. . .hes just doing his part to help humanity survive the loomingunderpopulation crisis?

++++++++Peter Watts: Attack of the Hope Police: Delusional Optimism at the End of the World?Apr 30, 2019Institute of Advanced Studies Koszeg (iASK) Felsobbfok Tanulmnyok Intzete

8:38 (/58:31)

Now the other assumption on the part of the give us solutions brigadeis that we dont already have solutions, that solutions have not beenstaring us in the face for decades. . .

(9:22)

And above all, stop breeding. I could fly back and forth acrossthe Atlantic every week for a solid year and my carbon footprint wouldstill not be anywhere close to the Godzilla-size bootprint thatpeople stamp onto the planet every time they have a kid.

But oddly, these do not seem to be the kind of solutions that theoptimism brigade are in the market for. . .

(23:14)

My fear isnt just that people will see it and deny the facts, myfear is that even if people accept the facts, they just wont act onthem. The current US administrations position on climate changeis a classic case in point. Now a lot has been made of Donald Trumpspersonal repudiation of climate change as a climate hoax and so on.The fact is, the Trump administration does not deny climate changeat all. The Trump administration is on record as admitting that theyexpect the worlds temperature to increase by 4 degrees Centigradebefore the end of the century. And they continue to dismantleenvironment protections not despite that insight, but because of it.Were already screwed, you see its already too late. Its toolate to save the planet, so why bother hobbling short-term economicprofits with a bunch of pointless environmental regulations that wonteven really change anything?

I said before that we werent scared enough. Why is that? Why arewe so blind to such an existential threat? Why is it that when afriend of mine, a university professor not a stupid man by anystretch of the imagination why is it that when he inseminates hiswife with twins, an act which is exactly as remarkable as two dogsfucking in the street and far, far more destructive ecologically he not only doesnt think theres anything wrong with that, heactually goes onto social media and brags about it? And why is itthat when he does that, everybody piles on with Oh my God, youregonna be a dad! and Oh, daddy times two! and Oh, you must beso proud!? Why is it that nobody ever says Wow, 7.6 billionisnt enough for you?? Why is it that nobody ever says Well done,dipshit! By the time your precious twins are in their 20s, theywill be fighting over the last government rations down at the armory,if they havent already been wiped out by some mutant strain ofmonkeypox, or starved to death because wheat rust took out theworlds grain supply.? And why is it that if anybody did doany of that they would be immediately set upon as an asshole anda jerk? Not because what they said was necessarily wrong, butbecause even facing an imminent environmental apocalypse, due entirelyto the weight of our own numbers and our own first-world consumption,producing more of us is somehow not only still considered an inalienableright, but somehow morally praiseworthy? Why is it that columnistsin progressive, climate-change-recognizing papers write snippy editorialsin which they insist that Not only will climate change not stop mefrom having kids, but shitting on people who have decided not toreproduce, calling them shamers and virtue signallers? Howcan Emma Teitelhttps://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2019/03/13/climate-change-will-not-stop-me-from-having-kids.htmlbe so goddamn stupid? How can all of us as a species be sogoddamn stupid?

Well, as it turns out, because nature kind of built us that way.Up until quite recently, delusional stupidity was a survival trait. . .

[Steven Pinker sez] Brains are not truth detectors.They are survival engines. They were shaped by natural selection.They are wired to promote immediate fitness. If believing a liehas helped you spread your genes throughout our evolutionary history,then your brain will probably continue to believe that lie withall its furry little heart. And the obvious biggie here isMy genes are more special. My child is the center of the universe.My family is the most important thing. And its trivially easyto see how natural selection would make us, shape us, to believethat kind of stuff, even though we now have evidence that statisticallyparents are more miserable with their lives than non-parents are.

But thats only one example out of a bunch of em. Heres anotherone. Give somebody a choice between five bucks today and twentybuck in two weeks, and most of the time they will choose the smaller,more immediate payoff. Now the technical term for this ishyperbolic discounting. . . You give somebody a choice betweena reduced standard of living today and environmental apocalypse in20 years, and you dont even have to guess what theyre gonna do.Cause the numbers are already in. Because its 20 years away.Because, you know, somebody will come up with something in themeantime. Because its all probably a Chinese hoax anyway. . .++++

On the other hand (from the Alt-Right, Intellectual Dark Webpoint of view):

++++++++Jordan Peterson Population Collapse Is ComingFeb 18, 2022Chris Williamson

Jordan Peterson responds to Elon Musks population collapse prediction.What is the global population doing? Does Jordan Peterson think there aretoo many people on the earth? Are Elon Musks population collapse andpopulation decline predictions going to happen?

Williamson: Rolling the clock forward, you and Elon [Musk]tweeted recently about population collapse. You think itsgonna happen, then?

Peterson: Oh, well, Ive thought for at least ten years thatthe biggest problem in 50 years is that theres just not enoughpeople.

Williamson: I remember hearing you say a few years ago that youthough wed peak about 9 billion. . .

Peterson: Yeah, we probably wont hit 9. Yeah. And Idont have stats, because. . .

Williamson: Think about how crazy it is to think that we mightbe living on Earth, right now, at the time with the most number ofhumans that are ever going to exist at one time, ever.

Peterson: Yeah, thats highly probable. And you know, and thepopulation. . .

Williamson: That blows my mind.

Peterson: . . .the population collapse in developed countries isprecipitous.

Williamson: Right.

Peterson: Its like we fall off a cliff, because theres no kids. . .

Williamson: Everyone knows this from the pandemic, the r-nought number.If fewer people are reproducing, next generation you have fewer peopleto reproduce as fewer people are reproducing, and they oof .

Peterson: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I. . .

Williamson: And you think. . .

Peterson: Well, I I worked on a UN committee, about its gotta be10 years ago now to help draft the UN Secretary Generals report onsustainable economic development, and so I looked at all sorts of things,like that. I was very curious, for example, about. . . Because,people have been beating the overpopulation drum since. . . well, itreally kicked in in the 1960s, you know, because there were direpredictions by the year 2000 the Club of Rome came out and saidwell, therell be riots and mass starvation and mass movement ofmigrants, and all the things you hear about climate change becausetheres too many people on the planet, and that just didnt happenat all. That was just it wasnt just wrong, it was anti-true.It was absolutely wrong. What happened instead was that everyone gotway richer. And the bottom section of the population in terms ofeconomic distribution got lifted out of poverty. Inequality stillexists, but thats that power-law phenomenon we already talked about.Not that thats trivial, its just unbelievably difficult to determinewhat to do with. There are solutions but, certainly getting rid ofcapitalism isnt the solution. And so, I looked at population trends,and first of all found not that this is an act of genius or anything that, as soon as you educate women, the size of the family shrinksprecipitously. Like below replacement. And thats partly becausewomen have other options, thats a huge part of it. . .

Williamson: Were seeing this play out, hm?

Peterson: Oh yes. I mean, all the countries in the West areway below replacement. Koreas way below replacement South Korea.Japan, way below replacement. Yeah, yeah.

Williamson: I think the number one, number one on the planet is might be Chad? Chad? Chad, the country? Uh. . .

Peterson: In terms of growth?

Williamson: Uh, eight children on average.

Peterson: Yeah, I think Nigeria will have more people in it thanChina by the end of the century. So, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and Musk you know, hes a far-looking man, and so hes looking around theapocalyptic corner, lets say: Oh, oh! Were running out ofpeople! And what that means, of course, is that you run out ofyoung people, right? You dont run out of old people first,cause everyone who is here now is gonna be 30 years older in30 years, and itll be young people we dont have enough of,and of course young people are the ones who do the innovation,and are going to do most of the heavy lifting, etc. And so, theresgonna be a terrible shortage of young people.

Williamson: Well, you see this with some of the things that Iposted with that O[ffice for][National][Statistics] data 50.1 percent of women childless by 30 and both men and womenare replying to that tweet saying Well good! Theres too manypeople on the planet in any case.

Peterson: Yeah. I know, I know.

Williamson: thinking how? . . this NPC [Non-Player Character, i.e. mindless]midwittery [someone who is around average intelligence but is so opinionatedand full of themselves that they think theyre some kind of genius:https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Midwit ]is so dangerous because it makes people believe that they actuallyhave something grounded backing up their claims.

Peterson: Yeah. Yeah, well, and this idea that the planet has toomany people on it, this is there is no sentiment more implicitlygenocidal than that statement.

Williamson: [laughs]

Peterson: So what do you mean too many people, exactly? And what doyou mean the planet? And what do you propose to do about that, exactly?Mass abortion, is that your answer? Or should we do something a littlemore dramatic? Maybe well just shame people out of having children.And Ive seen people do that. Literally I saw a professor, when I wasat a TED I think it was at. . . doesnt matter. There was a numberof professors talking to a couple hundred students. And one of theprofessors, who was an environmentalist activist type, and he got upon stage and shook his finger to the whole young crowd saying thathim and his wife had only decided to have one child which wasin my opinion one child too many for him. . .

Williamson: [chuckles]

Peterson: . . .and told all the young people there that if they hada shred of ethical decency that they would lim. . . severely limittheir reproductive potential, and. . . I stood up and said thatI thought that that was the most. . . one of the most appallingthings Id ever heard anyone in academia say to young people which is really something, cause they say plenty of appallingthings, and it was a very uncomfortable moment, and he huffed offthe stage. But, you know, in a frenzy, talking about how you couldnttalk about such things without being pilloried on ethical grounds,and yeah thats for sure. You come out as a, what emissary ofthe academic establishment, you tell young people that humanity isso corrupt that they should seriously consider not propagating becausethat violates the deepest of ethical norms, and you think thats agood thing and that thats your right and. . . It was just beyondcomprehension. Its beyond comprehension. But its associated with,like a deeply-rooted existential self-hatred. And I mean hatredat the level of: humanity is like a virus on the planet, that werea cancerous growth on. . .

Williamson: Alex Epstein calls this human racism.

Peterson: Hm. Hm. Right. Right.

Williamson: And its that.

Peterson: Yeah. Well, were a cancer on the planet, you know?Unchecked growth, just like a cancer. Its like thats us,eh, a cancer. Its OK, we know where your heart is located.Cause, whats the implications for a doctrine like that?What do you do with a cancer?

Williamson: Cut it out.

Peterson: Yeah, thats for sure. Poison it, or whatever, whatever.Theres nothing you dont do to a cancer. So are you gonna use ametaphor like that? Theres too many people on the planet?You gonna use a metaphor like that? You know. . . And then youregonna also decide that youre virtuous while youre using. . .Because youre on the side of the planet, whatever the hellthat means? So. . . yeah, its, its unbelievable, and a hugepart of its rooted in this existential shame and, and. . .horror at the condition of being human, and the fact that lifeis rife with suffering, and a lot of its unjustified, and. . .You know, its a Mephistophelian position, so. . . Mephistopheleswas laid out portrayed in Goethes Faust, um. . .thats the story of a man who sold his soul to the devil forknowledge. Its a story of intellectual pride, and Goethe standsin relationship to German literature in the same manner thatShakespeare stands in relationship to English literature.Goethes Mephistopheles says straight out, twice, in the play once in the first theres two books once in the first bookand once in the second Goethe has him restate it twice existence is such a foul thing because of all its suffering,essentially, that it would be better if it was merely annihilated.And thats the Mephistophelian stance this whole show should justcome to a halt, look at how corrupt people are, evil reigns everywhere,its nothing but will to power, were destroying the planetwith our unchecked ambition all rooted in greed and Machiavellianismand jockeying for position, and were so contemptible that weshould just roll up and die. And we should shame women into nothaving children, and we should shame men so they nevermanifest any planet-destroying ambition. And its unbelievablyappalling. It goes all the way down to the bottom. The bottomof things. Thats whats tearin our culture apart, thisdispute about the nature of existence at the most fundamentallevel. So and the universities have come out on thewrong side.++++

Well, you pays your money and. . .

I could almost imagine that Peter Watts was on stage when Jordan Petersongot up and objected. Theyre both Canadian. But Peter Watts isnta professor, hes a sci-fi author.

;->

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Gorillas have very small testicles, you know - Freethought Blogs

WISekeys Founder and CEO Carlos Moreira was Interviewed by Steve Bannon on Warroom.org About The transHuman Code Bestseller Book and the Need to Humanize Technology

Video Interview at https://rumble.com/vodsq7-the-fourth-industrial-revolution-and-your-place-in-it.htmlBook available at https://www.amazon.com/transHuman-Code-Program-Your-Future/dp/1626346291

GENEVA / New York October 29, 2021: WISeKey International Holding Ltd. (WISeKey) (SIX: WIHN, NASDAQ: WKEY), a leading global cybersecurity, AI, Blockchain, and IoT company, today announced its Founder and CEO Carlos Moreira had the opportunity of discussing, in this interview with Steve Banon, the content on The transHuman Code bestseller book that was debated at the Vatican Collegio Teutonico meeting on October 23, 2021.

In stark contrast to the transhumanism movement whose desire is to create the ultimate superhuman by modifying the person with innovative technology, The transHuman Code was written to initiate the most important conversation of our lives how to keep people at the center of gravity in their relationship with technology and ensure that humans have the final decision and control of the switch.

The risks are so great, but the opportunities are even greater, if the two can exist in harmony. The pandemic has reinforced the importance of collaboration in the development, financing, and use of technology for our future. Organizing the wisdom and initiatives of technology innovators is essential so that everyone understands and stays at the forefront of The transHuman Codes mandate.

Mr. Moreira, noted, The book was published before the technology threat awareness movement, which is now underway, the importance of the conversation has only been accelerated and amplified. Our assembly at the Vatican last week, brought together business, financial and spiritual leaders to discuss how we can program our future for good using the principles of The transHuman Code, provided clear evidence of this.

One critical subplot to the global pandemic is that the very thing we hoped would save us technological innovation has fallen short. But our inability to slow or stop COVID-19 any sooner has not been a technological failure. The real failure is that our global wherewithal is more clearly fractured than it has ever been. Humanity has the tools we seek to solve the issues we currently face, and many others. We just havent figured out how to work as one. But there is still a straightforward way to solve both current and future challenges.

Story continues

Mr. Moreira added, In our bestselling 2019 book, The transHuman Code, we offered the world a carefully curated take on the essential conversations that will determine whether our relationship with technology will upgrade or undermine our humanity. It ignited a global dialogue. Now its time for the next step: taking tangible action to ensure that the highest human values are coded into the technologies that are defining how we will live in what is now commonly called the metaverse the digital world in which we will increasingly work, communicate, relate, and reside as global, digital citizens.

This go round, we are not merely curating conversation. We aim to identify and ignite the technological tools and solutions required right now. The transHuman Code 2.0 will establish, clearly and compellingly, the steps the world must take, and the specific areas in which we must take them, to ensure that the metaverse presented to us is designed for the greatest common good and monitor its evolution so it is human-centric and under Human control.

As humans HomoSapiens we can view this in three ways, concurrently:

First, through the lens of a citizen of the physical universe, who desires that humanity flourish through the upholding of our highest values, and the triumph over our greatest struggles.

Second, through the lens of a beneficiary of the digital metaverse, one who enjoys its many benefits but also understands that technology can do great harm if not stewarded well.

Third, through the lens of a fellow innovator whose ideas, convictions, and actions will help usher in the brightest future for our physical and digital world.

Technology is a visible force and an invisible one. We must be aware of both, to ensure human values remain at the helm. A powerful cautionary tale of what happens when human values arent at the helm of technological advancement comes from the late nineteenth century.

To avoid catastrophic consequences, humanity must have more than a few hundred thousand savvy tech entrepreneurs making decisions on the metaverse. We are all protagonists in this global drama. We dont need to look any further than the pandemic were still fighting to know that these digital decisions affect us all.

Mr. Moreira concluded, So the big question is how can we elevate life as we know it, in both the physical and digital realms in which we exist? It starts with an acknowledgment that innovation is both good and bad and reaches us as an internal and an external process. In other words, it comes from someplace inside our hearts, minds, and souls that we cant fully explain. Who really comprehends the birth of an idea? No one. We just know it comes from somewhere inside of us. But innovation also originates from the outside, through the external context in which we find ourselves: members of a large, equally incomprehensible universe. The nature of innovation has never changed. Ideas come from everywhere. How we approach them, proactively as human co-creators with technology not reactively as mere consumers, will determine our future. In the end, what we the world collectively seek is to co-create a future that is both immediately fulfilling and filled with the prospect of greater fulfillment to come. Humanity has always suffered challenges. How we solve them today, in our dual reality of the universe and metaverse, will frame the lives we lead for centuries to come.

About WISeKeyWISeKey (NASDAQ: WKEY; SIX Swiss Exchange: WIHN) is a leading global cybersecurity company currently deploying large-scale digital identity ecosystems for people and objects using Blockchain, AI, and IoT respecting the Human as the Fulcrum of the Internet. WISeKey microprocessors secure the pervasive computing shaping todays Internet of Everything. WISeKey IoT has an installed base of over 1.6 billion microchips in virtually all IoT sectors (connected cars, smart cities, drones, agricultural sensors, anti-counterfeiting, smart lighting, servers, computers, mobile phones, crypto tokens, etc.). WISeKey is uniquely positioned to be at the leading edge of IoT as our semiconductors produce a huge amount of Big Data that, when analyzed with Artificial Intelligence (AI), can help industrial applications predict the failure of their equipment before it happens.

Our technology is Trusted by the OISTE/WISeKeys Swiss-based cryptographic Root of Trust (RoT) provides secure authentication and identification, in both physical and virtual environments, for the Internet of Things, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence. The WISeKey RoT serves as a common trust anchor to ensure the integrity of online transactions among objects and between objects and people. For more information, visit http://www.wisekey.com.

Press and investor contacts:WISeKey International Holding LtdCompany Contact: Carlos MoreiraChairman & CEOTel: +41 22 594 3000info@wisekey.comWISeKey Investor Relations (US)Contact: Lena CatiThe Equity Group Inc.Tel: +1 212 836-9611lcati@equityny.com

Disclaimer:This communication expressly or implicitly contains certain forward-looking statements concerning WISeKey International Holding Ltd and its business. Such statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance, or achievements of WISeKey International Holding Ltd to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. WISeKey International Holding Ltd is providing this communication as of this date and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities, and it does not constitute an offering prospectus within the meaning of article 652a or article 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations or a listing prospectus within the meaning of the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange. Investors must rely on their own evaluation of WISeKey and its securities, including the merits and risks involved. Nothing contained herein is, or shall be relied on as, a promise or representation as to the future performance of WISeKey

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WISekeys Founder and CEO Carlos Moreira was Interviewed by Steve Bannon on Warroom.org About The transHuman Code Bestseller Book and the Need to...

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Euro zone inflation will be higher in the coming years than earlier predicted and will come in just below the European Central Bank's 2% target in 2022, a survey by the ECB showed on Friday.

Consumer price growth is now seen averaging 2.3% this year and 1.9% the next, the Survey of Professional Forecasters, a key input in ECB deliberations, showed. This compared to 1.9% and 1.5% respectively in the last edition of the SPF three months ago.

"Respondents attributed the upward revisions mainly to higher energy prices and the impact of supply chain tensions," the ECB said.

"Although both these factors were also cited in the previous round, the recent developments were seen to have been more intense and were expected to be more persistent than previously anticipated."

Already close to twice the ECB's target, inflation is set to accelerate further and possibly hit 4% in the coming months, on soaring commodity prices and industrial supply bottlenecks, keeping pressure on both producer and consumer prices.

It will then decline but many policymakers see it remaining above the ECB's 2% target in 2022, making ultra easy monetary policy more difficult to justify.

Abandoning her long standing stance that inflation is "largely temporary," ECB President Christine Lagarde admitted on Thursday that consumer price growth will be high for longer, putting possible upward pressure on wages.

But she maintained that no policy response was needed as inflation would still sink back below the ECB's target once the stress in the global economy, mostly a result of its reopening after the pandemic, is resolved.

In the longer term, defined as 2026, inflation was seen at 1.9%, above the previous projection of 1.8%.

Projections for growth were raised to 5.1% this year from 4.7% seen previously, while 2022 growth is now expected at 4.5%, broadly in line with the previous, 4.6% figure.

(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Francesco Canepa)

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ECB survey shows euro zone inflation just below goal in 2022 - Yahoo Finance UK

An innocent viewer of the new Apple TV+ series Foundationa lavish production complete with clone emperors, a haunted starship, and a killer android who tears off her own facemight be surprised to learn that the novels its based on inspired Paul Krugman to become an economist. Isaac Asimovs classic saga revolves around the dismal science of psychohistory, a hybrid of math and psychology that can predict the future. Its inventor, Hari Seldon, lives in a twelve-thousand-year-old galactic empire, which, his equations reveal, is about to collapse. Interstellar wars will be endless, he warns. The storm-blast whistles through the branches of the Empire even now.

His followers establish a Foundation on the frontier world of Terminusa colony tasked with conserving all human knowledgewhere they spend the next millennium fulfilling Seldons plan to reunite the galaxy. Left ignorant of its details (such knowledge would play havoc with prediction), each generation must solve its own crises. The Foundation confronts barbarian kingdoms, imperial revanchists, and shadowy telepaths who elude psychohistorys grasp.

The novels conspicuously lack aliens, mysticism, and other space-opera standbys, not least battle scenes. (I was so sorry afterward I had not counted the number of spaceships that had exploded, Asimov wrote in a withering review of the 1978 movie Battlestar Galactica.) Their appeal is subtler, relying on the tension between Seldons plan and the individuals caught in its weave. They are ordinary scholars, traders, politicians, and scientists: the tale spans light-years and millennia, but never forgets its human proportions.

This is no invitation to cinematic extravagance. Asimovs saga has been enormously popular since the publication of its first trilogyFoundation (1951), Foundation and Empire (1952), and Second Foundation (1953)which sold millions of copies. (Asimov kept writing prequels and sequels until his death, in 1992.) Yet the series onscreen presence has been restricted to its influence on other science-fiction sagas, especially Star Wars. Zealously noting these homages, Asimov fans have waited decades for their own epic.

Now DavidS. Goyerwhos best known for co-writing The Dark Knight with Christopher Nolanhas not only adapted Asimovs saga but overhauled it. Planned for eight seasons, and just renewed for a second, Foundation gathers the originals far-flung strands into an action-packed morality play about agency and legacy, freedom and fate. The series attempts to rescue the novels from their atomic-age limitations but largely squanders its material on a clone of every other blockbuster fantasy quest. Though sprinkled with timely allusions, its hero-centered narrative obscures Asimovs most pressing question for an era of political and ecological precarity: What does it mean to engage in a survival struggle that lasts far longer than any individual life?

The TV series has three arcs, each dramatizing an orientation toward the future. The first centers on Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey), the Warden of Terminus, who defends its fledgling settlement from invasion. Shes agnostic about the plan (Seldons gone. When are you all going to start thinking for yourselves?). But her uncanny visionslinked to a portentous diamond-shaped vaultunwittingly advance its trajectory. A few decades earlier: Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) enlists Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell), a math prodigy from a backwater world, to work on psychohistory, and then, by a cunning stratagem, arranges for their exile to Terminus. The gambit opens Asimovs novel, but in the series it sparks a season-long argument. Gaal lambastes Seldons deterministic saviorism, shouting, You didnt care what we wanted, as long as your plan was safe!

A third narrative unfolds at the imperial palace on the city-world of Trantor, a galactic capital where a genetic dynasty of clones has reigned for nearly four centuries. If Gaal, Hari, and Salvor enact an uneasy dance between progress and freedom, the emperors, all named Cleon, stand for unyielding continuity. They are a royal family of three, each at a different stage of life: Brother Dawn, a boy, who learns; Brother Day, an adult, who rules; and Brother Dusk, a retiree, who, naturally, paints, documenting the dynastys exploits by adding them to a vast mural. (Its grainy, ever-shifting surface exemplifies the shows distinctively particulate aesthetican Ozymandias of nanobots.) Even at the dinner table, the clones mirror one another, synchronizing their every gesture with neurotic precision.

Lee Pace, with a dulcet voice and a conspicuous chest, gives a mesmerizing performance as Brother Day, whose faltering serenity suggests a man beginning to lose his erection as he bestrides worlds. Day spends his time berating Dusk, molding Dawn in his image, and tyrannizing Eto Demerzel, his robot adviser-mother-wife-slave. Played with cunning and world-weariness by Laura Birn, Demerzel has tended Cleon egos for centuries. But her ministrations arent quite enough to salve the imperial insecurities, as unrest threatens to unravel man and state.

Trantor suffers its 9/11 moment when terrorists attack the Star Bridge, a colossal spire that serves as its umbilical connection to the larger galaxy; its fall destroys a swath of the densely populated planet. Brother Day retaliates by publicly executing dignitaries from the suspects home worlds; in a mashup of Caesars thumbs-down in Gladiator and the Death Stars annihilation of Alderaan in Star Wars, a crowd jeers at the blubbering emissaries as he nukes their planets with a two-finger flick of the wrist.

Asimovs saga has no such clone-emperor theatrics. The empires death agonies are dispersed among more oblique episodesa loss of contact with the inner worlds; a superstitious tech-man guarding an ancient nuclear plantwhich gather momentum over chapters and centuries. Still, the Brothers Cleon are among Goyers more effective innovations, giving the original theme of imperial inertia three all too human avatars. In what may be the seasons most compelling episode, Brother Day endures a trial by ordeal to refute a charismatic priestess, Zephyr Halima (TNia Miller), who preaches that the emperors have no soul.

Foundation is much clumsier, alas, when it comes to the Foundation; Goyer dilutes psychohistory from a detective story about the future to a cottony utopian ideal. Jared Harriss Seldon is a bland thought leader who delivers speeches that wouldnt feel out of place at a political convention. In one scene, he shows up to praise starstruck laundry workers on the colony ship. Your names will be memorialized, he says, as believers who threw their lot in with an eccentric, that pinned the fate of the galaxy on the back of a theorem so abstract, well, it might as well have been a prayer. You can almost see the yard signs on Terminus: In this house, we believe that psychohistory is real.

Gaal and Salvor, who are men in the Asimov saga, are both portrayed by Black women actorsa welcome revision of the originals first installment, in which exclusively male principals smoke long cigars of Vegan tobacco. Yet Gaal, portrayed by Lou Llobell with precocious gravity, is burdened with a strangely racialized origin story: Synnax, her home world, seems to be populated by dark-skinned people who reject the empire and science with neo-primitivist ardor. (The planets Atlantean vistas combine a reference to our climate crisis with an opportunistic seasoning of off-brand Afrofuturism.) She defies tradition for psychohistory and Seldon, as if she were born to claim the mantle and correct the blind spots of a problematic white male genius. Its a winking allusion to the shows own self-consciously diverse update of Asimovand exactly the kind of earthbound pigeonholing that limits Black actors in imaginary realms.

A more martial update is foisted on Salvor, played by Harvey with a striking flattop, a black jumpsuit, and an unremitting attitude of frowning concentration. Shes an anxious loner who emerges as a sort of gunslinging sheriff. In Asimovs novel, by contrast, Salvor is a savvy mayor, who overthrows the Foundations pedantic director and forestalls an invasion through shrewd demagoguery. The original Salvors motto is that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent; the TV show gives the line to her father, and has Salvor march into the Terminus armory to see what violence we can muster. Its a characteristic revision for the series, which strategically bundles amped-up diversity with amped-up action. But why not cast a Black woman in the original role of a crafty pol, instead of as another wide-eyed underdog who grows into an action figure?

The larger problem is that Goyers Foundation seems bored with its source material. The plot is carefully tailored to Joseph Campbells The Heros Journey, with many of its fantasy embellishments cribbed from better-known sagas. There are transhuman starship pilots la Dune. Math plays a feeble cousin of the Force; Jared Harriss Seldon looks like Alec Guinnesss Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Gaal, the young outworlder evading her destiny, is an updated Luke Skywalker. Everyone seems to have a special ability, and, where Asimovs protagonists drew urgency from the brevity of their lives, Goyers cheat their way across the centuries with clones, cryogenic capsules, and uploaded consciousness. They are supersized heroes gallivanting through a diminished galaxy.

Whats lost is Asimovs talent for conveying our fragility in the cosmos. His first novel, Pebble in the Sky, takes place on a colonized, irradiated Earth, where imperial soldiers mock the local belief that the planet is humanitys world of origin. Nightfall, his most celebrated story, is set on a world with multiple suns, where an eclipse makes the stars visible for the first time in millennia, and creates a planet-wide existential crisis. The Foundation saga achieves a yet larger sense of scale through its episodic structure: Trantor, a sprawling city-planet that dazzles Gaal in the opening volume, returns in the next as a world of farmers who sell scrap metal from the endless ruins.

The Apple TV+ series could have tried to craft a new template to encompass these constellations. Instead, it falls back on a sturdily familiar one: a ragtag band facing down a mighty empire, with the fate of the universe pivoting on the actions of a gifted few. Its an approach that would have appealed to Asimovs Lord Dorwin, a dilettantish dignitary obsessed with identifying humanitys original solar system. Rather than search for it himself, though, Dorwin relies on the findings of long-dead archeologists. When Salvor suggests that he do his own field work, Dorwin is incredulous: Why blunder about in far-flung solar systems when the old masters have covered the ground so much better than we could ever hope to?

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When Foundation Gets the Blockbuster Treatment, Isaac Asimovs Vision Gets Lost - The New Yorker

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It was Queen night on Mondays Dancing With the Stars, and Olympic gold medal gymnast Suni Lee performed a fantastic paso doble with her partner Sasha Farber. However immediately after her performance she ran offstage. The show was live but host Tyra Banks explained the situation. Suni is not feeling so good, Banks said. Not covid! Not covid at all! But she's not feeling well so she danced sick and she had to leave. But she's okay. Earlier in the day, Suni told fans on Twitter that she wasnt feeling well, but she gritted out a performance, and the judges applauded her for it. Oh, you did so well, honey, judge Bruno Tonioli said. In spite of not feeling well, you rocked that paso Doble. I don't know where you are. Sharp -- it was fantastic. Despite being sick, the gymnast leapt back into action during the relay competition, performing a Viennese waltz to We Are the Champions. Afterwards she was proud of herself for coming back on stage. It's very scary because it's like, I've never done that before so I was kind of embarrassed and I knew that if I didn't come out here I'd be very disappointed in myself, Lee said.

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From clothes and shoes to home and beauty, these are the Nordstrom Rack deals you dont want to miss this weekend - Yahoo Finance UK

Posted by Jerry Derecha

PostedbyJerry DerechaonSeptember 30, 20210Comments

This is absolutely horrifying. They are not following Natural Law by doing this. Unless all the mothers had been vaccinated. Then they brought these little monsters upon themselves.

https://www.roxytube.com/v/fSLwfb

| Hybrid Transhuman Black-eyed Baby

To see these children being born as Serpent Seedesque black-eyed semi-synthetic abominations is certainly shocking, but not surprising and would fit right alongside our current prevailing theory regarding the DNA modifying aspirations of the EL-ites and their plans to kill or zombify the rest of us. It would make sense for them to target parts of the female genome to ensure that any child born moving forward would be loyal to the Beast & the Beast System and not technically human. THAT baby does NOT look human. It looks like a remote controlled drone baby from Tesla or something. Those eyes arent just dark. They aresodark that it almost looks like CGI(Maybe thats what it is. Judge for yourself, but I dont think so).

Source:https://www.massappealnews.com/2021/09/29/covid-video-black-eyed-vaccine-babies-admixture-of-creepy-aliens-and-manikins/

Pandemic babies resemble aliens.

Blog King,Mass Appeal

MEXICO A video has gone viral that shows the ill effects of the COVID vaccine oninfants. The parents were inoculated between December 2020 and January 2021. Many of theblack-eyed babieshave dilated pupils coupled withprematureaging. The tots resemble an admixture of aliens andmanikins. The video shows a baby sitting up at 4 months old. It also shows an infant crawling at 2 months, a baby walking at 3 months and acrumb snatchersayingmamaat 4 months.

Not to mention a neonate grew a damn tooth. Man, its one of thecreepiestvideos youll ever see. Social media reaction was priceless.One viewer wrote,No easy way to say it. Its some no soul having horror show sh*t.Another added,They were given super powers! The age of the X-babies is at hand.

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Is it time to recall and re-examine the vaccine?

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Hybrid Transhuman Black-eyed Babies Pandemic Babies ...

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.

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Gene-editing, Moderna, and transhumanism - The Times of Israel

The more AI gets established, the more likely it will be forgotten that decisions can ultimately only be made by humans, says the psychiatrist-philosopher

Thomas Fuchs is a psychiatrist and philosopher who lives and practises in Heidelberg, Germany. He holds the prestigious Karl Jaspers Chair for philosophical foundations of psychiatry and psychotherapy at Heidelberg University, where he is a senior physician in the psychiatric unit and heads the department of Phenomenological Psychopathology. In this exclusive interview, he talks about AI, data-driven societies, and contests the transhumanist notion that human beings are fundamentally imperfect and need to be reshaped and enhanced.

What I think needs a defence today is the humanistic image of man. At the centre of this image is the human person as a physical or embodied being, as a free, self-determining being, and ultimately as an essentially social being connected with others. The definitions that constitute a humanistic, personal image of humanity culminate in the concept of human dignity, understood as the claim to recognition that human beings raise through their bodily existence and co-existence. To what extent is this self-image of man currently under challenge?

In his book Homo Deus (2017), historian Yuval Noah Harari has sketched out a gloomy scenario for the future, according to which scientific and technological progress will gradually render the liberal and humanistic view of humanity obsolete. According to Harari, we will increasingly surrender to the algorithms, data analyses, and forecasts of artificial intelligence, as they can already provide better information about the future than our limited human intelligence: Homo sapiens is an obsolete algorithm, he says.

More generally, with the progress of artificial intelligence, digitalisation of the life world, and the reduction of the mind to neuronal processes, the human being appears more and more a product of data and algorithms. Thus, we conceive ourselves in the image of our machines, and conversely, we elevate our machines and brains to new subjects. At the same time, demands for an enhancement of human nature culminate in transhumanist visions of taking human evolution to a new stage. Against this self-reification of the human being, my book defends a humanism of embodiment: our corporeality, aliveness, and embodied freedom are the foundations of a self-determined existence, which uses new technologies only as a means instead of submitting to them.

This is not an easy question to answer. Classical humanism is undoubtedly anthropocentric to a high degree, and this can no longer be sustained today. Its lack of consideration of our embeddedness in the earthly environment is all too palpable today in the ecological crisis. The post-humanist criticism of anthropocentrism, however, overshoots the mark. To radically question or even want to overcome man because of his misconduct towards nature is absurd humans are the only beings who can take responsibility for the world, there are no others. As I write in my introduction: Even an ecological redefinition of our relationship with the earthly environment will succeed only if our own embodiment and aliveness as connectedness or conviviality with our natural environment is at its centre. The death of the subject much invoked by postmodernism would also be the end of the collective effort to save the earth algorithms, cyborgs, or post-human beings will not do this in our place.

Apart from the many positive possibilities of digital technologies, one of their main dangers is that they provide forms of technocratic regulation and manipulation of society that push freedom further and further back. We will be increasingly willing to get rid of the burden of our own responsibility and hand it over to machines and their algorithms. In this way, international IT companies on the one hand, and authoritarian regimes and state apparatuses on the other, are increasingly taking control of our lives.

The more the idea of AI as a supposedly superior form of analysis, prediction, and evaluation becomes established, the more likely it will be forgotten that decisions, with all their imponderables, can ultimately only be made by humans. Responsibility is no technical category; it cannot be passed on to artificial systems. But if we conceive of ourselves as objects, be it as algorithms or as neuronally determined apparatuses, then we forget our fundamental capacity of freedom and responsibility, and we surrender ourselves to the rule of those who seek to manipulate such apparatuses and to control them socio-technologically.

The term intelligence is derived from the Latin intelligere to see, understand, comprehend. It, therefore, presupposes subjectivity, namely someone who sees or understands something; above all, someone able to see himself and his situation from a higher perspective, so that he can find creative solutions to problems based on an overview. For example, he who leaves signs on his way through a forest to find his way back later, acts intelligently.

So, if we use the term intelligence to describe the ability to grasp oneself or a situation from a superordinate perspective in order to solve problems, then we certainly cannot attribute such abilities to any apparatus that lacks consciousness. The term intelligent is used here only improperly, just as one does not assume that a smartphone is really smart it only blindly executes programs that can be described as cleverly developed. The supposed intelligence of AI is, therefore, only borrowed: each of these programs is only as smart or sophisticated as the programmer who designed it.

The transformation of our social interactions into a semi-virtual screen experience is a mass experiment and we do not yet know how it will affect our psyche and social life; nor do we know what the consequences of social isolation and gradual de-realisation will be. In any case, being bodily together in a real space is still the most effective form of presence. And touch and resistance are the primary test of reality. The increasing transformation of our relations with the world into images and virtual spaces is already undermining our shared reality. Research has shown that conspiracy theories (e.g. Trumps stolen election or COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs) are mostly spread among people with reduced or missing social contacts, who compensate their loneliness by means of Internet echo chambers. We should keep this in mind when singing the praises of digitalisation. Humans are social beings in need of bodily resonance and contact; they need the physical presence of other people, otherwise they will dry out like plants in the sand.

It is true that increasing digitisation is resulting in a disembodiment of social relationships, which is making some of the differences tied to the body, its appearance, its gender, etc. less meaningful or even eliminating them. Whether this will contribute to higher justice and equality of individuals, however, can be doubted. Because the lived body is ultimately also our principium individuationis if it is replaced by a digital pattern or cluster of information received through social media, we will be formally more equal, but at the cost of losing our bodily presence, our appearance, our charisma. That seems like a bad deal to me.

I think that it is only through intersubjectivity that we attain reality in a genuine sense: the experience of that which exists independently of our subjective, momentary perception. This experience requires transcending our subjective, egocentric relationship to the environment, which only becomes possible through the experience of an alien subjectivity. Only the other, and especially his gaze, breaks through my subjective horizon and forms a reality beyond my own. This also fundamentally changes space it is no longer just surrounding space or environment, but an intersubjective space.

As I like to say: Even Robinson Crusoe saw his island for 10 years through the eyes of others it belonged to a common world, although nobody else saw it. Only in dreams do we dive into a purely egocentric world, where everything refers only to ourselves.

I dont know Agambens critique in detail. I have only read that he doubted at the beginning whether the pandemic was not just an invention, which was, of course, nonsense. That the state of emergency must always remain a temporary state in need of clear justification is, however, essential for a democracy on this, we probably agree.

Seralathan teaches German at Goethe Institut Chennai and Milind teaches German language and literature at IIT-Madras.

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Humans are the only beings who can take responsibility for the world, there are no others: Thomas Fuchs - The Hindu

As Logan musters his defense, he leans on the shows fictional American president, an unseen Republican he derisively calls the raisin. In the end, raisins are grapes, and grapes are meant to be stomped. Or cultivated, when the old ones stop giving juice.

With an election looming, Logan who owns a Fox-like cable news network with conservative king-making power begins auditioning candidates, including a slick quasi-fascist played by Justin Kirk. To Logan, the leader of the free world is, as he puts it in Season 1, basically an intern. This may explain his contempt for the presidential ambitions of his oldest son, Connor (Alan Ruck): Connors dream isnt just absurd, its slumming.

Is there anyone good in all of this? Shiv, once a political consultant of modest principle, has ideals shell cling to a touch longer than the other Roys, before discarding them like a champagne flute onto a waiters tray. Roman is an irresistible imp, but his eternal joking-not-joking mode makes him all the more sneakily dangerous, like a circa-2016 internet meme-lord.

Beyond the family core, you get to the characters who are merely morally weak in the way you or I might be if thrown into this world. Shivs husband, Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), is an arriviste with a tormenting awareness of his dispensability. Greg (Nicholas Braun), a cousin from a poorer branch of the family, is delightfully squirmy, a worm constantly twisting to avoid the hook and maybe wriggle a few inches higher up the fishing line.

Gregs haplessness makes him sympathetic, but is he honorable? His grandfather Ewan (James Cromwell), Logans embittered brother, tells him in the new season that he is in the service of a monstrous enterprise. Ewan may be a sanctimonious scold he is the most principled and least likable character on the show but he is not wrong.

Thats Succession for you. The best lack all charisma, while the worst are full of panache and intensity.

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Succession Returns, With No Real People Involved - The New York Times

Dont tell Frank Herbert (or the people at Thinx), but he actually came up with a pretty genius pair of menstrual underwear. Back in 1965. Only, well, his was outerwearand it did a lot more than collect blood and endometrial lining.

Herberts invention is, of course, the stillsuit. One of the iconic pieces of tech in his novel Duneand an iconic piece of sci-fi tech, periodits an invention born of necessity. Arrakis, where most of the novel takes place, is a desert; to survive, the planets native Fremen construct form-fitting suits that collect all of their moist excretionssweat, urine, feces, droplets from exhaled breathand recycle them into potable water. The idea is actually kind of brilliant and would, if you think about it, be hugely beneficial for a few days a month to anyone menstruating. The stillsuits would just wick away any discharge and recycle it with everything else!

To be clear, Herbert never mentions this specific purpose in the book. (No, thats a very, very good point, says Jacqueline West, Dunes costume designer, when I ask her about my maxi pad notion. Maybe Frank Herbert back in those days didnt think that far, but he thought of everything else.) The author describes the stillsuits in great detail in the bookthe tubes that collect air from the nose, the way body motion powers the pumps, the micro-sandwich that works as a filter and heat-exchange systembut he didnt seem to consider that some bodies have different functions than others. (Though, let the record show that there is an entry on Fremen menstruation [Fremenstruation?] in the Dune Encyclopedia.) Herbert also got the science wrong. Theres no way any suit could properly recycle the bodys fluids the way he describes without violating basic thermodynamics. Still, what he came up with back in the 1960s wouldve provided a great way to deal with period blood without spending hundreds of dollars a year on tampons, underwear liners, or menstrual cups.

Of course, Herberts not alone here. Spacefaring sci-fi stories rarely consider periods. Ripley, as I recall, never went around the Nostromo looking for a tampon. Rey didnt search the Millennium Falcon, either, though you can imagine her wrap garment could be put to some creative uses. Its hard to imagine what wouldve happened if The Martians Mark Watney had a uterus. Even the current adaptation of Y: The Last Man, which features a cast almost entirely composed of period-havers, doesn't talk about menses much. It just isnt a topic often covered in science fiction, unless its speculative fiction like Handmaids Tale that primarily deals with reproduction.

And, lets be real, its not like sci-fi never deals with matters of the body. For decades the genre has been littered with cyborgs, transhumanism, and even virtual worldsall of which challenge modern ideas of what bodies, and their functions, are. There is ample room for discussion of periods, but rarely do those discussions happen. (Perhaps technology has rendered them obsolete.) Even though stillsuits act like a second skin, they in no way make desert-dwellers cyborgs, and in Herbert's world such a thing likely wouldve been nixed anyway considering the forbiddance of thinking machines. Instead, his genius analog piece of equipment doesnt perform what could be one of its key functions.

Its hard not to imagine what could've happened if more writers broached the topic. Sci-fi tends to dream up the things humanity ultimately seeks to put into the worldartificial intelligence, robots, smartphonesand perhaps if Herbert had planted the idea in his groundbreaking bestselling novel, someone at Procter & Gamble wouldve thought it was cool to invest in developing something beyond dry-weave and pads with wings. (Though, TBH, those wings are clutch.) Instead, period technology has been the same for decadesand NASA once suggested Sally Ride take 100 tampons on a one-week trip to space.

Look, maybe nobody wants to read about any bathroom activity in a sci-fi booksuch mundanities are for life, not the page (or screen). But considering Herbert did explain moisture recapture from urine and feces and not menstruation, it does seem like an oversightone indicative of his novel's blind spots when it comes to the roles of its women-identified characters. (There are no trans characters in the Dune novel.) The Bene Gesserit are some of the most politically and spiritually powerful women in the Dune universe, yet theyre also spoken of as threatening space witches. Paul Atreides mother, Jessica, a powerful member of the Bene Gesserit herself, is a strong central figure, but her narrative is mostly there to serve Pauls. Same with Chani, the Fremen who becomes his concubine. (A lot of these characterizations led to Denis Villeneuve amplifying the roles of women in his film adaptation of Herberts book.) Perhaps their bodily needs werent considered because their actual lives werent considered.

Luckily, though, there are now people finally doing what Dune didnt. DivaCup and others are out to disrupt the menstrual cup market; GladRags is bringing back reusable pads; Knix, Modibodi, and others have all kinds of absorbent period underwearpretty much hyperlocal stillsuits without all the water reclamation functionality. Period products are now a $20-billion-plus industry. Just imagine if Frank Herbert had foreseen that.

More Great WIRED Stories

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With 'Dune,' Frank Herbert Designed the Maxi Pad of the Future - WIRED

A teacher could be banned from the classroom after writing an anonymous 'Gossip Girl'-style blog about teachers and pupils at his school.

Alexander Price, 43, penned the "The Provoked Pedagogue" blog about students, parents and staff at Denbigh High School in Denbigh, North Wales.

The design and technology teacher even targeted school girls, writing that they dressed " like Eastern European prostitutes and trans-human Kardashian clones" at prom.

Between January 2016 and March 2018 he wrote 24 blog posts, until a colleague found the site, and reported it to headmaster Dr Paul Evans.

Dr Evans quickly connected the dots, and realised that one post, titled 'Liars, Backstabbers and Empire Builders' referred directly to a meeting the two had had.

Do you think Mr Price be struck off? Let us know in the comments below.

In some posts he made up nicknames for headteachers at the school, calling one "El Supremo" and another "Grima Wormtongue" after a character from Lord of the Rings.

At a hearing in Cardiff, Mr Price, who admits writing the blog but denies the posts amount to unacceptable professional conduct, said he had no intention of ever returning to the teaching profession.

Mr Price said: " I would assert the absolute right to freedom of expression.

"In these times of cancel culture and the ownership of language this is one further example of the liberal elite attempting to sanitise the world with their own brand of passive-aggressive censorship and bullying."

He added: "Teaching in Wales is in crisis, teaching at Denbigh High School was non-existent in any meaningful sense of the word, fact borne out of its inability to meet even the basic standards of competence.

"The school is run in a shameful way which negatively impacts on the lives of children and their families in one of the poorest wards of the UK.

"Paul Evans treated Denbigh High School like his own personal fiefdom, running roughshod over procedure and bullying those who did not comply with his methods.

"He blamed me directly for failings in his own management and to seek to intimidate me to complying with his unreasonable demands."

The headteacher said he had been made aware of the 'The Provoked Pedagogue' blog and Twitter account in February 2018.

The 540-student school was in special measures at the time Mr Price wrote the blog.

Dr Evans added: "T o know that one of our colleagues was letting the world know it was a challenging situation and a lack of leadership and direction showed a lack of loyalty towards the school and what we were trying to do at the time.

"I think many staff would find it hurtful one of their colleagues was being disrespectful and pouring scorn on their efforts.

"I think it's very disrespectful to his colleagues, I think if they were to read that they would find it hurtful."

Mr Price has no plans to return to teaching regardless of the panel's decision, but he urged them to not "shoot the messenger" for exposing problems at the school. He said he hoped the blog would "shine a light" on the "disgraceful behaviour" of Dr Evans.

He said: " Behaviour was horrendous and unsafe. Drug use was rife. The blog had a tiny readership and was fully anonymous.

"Hundreds of pages of papers and hours and hours of time have been invested to investigate a blog which yielded zero complaints and simply told the anonymous truth.

"The articles are colourful and meant to be entertaining. While it was active I would regularly receive responses asking if I worked at their school - indicating the issues experienced were mirrored and lending strength to the efforts to anonymise the blog.

"I hope this shines a further light on the how poorly the children of Denbigh High School are being served.

"I hope these proceedings finally manage to drive the improvements that all the people served by the school deserve."

In one article titled "The Problem With Prom", Mr Price called the event "a shallow, vacuous affair, about nothing more than who has spent the most on looking nice".

He described the evening as where anxious young teens are "shoehorned into gowns and paraded into towns like cattle".

The post called attending teenagers: "Shameless chicken fillets shoved into criminally expensive and ill-fitting gowns."

Presenting officer Ashanti-Jade Walton asked Mr Price if he was sorry for his comments about the school prom.

He answered: "I'm sorry that so many pupils are forced to do this. That's what I'm sorry about."

Dr Evans hit back, saying his comments were "extremely hurtful".

He added: "The pupils are not from rich backgrounds therefore could not be in a position to afford expensive prom gowns or overpriced cosmetics.

"I believe they are wholly derogatory comments about the pupils at the school, disrespectful and seeking to undermine pupils at the school.

"The comments are wholly offensive to parents whose pupils attend the school."

Colin Adkins, Mr Price's NASUWT union representative said his comments were fair and a "reasonable professional opinion", in which the school, parents and pupils could not be identified.

He said: " The contents of the blog are true and the attack on Mr Price is an attempt to cover-up the failings of the school.

"Just because these facts are inconvenient to the school should not allow the school to succeed in this cover up.

"The blogs are totally anonymised. There is not one article which mentions a pupil by name, a parent by name, or a member of staff by name."

Mr Price left the school in 2019 and may be struck off permanently, pending the outcome of the hearing.

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Teacher who insulted pupils and colleagues in 'Gossip Girl' style blog faces being struck off - Mirror Online

Although Russell T Davies landmark masterpiece Its A Sin features an array of established top-drawer actors including Keeley Hawes, Neil Patrick Harris, Stephen Fry and Years & Years frontman Olly Alexander (relishing the role of a lifetime), its largely unknown, talented and up-and-coming newcomers in that are at the centre of the action, in a flatshare dubbed The Pink Palace, and do a sterling job of making you feel like you want to be part of their gang. Heres what you need to know about the Its A Sin cast. Altogether now: La!

Roscoe, played by Omari Douglas. Credit: Channel 4

Plays: Roscoe Babatunde

Why hes so great: As Roscoe flees his staunchly religious household, and his parents who are hell-bent on driving the gayness out of him even if it means returning to their native Nigeria, Roscoe unapologetically dons his sisters mini-skirt and crop-top and delivers a defiant, quotable kiss off to his dumbfounded family (and one aunt whos living for the drama): Ill be going now, so thank you very much. And if you need to forward any mail, Ill be staying at 23 Piss Off Avenue, London W-Fuck, before cat-walking into a new life with an assured strut that makes Naomi Campbell look like a shuffling bag lady in mismatched flip-flops. Whether its delivering waspish one-liners or adding more than merely milk to Margaret Thatchers coffee (possibly the most political piss anyone will take in their life), Roscoe is an instant icon and Omari Douglas glorious portrayal shows us the full range of emotion behind the brittle peacocking faade. Its little wonder spirit animal Boy George gave his seal of approval, tweeting: OK, Roscoe is ruling my life!! Yes, yes, yes! Staggeringly, this is Douglas first on-screen role, after working in theatre although a special production of Rush, a gay love-triangle comedy, for BBCs Culture in Quarantine series, which sees him reprise his role from the plays earlier run, is available on iPlayer.

How much did Its A Sin teach you about the Aids crisis of the 80s?

Omari Douglas: From the minute I knew Id be doing this, I dove into it and it was overwhelming. One of the reasons Im glad were doing this is were so used to shows and films about Aids from the American narrative, and this is a British perspective and quite different, and how Thatchers Britain wasnt a particularly great time to be gay. Whats brilliant is being able to pass this story on to our generation.

Do you feel privileged to be part of Russell T Davies lineage of landmark gay dramas (that includes 1999s groundbreaking Queer As Folk, 2001s underrated Bob & Rose, and 2015s Cucumber)?

Yeah! Its such a canon of work. I was five when Queer As Folk came out, but I remember the adverts and going: Oooh, whats that? My real entry into his work was Cucumber. It came out when I was in my last year of drama school and it was an event in our flat wed all schedule it, squash up on the sofa and watch it together.

Callum Scott Howells plays Colin. Credit: Channel 4

Plays: Colin Morris-Jones

Why hes so great: Anybody whos binged Its A Sin need only hear the name Colin to be suddenly surrounded by a moat of their own tears. Nicknamed Gladys Pugh (the Welsh character from 80s sitcom Hi-de-Hi! played by Ruth Madoc) by the Pink Palace gang, loveably sweet-natured ingnue Colin arrives in London from Wales to take up a Savile Row tailors apprenticeship under the tutelage of a sleazy boss. In episode three, actor Callum Scott Howells expertly takes your heart, puts it in a NutriBullet, and hits pure as Its A Sin delivers its first true emotional stop-the-clocks moment. Surprisingly, this is Scott Howells first on-screen credit (although he appeared on stage in Matthew Bournes Lord Of The Flies and Cameron Mackintoshs Oliver!), and he filmed Its A Sin while studying at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

How much did you know about the Aids epidemic of the 80s before Its A Sin?

Callum Scott Howells: Whats really important is were telling this story now particularly for my generation in Wales. We dont talk about it enough. I was never taught about it in school, and I didnt know about it until I turned 18/19 and left home for drama school and spoke to people about it. Even then, I had to seek out the information. Hopefully, young people are going to watch the show and realise how this affected so many people. Doing this as well, weve been blessed with having amazing older actors like Stephen Fry in the cast that we can talk to about their experiences and the friends they lost.

Would you like to see it taught in schools then?

Definitely. People see the gay community as big, colourful and vibrant, but there needs to be more understanding of the struggles and what our community has been through. If I had been taught this at school, I would have been blown away to know what I would have gone through if I grew up in the 80s.

How does it feel to be part of Russell T Davies lineage of landmark gay dramas?

I wasnt born when Queer As Folk came out, but I grew up watching Doctor Who, which is a different strand of his work. So it feels amazing and brilliant.

The show honours the memory of those lost by highlighting the joy, humour, fun and energy they had. Did that feel important?

Completely. Because this community is so joyful. Weve filmed in Manchester and walking down Canal Street, its multi-coloured and theres drag queens, youth, energy and vibrancy. That goes for our boys [in the show] theyre so young and fresh and experiencing things for the first time.

Lydia West as Jill in Its A Sin. Credit: Channel 4.

Plays: Jill Baxter

Why shes so great: Based on a real-life friend of Russell T Davies (actor Jill Nalder, who plays her mum in the show), aspiring thespian Jill is the first in the Pink Palace to stand at the storm-front when the Aids crisis looms. The ultimate selfless ally, she acts as a maternal Wendy figure to the flat of Lost Boys. Lydia Wests scene with Keeley Hawes, as her best friend Ritchie Tozers (Olly Alexander) mum, in the final episode is a masterclass; like watching the acting equivalent of a heavyweight boxing match. West isnt a complete unknown, she played technology-obsessed transhuman Bethany Bisme-Lyons in Davies 2019s dystopia Years and Years, but her future is definitely starrier than her past. Shes set to appear alongside Uma Thurman in TV thriller Suspicion and Celine Dion in the romantic drama Text For You.

Your co-star Olly Alexander talked about watching Queer As Folk in secret at 14 and it helping shape him as a gay man. Is there a sense this could be a similarly important drama to young queer people?

Lydia West: Completely agree. Even though the Aids epidemic only happened relatively recently in the 80s, I didnt know as much as I know now after researching for the show. Its important that we remember those we did lose and raise awareness for the prejudice around the disease, which still stands. For 14-year-olds today, I think its going to be educational. But its important to note that its not a sad story. Its fun, youthful, energetic everything great in life which we connect to.

Theres never been a UK drama about Aids on this scale before, and Jill is based on a real person. Does that come with a responsibility to get it right?

Yeah. Its a period drama, so were recreating a period of time that actually happened so theres a humungous pressure in the sense that we want to be as truthful and as honest to the time and to the characters, because its a sensitive subject. Because were not just creating something entirely fictional, it feels like it has a huge weight of importance and as an actor, thats what you really want to do.

How does it feel to go from the dystopian future of Years And Years to the real past of Its A Sin...

Im a Time Lord! The roles are so different that I havent thought about the time-period, Im more focused on the character. But again, the writing is just phenomenal you connect with each character, and know their friendships, relationship and nuances straight away. Its a beautifully human drama.

It seems like the cast got on like a house on fire too

It was instant. The first time I met Olly was in a singing rehearsal and I was nervous because I didnt want to sing because I was singing with a singer! Because its such a sensitive subject, it helps that we all get on and trust each other so well. Theres no egos. We feel like a team and know that without one of us, the whole ship would sink.

Nathaniel Curtis plays Ash. Credit: Channel 4

Plays: Ash Mukherjee

Why hes so great: As Ritchies calm, sensible and faithful friend, and occasional lover, Ash not only gets to educate on the importance of douching (You need a good wash OK?) but also delivers one of Its A Sins most pointedly political moments an evisceration of Section 28, the reviled law that forbade promoting homosexuality. Hes portrayed with aplomb by screen newcomer Nathaniel Curtis, who was hot off playing Romeo in Shakespeare in the Gardens production of Romeo And Juliet before Its A Sin.

Theres never been a UK drama about Aids on this scale before. How important to you was it to get that right?

Nathaniel Curtis: With having such an incredible script, it takes the pressure off us a little bit. Were all trying our hardest to make sure were portraying the truth that our characters have to live through, which is horrific. Speaking to friends who were alive in the 80s, it was terrifying and our characters are so young, and theyre trying to find their way in the world, and this happens and its scary. But theres a confidence that comes from knowing everyone the writer, the producer, director, etc are handling it in the most beautiful respectful way.

Did you all end up best mates?

We have so much fun. Weve been told off for having too much fun! We went and danced in each others trailers every morning, and went out for dinner every night. The subject matter is so sad and devastating and obviously being able to support each other when things are difficult and being able to celebrate when things are difficult, has really helped.

Read more here:

It's A Sin cast: meet the unknowns behind 2021's first TV hit - NME.com

As part of its enforcement activities, the Food and Drug Administration sends warning letters to entities under its jurisdiction. Some letters are not posted for public view until weeks or months after they are sent. Business owners have 15 days to respond to FDA warning letters. Warning letters often are not issued until a company has been given months to years to correct problems. The FDA frequently redacts parts of warning letters posted for public view.

Cocos Holistic Specialties & Apothecary Online sales

An online eastern & holistic herbal medicine company is on notice from the FDA for claims made about their products ability to mitigate, prevent, treat, diagnose, or cure COVID-19 in people.

In a Jan. 4 warning letter, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration described a Nov. 19, and Dec. 17, 2020, review of Cocos Holistic Specialties & Apothecarys website at the internet address https://cocosholisticspecialties.org/.

The FDA observed that the companys website offers 4-Thieves Florida Tea Concentrate and 4-Thieves Florida Tea Powder for sale in the United States and that this product is marketed as being intended to mitigate, prevent, treat, diagnose, or cure COVID-19 in people.

Based on the FDAs review, these products are unapproved new drugs sold in violation of section 505(a) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. This product is also a misbranded drug under section 502 of the FD&C Act. The introduction or delivery for introduction of these products into interstate commerce is prohibited under sections 301(a) and (d) of the FD&C Act.

Listed below are examples of the claims on the companys website that establish the intended use of their products and misleadingly represent them as safe and/or effective for the treatment or prevention of COVID-19.

The company was given 48 hours to send an email to the FDAs COVID-19 Task Force describing the specific steps they have taken to address these violations.

The full warning letter can be viewed here.

(To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here)

Continued here:

FDA sends warning letter to company that is advertising COVID-19 curing tea - Food Safety News

A vaccination volunteer is vaccinating a frontline worker during COVID-19 vaccine dry run. COVID-19 vaccine dry run is happening in all over west Bengal with three sites in Kolkata, 69 in West Bengal. (Photo by Dipayan Bose / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

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When Dr. Carrie Madej took the stage at the MAGA Freedom Rally D.C. on Wednesday, police sirens wailed as pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol. The presidents guest speaker told the crowd, a mix of QAnon supporters and far-right MAGA fans, her thoughts on the COVID vaccine: that it contains bio-sensing nanomachines designed to alter human DNA and control peoples minds.

This is not your normal flu vaccine, Madej said. This is something totally different. This is a witches brew. Ive never seen anything like this in science or medicine.

Theres many ways it can be taken up into our genome, she continued. So when this gets into the genome, if its permanent, guess what? You, as a human, can be patented and ownedlook it up!

Madej describes herself as an osteopathic doctor and a child of God and a believer in Jesus Christ. Shes also a QAnon believer who questions why COVID-19 has been a bigger story than what she describes as a global elite pedophile ring and reposts byzantine diagrams supposedly revealing Bill Gates as the mastermind behind the global pandemic.

This past summer, she was convinced that a long-debunked website advertising the Cannibal Club restaurant in Los Angeles was in fact a real eatery serving human flesh. We taste like pork, she tweeted. Dear Godhelp us change this world for the better!

To many, Madej successfully passes herself off as a medical expert, but she operates at the intersection of QAnon conspiracy theories and anti-vaxxer science, with a dollop of Christian fundamentalism and Trump-worship added to the mix. Yet the unfounded ideas she promotesthat coronavirus vaccines are part of a global effort to change the human genome and control the populationare spreading and have already had an effect. Last month, a pharmacist attempted to destroy 500 doses of Modernas COVID vaccines because he believed they were going to change peoples DNA.

This is not your normal flu vaccine. This is something totally different. This is a witches brew. Ive never seen anything like this in science or medicine.

The specter of DNA-altering vaccines didnt originate with Madej, but shes helped popularize it to the extent that its now just taken as a given in many right-wing spheres, without the need for citation or proof. While Madej has been banned from YouTube, she still has tens of thousands of followers across other social media, like Twitter, Instagram, and Parler. And thousands more heard her unfounded conspiracies on Wednesday when she spoke as a featured guest at the Freedom Rally, alongside the president and several other big names on Team Trump.

Guys, listen, that is the ulterior motive, that is one of the agendas of this: the ultimate enslavement of humanity, she said, Wake up! Wake up! Do your due diligence. Look this up. This is real.

Needless to say, the idea that a coronavirus vaccine contains spying, mind-controlling nanomachines has been debunked. They do not affect or interact with our DNA in any way, the CDC writes, in no uncertain terms, about the shots.

Madej says she started studying vaccines as a teenager, when she first came to doubt the tetanus vaccine. (She claims to be unable to find anyone who ever actually died from tetanus.) After earning her doctorate of osteopathic medicine from the Kansas City University of Medical Biosciences, she went on to practice in Georgia.

She currently lives in the Dominican Republic, she says, because its not safe for whistleblowers like her in the United Statesher long-standing skepticism about vaccines, after all, is dangerous knowledge when elites are pushing coronavirus vaccinations for their own agenda.

Madej first began sounding the alarm about supposed gene-altering vaccines in June on YouTube. The site eventually pulled her video for being misleading and blocked her account, but you can still easily find her video titled Human 2.0 Warning - Doctor Issues Wake Up Call to the World.

Wearing a labcoat and a cross around her neck, Madej appears as a talking head on a soft blue backdrop. Over the course of 20 minutes, she focuses on Modernas vaccine, which uses messenger ribonucleic acid, or mRNA, to produce an immune response in humans. Although theyve been researched for decades, COVID-19 vaccines are the first mRNA vaccines approved by the FDA.

Most people are familiar with injecting a piece of weakened or inactivated germ into the body for inoculation, like the flu vaccine. The COVID vaccines work differently: They contain a piece of the coronavirus mRNA that, once inside the body, provokes cells to produce a distinctive (but harmless) part of the virusa spike protein. The immune system, in turn, learns to defend against this protein, thereby creating antibodies that can protect from actual COVID infection.

Madej claims that process changes a recipients DNA, making them a genetically modified organism thats subject to patent law. Further, she contends, the vaccines use nanotechnologya word that simply describes extremely small tools but is often associated with tiny computers. Those tiny computers, she claims, can be used to both monitor everything happening inside our bodies and possibly remote-control our thoughts and emotions.

Although the COVID vaccines do use nanotechnology, its not computersits simply extremely small droplets that carry the mRNA into the body. Theres no massive DNA reprogramming and nanobot-insertion program designed as a part of a transhumanist push to "Human 2.0.

Nevertheless, Madejs story found an audienceand continues to. As of late July, her YouTube video had 300,000 views, according to BBC, and archives suggest her videos were still available under her name on the platform in late August, with tens of thousands of subscribers and millions of views. Even now, supporters try to sneak her videos past YouTubes safeguards.

The idea that the COVID vaccine will alter a recipient's DNA even recently led to criminal charges. Last month, Steven Brandenburg, a 46-year-old pharmacist from Grafton, Wisconsin, attempted to destroy more than 500 doses of coronavirus vaccine because he reportedly thought it could hurt people by changing their DNA," according to the detective who took his probable cause statement. Its unclear whether Brandenburg was directly exposed to Madejs content, but it doesnt matterher ideas are in the ether now, carried on the winds of right-wing social platforms and media.

Since being banned from YouTube, Madej has made her home on BitChute, where she has more than 2,000 subscribers. Shes on Parler, too, with 2,800 followers; she follows lawyer and Trump conspiracist Lin Wood, the Daily Caller, Breitbart, Ron and Rand Paul, and Bongino Report. And on Twitter, she emphasizes her medical credentials (her Twitter handle is @DrMadej and her avatar features her with a stethoscope around her neck) while encouraging her more than 26,000 followers to resist vaccination.

Our genome should not be played with like a Fisher-Price playset, she tweeted on Tuesday. Say No to being in these dangerous experiments. Say No to the Va$$i&e.

Her Instagram account with 6,500 followers is a constant feed of vaccine conspiracy theories. Alongside one meme showing The Munsters, with one normal, smiling blonde family member, is the caption, That one family member who refused the vaccine. She also once posted a screenshot of the CDCs tongue-in-cheek guide to zombie preparedness and asked with no apparent irony, Why is this on the CDC website?

Of course, Madej has chatted with Alex Jones, still the semi-tarnished king of conspiracy mongering, and he opened his interview by saluting her for her courage. Farther afield, shes appeared on the podcast of anti-vaxxer Robyn Openshaw. She joined Christian preacher Bradlee Dean, whom Popular Information calls a super-spreader of health misinformation, on Facebook Live, likely violating any number of Facebook rules while telling viewers that the coronavirus vaccine is also causing HIV. Bradlee Dean has almost 800,000 followers.

Madej is also a mutual Twitter follower of Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, the radical anti-vaxxer who has called out the impending transhumanist plot, saying Bill Gates is behind it all and is working toward blocking out the sun. Dr. Ben Tapper similarly trades on his medical authority, while telling his 15 thousand Twitter followers that the vaccine will change their DNA.

In other words, the belief in gene-altering, nanobot-spying, mind-controlling vaccines is now bigger than Madej, one of its earliest, most persuasive, and prominent proponents. And with people like her stoking paranoia, next time it might not be the Capitol thats besieged by angry MAGA-hat wearing believersbut a stockpile of life-saving vaccines instead.

Originally posted here:

The QAnon Doctor Pushing Wild Conspiracies About the COVID Vaccine - VICE

Top 20 Of 201) BRITISH LION - The Burning (Explorer1)2) DEAD KOSMONAUT - Gravitas (High Roller)3) EVILDEAD - United $tate$ Of Anarchy (SPV/Steamhammer)4) PYOGENESIS - A Silent Soul Screams Loud (AFM)5) PRIMAL FEAR - Metal Commando (Nuclear Blast)6) ACCUSER Accuser (Metal Blade)7) WISHBONE ASH - Coat of Arms (SPV/Steamhammer)8) GOD DETHRONED - Illuminati (Metal Blade)9) ANNIHILATOR - Ballistic, Sadistic (Silver Lining)10) ARMORED SAINT - Punching The Sky (Metal Blade)11) GREEN CARNATION - Leaves Of Yesteryear (Season Of Mist)12) HEATHEN Empire of the Blind (Nuclear Blast)13) THE ATOMIC BITCHWAX - Scorpio (Tee Pee)14) MORTA SKULD - Suffer For Nothing (Peaceville)15) DEMONS & WIZARDS III (Centruy Media)16) RAGE Wings of Rage (SPV/Steamhammer)17) LIONHEART The Reality of Miracles (Metalville)18) DEEP PURPLE Whoosh! (earMUSIC)19) TESTAMENT Titans of Creation (Nuclear Blast)20) PARADISE LOST Obsidian (Nuclear Blast)

Top 5 Brave Embarrassments

POPPY I Disagree (Warner)Ask yourself why this is always given as a recommendation for a new metal album when the 'singer' outwardly says this is not metal. Transhumanist drivel from a talentless, creepy, walking meme. Does not deserve the metal label in any way, shape or form.

NAPALM DEATH Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (Century Media)There was a point in the late '90s where Napalm Death were in danger of doing something different, groundbreaking and daring to intersperse their former embarrassments (seconds of grunting and finishing belongs in the bedroom) with innovation. Now? They just want to prove how they have still got it but its forced both musically and lyrically. Horrible cover art too.

SEPULTURA Quadra (Nuclear Blast)Reunions suck as its always about the money. In this case though, I would happily pay to see the Cavalera brothers back in the band. For so many years, Andreas Kisser and Paolo Jr. have been flying their own flag and somehow no one has told them to just stop, please stop, making music. Every song sounds indistinct with the repetitive and soulless bark of Derrick Green. Utterly pointless.

DANZIG Danzig Sings Elvis (Cleopatra)Actually, this is not so bad. The problem is Fonzig is in his mid-60s and is making music worthy of his age. In itself that is admittedly less horrible than most Danzig output since the first four albums. Yet this is toe curling, like being in a cemetery and hearing a ghost with a purple rinse crooning beneath some moss. Only for limping Goths who might also still believe Elvis is the king.

BODY COUNT Carnivore (Century Media)Ice-T is 62 years old and despite his reputation as a renegade has been toeing the party line (an actor, playing a cop after a supposed shitstorm of anti-authority controversy in the 90s?!) for way too long. Where Body Count was once truly relevant and original, its now a mere habit. Out of the ten songs, two are covers, which sums up the lack of creativity.

Thoughts On 2020A year of big name acts split effectively into two: One for those who carry the flag in a new and innovative way and do it with style (Wishbone Ash) or just about scrape through (Deep Purple). Two is those who should have put the instruments down some time ago (Sepultura especially but even AC/DC is pushing it too far at this point).

Overall a strong year for bands who are still plying a trademark sound (Sodom, Vader and so on) as well as those still trying to prise a semblance of experimentation from a solid blueprint, such as Paradise Lost. I expected more from the most miserable band in the world in all honesty; they are capable of better, but theyre still around and that's a joy.

Great to see the return of Evildead with trademark Ed Repka artwork and an album that manages to reincarnate their classic sound whilst updating just a touch for 2020. Sure missed that Karlos Medina dirty bass rumble.

A great year overall for German bands. Nice to see strong returns from the likes of Accuser and Primal Fear who are always trustworthy. Is there a better example of strength in metal than Ralf Scheepers?

Specific mention to Pyogenesis, a criminally underrated band who once again have released a gorgeous, melodic and original album.

For many years, the best metal came out of Sweden which seemed to lose pace at some point. Until Dead Kosmonaut, who have been releasing truly innovative metal for several years now. Gravitas is their best work yet.

The British Lion album is so far and away the best crafted album of the year its almost embarrassing. Their debut was a little heavy going at times but The Burning is a colossus. Everything about it is perfectly delivered and after 8 years they have somehow managed to come together and produce a beautifully cohesive opus. Album of the decade.

What/Who Needs To Stop In 2021Its time for sexy female singers to go. There are far too many tattooed, skintight princess warriors out there who manage to maintain attention simply for the way they look. Isnt this to be frowned upon in the modern world? Can we go back to a simpler time where 95% of the women into metal were plain greasers, or just that tad overweight? I want to see plain women who havent attended the Guitar Institute of Technology and instead just play from the heart for the love of it.

Crowd funding campaigns for bands/artists who dont need the money. Instead the money should be raised by big name artists and then put into new labels where new signings can be paid advances like the old days.

Metal Predictions For 2021Festivals will all be cancelled leaving only smaller outdoor shows where people stand 3 miles apart from each other and listen on headphones.

Thanks to this, more bands will create online only shows. KISS is showing the way to go as they hold a special online New Years Eve show to round out this year. Expect servers to crash when big name bands play online only shows.

Metallica and Megadeth will both release new albums and tour (indoors) together.

Meshuggah will return with an experimental and slightly lighter side, with a contender for album of the year.

A year of reunions. Among them, Anthrax will realise John Bush is still the best singer they ever had and he will take over for their new album.

Xentrix will rightly reform with Chris Astley and Paul McKenzie, bringing back the classic line-up of the most underrated British metal band of all time.

More Scribes Speak:Mark GromenCarl BegaiAaron SmallRich CatinoNick BalazsDillon Collins

Check out our BravePicks 2020 countdown where Enslaved took the top spothere.

View post:

BravePicks 2020 - The Scribes Speak! Paul Stenning - bravewords.com

VidCon, which bills itself as a celebration of online video and digital creators, launched VidCon Now, an ongoing digital experience this past summer. This December, VidCon Asia will program local VidCon Now sessions featuring industry leaders and talent, as part of the Singapore Media Festival, supported by the Infocomm Media Development Authority.

The sessions will launch on December 3, with new VidCon Now Asia sessions programmed afterward on a bi-weekly basis.

The VidCon Now Asia launch will be a 3.5-hour virtual event focused on the current state and future of online and community-led media in Asia. It will feature insights from online video platforms as well as creators exploring how they have moved from pitching other products to building their own brands and turning them into big business. It will also focus on the future of influencers, as the worlds first synthetic AI transhuman and her creators share how AI will change media and marketing forever.

VidCon Now Asia bi-weekly programming will be scheduled throughout 2021 across all three of VidCons established tracks Community, Creator, and Industry presenting a mix of workshops helping creators and business build bigger audiences and drive more revenue, fireside chats and panels to help the media and creative industries understand the future of creator-first media, and discussions of the issues facing media and marketing as it transforms from linear to on-demand and always on.

Attendees can view and register for programming at VidCon.com/now. New programming, creators, and speakers will be updated bi-weekly and available online in month-long increments.

Southeast Asia is one of the most innovative places in the world, with a huge pool of creative talent, said Jim Louderback, GM VidCon.We are thrilled to once again be part of the Singapore Media Festival and continue to bring the worlds experts to Singapore while we celebrate and include local businesses, creators, and experts. VidCon Now Asia will help drive the entire media ecosystem forward as creator-first media takes over more and more of media consumption, advertising dollars, and creative and technological innovation globally and in Asia.

VidCon Now will be co-produced by production partners Branded.

Link:

VidCon Now to Debut at the Singapore Media Festival - Branding in Asia Magazine

Peter Watts Blindsight looked at first contact with aliens in a different way when it was first published in 2006, and its been one of those books that friends have fervently recommended in the years since.

One fan has taken it upon himself to adapt as a short film, which he released this week: a short CGI short that looks absolutely stunning.

The project comes from Danil Krivoruchko, whos spent the last four years working on it. It features a voice over that introduces us to the basic premise of the plota ship sent out to the edge of the solar system to explore an object broadcasting a signal, its crew of trans-human astronauts dealing with the strange extraterrestrials that they encounter. Along the way, we get a couple of scenes from the crews perspective as they explore the object, as well as some gorgeous space vistas. Its well worth a watch, especially in 4K resolution.

Accompanying the short is a very cool website that Krivoruchko and his team put together (I found it easiest to navigate the site on my iPad), which provides an in-depth behind-the-scenes look at the project. The space suit section, for example, details Watts description of the spacesuit from the books third chapter, then explains their thinking behind how they envisioned it, a number of reference photos, responses from Watts as they went through the production, and final imagery that they came up with.

Other sections cover the design of the Rorschach artifact, the spaceship Theseus, the equipment, the alien scramblers, ship interfaces, and the characters.

In another section, Krivoruchko outlines how he came to the book and how the project came to be. He read it in 2009 when it was released in Russia. It was a bit of a cult hit amongst his peers in the design world, and he was blown away by the amount of technical, scientific and psychological details Peter Watts packed into the novel while still keeping it a tense and fascinating read.

After reading it again a couple of years later, he reached out to Watts with his appreciation, and spoke with some of his friends, wanting to create some digital renders of the novels scenes and elements. The project began to grow, he explains. Initially, we wanted to make a bunch of still frames. Creating a full CG animated short felt too time-consuming and ambitious, he writes, but as time passed, more and more images were made, which helped attract even more incredibly talented people to the project. As the team grew, we realized that we now had enough resources to pull off animation.

He and his friends realized they couldnt do the entire novel, but they could adapt it. They took the story apart and figured out what scenes they wanted to create, then plotted it out, changing it up a bit from the novels structure, opting to tell the story from the end, and work their way forward. From there, they began modeling each element and scene, bouncing ideas off of Watts as they did so.

Danil reached out to me pretty close to the start of the process, Watts commented. They were in the Lets make a tribute fan site phase, which as I understand it fell somewhere between the lets do a couple of CG illustrations for the rifters gallery and Lets blow off the doors with a trailer from an alternate universe where someone made a movie out of Blindsight phases.

As Krivoruchko and his team came up with ideas, they sent them along to Watts, who provided some suggestions and what his mindset was when he was writing the book. Essentially, I let them read my mind, he says. Theyd come to me with their vision of a spacesuit or a scrambler, and Id tell them how it compared to the images that were in my head when I was writing the novel.

Sometimes theyd present an image that wasnt much like the one in my head at allbut their vision was so much better than mine that Id just nod wisely and sayYes, yes, thats exactly right.And Danil would marvel at what a master of descriptive prose I must be, to be able plant such precise imagery in the readers mind using nothing but abstract black scratches on a page.

On his website, Krivoruchko provides some of the messages that he exchanged with Watts, who enthusiastically cheered them on as they showed him what they were coming up with.

The final result is a nearly five minute long take on the novel with its own unique vantage point, but which otherwise captures the look and feel of the book. On his blog, Watts calls it a small masterpiece, and says that hes honored and humbled by the work of the team.

Continue reading here:

Watch This Superb Fan Adaptation of Peter Watts' Blindsight - tor.com

The pandemic has forced authorities around the world to scramble for solutions within the realm of possibility. One of the more futuristic, radical solutions which is still relegated to the sidelines is transhumanism. It is a branch of philosophy that believes in transcending the limitations of the human population through technological augmentation. From hearing aids, pacemakers, bionic arms, the manifestations of transhumanism are very much present in our lives. However, the radical applications of being able to tweak biology to suit ones interests and needs at a commercial cost is yet to see the light of day. The basic tenet of transhumanism is extension of human life. Yet, eternal life comes across as a utopian thought where inadequate manufacturing of PPE kits for doctors and nurses have us jolted back to the harsh realities of current pandemic dwelling.

Since the globalized nature of modern capitalistic order and the consequent interconnectedness of our lives has made the possibility of frequent pandemics ever so plausible, we find ourselves at the juncture of a major shift towards increasing receptivity to transhumanist solutions. The famous American inventor and futurist Kurzweil wrote in his book The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology about a journey towards a meshing point of humans and machine intelligence The Singularity. He envisioned nanobots which allowed people to eat whatever they want while remaining healthy and fit, provide copious energy, ward off infections or cancer, replace organs and augment their brains. There will come a future where human bodies will carry so much augmentation that they would be able to alter their physical manifestation at will.

Even if the coronavirus fades off without wiping humans off the planet, it has given an eerie trailer of what future outbreaks might hold in store. Hence due security measures have to be pondered upon -whether in the labs, where deadly pathogens are being researched upon or in the malicious possibilities of a biowarfare. Frontline workers can be provided tech enhancements to ensure better armament against infectious, mutating viral diseases. Protective exoskeletons, real-time blood monitors for pathogens, can bid riddance to any temporary means of protection which are vulnerable against quality and efficacy issues.

In 2011, surgeons in Sweden had successfully transplanted a fully synthetic, tissue-engineered trachea into a man with late-stage tracheal cancer. The trachea was created entirely in a lab with tissue grown from the patients own stem cells inside a bioreactor designed to protect the organ and promote cell growth. Under transhumanism, artificial organs would be superior to ordinary donor organs in several ways. They can be made to order more quickly than a donor organ can often be found; would be grown from a patients own cells and hence wont require dangerous immunosuppressant drugs to prevent rejection.

As of 2018, prototypes of artificial lungs are also surfacing at the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch, where the team spent the last 15 years developing the prototype. Upon completion, the bioengineered lungs were transplanted into four pigs. There was no indication of transplant rejection when the animals were examined at regular intervals for months after transplant. The researchers also observed that the bioengineered lungs became vascularized, establishing the necessary blood vessel networks to do its job. For diseases like covid-19, which affect a particular body organ, having an option of a bioengineered organ could very well be a safeguard.

But transhumanists are not just trying to extend human lives, they also want to revive them. They aim to merge bioengineering, AI capabilities, 3-D printing to resurrect the dead victims of any catastrophe much like the pandemic on our hands right now. Ways of dealing with grief at the loss of a loved one can possibly be placated with measures like interactive custom-holograms, social media feed powered by AI that could generate new messages based on the pattern of the old ones.

There are strong ethical considerations that also pop up in the discussion of transhumanism. Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, a German philosopher and bioethicist believes that processes like cryonics will go against most ecological principles given the amount of resources needed to keep a body in suspended animation post-death. Even though, transhumanism does not explicitly encourage breeding for the superiority of one specific group, the methods endorsed by some prominent transhumanists aim for physiological superiority. Considering that for the time being, solutions emanating will be heavy on the monetary end in the healthcare set-up, it could breed inequality in access. A huge gap in resources will be experienced in the society, as the affluent section amasses money and influence to set out an eternal timeline for themselves, coming at a lethal cost for the other half of the society.

Solving problems that will plague us in the future is a rising urge shared by leaders, philanthropists and billionaires around the world. This is why proponents like Zoltan Istvan fear the fact that the exponential rise of transhumanist technologies might leave governments fumbling to discuss and bring about policy directions to regulate and guard changes. Important questions like how far is too far? will need phased guidance as we have learnt from the chaotic response to systemic changes being implemented in the medical field during Covid-19. A conversation on transhumanism should not be put off any further and needs to permeate across different strata of stakeholders.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Pandemics and transhumanism - The Times of India Blog

Naming your game after a well-established genre is a gutsy move, but CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077 is shaping up to be one of the biggest cyberpunk stories in gaming history.

Taking into account everything we know about Cyberpunk 2077, the open-world RPG looks like it's crawling with seedy criminals, shady corporations, cybernetic limbs, and neon streets, as well as tackling all those spectacularly dense themes of transhumanism, AI, and the dismantling of corporate and governmental hierarchiesyou know, the usual.

With CD Projekt Red taking on one of the biggest sci-fi genres, what other 'punk' derivatives are left for the taking? A lot, apparently. Over the past few days, I've fallen down a rabbit hole of cyberpunk derivatives. But before we dive into real-world body hacking, frills from 18th century France, and Buck Rogers, here are some punk genres that games have explored.

Steampunk is one of the big cyberpunk sub-genres and games like BioShock Infinite, Dishonored, and Sunless Sea have taken major inspiration from it's Victorian-era industrial steam-powered world. Wolfenstein and games like Iron Harvest take on the gritty and dirty industrial aesthetics of Dieselpunk. The Fallout series is famous for its retro-futuristic imagining of Atompunk, and then there's 11-bit Studio's own genre, FrostpunkVictorian industrialisation meets frozen ecological crisis.

Whether they are fully-fledged worlds or have more of a focus on aesthetics, here are some more punk genres that deserve a gaming spotlight.

Many derivatives of cyberpunk are retrofuturistic in their worldbuilding, pulling on ideas and aesthetics from the past (looking directly at you, Victorian era). But what makes Solarpunk special is that it is firmly set in the future.

Solarpunk envisions an optimistic future that directly tackles environmental concerns with renewable and sustainable energy sources. Instead of a bleak wasteland, Solarpunk is bright and hopeful. Butjust because climate change and pollution have been solved doesn't mean that everything is a utopia. This is what could make Solarpunk an interesting backdrop for games. Instead of bashing you over the head with how awful everything is, Solarpunk is about worlds that are so close to being perfect but fall just short. I can totally see this making a great backdrop for a sprawling RPG.

For whatever reason, a core feature of many punk genres is what resource is used to power technology, but Clockpunk is less focused on steam, diesel, or electric-run mechanics and more on basic technology. Clockpunk is all about intricate mechanismslike the interlocking gears of a pocket watch, the intricacies of automatons, or the detailed sketches of Da Vinci. There's also just a general focus on beautiful, delicate machinery, and Dimitriy Khristenko's mechanical bugs are an amazing example of something that would fit perfectly into the clockpunk aesthetic.

There's not much in terms of world-building to Clockpunk, but the genre makes a great foundation for worlds that have light fantasy elements, such as magic or alchemy, which can act as the world's main power resources.It's emphasis on visual design also makes it perfect for puzzle games like Magnum Opus.

More of a visual aesthetic than a loosely defined alternate reality, Rococo Punk takes inspiration from the whimsical visual style of the Rococo period. It's used in a similar way to Decopunk (think the glossy interiors of BioShock) in that it's purely just a look rather than a philosophy. Visually, the genre involves theatrical outfits with lots of dramatic frills with building interiors having lots of grand, sweeping curves and gold trimming. There's not a pair of greasy goggles in sight.

It sounds super classy, but I'm not sure what makes it particularly 'punk'. Then again, there were lots of brutal beheadings in 18th century France at the height of Rococo's popularity, and having your head chopped off for wanting to dismantle the French monarchy is pretty punk.

Biopunk is all about the wonderful world of biohacking which involves modifying the human body through biological means. This form of human experimentation involves 'hacking' your own body in hopes of improving your physical or mental state. The genre also includes themes of corporate and governmental control over body modification and genetic engineering.

BioShock totally has the Biopunk corner covered, but then after reading this totally bonkers Vox article about real-world biohackers there's so much more that writers can draw from. There's a wealth of source material for Biopunk in the real world too, like Silicon Valley's $8,000 young blood transfusions where an older person pays for a young person's blood to be pumped into their body as some sort of 'elixir of life' because why not?I don't think I'll ever get over reading that anytime soon.

Taking inspiration from Atompunk, Raypunk is one of the more outlandish punk genres and focuses on far-future science fiction with a distinct retro twist. Its aesthetic is close to mid-20th century pulp science fiction like the original Star Trek series or the Jetsonsanything featuring brightly colored rayguns, flying cars, and clunky talking robots.

It's not all Buck Rogers, though. Raypunk (known also as Raygun Gothic) can be surreal and dark, which sounds far more interesting honestly. Rick Remender's comic book Low is the closest piece of media I know of that captures the genre's "world of tomorrow" aesthetic while still being pretty bleak and serious.

I honestly don't really understand this one, but this Wikipedia page cites The Flintstones as part of the Stonepunk genre so that makes it legit, apparently.

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CD Projekt Red have nabbed Cyberpunk, but here are 5 other punks that deserve games - PC Gamer

Elon Musk by Maurizio Pesce via Wikimedia Commons

What might Elon Musk do to your brain? Hes successfully demonstrated that a deep brain implant can monitor a pigs health like the Fitbit on your wrist. After this success, Musk is coming after you. He plans to install slender electrodes into your brain and connect them to a wireless pod that sits behind your ear. Neuralink chips could measure temperature, pressure and movement, data that could warn you about a heart attack or stroke. This pod or terminal then communicates with your phone. If you want to know what your brain is doing, simply check your phone.

Now, this is puzzling. Mmmmm? Whos checking that phone? Your brain? Or, you? What if you and your brain are the same? Mmmmm? Will checking the phone for brain information provoke the brain to become self-aware? Then what? Will you have two selves: you plus your brain? Oh, this thinking makes my brain tired. Mmmmm? Will my cell phone show that my brain is tired?

What might be the advantages to deep brain implants? First, in the early stages of neuralink development for humans, we can realistically anticipate the medical value of deep brain implants. The potential is truly transformational for restoring brain & motor functions, Musk states. A deep brain implant could function therapeutically to combat dementia, Alzheimers, and even Christian fundamentalism!

The second advantage would be memory enhancement and knowledge expansion. Because the implant is wirelessly connected to an external pod-terminal, information could be sent to the brain and downloaded. A deep brain implant for an ELCA seminarian could electronically place in the students memory every word of the Book of Concord.

A third possibility is the hope of the Transhumanists among us, namely, Intelligence Amplification or IA. Dont confuse IA with AI, Artificial Intelligence. IA enhances your intelligence; it does not create a second or artificial intelligence. With IA, our ELCA seminarians could take all their courses online and graduate in only two years. Oh, wait?

A fourth possibility would be electronic psi. Each of two persons with brain implants could communicate their thoughts wirelessly to the terminal, which in turn would send those thoughts to the other. No need for speech or writing. Thought to thought. Mind to mind. Disagreements and arguments without yelling or screaming.

A fifth possibility adds on to the fourth. Why wait for a thought to be sent to you? Why not think your way to the terminal and then read the mind of the other? The electronic pod terminal could eliminate mental privacy.

Before this neuralink science came along, there was science fiction. I explored these plus additional implications of deep brain implants in my fictional espionage thriller, Cyrus Twelve. My heroine is Leona Foxx, a Lutheran pastor, riveting preacher, astrobiologist, crack shot, Chicago Cubs fan, and part-time CIA operative. This is fiction, remember.

In Cyrus Twelve Leona uncovers a globe-wide syndicate of Transhumanists who use the equivalent of neuralink to enhance spying capability. In this drama, the pod-terminal is a satellite and it connects hundreds of persons with deep brain implants. The satellite is capable of erasing an individuals memory and substituting an entirely fabricated memory. Because the implant is within you, you cannot muster any defense from informational input sent you by the satellite. You cannot shut off fake news, advertising, or orders to kill. Imagine what would happen if ELCA Churchwide would get control of that satellite? Every spy in the world would suddenly learn what justification-by-faith means.

The advancement of deep brain electronic implants prompts the theologian to ponder two matters, one theoretical and one practical. The theoretical matter is this: can the human soul or self be reduced to the brain? My answer is no. The human self or person is utterly dependent on the physical brain, to be sure; but the self or person is more than everything physical or bodily. What we experience as human freedom I define this way: freedom is a form of self-determination. In short, I do not expect discoveries in the neurosciences to reduce the person to the brain.

The practical matter is an ethical matter. How should such awesome technology be used? Should deep brain implants become the stock and trade of international espionage, as is the case in Cyrus Twelve? No, of course not. Our society should rather support ongoing medical research leading to therapies and even enhancements. Like all technological advances, neuralink should be pressed into the service of human flowering.

Ted Peters is a pastor in the ELCA and Emeritus Professor of Systematic Theology and Ethics at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California. He co-edits the journal, Theology and Science for the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences at the Graduate Theological Union. He is author of God The Worlds Future (Fortress, 3rd ed., 2015) and editor of AI and IA: Utopia or Extinction? (ATF Press, 2019). More of Peters work can be found on his website, TedsTimelyTake.com.

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