was no doubt put in place as back up for the continued experimentation on the human population, and I expect the vaccine industry will exploit it to the max. Soon we will see the return of vax mandates, this time more ferociously policed and enforced than before.

This E.O. may also have been timed at least partly in anticipation of the new pandemic treaty that the Biden administration is hoping to get passed through the United Nations World Health Organization next year. This treaty will transfer sovereignty over matters of health emergencies from the national level to the WHO.

Wood said the E.O.s intended consequences is to push the frontier of genetic modification of all living things and especially humans. He believes this will ultimately spark the biggest public backlash in modern history.

Biden pledges not only funding but an all-of-government transformation to support this anti-human scheme from top to bottom, Wood writes. It also automatically blocks any agency or department from dissent.

Below are just a few of the highlights quoted directly from the document:

What this means is that human beings will be data mined for their most personal possession, their DNA and genomic properties, and the government will offer no protection.

It will actually be encouraged and seen as a green light for biomedical practitioners worldwide. It is the goal of the technocratic proprietors of Agenda 2030 to catalogue, map out, and monitor every living thing on earth.

This was spelled out in the early 2000s by the late researcher Rosa Koire and put into book form in 2011 with Behind the Green Mask: U.N. Agenda 21. Koire was a Democrat, but she understood that the takedown of America and indeed every nation of the formerly free world, would not be accomplished by the left or the right but by supranational globalists with an allegiance to no nation. In fact, these globalists detest the nation-state model that has dominated the world for thousands of years. Their goal is a global governance and they say it out loud in their own documents.

Have no fear.

Do not be intimidated.

Truth will not be defeated.

Humanity will prevail against these anti-human eugenicist monsters because we have living souls and are created in the image of a Holy God with individual free wills.

Because of that, we humans are capable of having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and the one and only triune God of the Bible. Those who take the bait of the globalists and submit to the world system will in essence be handing over their humanity in exchange for empty promises of safety and security. They will become transhumans, thus foregoing, at some point, their ability to connect with God. Thats a very big step and a decision that will face every human being sooner or later as this technology ramps up. Your very soul will depend on the choice you make. Will you follow God or will you follow man?

Above all, this is a spiritual battle.

Expose the sinister transhumanist agenda that these globalist predators did their best to keep hidden within a scientific vernacular that they know will wow and mystify the average person. We have decoded it for you in this article from two of the best Christian experts on the topic available in the world today Karen Kingston and Patrick Wood.

Share this article far and wide.

LeoHohmann.com is 100 percent reader supported. We survive on contributions from you, no matter how small, and do not accept any of the hush money offered by corporate America or Big Pharma. You may send donations c/o Leo Hohmann, PO Box 291, Newnan, GA 30264, or via credit card below.

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Leo Hohmann: Biden's Executive Order Designed to Release Transhumanist ...

Prebunking DisinformationThe SST AlliancePrebunking Disinformation

I propose fighting truth decay by prebunking disinformation. I propose that scientists, skeptics, and theologians ally with one another to prescribe evidence-based reason for the health of our common good. Lets call it the SST Alliance.

Recently I found myself writing an editorial for the forthcoming final 2022 issue of Theology and Science. I ended up saying that theologians and scientists along with skeptics should form an alliance on behalf of evidence-based reasoning. This alliance could defend us against the intellectual plague now infecting the globe through digital social media. The symptoms of our infodemic include too much information, misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, just plain lies, and profiteering off untruth such as perception management (PM) firms.

The forces of disinformation have become a threat to social cohesion, world peace, and even the fecundity of Planet Earth. More than one million Americans have died of a pandemic disease that deniers have variously claimed to be a deliberate pandemic or a nonexistent media hoax, wails skeptic Daniel Loxton(Loxton 9-10/2022, 15). The very course of national, international, and planetary events is now being influenced by disinformation. The climate crisis burns out of control, with necessary action having been delayed for decades by denialist pseudoscience(Loxton 9-10/2022, 15).

Post-truth, as the societal manifestation of a prolonged subclinical collective trauma response, is a reflection that society is profoundly wounded, is the diagnosis of theologian Jennifer Baldwin(Baldwin 2018, 104).

Conspiracy theories and pseudoscience are no longer merely weird, crazy, or looney. Theyre dangerous. Our defense against truth decay and promotion of the common good must include prebunking disinformation.

Prebunking is basically debunking as the avante-garde.

What is prebunking disinformation? Well, lets call to mind debunking. It was the summer of 1952 when flying saucers buzzed the White House in Washington DC. The unknown aircraft were tracked by multiple radar screens. Scrambled pilots chased them, radioing their exploits to the control tower. The nation was in a state of alarm.

The Pentagon was in a pickle. Top military brass had determined that the Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) were not hostile or dangerous. But, the Soviet Union was. How could U.S. national defense officials discriminate between the non-hostile flying saucers and the lethal missiles that Russia might send to destroy North American cities?

The problem: too much information. How could the new U.S. Air Force filter through the whelming flood of UFO reports to find hostile Soviet threats? The solution: debunking. The U.S. Air Force set a policy of debunking citizen reports of unidentified aerial phenomena. By debunkingproviding alternative natural explanations as well as discrediting the reputations of those who reported sightingsthe military could reduce the net number of cases requiring thorough examination. The now famous astronomer, J. Allen Hynek, then at Ohio State, became the chief information debunker. The rest makes for quite a textured history down to the present time.

Its time now for critical thinking to expand with the speed of a California wildfire. To change our metaphor, lets hone our critical thinking into a sharp sword to cut through the blur between truth and untruth.

So, just what does it mean to be a critical thinker? Ive long contended that critical consciousness begins with holding two different accounts of the same subject in your mind at one time. These two differing accounts could be ones own plus that of someone else. Only after weighing the merits of each account does the critical thinker then render a sound judgment.

Now, let me introduce Helen Lee Bouygues, founder of the Paris-based Reboot Foundation that promotes reflective forms of thought in schools. She was recently interviewed for Skeptical Inquirer. Bouygues describes critical consciousness as I understand it. Being a good critical thinker means questioning your assumptions, walking through problems logically, and then reflecting on your thinking to better understand it(Bouygues 9-10/2022, 18).

What about the sharp sword of critical thinking? Note Bouygues motto: SHARP. What does this stand for? SHARP stands for: Stop, Hone, Accumulate, Reason, and Perspectivize(Bouygues 9-10/2022, 18). By accumulate, she refers to accumulating evidence. Where Bouygues puts perspectivize, I would put something like, render judgment.

Bouygues employs the word, prebunk. I like that word. According to Bouygues, prebunking takes the form of educating ourselves about various disinformation techniques. Knowing the enemy is the best way to arm oneself in the battle for truth.

Now, I must admit, that Ive not yet fully prebunked myself. Im still a tad nave. Im still more gullible to misinformation and disinformation than I wish to be. Even so, I like that word, prebunk. I wonder if we might expand its meaning to include an aggressive skepticism regarding pseudoscientific claims and acerbic political rhetoric?

Truth matters, says the theologian. The danger of modern political lying is not merely that we will believe lies, but that we will lose the capacity to distinguish what is real from what we merely wish was real, and will stop thinking this difference even matters, avers theologian Lisa Stenmark. This kind of lying undermines the very foundation of public life and judgment, destroying the world itself, and this worldlessness undermines our sense of reality and of community(Stenmark 2018, 5).

Truth matters, says the scientist. Misinformation has reached crisis proportions, say Jevin D. West and Carl T. Bergstrom, writing for the National Academy of Sciences. It poses a risk to international peace, interferes with democratic decision making, endangers the well-being of the planet, and threatens public health(West 4/2021).

Truth matters, says the skeptic. To combat truth decay, we need to prebunk disinformation by taking two doses of critical thinking. At least according to skeptic Daniel Loxton. First, we all must accept that misinformation matters(Loxton 9-10/2022, 16). The days when we could chuckle and dismiss conspiracy theories as looney are over. Truth is now a matter of life and death.

The second dose, again according to Loxton, is study the intricacies that go into manufacturing denial, misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, deceit, and lies. Disinformation Studies is the discipline (Loxton 9-10/2022, 17). I recommend starting with websites such as Tools that Fight Disinformation Online along with Catalogue of all projects working to solve Misinformation and Disinformation, even though some links are not connecting.

The third dose of critical thinking in our fight against truth decay is this: create a spirited alliance between Scientists, Skeptics, and Theologians. Im prescribing an SST Alliance defending and promoting evidence-based reasoning as a chief ingredient in public policy formulation.[1]

Now, we must acknowledge that scientific reason and theological reason, though overlapping, are not exhaustively identical. Systems biologist and philosopher of science Stuart A. Kauffman confesses that Science is not the only pathway to truth (Kauffman, 2008, p. xii). Reason can take us beyond the physical reality described by science. Or, perhaps more precisely, the theologian finds its meaning within a more comprehensive horizon that includes revelatory truth. Philosopher of science Kelly Smith shows how one can build on the other.

Science is a very powerful heuristic for exploring the natural world, but it is not an ultimate arbiter of truth. If we are clear about that, then we are free to go beyond scientific evidence as long as we acknowledge what we are doing and take care not to damage science in the process. So, if one chooses to overlay the fact of increasing complexity with a faith claim that supports a sense of purpose and meaning, science should have nothing to say about this one way or another(Smith 2020, 5).

In sum, theologians can just like the scientist in the lab next door hold up evidence-based reason regarding the world we live in as our cultures desideratum.

We should expect, nevertheless, that a few scientists and nearly all skeptics might be suspicious that theologians should be their allies in defending and promoting evidence-based reasoning.[2] Theologians are frequently dismissed for being superstitious, ideological, or just plain ignorant.[3] Therefore, a responsibility falls on the shoulders of the theologians to demonstrate their age-old commitment to the partnership of faith and reason (fides et ratio).

It is clear from history, then, that Christian thinkers were critical in adopting philosophical thought(Pope 1998, 39). These are the words of His Holiness, Pope and Saint John Paul II, issued Fides et Ratio in 1998. This special activity of human reason, the pontiff continued, yields indispensable and celebrated results in the different fields of knowledge and fostering the development of culture and history(Pope 1998, 5). Through reason the critical theologian becomes a public theologian, contributing positively to the development of culture and history.

Will the scientist let alone the skeptic welcome the theologian into a partnership for prebunking disinformation? Perhaps the theologian should be on his or her or their best behavior.

We cannot take for granted that theologians or other religious leaders should be trusted when it comes to evidence-based reason. A quick surf of the internet uncovers many religious figures looking like the west end of a horse facing eastward.

Much to my chagrin, too many alliances have already been formed. Unhealthy alliances. There are soul-selling political alliances between evangelicals and the Republican Party. Correspondingly, the theology of liberal Protestants has become the Democratic Partys platform with just a little prayer added. The Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus, Kirill, marches in Vladimir Putins war against Ukraine. One can only wonder: where did Jesus go? Where did reason go? It seems that our worlds Christian leaders are practicing soul abuse.

Churches need to teach their members about discernment, now more than ever, says progressive Patheos columnist, Jayson Bradley. I believe that evangelical Christians are particularly susceptible to believing dangerous conspiracy theories, and they need to learn how to become more discerning. Susceptible? Or responsible for our post-truth society?

Bradley is a progressive who blames evangelicals. Which is more difficult? An alliance binding theologian with scientist and skeptic? Or, an alliance binding evangelicals with progressives?

Perhaps todays public theologian needs to convert the churches to evidence-based reasoning right along with converting the internet. This is a pretty tall order. Perhaps the theologian should seek allies. How about our scientists and our skeptics?[4]

Patheos columnist James McGrath aches when watching Christians contribute to the post-truth culture. The problem of spreading rumorshas the potential to be deeply evil. We must prescribe fighting truth decay within the church while, simultaneously, debunking disinformation in the digital media.

In the most recent issue of Skeptical Inquirer, editor Kendrick Frazier warns us to repent like the prophets warned ancient Israel to repent. Suddenly, says Frazier, the things we skeptics have been warning about for decadesthe dangers of a population unable or unwilling to discern truth from nontruthhave become a mainstream concern(Frazier 9-10/2022).

If this were the 1960s, theologians might call this the secular work of the Holy Spirit. If skeptics live up to their commitment to defend and promote evidence-based reason, then theologians as well as scientists might find them to be good allies. Would an SST Alliance be possible?

Ted Peters pursues Public Theology at the intersection of science, religion, ethics, and public policy. Peters is an emeritus professor at the Graduate Theological Union, where he co-edits the journal, Theology and Science, on behalf of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, in Berkeley, California, USA. His book, God in Cosmic History, traces the rise of the Axial religions 2500 years ago. He previously authored Playing God? Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom? (Routledge, 2nd ed., 2002) as well as Science, Theology, and Ethics (Ashgate 2003). He is editor of AI and IA: Utopia or Extinction? (ATF 2019). Along with Arvin Gouw and Brian Patrick Green, he co-edited the new book, Religious Transhumanism and Its Critics hot off the press (Roman and Littlefield/Lexington, 2022). Soon he will publish The Voice of Christian Public Theology (ATF 2022). See his website: TedsTimelyTake.com.

This fictional spy thriller, Cyrus Twelve, follows the twists and turns of a transhumanist plot.

Baldwin, Jennifer. 2018. Knowledge, Power, and Fear: The Role of Religion and Science in Populism and Our Shared Public Life. In Navigating Post-Truth and Alternaive Facts, by ed Jennifer Baldwin, 97-112. Lanham MA: Lexington.

Bouygues, Helen Lee. 9-10/2022. Rebooting Critical Thinking by Julia Lavarnway. Skeptical Inquirer 46:5 18-19.

Frazier, Kendrick. 9-10/2022. Skepticisms Newly Recognized Relevance. Skeptical Inquirer 46:5 4.

Kauffman, Stuart A. 2008. Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion. New York: Basic Books.

Loxton, Daniel. 9-10/2022. Critical Study of Nonsense Finally a Mainstream Concern. Skeptical Inquirer 46:5 14-17.

Peters, Ted. 2018. Public Theology: Its Pastoral, Apologetic, Scientific, Politial, and Prophetic Tasks. International Journal of Public Theology 12:2 153-177; https://brill.com/abstract/journals/ijpt/12/1/ijpt.12.issue-1.xml.

Pope, John Paul II. 1998. Fides et Ratio. Vatican: http://web.archive.org/web/20131001225220/http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ESL0036/_INDEX.HTM.

Smith, Kelly C. 2020. Cosmogenesis, Complexity, and Neo-Natural Faith in the Context of Astrobiology. Religions 11 (12): 1-10.

Stenmark, Lisa. 2018. Modern Political Lying: Science and Religion Critical Discourse in a Post-Truth World. In Navigating Post-Truth and Alternative Facts, by ed Jennifer Baldwin, 3-18. Lanham MA: Lexington.

West, Jevin, and Carl Bergstrom. 4/2021. Misinformation in and about science. PNAS 115:15 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1912444117.

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Prebunking Disinformation | prebunking disinformation - Patheos

The unelected globalists at the World Economic Forum (WEF) are envisioning an augmented society ruled by digital identity and transhumanism via the Internet of Bodies.

Digital identity has long been on the Davos agenda and has been gaining speed ever since the official launch of the great reset in June, 2020.

On August 17, 2022, the WEF published a story by Callsign CEO Zia Hayat on its Agenda blog claiming, Digital identity is vital element of building trust both online and in our wider economies to everyones benefit.

According to Hayat, If we dont know for certain who we are interacting with online, we cannot have trust. Digital identity must therefore be the foundational element to our digital economy.

But its not just for our digital economy that the unelected globalists want to usher-in digital identity for all.

They want that digital identity be embedded into every aspect of our lives even under our skin!

This digital identity determines what products, services and information we can access or, conversely, what is closed off to us World Economic Forum, 2018

Technology will become more intertwined with the body in the form of implants Kathleen Philips, WEF Agenda, 2022

For years, the WEF and its partners have been pushing digital ID for a number of reasons including:

Digital identity is also a foundational element for building a Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-style system of social credit where access to goods and services are based on a citizens behavioral score.

When trust is broken in one area, a citizen may be locked out of participating in just about every aspect of society.

As scary as chip implants may sound, they form part of a natural evolution that wearables once underwent Kathleen Philips, WEF Agenda, 2022

Going hand-in-hand with digital identity and subsequent digital ID is the push for a transhumanist future.

The WEF published another blog post in August, this time exploring how merging humans with technology will create an augmented society and that stakeholders in society will need to agree on how to ethically make these amazing technologies a part of our lives.

Written by imec VP of R&D Kathleen Philips, the article describes augmentation as going beyond rehabilitative healthcare whereby the extension of rehabilitation where technological aids such as glasses, cochlear implants or prosthetics are designed to restore a lost or impaired function.

Philips goes on to say that when the merging of humans and technology is added to completely healthy individuals, then what you get is augmentation.

Welcome to the Internet of Bodies (IoB).

The WEF is fully behind widespread adoption of the IoB despite recognizing the enormous ethical concerns that come with having an unprecedented number of sensors attached to, implanted within, or ingested into human bodiesto monitor, analyze, and even modify human bodies and behavior.

The Internet of Bodies might trigger breakthroughs in medical knowledge []Or it might enable a surveillance state of unprecedented intrusion and consequence RAND Corporation, 2020

Increased IoB adoption might also increase global geopolitical risks, because surveillance states can use IoB data to enforce authoritarian regimes RAND Corporation, 2020

As acknowledged by Philips herself, the idea of augmenting a perfectly healthy human being with technology carries many ethical concerns.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in 2020, National Academy of Medicine presidentVictor Dzautold the Davos elites that augmenting humans beyond their natural capabilities was crossing the ethical line.

I think youre in pretty safe ground when you use these technologies for the purpose of curing disease, treating disease, or at least addressing impairment, he said.

I do think you start crossing the line when you think about enhancement and augmentation.

Fast forward two years and nine months, and the Davos Agenda blog is saying, As scary as chip implants may sound, they form part of a natural evolution that wearables once underwent.

I do think you start crossing the line when you think about enhancement and augmentation Victor Dzau, WEF Annual Meeting, 2020

Should you implant a tracking chip in your child? There are solid, rational reasons for it, like safety. Would you actually do it? Is it a bridge too far? Kathleen Philips, WEF Agenda, 2022

The unelected globalists are even seeding the idea of implanting children with tracking chips while claiming to be concerned about the ethical concerns.

The limits on implants are going to be set by ethical arguments rather than scientific capacity, Philips wrote, adding, For example, should you implant a tracking chip in your child? There are solid, rational reasons for it, like safety. Would you actually do it? Is it a bridge too far?

While children were used as a use case for digitally tagging, tracking, and tracing people like cattle, the same concept can be applied to the rest of humanity for our safety of course!

This is what the so-called fourth industrial revolution (4IR) is really all about in the words of WEF founder and executive chair Klaus Schwab, What the Fourth Industrial Revolution will lead to is a fusion of our physical, our digital, and our biological identities.

Another way of looking at the 4IR is the merger of humans beings with technology while simultaneously creating a control grid to monitor and enforce compliance.

What the Fourth Industrial Revolution will lead to is a fusion of our physical, our digital, and our biological identities Klaus Schwab, WEF, 2019

Brain implants take us one step further and allow us to tap straight into the bodys operating system Kathleen Philips, WEF Agenda, 2022

Going back to Philipss blog post on an augmented society, she acknowledges that the brain is part of our human operating system, stating, Brain implants take us one step further and allow us to tap straight into the bodys operating system.'

But what does it mean to tap into someones operating system?

Historian Yuval Noah Harari has already answered this question on several occasions.

When you tap into a persons operating system, what you get is the ability to hack human beings.

This means governments and corporations would know more about you than you know about yourself.

When humans become hackable, they risk losing all their free will. They will be able to be manipulated in seemingly unconceivable ways.

We are no longer mysterious souls; we are now hackable animals Yuval Noah Harari, WEF, 2020

Ethics will advise us Kathleen Philips, WEF Agenda, 2022

In her WEF blog post, Philips asks, When do we enter the grey zone?

The answer is simple. Weve already entered that grey zone.

To give one recent example, a Pentagon-sponsoredRAND report publishedin November, 2021 outlined the technological potentials of this controversial transhumanist research, which includes potentially adding reptilian genes that provide the ability to see in infrared, and making humans stronger, more intelligent, or more adapted to extreme environments.

This means that governments are already fundamentally altering what it means to be human, funding research into creating super humans that are smarter, faster, and stronger through human performance enhancement.

Its happening now, but not to worry!

Philips assures, Ethics will advise us.

Authoritarianism is easier in a world of total visibility and traceability, while democracy may turn out to be more difficult World Economic Forum, 2019

It all starts with digital identity, and the agenda continues to move toward an augmented society.

Those who control the data and the technology are poised to rule the world, but the future doesnt have to be this way.

We all have choices.

You can choose to trust that your digital overlords are doing whats best for society, or you may use common sense and reason to see through their agendas and therefore feel compelled to speak out to friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, or anyone else who will listen.

Of course, there are many people whose minds are already made up, choose not to see, or are too busy just trying to get by that they dont have the time to look into these things.

Knowledge is power.

What will you do with the knowledge youve acquired?

Read more:
WEF agenda envisions an augmented society ruled by Internet of Bodies, digital ID - The Sociable

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The opinions expressed by contributors and/or content partners are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Red Voice Media. Contact us for guidelines on submitting your own commentary. Red Voice Media would like to make a point of clarification on why we do not refer to any shot related to COVID-19 as a "vaccine." According to the CDC, the definition of a vaccine necessitates that said vaccine have a lasting effect of at least one year in preventing the contraction of the virus or disease it's intended to fight. Because all of the COVID-19 shots thus far available have barely offered six months of protection, and even then not absolute, Red Voice Media has made the decision hereafter to no longer refer to the Pfizer, Moderna, or Johnson & Johnson substances as vaccinations.

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