Category Archives: Transhumanism

If there was a way for humanity to achieve a stage where there were no diseases, viruses, human frailties or any form of intellectual incompetence, why wouldnt you want to stretch your hand and grasp it? But how far would you stretch it -is the question. Would you be willing to let go of humanity as we know it today?

The intricacies and nuances of the discussion are, of course, endless. Reasons both for and against it are just as meaty and relevant on both sides. Lets begin with what Transhumanism essentially aims to achieve.

Internationally accepted symbol of transhumanism.

Transhumanism simply refers to a philosophy which seeks to improve the efficiency and capability of mankind using technological advancements. If youve ever wondered about cryogenics, youve had a brief fling with the notions of this philosophy. If evolution has led us to where we are today as a species, what should stop us from taking over from here and determining where we go next?

Lasik eye surgery: Poor eye-sight is a handicap in itself and anybody who has suffered from it would understand the importance of the convenience of leading a life where glasses are not required for clear vision. Needless to say, Lasik eye surgeries have made lives easier for many people with zero or negligible side-effects at an affordable price.

Vaccination: Diseases like Smallpox and Rinderpest have been completely eradicated with the help of vaccinations. An enhanced immune system and protection from disease causing viruses is an outcome of scientific as well as technological advancements, thereby part of transhumanism.

Hearing Aids: Technology has ensured to set right impairments wherever it can, and this includes partial or complete deafness. Hearing aids have been around for a while now and have changed the lives ofcountless people all over the world.

A bionic man specimen in Washington.

Artificially Developed Limbs: Another contribution of transhumanism is prosthetic limbs. They have been developed as a direct offshoot of technological advancementsfor those who have undergone any kind of bodily amputation.It is an ever growing, ever expanding field of the medical industry and continues to make improvements with every passing day. Bionic men and cyborgs dont seem that far a reality in contemporary times, do they now?

Iron Man: Need we say more? Go ahead and feast your eyes post all that serious tech-jargon.

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been the talk of the town for a while now. This is a technique for speeding up reaction times and learning speed by -wait for it- supplying your brain by a very weak electric current. It has been practised by the US military to train snipers. This practice has its fair share of haters, and with good reason. But that doesnt make it any less intriguing.

Transhumanism grapples with the idea of uploading your memories and thoughts to a computer -a la Dumbledore and his pensieve, just not as cool and a more than a little disturbing. Hollywood has given us enough examples on how wrong this can go, latest being the Johnny Depp starrer Transcendence.

Johnny Depp in Transcendence

Growth and Stagnation:Transhumanism is often viewed as the epitome of growth and progress.Transhumanists believe humans are a work in progress of sorts and therefore why should our current stage be the final stage of evolution? Why shouldnt we control the direction of evolution from here?The instinctive human need is to move forward, develop and evolve, but what if transhumanism is not a step towards evolution but towards stagnation instead?

If we truly manage to achieve a world with no diseases, perfect immunity and consequently, a drastically reduced or nil death rate, it would be interesting to see what becomes of our overly-populated planet.If we decide to let go of procreation to deal with the problem of limited space, it leaves us with a world frozen in stagnation. Not exactly what we had in mind when we set out with the growth proposition, is it now?

Dehumanization: Humans would cease to be what they are the moment external tampering with not simply a body part but the very core of existence begins, which is what transhumanism aims at. However, we are not sure if thats exactly a bad idea or not.

Inequality: The fact that technology would be used for enhancing intelligence or the mortality rate also implies that it would entail a certain financial cost. This inadvertently means that money would determine intelligence and mortality of an individual, once again sparking off a whole set of debates about the consequent inequality this will lead to.

Android arm and human arm: A transhumanist version of Michaelangelos Creation of Adam

The Unknown Ahead: Honestly, no one has any clear idea of where we are headed with transhumanism. Those who endorse it may conjure up eutopic visions of a perfectly healthy and prosperous society, but the opposite side of the spectrum is also taken care of by those who reject transhumanism. Something as small and apparently harmless like smartphones have completely turned our lifestyle on its head, and given rise to a parallel reality of the virtual world. Lets see where we end up with transhumanism.

A world of eternal life, superhuman strength, complete eradication of diseases and highly advanced mental faculties is what transhumanism seems to be offering. It has insidiously embed itself in our lives with present technologies like genetic engineering, information technology, and those in their more nascent form like molecular nanotechnology and artificial intelligence; all of it is a part oftranshumanism. The question is, how much you will be willing to risk or get absorbed in.

Let us know in the comments below.

See more here:
Transhumanism: Pros and Cons - iGyaan

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

Two years ago, in October 2018, Forbes contributor Neil Sahota, a United Nations artificial intelligence adviser and UC Irvine professor, warned that transhumanism is fast approaching likely faster than you think.1

In the past few years, there has been considerable discussion around the idea we are slowly merging with our technology, that we are becoming transhuman, with updated abilities, including enhanced intelligence, strength, and awareness,Sahota writes.

The goal of the transhumanist movement, or Human 2.0, is to transcend biology into technology. Or, as Dr. Carrie Madej explains in the video above, to meld human biology with technology and artificial intelligence.

Two visible proponents of transhumanism are Ray Kurzweil (director of engineering at Google since 2012) and Elon Musk (founder of SpaceX, Tesla and Neuralink).

According to Madej, right now, today, we may be standing at the literal crossroads of transhumanism, thanks to the fast approaching release of one or more mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.

Many of theCOVID-19 vaccines currently being fast-trackedare not conventional vaccines. Their design is aimed at manipulating your very biology, and therefore have the potential to alter the biology of the entire human race.

Conventional vaccines train your body to recognize and respond to the proteins of a particular virus by injecting a small amount of the actual viral protein into your body, thereby triggering an immune response and the development of antibodies.

This is not what happens with an mRNA vaccine. The theory behind these vaccines is that when you inject the mRNA into your cells, it will stimulate your cells to manufacture their own viral protein.2The mRNA COVID-19 vaccine will be the first of its kind. No mRNA vaccine has ever been licensed before. And, to add insult to injury, theyre forgoing all animal safety testing.

Madej reviews some of the background of certain individuals participating in the race for a COVID-19 vaccine, which include Moderna co-founder Derrick Rossi, a Harvard researcher who successfully reprogrammed stem cells using modified RNA, thus changing the function of the stem cells. Moderna was founded on this concept of being able to modify human biological function through genetic engineering, Madej says.

As mentioned, the mRNA vaccines are designed to instruct your cells to make the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, the glycoprotein that attaches to the ACE2 receptor of the cell. This is the first stage of the two-stage process viruses use to gain entry into cells.

The idea is that by creating the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, your immune system will mount a response to it and begin producing antibodies to the virus. However, as reported by The Vaccine Reaction, researchers have pointed out potential weaknesses:3

According to researchers at University of Pennsylvania and Duke University, mRNA vaccines have potential safety issues, including local and systemic inflammation and stimulation of auto-reactive antibodies and autoimmunity, as well as development of edema (swelling) and blood clots.4

Systemic inflammation, auto-reactive antibodies and autoimmune problems are not insignificant concerns. In fact, these are in large part why previous attempts to create a coronavirus vaccine have ALL failed.

Over the past 20 years, coronavirus vaccine research has been plagued by one consistent adverse outcome in particular, namely paradoxical immune enhancement. This is caused by the fact that coronaviruses produce two different types of antibodies neutralizing antibodies5that fight the infection, and binding antibodies6(also known as nonneutralizing antibodies) that cannot prevent viral infection.

Incapable of preventing viral infection, binding antibodies can instead trigger paradoxical immune enhancement. What that means is that it looks good until you get the disease, and then it makes the disease far worse than it would have been otherwise. As detailed in myinterview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in one coronavirus vaccine trial using ferrets, all the vaccinated animals died when exposed to the actual virus.

According to Madej, animal studies have also found the type of mRNA technology introduced with this vaccine can increase the risk of cancer and mutagenesis (gene mutations).

Madej goes on to discuss how this mRNA vaccine is going to be administered. Rather than a conventional injection, the vaccine will be administered using a microneedle platform. Not only can it be mass produced quickly, but it can also be administered by anyone. Its as simple at attaching an adhesive bandage to your arm.

The adhesive side of the bandage has rows of tiny microneedles and a hydrogel base that contains luciferase enzyme and the vaccine itself. Because of their tiny size, the microneedles are said to be nearly painless when pressed into the skin.

The idea is that the microneedles will puncture the skin, delivering the modified synthetic RNA into the nucleus of your cells. RNA is essentially coding material that your body uses. In this case, as mentioned, the instructions are to produce the SARS-CoV-2 viral protein.

Synthetic genes can be patented. If inserting a synthetic RNA ends up creating permanent changes in the genome, humans will contain patentable genes. What will that mean for us, seeing how patents have owners, and owners have patent rights?

The problem with all of this, Madej notes, is that theyre using a process called transfection a process used to create genetically modified organisms. She points out that research has confirmedGMO foodsare not as healthy as conventional unmodified foods. The question is, might we also become less healthy?

Vaccine manufacturers have stated that this will not alter our DNA, our genome,Madej says. I say that is not true. Because if we use this process to make a genetically modified organism, why would it not do the same thing to a human? I dont know why theyre saying that.

If you look at the definition of transfection, it will tell you that it can be a temporary change in the cell. And I think that is what the vaccine manufacturers are banking on.

Or, its a possibility for it to become stable, to be taken up into the genome, and to be so stable that it will start replicating when the genome replicates. Meaning it is now a permanent part of your genome. Thats a chance that were taking. It could be temporary, or it could be permanent.

Naturally, we wont find out the truth about whether the vaccine causes a temporary or permanent change for many years after the experimental vaccine is introduced, and thats an important piece of information.

Why? Because synthetic genes can be patented. So, if inserting a synthetic RNA ends up creating permanent changes in the genome, humans will contain patentable genes. What will that mean for us, seeing how patents have owners, and owners have patent rights?

Another part of the delivery system that raises its own set of questions is the use of the enzyme luciferase, which has bioluminescent qualities. While invisible under normal conditions, using a cellphone app or special device, you will be able to see a glowing vaccination mark.

As described in the journal RSC Advances7in 2015, luciferase gene-loaded quantum dots can efficiently deliver genes into cells. The abstract discusses their use as self-illuminating probes for hepatoma imaging, but the fact that quantum dots can deliver genetic material is interesting in itself.

The hydrogel, meanwhile, is a DARPA invention that involves nanotechnology and nanobots. This bioelectronic interface is part of how the vaccination mark will be able to connect to your smartphone, Madej says, providing information about blood sugar, heart rate and any number of other biological data.

It has the potential to see almost anything that goes on in your body, Madej says. This will have immediate ramifications for our privacy, yet no one has yet addressed where this information will be going. Who will collect and have access to all this data? Who will be responsible for protecting it? How will it be used?

Also, if your cellphone can receive information from your body, what information can your body receive from it, or other sources? Could transmissions affect our mood? Our behavior? Our physical function? Our thoughts or memories?

In his Forbes article,8Sahota quotes Kurzweils book The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, in which Kurzweil states:

The Singularity will represent the culmination of the merger of our biological thinking and existence with our technology, resulting in a world that is still human but that transcends our biological roots.

If Madej turns out to be correct, and the mRNA vaccine ushers in the ability to alter not only our genes but also opens the door for nanotechnology-driven interfacing between our bodies and programmable technology, arent we in fact stepping over the line into transhuman territory?

The Truthstream Media video above discusses the larger issues of transhumanism and the race to merge man with machine and artificial intelligence. There are even ongoing attempts to upload the human mind into the cloud, ultimately creating a form of digital hive mind where everyone communicates via Wi-Fi telepathy. This, despite the fact we still do not fully understand what the mind actually is, or where its located.

Another transhumanist that has recently brought us to a brand-new precipice is Elon Musk, with his latest venture, Neuralink, described in the video presentation given in late August, above. Neuralink is a transcranial implant that uses direct current stimulation. For now, the device is aimed at helping people with brain or spinal injuries.

Ultimately, the goal is to merge the human brain with computers. I have strong reservations about this. Theres tremendous room for unintended psychological and psychiatric consequences. In an interview that I did with psychiatrist Dr. Peter Breggin that has not yet been published, he discussed his concerns with this technology, saying:

Whats interesting to me is that while Musk is so brilliant, hes stupid about the brain. Thats probably because the neurosurgeons and psychiatrists he consults are stupid about the brain. I mean theyre just stupid.

He wants to put in multiple threadlike electrodes into the brain, into webs of neurons, and put in low voltage stimulation. This is insane. The brain cant tolerate this. He hopes to [be able to] communicate but theres not going to be any communication.

The brain isnt going to talk to these electrodes. Thats not how the brain works. The brain talks to itself. Its not going to talk to Elon Musk [or anyone else] and hes going to disrupt the brain talking to itself. Its a terrible thing to do.

I wish somebody who knows Elon Musk would say, You ought to talk to Peter Breggin. He says your consultants are stupid. Hes already planning to try to get FDA approval for some neurological disorders and thatll be the beginning of the onslaught.

Getting back to the mRNA vaccines, time will tell just how hazardous they end up being. Clearly, if the changes end up being permanent, the chance of long-term side effects is much greater than if they end up being temporary.

In a worst-case scenario, whatever changes occur could even be generational. The problem is these issues wont be readily apparent any time soon. In my view, this vaccine could easily turn into a global catastrophe the likes of which weve never experienced before.

We really should not be quick to dismiss the idea that these vaccines may cause permanent genetic changes, because we now have proof that even conventional vaccines have the ability to do that, and they dont involve the insertion of synthetic RNA.

After the H1N1 swine flu of 2009, the ASO3-adjuvanted swine flu vaccine Pandemrix (a fast-tracked vaccine used in Europe but not in the U.S. during 2009-2010) was causally linked9to childhood narcolepsy, which abruptly skyrocketed in several countries.10,11

Children and teens in Finland,12the U.K.13and Sweden14were among the hardest hit. Further analyses discerned a rise in narcolepsy among adults who received the vaccine as well, although the link wasnt as obvious as that in children and adolescents.15

A 2019 study16reported finding a novel association between Pandemrix-associated narcolepsy and the non-coding RNA gene GDNF-AS1 a gene thought to regulate the production of glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor or GDNF, a protein that plays an important role in neuronal survival.

They also confirmed a strong association between vaccine-induced narcolepsy and a certain haplotype, suggesting variation in genes related to immunity and neuronal survival may interact to increase the susceptibility to Pandemrix-induced narcolepsy in certain individuals.

In addition to that, theres the research17showing that the H1N1 swine flu vaccine was one of five inactivated vaccines that increased overall mortality, especially among girls. A swine flu article Iwrote 11 years ago, in 2009, turned out to have a rather prophetic warning at the end:

The swine flu vaccine has not been tested for safety or efficacy, but we DO know it will contain harmful additives. The choice, to me, is obvious. And in the future, anytime a new pandemic appears and officials urge you to rush out and get a shot, please remember this article and ask yourself if its really you who stands to benefit from their advice.

We can also learn from the swine flu fiasco of 1976, detailed in this 1979 60 Minutes episode. Fearing a repeat of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, the government propaganda machine cranked into action, 60 Minutes says, telling all Americans to get vaccinated.

According to 60 Minutes, 46 million Americans were vaccinated against the swine flu at that time. Over the next few years, thousands of Americans filed vaccine damage claims with the federal government.18As reported by Smithsonian Magazine in 2017:19

In the spring of 1976, it looked like that years flu was the real thing. Spoiler alert: it wasnt, and rushed response led to a medical debacle that hasnt gone away.

Some of the American publics hesitance to embrace vaccines the flu vaccine in particular can be attributed to the long-lasting effects of a failed 1976 campaign to mass-vaccinate the public against a strain of the swine flu virus, writes Rebecca Kreston for Discover.

This government-led campaign was widely viewed as a debacle and put an irreparable dent in future public health initiative, as well as negatively influenced the publics perception of both the flu and the flu shot in this country.

A 1981 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office to Sen. John Durkin, D-N.H., reads, in part:20

Before the swine flu program there were comparatively few vaccine-related claims made against the Government. Since 1963, Public Health Service records showed that only 27 non-swine flu claims were filed.

However, as of December 31, 1979, we found that 3,839 claims and 988 lawsuits had been filed against the Government alleging injury, death, or other damage resulting from the 45 million swine flu immunizations given under the program.

A Justice official told us that as of October 2, 1980, 3,965 claims and 1,384 lawsuits had been filed. Of the 3,965 claims filed, the Justice official said 316 claims had been settled for about $12.3 million

The devastating side effects of the Pandemrix vaccine should be instructive. No one anticipated a flu vaccine to have genetic consequences, yet it did. Now theyre proposing injecting mRNA to make every single cell in your body produce the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

It seems outright foolish not to assume there will be significant consequences. Perhaps even transhumanistic ones? The 1976 swine flu hoax is equally instructive, in that it demonstrates the long history of mass vaccination campaigns causing far more harm than good.

Source of the article

Like Loading...

Related

Read the rest here:
TRANSHUMANISM / HUMAN 2.0 End Time Talks

Tue Nov 10, 2020 - 7:07 pm ESTFri Jun 18, 2021 - 5:25 pm EDT

November 10, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) The COVID-19 pandemic was manufactured by the worlds elites as part of a plan to globally advance transhumanism literally, the fusion of human beings with technology in an attempt to alter human nature itself and create a superhuman being and an earthly paradise, according to a Peruvian academic and expert in technology.

This dystopian nightmare scenario is no longer the stuff of science fiction, but an integral part of the proposed post-pandemic Great Reset, Dr. Miklos Lukacs de Pereny said at a recent summit on COVID-19.

Article continues below Petition

6399 have signed the petition.

Let's get to 7500!

Thank you for signing this petition!

Add your signature:

Show Petition Text

The American elections of 2020 has been thrown into chaos by 'statistically improbable' mail-in ballot dumps, and accompanying allegations of voter fraud in a few key battleground states.

With investigations and recounts now looming, what we nowneedis a lot of prayer!

Please JOINour urgent PLEDGE to PRAYfor justice to prevail in these elections and for the truth to come out, one way or the other.

Everyone should desire and acceptreasonable explanations forthe apparent discrepancies in the way ballots have been handled and countedin some states.

To guarantee the validity of these elections, there should be no hint of impropriety.

SIGN this pledge to pray for justice to prevail in theelectoral process.

You may, of course, use any prayer you find suitable for this intention.

Thank you!

Indeed, to the extent that implementing the transhumanist agenda is possible, it requires the concentration of political and economic power in the hands of a global elite and the dependence of people on the state, said Lukacs.

Thats precisely the aim of the Great Reset, promoted by German economist Klaus Schwab, CEO and founder of World Economic Forum, along with billionaire philanthropists George Soros and Bill Gates and other owners, managers, and shareholders of Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Finance who meet at the WEF retreats at Davos, Switzerland, contended Lukacs.

Transhumanism is far from a benign doctrine. Rather, it is at complete enmity with Christianity, Lukacs pointed out during the virtual in Truth Over Fear Summit organized by California-based Catholic writer and broadcaster Patrick Coffin.

Transhumanists take science as their religion and believe in a philosophy of absolute relativism that claims that individuals can change reality at will, and they seek to relativize the human being and turn it into a putty that can be modified or molded to our taste and our desire and by rejecting those limits nature or God have placed on us.

Transhumanism therefore requires the destruction of the Judeo-Christian morality, which is based on absolute principles and values.

Those raising alarm about the Great Reset often overlook the crucial role of technology in the plans of the meta-capitalists, contended Lukacs, who has Ph.D. in management from the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIoIR) from the University of Manchester.

The COVID-19 pandemic was just another social engineering project deliberately planned and implemented by predatory meta capitalism to achieve the ultimate end: redefining and reconfiguring the human nature and condition, he argued in a presentation in Spanish.

I have the firm conviction that this pandemic has been manufactured and its purpose is none other than to initiate, as they say, or implement the Great Reset, which will open the door to the advancement of the transhumanist agenda, he said.

Indeed, WEFs Schwab has been promoting the Great Reset as a way to harness the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a term he coined, which, he declared in January 2016, will affect the very essence of our human experience.

Schwab described the Fourth Industrial Revolution then as a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines among the physical, digital and biological spheres, Lukacs said.

Those technologies include genetic engineering such as CRISPR genetic editing, artificial intelligence (A.I.), robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing, and quantum computing.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is nothing other than the implementation of transhumanism on a global level, emphasized Lukacs.

Transhumanism as a political ideology and cultural movement was defined in 1998 by Swedish economist Nick Bostrom, then a professor at Oxford, and David Pearce, a British philosopher, who that year founded the World Transhumanist Association.

More recently, Yuval Noah Harari, the Israeli historian and author of Homo Deus, who is regarded as a great visionary, has been promoting transhumanism.

Transhumanists propose to use technology to alter human nature to produce human beings with super longevity, super intelligence, super well-being, Lukacs said.

They reject the Christian belief in absolute truth, and that God created human person in His image and likeness, and see absolute values as a brake for their pretensions of transhumanist and globalist progressivism.

Thats why the approval of abortion is key to understanding why we are entering fully into this transhumanist agenda of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Lukacs said.

When abortion was approved, the political, economic order and moral values on which Western civilization is based collapsed.

Abortion means nothing other than the transition of the human being from a subject of rights to an object of commercialization, to an object of experimentation, he said.

Life ceases to have an inherent value, an inherent dignity. It becomes an object of consumption, an object of production, and this aligns perfectly with the goal of transhumanists to experiment with the human being.

Transhumanism is a struggle against those propositions of absolute values, said Lukacs, and what it embodies in progressivism is absolute relativism.

Evidence that absolute relativism has caught hold in the Western world is the rapid and widespread rise in trangenderism.

Lukacs also noted cases of transspecisim, transageism, transableism, and transracism.

Examples of these attempts to reshape ones reality at will include the American known as Lizard Man, the Canadian man living as a six-year-old, the British woman who blinded herself because she wanted to be disabled, and the German woman who injected herself with melatonin to darken her skin to identify as black.

These are previous states of transhumanism, a kind of accustoming, especially of the new generations, to accept this diversity, Lukacs said.

While many transhumanist proposals are rooted in science fiction, Lukacs pointed out they now have the technology to attempt to realize their mad aspirations.

Transhumanists propose to increase longevity by using CRISPR genetic editing, which has been used to triple the lifespan of mice. Thus, using this technique on human beings, it is conceivable that people could live to the age of 200 or 300 years old, he said.

They propose to increase human intelligence by planting chips in people that have greater processing capacity than the human brain.

An example is Elon Musks NeuraLink, which is an interface that is applied to the cerebral cortex and which Musk says will help people with Alzheimers or epilepsy, but which Lukacs speculates could open the door to neuro-hackers.

There is also the post-humanist school of transhumanism, of which economist Bostrom is a proponent.

Bostrom proposes that at some point it will not even be necessary to have a physical body, but we will be a set of information, that we will be able to upload our thoughts to the Cloud, that we will be able to form a great collective intelligence with other human beings, Lukac said.

As for the promise of super wellbeing, philosopher Pearce said it was the hedonist imperative to genetically modify us to aspire to super well-being.

What Pearce is saying is that through genetic modification, were going to be virtuous human beings, and that we have to forget about pain and suffering, we have to get rid of those genes that make us aggressive, violent, jealous, that force us to fight and kill each other, said Lukacs.

When you put all these things into the balance, what you are realizing is what you are looking at is literally the destruction of human beings, of Homo sapiens, and their conversion to Homo deus.

But as with the Great Reset, the elites twist the language and disguise their transhumanist agenda behind vaguely benign phrases, so Schwabs Fourth Industrial Revolution is sold to us as an idea thats not necessarily going to affect us, or that it is progress that will benefit humanity, he said.

However, just as ordinary people will suffer in the Great Reset under the architecture of oppression, as Edward Snowden phrased it, so they will bear the brunt of the experimentation by transhumanists.

Its very worrying because for achieving that kind of dream, many, many mistakes will happen for sure. The burden will be carried by the people that get affected by this in their health, in their lives, in their economic situation and in their psychological or mental state, said Lukacs.

Its a very, very costly experiment. And [the elites] are not going to bear any responsibility for this. Trust me, he told Coffin.

For them, its wonderful. For the rest, this is just dystopian.

Lukacs also contended that the global elites encountered an unexpected roadblock to their plans in U.S. president Donald Trump.

Actually, the structure of power is not that complicated, he told Coffin in an online Q&A session.

At the top are the meta-capitalists or capitalists that have so much financial muscle that they can play beyond the rules of capitalism; actually, they make the rules of capitalism or remake them, he said.

And you have those guys on Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Finance, Big Construction, everything big, the big corporate transnational world. Those are the billionaires who through their philanthropies, their billion-dollar pledges and all this kind of stuff, they funnel money downwards to all the politicians, who are basically rented politicians, they rent them, they run the world for them, he said.

Its really the privatization of power through philanthropy, added Lukacs.

And then, of course, you will have a layer of middle ground or middle level institutions, NGOs, universities, foundations, and then youll go down to grassroots local government. Its a pyramidal structure.

But Trump is one key public figure who could evidently not be rented.

It is so obvious that in the States right now for the past, what, four, five months, a state coup has been in the making. As simple as that. I have no problem in saying it openly, Lukacs told Coffin.

Thats the situation. They have tried to oust a president that was democratically elected because they are desperate. China is still progressing. And their partners in the West, theyre just not catching up. So, they are a little bit desperate. China is not going to wait.

For more information on Truth Over Fear Summit, go here. Premium passes are still available.

Related:

Abp. Vigan warns Trump about Great Reset plot to subdue humanity, destroy freedom

Time Magazine announces The Great Reset to usher in world socialism

Physicians: Masks dont control viruses, they control you, pandemic is over

Trump should prepare for possible imminent release of more dangerous COVID-20 or 21

Its child abuse for scientists to gene-edit human embryos and then destroy them: Ethicist

Meet the liberal billionaires trying to become cyborgs

Keep this news available to you and millions more

Your gift will spread truth, defeat lies, and save lives

Read more from the original source:
Transhumanism: Expert exposes liberal billionaire elitists ...

The human desire to acquire posthuman attributes is as ancient as the human species itself. Humans have always sought to expand the boundaries of their existence, be it ecologically, geographically, or mentally. There is a tendency in at least some individuals always to try to find a way around every limitation and obstacle.

Ceremonial burial and preserved fragments of religious writings show that prehistoric humans were deeply disturbed by the death of their loved ones and sought to reduce the cognitive dissonance by postulating an afterlife. Yet, despite the idea of an afterlife, people still endeavored to extend life. In the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (approx. 2000 B.C.), a king embarks on a quest to find an herb that can make him immortal. Its worth noting that it was assumed both that mortality was not inescapable in principle, and that there existed (at least mythological) means of overcoming it. That people really strove to live longer and richer lives can also be seen in the development of systems of magic and alchemy; lacking scientific means of producing an elixir of life, one resorted to magical means. This strategy was adopted, for example, by the various schools of esoteric Taoism in China, which sought physical immortality and control over or harmony with the forces of nature.

The Greeks were ambivalent about humans transgressing our natural confines. On the one hand, they were fascinated by the idea. We see it in the myth of Prometheus, who stole the fire from Zeus and gave it to the humans, thereby permanently improving the human condition. And in the myth of Daedalus, the gods are repeatedly challenged, quite successfully, by a clever engineer and artist, who uses non-magical means to extend human capabilities. On the other hand, there is also the concept of hubris: that some ambitions are off-limit and would backfire if pursued. In the end, Daedalus enterprise ends in disaster (not, however, because it was punished by the gods but owing entirely to natural causes).

Greek philosophers made the first, stumbling attempts to create systems of thought that were based not purely on faith but on logical reasoning. Socrates and the sophists extended the application of critical thinking from metaphysics and cosmology to include the study of ethics and questions about human society and human psychology. Out of this inquiry arose cultural humanism, a very important current throughout the history of Western science, political theory, ethics, and law.

In the Renaissance, human thinking was awoken from medieval otherworldliness and the scholastic modes of reasoning that had predominated for a millennium, and the human being and the natural world again became legitimate objects of study. Renaissance humanism encouraged people to rely on their own observations and their own judgment rather than to defer in every matter to religious authorities. Renaissance humanism also created the ideal of the well-rounded personality, one that is highly developed scientifically, morally, culturally, and spiritually. A milestone is Giovanni Pico della Mirandolas Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486), which states that man does not have a ready form but that it is mans task to form himself. And crucially, modern science began to take form then, through the works of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo.

The Age of Enlightenment can be said to have started with the publication of Francis Bacons Novum Organum, the new tool (1620), in which he proposes a scientific methodology based on empirical investigation rather than a priori reasoning. Bacon advocates the project of effecting all things possible, by which he meant the achievement of mastery over nature in order to improve the condition of human beings. The heritage from the Renaissance combines with the influences of Isaac Newton, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, Marquis de Condorcet, and others to form the basis for rational humanism, which emphasizes science and critical reasoning rather than revelation and religious authority as ways of learning about the natural world and the destiny and nature of man and of providing a grounding for morality. Transhumanism traces its roots to this rational humanism.

In the 18th and 19th centuries we begin to see glimpses of the idea that even humans themselves can be developed through the appliance of science. Benjamin Franklin and Voltaire speculated about extending human life span through medical science. Especially after Darwins theory of evolution, atheism or agnosticism came to be seen as increasingly attractive alternatives. However, the optimism of the late 19th century often degenerated into narrow-minded positivism and the belief that progress was automatic. When this view collided with reality, some people reacted by turning to irrationalism, concluding that since reason was not sufficient, it was worthless. This resulted in the anti-technological, anti-intellectual sentiments whose sequelae we can still witness today in some postmodernist writers, in the New Age movement, and among the neo-Luddite wing of the anti-globalization agitators.

A significant stimulus in the formation of transhumanism was the essay Daedalus: Science and the Future (1923) by the British biochemist J. B. S. Haldane, in which he discusses how scientific and technological findings may come to affect society and improve the human condition. This essay set off a chain reaction of future-oriented discussions, including The World, the Flesh and the Devil by J. D. Bernal (1929), which speculates about space colonization and bionic implants as well as mental improvements through advanced social science and psychology; the works of Olaf Stapledon; and the essay Icarus: the Future of Science (1924) by Bertrand Russell, who took a more pessimistic view, arguing that without more kindliness in the world, technological power will mainly serve to increase mens ability to inflict harm on one another. Science fiction authors such as H. G. Wells and Olaf Stapledon also got many people thinking about the future evolution of the human race. One frequently cited work is Aldous Huxleys Brave New World (1932), a dystopia where psychological conditioning, promiscuous sexuality, biotechnology, and opiate drugs are used to keep the population placid and contented in a static, totalitarian society ruled by an elite consisting of ten world controllers. Huxleys novel warns of the dehumanizing potential of technology being used to arrest growth and to diminish the scope of human nature rather than enhance it.

The Second World War changed the direction of some of those currents that result in todays transhumanism. The eugenics movement, which had previously found advocates not only among racists on the extreme right but also among socialists and progressivist social democrats, was thoroughly discredited. The goal of creating a new and better world through a centrally imposed vision became taboo and pass; and the horrors of the Stalinist Soviet Union again underscored the dangers of such an approach. Mindful of these historical lessons, transhumanists are often deeply suspicious of collectively orchestrated change, arguing instead for the right of individuals to redesign themselves and their own descendants.

In the postwar era, optimistic futurists tended to direct their attention more toward technological progress, such as space travel, medicine, and computers. Science began to catch up with speculation. Transhumanist ideas during this period were discussed and analyzed chiefly in the literary genre of science fiction. Authors such as Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Stanislaw Lem, and later Bruce Sterling, Greg Egan, and Vernor Vinge have explored various aspects of transhumanism in their writings and contributed to its proliferation.

Robert Ettinger played an important role in giving transhumanism its modern form. The publication of his book The Prospect of Immortality in 1964 led to the creation of the cryonics movement. Ettinger argued that since medical technology seems to be constantly progressing, and since chemical activity comes to a complete halt at low temperatures, it should be possible to freeze a person today and preserve the body until such a time when technology is advanced enough to repair the freezing damage and reverse the original cause of deanimation. In a later work, Man into Superman (1972), he discussed a number of conceivable improvements to the human being, continuing the tradition started by Haldane and Bernal.

Another influential early transhumanist was F. M. Esfandiary, who later changed his name to FM-2030. One of the first professors of future studies, FM taught at the New School for Social Research in New York in the 1960s and formed a school of optimistic futurists known as the UpWingers. In his book Are you a transhuman? (1989), he described what he saw as the signs of the emergence of the transhuman person, in his terminology indicating an evolutionary link towards posthumanity. (A terminological aside: an early use of the word transhuman was in the 1972-book of Ettinger, who doesnt now remember where he first encountered the term. The word transhumanism may have been coined by Julian Huxley in New Bottles for New Wine (1957); the sense in which he used it, however, was not quite the contemporary one.) Further, its use is evidenced in T.S. Elliots writing around the same time. And it is known that Dante Alighieri referred to the notion of the transhuman in historical writings.

In the 1970s and 1980s, several organizations sprung up for life extension, cryonics, space colonization, science fiction, media arts, and futurism. They were often isolated from one another, and while they shared similar views and values, they did not yet amount to any unified coherent worldview. One prominent voice from a standpoint with strong transhumanist elements during this era came from Marvin Minsky, an eminent artificial intelligence researcher.

In 1986, Eric Drexler published Engines of Creation, the first book-length exposition of molecular manufacturing. (The possibility of nanotechnology had been anticipated by Nobel Laureate physicist Richard Feynman in a now-famous after-dinner address in 1959 entitled There is Plenty of Room at the Bottom.) In this groundbreaking work, Drexler not only argued for the feasibility of assembler-based nanotechnology but also explored its consequences and began charting the strategic challenges posed by its development. Drexlers later writings supplied more technical analyses that confirmed his initial conclusions. To prepare the world for nanotechnology and work towards it safe implementation, he founded the Foresight Institute together with his then wife Christine Peterson in 1986.

Ed Regiss Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition (1990) took a humorous look at transhumanisms hubristic scientists and philosophers. Another couple of influential books were roboticist Hans Moravecs seminal Mind Children (1988) about the future development of machine intelligence, and more recently Ray Kurzweils bestselling Age of Spiritual Machines (1999), which presented ideas similar to Moravecs. Frank Tiplers Physics of Immortality (1994), inspired by the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (a paleontologist and Jesuit theologian who saw an evolutionary telos in the development of an encompassing noosphere, a global consciousness) argued that advanced civilizations might come to have a shaping influence on the future evolution of the cosmos, although some were put off by Tiplers attempt to blend science with religion. Many science advocates, such as Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, and Douglas Hofstadter, have also helped pave the way for public understanding of transhumanist ideas.

In 1988, the first issue of the Extropy Magazine was published by Max More and Tom Morrow, and in 1992 they founded the Extropy Institute (the term extropy being coined as an informal opposite of entropy). The magazine and the institute served as catalysts, bringing together disparate groups of people with futuristic ideas. More wrote the first definition of transhumanism in its modern sense, and created his own distinctive brand of transhumanism, which emphasized individualism, dynamic optimism, and the market mechanism in addition to technology. The transhumanist arts genre became more self-aware through the works of the artist Natasha Vita-More. During this time, an intense exploration of ideas also took place on various Internet mailing lists. Influential early contributors included Anders Sandberg (then a neuroscience doctoral student) and Robin Hanson (an economist and polymath) among many others.

The World Transhumanist Association was founded in 1998 by Nick Bostrom and David Pearce to act as a coordinating international nonprofit organization for all transhumanist-related groups and interests, across the political spectrum. The WTA focused on supporting transhumanism as a serious academic discipline and on promoting public awareness of transhumanist thinking. The WTA began publishing the Journal of Evolution and Technology, the first scholarly peer-reviewed journal for transhumanist studies in 1999 (which is also the year when the first version of this FAQ was published). In 2001, the WTA adopted its current constitution and is now governed by an executive board that is democratically elected by its full membership. James Hughes especially (a former WTA Secretary) among others helped lift the WTA to its current more mature stage, and a strong team of volunteers has been building up the organization to what it is today.

Humanity+ developed after to rebrand transhumanism informing Humanity+ as a cooperative organization, seeking to pull together the leaders of transhumanism: from the early 1990s: Max More, Natasha Vita-More, Anders Sandberg; the late 1990s: Nick Bostrom, David Pearce, James Hughes; the 2000s: James Clement, Ben Goertzel, Giulio Prisco and many others. In short, it is based on the early work of Extropy Institute and WTA.

In the past couple of years, the transhumanist movement has been growing fast and furiously. Local groups are mushrooming in all parts of the world. Awareness of transhumanist ideas is spreading. Transhumanism is undergoing the transition from being the preoccupation of a fringe group of intellectual pioneers to becoming a mainstream approach to understanding the prospects for technological transformation of the human condition. That technological advances will help us overcome many of our current human limitations is no longer an insight confined to a few handfuls of techno-savvy visionaries. Yet understanding the consequences of these anticipated possibilities and the ethical choices we will face is a momentous challenge that humanity will be grappling with over the coming decades. The transhumanist tradition has produced a (still evolving) body of thinking to illuminate these complex issues that is unparalleled in its scope and depth of foresight.

Read more:
What is Transhumanism?

Quick update with recent news. Ill probably write a better article at some point, but this will do for now. I still havent thought of a new name for an optics-friendly blog, otherwise Id put this stuff on there.

Also adding new Great Reset category to the site.

CONTENTS

As Im sure many of you are already aware, globalist elites are using their COVID19 psyop to push through The Great Reset, which is simply a rebranding of the United Nations Agenda 21 (also known as Agenda 2030 and Sustainable Development Goals).

The Great Reset was known as Agenda 21 while globalists were using Global Warming as the primary psyop excuse for creating a one-world government, The Great Reset is merely the virus psyop rebrand.

When Globalists say things like:No poverty!Good health!Zero hunger!

Theyre telling you that they plan to take totalitarian control over that aspect of humanity, and will micromanage it like the neurotic freaks that they are. They obviously dont care about poverty, hunger, etc., they just want power. Same deal when they talk about World Peace. Any conflict that they havent personally engineered causes instability and factionalism that threatens their global dominance. They dont actually want World Peace, they want a monopoly and violence, and to transform you into a pacifist cuck who kisses their boots while they stomp on your neck.

What the Great Reset is bringing us is what the globalist (or United Nations) agenda has always been: Global Communism. Dont forget that the four pillars of Communism, as laid out in Marx Communist Manifesto, are:

Anyway,themajor aspect of The Great Reset is the digitization of humanity. In other words, they aim to force transhumanism onto the entire human population or the populace of the West, at least. In the words of the sinister Great Reset faceman, Klaus Schwab, they aim to [fuse] our physical, digital and biological identity.

The transhumanist agenda dates back to the early 1900s, and globalists such as UNs Julian Huxley, who coined the term.

Unfortunately, the history of transhumanism is too long and complex to get into here, but the fusion of man with machine has always been on the globalist cards. However, their aim is not to use technology to make the masses of humanity into superhuman cyborgs, but to use technology to transform the masses of humanity into easily controlled slave gimps.

As explained by Julian Huxleys brother, Aldous (who authored Brave New World, a dystopian fiction novel), the globalists aim is to transform the world into a painless concentration camp in which pharmacological methods will make people love their servitude.

We effectively already have this with anti-depressants and so on, which are designed to stop you from feeling shitty about having such a wretched, soulless society, and kick your ass back into the meatgrinder so you can wagecuck like a good little debt slave. Around 20% of Americans are on psychiatric pharmaceuticals. Normies think that this is becausewe simply have a better understanding of mental health now,and not because society is disgusting and everyone fucking hates it.

The final step is to technologically regulate human behavior via transhumanism. Simply put, theyre going to put microchips in your brain and frazzle your thoughts. They already have the technology. (I know it sounds wacky, but you can look all if this up yourself. Its real).

So, how do globalists plan to achieve this?

Well, if youve seen the Great Reset primer image that was handily created for us by the World Economic Forum, youll have noticed that it includes things like:

The World Economic Forum, which is part of the United Nations network, very recently announced the release of a digital identity app, you can read the details in the second image below, which is higher res. The digital identity agenda will likely be the wedge issue that globalists use to force transhumanism upon the masses.

This is where the virus psyop comes in.

Globalists claim that the functionally useless lockdowns are an absolute necessity to combat the 99%-survival-rate virus. In reality, they are being used to break the will of the public and irreparably destroy the final few freedoms people have left. The middle class has been devastated, while global elites are more powerful than ever.

There are massive protests all across the West in response to the lockdowns, though these will soon be met with violent oppression from the globalist-puppeteered governments.

It is likely that people will be banned from travel, shopping, socializing, etc., unless theyre vaccinated. Some sort of digital chip may be implanted alongside the vaccine, which will be used to prove the individuals vaccinated status (tagged and bagged with a slave stamp).

This may be the beginning of the individuals digital identity, with the excuse that they must be loaded into a virus-free database.

The technology to do this has already been patented by none other than the Bill Gates Foundation.

As with the lockdowns, many people will resist the digitization of humanity and the transhumanist project as a whole. However, many more will embrace it with open arms.

For the digitization of humanity to be successful, elites will have to create a significant distinction between the digitized and non-digitized. Perhaps the virus will play a role, those who are not vaccinated may be treated as inhuman and socially ostracized, though it is more likely that non-vaccinated people will simply be refused access to basic services within society, as outlined above. This will create a pariah caste, who are completely unable to function in the newly digitized world.

Eventually, the masses will be so distraught and demoralized by lockdown life that they will beg to be vaccinated.

Get the vaccine, Leftoid. You dont want to be one of those racist, bigots, do you?

The success of the transhumanist project is also reliant upon the creation of a one-world digital currency, that will undoubtedly be linked to these digital identities. The creation of a one-world currency is something that elites have talked about for decades.

An article from the Rothschild-owned Economist paper:

Many elites, such as Bill Gates, have invested in and endorsed digital currency:

We may see the implementation of UBI, linked to some sort of Communist China-style social credit system. ThisForbes articlestates that the Federal Reserve has plans to create a digital dollar and a digital dollar wallet via the U.S Treasury, which was suggested to provide economic stimulus benefits and possibly universal basic income to Americans.

Facebooks Tel Aviv team are working on a digital wallet:

The Jerusalem Post stated that a global collapse would be a way to wipe the slate clean of nation-based currencies, especially the US dollar, and establish an international one: like bitcoin.

Klaus Schwab has ominously warned (threatened?) that there may be a Cyber Pandemic (what does this even mean?) that will be worse than COVID. How will this convince the masses that a digital identity and one-world digital currency is a good idea? I dont know.

Wolfish (who makes good YouTube videos, check him out) guesses that the Cyber Pandemic may be used to create a one-world digital currency, which would require the United Nations digital identity to use.

The final and most disturbing thing that Ive learned of recently is this patent, which seems to be for some sort of device that would essentially transform an individual into a human bitcoin mining device. I havent looked into it fully, but it seems to be style biological energy harvesting a la The Matrix. So, yeah, were heading towards some really fucked up shit here.

Like Loading...

Related

Follow this link:
COVID19, The Great Reset, and Transhumanism Thuletide

As gene-based mRNA vaccines from Moderna are being designed and tested at warp speeds to fight Covid-19, this is also bringing the debate over transhumanism into the forefront.

Transhumanism is a type of futurist philosophy aimed at transforming the human species by means of biotechnologies. Transhumanists see disease, aging and death as undesirable and unnecessary, and aim to transform human beings into post-human species with greater capacities than those of present human beings.

The philosophy is based on secular humanism and sees human nature as an evolutionary work-in-progress with room for improvement and enhancement. However, it is more radical in that it promotes not only traditional means of improving human nature such as education and cultural refinement, but also direct application of medicine and technology to overcome basic biological limits.

Transhumanists give special attention to genetic engineering, robotics, molecular nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, and the Covid-19 pandemic is providing gene-based vaccines a chance to break through into the global health market.

Moderna and gene-editing

Currently there are various companies such as Inovio, Moderna and CanSino Biologics that are testing mRNA and DNA vaccines to counter SARS coronavirus-2 (SARS CoV-2) which causes Covid-19, but Moderna is the front runner that recently nabbed $472 million from U.S. governments Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to develop the vaccine. This is in addition to the $483 million it had already received back in April, bringing its total funding to $955 million.

With U.S. government funding at nearly $1 billion for one company, Moderna may be too big to fail. However, this is perplexing for a company that has never produced a single vaccine. According to a CNN report, Moderna was only established in 2010, has never brought a product to market, nor gotten any of its nine or so vaccine candidates approved for use by the FDA.

However, it has been a long-term Pentagon contractor for biodefense, working closely with Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) on gene-editing and mRNA therapeutics. DARPA is focused on developing emerging disruptive technologies to maintain a competitive edge over adversaries, including many transhuman projects such as genetic engineering and soldier enhancement via robotics.

In the case of Moderna and mRNA therapeutics, DNA vaccines is considered a new paradigm that would disrupt the pharmaceutical industry. Its vision is to harness a new technology that synthesizes messenger RNA, or mRNAwhich is an instruction manual in every living cell for creating proteinto prompt the human body to make its own medicine.

So instead of injecting a piece of virus into a person to stimulate the immune system, the synthesized genes would be shot into the body whereby the genes are edited, deleted, added, to re-engineer human DNA to resist the disease. If successful, scientists hope DNA vaccines could be a transformative treatment for heart disease, metabolic and genetic diseases, kidney failure and even cancer. Moreover, it could be an effective form of biodefense to protect the population against biological warfare, which is also the mandate for DARPA and BARDA.

Transhumanism and hybrids

Indeed, DARPA is also developing other forms of human enhancement in addition to gene editing. Already scientists are merging robotics with the human body in brain-to-computer interface (BCI), wherein individuals with physical injuries can regain their functions, and soldiers become smarter and more powerful through the fusing of their brain with machines.

In a way, the Pentagon is now building real iron man similar to the American superhero based on the Marvel Comics character. Soldiers in exoskeleton suits are physically more powerful than those without, while other soldiers with bionic limbs perform better than adversaries with human limbs. When one adds artificial intelligence with BCI, the sky is the limit for an army of these genetically modified and robotically enhanced humanoids.

But U.S. is not the only country engaged in human enhancement and transhumanism, as Russia and China are also in hot pursuit with exoskeletons, vaccines and brain implants. As this competition gains traction, one wonders what the future of their militaries may look like as human beings are steadily integrated with machines to become armies of iron man.

Here the Book of Daniel may lend some insights. In interpreting King Nebuchadnezzars dream of an image with a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron and clay, Daniel revealed the parts as the sequence of world empires, with the feet of iron and clay being the last.

King Nebuchadnezzars dream manDaniel 2

All Telugu Christian Songs Lyrics - , 5 2016

In Daniel 2:43 it is written, as you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay, that seems to describe a hybrid of man (clay) mixed with machine (iron). And as transhumanism and biotech gain momentum, armies of hybrid humans of iron and clay may be a real possibility in a not too distant future world.

Dr. Christina Lin is a US-based foreign policy analyst specializing in China-Mediterranean relations. She has extensive US government experience working on national security issues and was a CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear) research consultant for Jane's Information Group.

Read the original post:
Gene-editing, Moderna, and transhumanism | Christina Lin ...

Just about everyone would agree that a child born in Australia should have the same opportunities and rights as any other Australian child. Race, disability, or religious belief should not be a barrier to what they can do or what they can achieve or where they can go.

These are human rights. They are built into various declarations that form cornerstones of liberal democracies around the world.

But what about human rights regarding their medical status?

The Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has signalled that states may be allowed to stop people from travelling based on whether or not they have been vaccinated. Surely we need to talk about the ethics of this.

Vaccines are unlike other medicines because they dont seek to cure illness or return us to our normal function. They provide upgrades to our natural characteristics namely immunity.

There is a word to describe changing the characteristics of humans like this it is transhumanism.

If you think this sounds like science fiction you would be right. The 1997 dystopian movieGattaca is the common pop culture reference for discussions around the ethics of transhumanism. In this film a genetic registry database is used to classify people who are created with eugenics as valids while people who are conceived naturally and more susceptible to diseases are known as invalids.

There are already some intriguing developments in transhumanism. Recently, there has been progress on developing mind-controlled prosthetics that may allow prosthetic limbs to convey sensation to amputees. Its a small step from using this technology for restoring bodily function to upgrading it. Nootropic or performance-enhancing drugs, which improve cognitive or physical abilities, could also create a form of transhumanism.

An important distinction is that these actions do not confer special rights that are denied to others, but we should have no problem with informed individuals choosing to change themselves.

But the pandemic is a game-changer. It means that government policy on this issue could impact on hundreds of millions of people. The pandemic led to a massive effort around the world to develop vaccines, and the emergence of new technologies such as mRNA vaccines have the potential to revolutionise medical care.

So the future has arrived, but have the ethics been fully considered? Medical technology has the capability of creating different categories of humans and, if we are not careful, a new tier of second class citizens - the invalids.

Should the state discriminate against a person who is unvaccinated? Or should they protect them from discrimination?

What about those left behind? Allowing states to discriminate against people who choose not to be vaccinated is a form of medical apartheid. It has the potential to be a major problem for unvaccinated people from remote areas or third world countries which would be like discriminating against people for being simply human and poor.

It could also be a problem for others who may have religious or medical reasons not to have a jab, or children who remain unvaccinated through no choice of their own.

Before we start locking people out of states and denying their right to freedom of movement, this is a very serious ethical issue that should be discussed and considered from a human rights perspective.

Unfortunately, the form is not good, because we have seen many human rights issues tossed aside during the pandemic with little or no thought.

The Victorian Ombudsmans office is the only independent body to have investigated human rights issues in detail in relation to the pandemic. Following an investigation into the lockdown of public housing towers in Melbourne last year, Ombudsman Deborah Glass found the actions of the government breached the Victorian Human Rights Charter.

Despite her damning report, it seems doubtful the Victorian Government learnt anything at all, because they still refuse to apologise.

This example of a disproportionate response is just the tip of the iceberg.

Forget about circuit breaker lockdowns, we need to break the circuit of government over-reach. We need to take at least a little time to reassess the implications for human rights.

Are we marching blindly into a world where discrimination against people for simply being human becomes acceptable and commonplace? Im sure that some will argue that this is an emergency and the normal rules shouldnt apply. But if we abandon our principles for this, then what are they worth?

We can start by respecting peoples liberty and their medical choices. We need to stop demonising people who, for whatever reason, would rather not have the needle or are unable to be vaccinated.

David Limbrick is the Liberal Democrats MLC for Victorias South East Metropolitan region.

Excerpt from:
Why haven't we heard more from the human rights bureaucracy about Covid and our liberties? - The Spectator Australia

Filming is underway in Europe on David Cronenbergs Crimes Of The Future, starring Viggo Mortensen, La Seydoux, Kristen Stewart and Scott Speedman.

Joining the cast are Tanaya Beatty (Yellowstone), Nadia Litz (Big Muddy), Yorgos Karamichos (The Durrells), and Yorgos Pirpassopoulos (Beckett). Also previously announced were Welket Bungu (Berlin Alexanderplatz), Don McKellar (Blindness), and Lihi Kornowski (Losing Alice).

The film shoots in Athens, Greece until September 2021.

The film takes a deep dive into the not-so-distant future where humankind is learning to adapt to its synthetic surroundings. The evolution moves humans beyond their natural state and into a metamorphosis, altering their biological makeup. While some embrace the limitless potential of transhumanism, others attempt to police it. Either way, Accelerated Evolution Syndrome, is spreading fast.

As we begin filming Crimes Of The Future, just two days into this new adventure with David Cronenberg, it feels like weve entered a story he collaborated on with Samuel Beckett and William Burroughs, if that were possible, said Mortensen. We are being pulled into a world that is not quite like this or any other, and yet is one that feels strangely familiar, immediate and quite credible. I cant wait to see where we end up.

Produced by Robert Lantos, the film reunites Cronenberg with three-time Oscar nominee Mortensen in their fourth collaboration. The movie marks Cronenbergs first original screenplay since eXistenZ in 1999. The film is also the fourth collaboration between Lantos and Cronenberg.

Panos Papahadzis is producer for Athens-based Argonauts Productions and Steve Solomos is co-producer. Executive producers include Joe Iacono, Thorsten Schumacher, Peter Touche, Christelle Conan, Aida Tannyan, Victor Loewy, and Victor Hadida. Bonnie Do and Laura Lanktree are associate producers.

Production designer is Carol Spier (Crash) and composer is Howard Shore (The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy). Douglas Koch (Funny Boy) is cinematographer, with Mayou Trikerioti (Pari) as costume designer, Dimitris Katsikis (Fugitive Pieces) as art director, and Stefanos Efthymiou is sound recordist.

Pic will be distributed worldwide by distributors including Neon (USA), MK2|Mile End (Canada), Metropolitan (France), Weltkino (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), The Searchers (Benelux), Argonauts Productions (Greece), Front Row (Middle East), Capella (CIS/ the Baltic States), and Moviecloud (Taiwan). Rocket Science is handling international sales.

The Canada-Greece co-production is produced in association with Ingenious Media, Coficine, Telefilm Canada, Bell Media, CBC, and the Harold Greenberg Fund, with the support of EKOME and the GFC.

Link:
Cameras Roll On David Cronenberg Sci-Fi Crimes Of The Future With Viggo Mortensen, La Seydoux, Kristen Stewart; More Cast Join - Deadline

How did you begin working on the development and ideation of a bionic heart?

I was approached by The Science Museum of Minnesota to design and develop experiences for an upcoming exhibition based around transhumanism, the process of humans merging with technology. One of these projects was to create a 3D hologram animation that presents a series of futuristic bionic organs using the peppers ghost concept which presents the hologram. What I found particularly interesting, and challenging was conceptualising a bionic heart through digital design. I was tasked with designing something that was both visually compelling and yet believable, the design concept had to be to be physiologically so that if it was used to design the physical product it could be implanted into someone, connecting the tubing to their arteries.

The goal of this exhibition, which runs parallel with my own goals, is to introduce the public to the world of human enhancement in an exciting and informative way, and what is more engaging than a holographic image of futuristic implants? There is plenty of science fiction that considers bionic bodies, but they tend to paint a dystopian world that makes us fear technological progress rather than welcome it; I believe its essential we paint an exciting picture of the future in which the capabilities of humans are vastly expanded, and I feel this exhibition portrays that perfectly.

What will designing in AR look like ten years away?

Whilst the fundamental process of designing is unlikely to change, the tools we use during the process certainly will. Augmented reality (AR) is one of the most interesting and exciting tools that can be used for this. As computers continue to reduce in size and increase in power we will see AR devices like the Microsoft Hololens reduce in size from bulky headsets to glasses to contact lenses and eventually brain implants. All aspects of the design process from research to prototyping will become faster, more streamlined and more connected, with areas of design most affected being concepting/prototyping and collaboration. We will be able to design, prototype, package and release our creations on one single platform, just as we often do with computers now. Our freedom to design where and when will be improved, despite your location; and our ability to collaborate will greatly increase as you'll be able to sync with collaborators anywhere in the world and instantly feel like you are in the same room as them. Discussing changes to your car design that's represented digitally in front of you, quickly making tweaks to the cars surfacing or perhaps the paint finish. At Seymourpowell we are already utilizing this technology, for example, when we were building the interior of Virgin Galactic's spaceship, I could be in my home in VR taking in feedback from a 3D avatar representation of my colleagues as we analyzed the inside of the ship. This allowed me to test and identify issues far more closely and talk to top designers around the UK.

What role does extended reality (XR) play in the world of transhumanism?

XR will play a very prominent role in the world of transhumanism, perhaps one of the most important roles. It's worth asking what reality is at this point. Reality in its simplest form is the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system. Our experience of reality is largely defined by our senses. If our sensory organs and brains can be adjusted, then so can our reality. In decades to come we may be able to experience things we cant yet comprehend. Neuroscientist David Eagleman is already exploring sensory substitution, creating a vest that converts audio data to vibrations, allowing users to feel sounds. His findings show that after some time users who have lost their hearing can start to understand what others are saying through these vibrations. As AR becomes more integrated into our lives, the more we will rely on extended reality technologies, just as we rely so heavily on our mobile phones now. Elon Musk argues that our attachment to mobile phones already makes us a form of early cyborg, imagine trying to go about your daily life without using a mobile phone. Whilst some voice understandable concern about having technologies so closely connected to our bodies, there are huge benefits, especially in the medical world. We will develop a much closer understanding and level of control of our own bodies and XR will be our primary way of interfacing with this.

What is the future of neural implants and how is the design process defining this?

A neural implant is a piece of technology implanted into the brain. Currently they're in the very early stages, however, many neuroscientists and tech leaders are working on prototypes and testing. It's likely the first brain implants will be used for medical purposes like repairing eyesight or reversing effects of other neural based diseases. The technology will inevitably move into the world of brain enhancement, for example a brain computer interface (BCI), which does exactly what youd think, connects your brain directly to a computer. Once we step into the world of altering and enhancing our brains, we really begin to consider the reality of turning ourselves into super humans, science fiction no more! Imagine a world in which brain enhanced humans can learn languages overnight or perhaps communicate telepathically. It will eventually become as easy as closing your eyes and plugging into the virtual world. As with all technologies and inventions, neural implants are driven and developed by the design process. It's the designers job to plan and direct the development of these technologies and ensure the best possible outcome. As with any design project, the prototyping phase is critical in testing and understanding which paths to take, and to help avoid any possible detrimental outcomes.

See the rest here:
Five minutes with Rafe Johnson - 2021 - Articles - Transform magazine

About three years ago, the poet Jack Underwood became a father for the first time. The responsibility weighed heavily: he recalls feeling that there should have been more paperwork. We signed a form or two and then they just sort of let us take you away. A human child. A few months later, he started having panic attacks his love for his daughter had rendered him utterly fucked with worry. He decided to write about it, which helped: my breathing regulated, my thoughts took shape, giving direction to my feelings; finding my thinking voice was like opening an enormous valve. The resulting book is a thoughtful essay-memoir on parenthood, in which Underwood recounts how he learned to manage his angst to live within the fear by embracing uncertainty.

Not Even This takes its title from the ancient philosopher Carneades of Cyrene, who remarked that Nothing can be known; not even this. It is a hybrid work, alternating between two distinct modes of writing: an epistolary memoir in the second person, addressed to the authors daughter; and a freewheeling meditation on the theme of uncertainty, touching on assorted matters of quantum physics, neuroscience, etymology, history, economics and technology. These include, among other things, the disagreement between Albert Einstein and Henri Bergson as to whether time exists independently of human beings; the biomedical ethics of transhumanism; the prospect of the technological singularity, when digital superintelligence will transcend the human intellect; the way time seems to slow down when were doing something interesting; the anomalousness of wave-particles; the reality behind the myth of Joan of Arc.

The gist? Knowledge is inherently tenuous, mutable renegotiable, political and socialised, and the craving for certainty is at the root of many societal ills. The financial system, for example, is wedded to certain rigid orthodoxies that are periodically disproved, with disastrous consequences: When we mistake the power of finance for certainty in its workings, then we only hand it more power, more confidence, and so permit it to act less and less reasonably. Fallibility is integral to human progress, so its best to go with the flow: a parent has little choice but to learn to trust a child to become themselves, and such trust is a kind of love.

The idea of trust also informs his approach to creative writing. Underwood, whose first poetry collection, Happiness, was published by Faber in 2015, sees poetry as a form of dissonant, unruly, uncertain knowledge, in which language is provisional, equivocal, interpretable. The process of composition is built on two-way trust: trusting the reader to get it, and trusting yourself, as a writer, to make yourself understood. Unlike many poets, Underwood doesnt save multiple drafts of his poems, but restricts himself to a single document and if I ruin it well, never mind Maybe I need the fear, the slight risk, to force myself to take responsibility for the poem in my care I have to move forwards in one vulnerable, resolute trajectory.

Underwood rejects the platitudinous notion that having kids turns you into a better person If anything parenthood has made us more selfish, more insular, always directing our hearts resources inwards. But he is, by his own account, a sentimental sort (I find old batteries funereal. I thank cash machines and postboxes), and this is what gives this book its charm. He reminisces fondly about his daughters first unaided steps, and sympathetically recalls how, during the first few months of her life, she would become extremely unsettled a neurotic, crotchety recluse whenever he had guests round: A roomful of strangers bursting out laughing must have been a grotesque, hyperreal tableau of teeth and gums. He believes silliness is intrinsic to intimacy, and encourages her to feast, you daft little cherub. There is practically nothing in life better than being incredibly silly. Elsewhere, overcome with love, he gushes endearments: My bag of fish. My cuddling gammon. Look at you go! Jesus Christ. Let me count the ways.

This is Underwoods first book of nonfiction prose and, like most debuts, it has its flaws. The central argument is somewhat woolly almost any subject might be obliquely tethered to uncertainty and Underwoods rhapsodic lyricism sails dangerously close to feyness at times. But he is a lucid and engaging companion. The voice that comes through in these pages is immensely likable humble, conscientious and emotionally intelligent. The books format flitting back and forth between disquisition and memoir every few pages serves the reader well: the essayistic meanderings are kept in check, and the autobiographical candour doesnt cloy.

A number of recent books on fatherhood have examined the subject through the prism of masculinity. These include Charlie Gilmours Featherhood (2020), Caleb Klaces Fatherhood (2019), Toby Litts Wrestliana (2018), Howard Cunnells Fathers and Sons (2017) and William Giraldis The Heros Body (2017). Though Not Even This also touches questions of gender, the scope of its existential inquiry is broader: Underwoods overarching theme is fear and fear, as he rightly points out, is what underpins the less savoury aspects of conventional masculinity. For all his fretfulness, this is an upbeat book. Underwoods dread gave way to a sanguine sense of purpose and self-sacrifice: Ive experienced a shift in my personhood, he writes, and acquired this sense of my body as happy collateral, a buffer of meat. Im not the important one in my life any more.

Not Even This: Poetry, Parenthood & Living Uncertainly by Jack Underwood is published by Corsair (14.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

More:
Not Even This by Jack Underwood review fatherhood, philosophy and fear - The Guardian