PALO ALTO, Calif.andDURHAM Flush with cash, Kriya Therapeutics has big plans.

The biotech startup, with headquarters in Durham and Palo Alto, California, has secured $80.5 million in Series A financing to fund the development of its gene therapies for highly serious diseases.

Among them: type 1 and type 2 diabetes, severe obesity and other indications affecting millions of patients.

Series A investors include QVT, Dexcel Pharma, Foresite Capital, Bluebird Ventures (associated with Sutter Hill Ventures), Narya Capital, Amplo,Paul Manning, andAsia Alpha. This Series A round follows an initial seed financing completed by the company in the fourth quarter of 2019 led by Transhuman Capital, who also participated in the Series A round.

Kriya said financing proceeds would go towards supporting the development of the companys pipeline, internal discovery engine, and proprietary GMP manufacturing infrastructure.

There have been numerous successful gene therapies focused on rare monogenic diseases in recent years, said Shankar Ramaswamy, M.D., Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Kriya Therapeutics, in a statement.

We see tremendous potential to expand the field and apply gene therapy to highly prevalent serious diseases. We are focused on designing gene therapies using algorithmic tools, scalable infrastructure, and proprietary technology to optimize the efficacy and durability of our treatments. We look forward to accelerating the development of our pipeline, platform technologies, and internal GMP manufacturing capability with the funds raised in this Series A financing.

Founded in 2019, the companys team includesformer senior leadership from Spark Therapeutics, AveXis, Sangamo Therapeutics, and other gene therapy companies.

Kriyas initial pipeline includes:

Kriya is building a leading team and cutting-edge infrastructure to engineer best-in-class gene therapies for severe chronic conditions and accelerate their advancement into human clinical trials, saidRoger Jeffs, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Vice Chairman of Kriya, in a statement.

The company is committed to incorporating the latest advancements in the field into the design and development of its therapeutic constructs. Through its R&D laboratory capabilities in the Bay Area and in-house process development and manufacturing infrastructure inResearch Triangle Park, I believe that Kriya will be uniquely positioned to become a leader in the gene therapy field.

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Durham's Kriya Therapuetics lands $80M to advance gene therapies for diabetes, severe obesity - WRAL Tech Wire

Will Hinton, executive editor at Tor Books, has acquired North American rights to two books by debut novelist Neil Sharpson, from his agent Jennie Goloboy at the Donald Maass Literary Agency. The first book, When the Sparrow Falls, is scheduled for publication in spring 2021.

Part thriller, part literary science fiction, When the Sparrow Falls is an exploration of the coming AI revolution, transhumanism, totalitarianism, loss, and the problem of evil.

In the future, AI are everywhere. They are our employers, our employees, our friends, lovers and even our children. Over half the human race now lives online.

But in the Caspian Republic, the last true human beings have made their stand, and their repressive, one-party state is locked in perpetual cold war with the outside world.

The republic is thrown into chaos when the virulently anti-AI journalist Paulo Xirau is found dead in a bar. At his autopsy, the unthinkable is discovered: Xirau was AI.

Security Agent Nikolai South is given a seemingly mundane task; escorting Xiraus widow while she visits the Caspian Republic to identify her husbands remains. He is stunned to discover that the beautiful, reserved, Lily Xirau bears an unearthly resemblance to his wife, who has been dead for thirty years.

As Nikolai and Lily delve deeper into the circumstances surrounding Paulos death, trying desperately to avoid the attentions of the murderous Bureau of Party Security, a tentative friendship between the two begins to blossom. But when they discover Xiraus last secret South must choose between his loyalty to his country and his conscience.

Neil Sharpson said:

Ive been living in the Caspian Republic (whether as a play, screenplay or novel) for around nine years now and its almost impossible to believe that the journey is finally at an end. Its a story about one man trying to survive in a brutal regime who is given one final chance to make amends to the woman he let down. Im incredibly grateful to Will Hinton and the team at Tor for choosing this book, and to Jennie Goloboy, the best agent any writer could ask for. And most of all to my wife Aoife, who never doubted for a second, even when I did. And while its certainly not a place Id recommend moving to, I sincerely hope people enjoy their time in the Caspian Republic.

Will Hinton added:

It is a rare and joyous occasion to discover a debut novel brimming with this much talent, insight, poise and heart. The voice of Nikolai South is indelible and the world he brings us into is unforgettable, part Le Carr, part Philip K. Dick, and many layers besides. Sharpson asks questions, and gives a few answers, about what is gained and what is lost in the way we live in the 21st century that will keep me thinking for a long time. I cant wait for you to read it!

When the Sparrow Falls is scheduled for publication in spring 2021 by Tor in the US and by Rebellion in the UK.

Neil Sharpson lives in Dublin with his wife and their two children. Having written for theatre since his teens, Neil transitioned to writing novels in 2017, adapting his own play The Caspian Sea into When the Sparrow Falls.

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Introducing When the Sparrow Falls, the Debut Novel From Neil Sharpson - tor.com

Posted 14 May 2020 at 14:35 by Dennis Tummers

Test your reflexes and rhythm feeling by dancing along with Hatsune Miku, the digital J-pop superstar.Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mixis a rhythm game where you can play along to catchy J-pop songs using button, touch or movement input.

Ion Furyis a true blast from the past, as it runs on the ancient Build game engine, the same one that poweredDuke Nukem 3Dback in the days. This first person shooter is the prequel to the 2016 gameBombshelland once again you will take on the bad guys as Shelly "Bombshell" Harrison.

As always the full list of new games can be found on the bottom of this article, after the highlights for this week's new releases, pre-downloads and sales.

Highlights: New Game Releases

Highlights: New Pre-Loads

Highlights: Sales

Highlights: Permanent Price Drops

Download versions of packaged software

Nintendo Switch download software

Nintendo Switch downloadable content

Nintendo Switch demos

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New Releases And Eshop Discounts Week 20 - N-Europe

When an artist as monumental as Prince passes away, he leaves a gaping hole in the landscape of popular music that is not easily filled. As we reach the four-year anniversary of the artist's passing, his influence is still as present as ever.

Houstons downtown venue Lucilles holds a yearly tribute to Prince and Antonio Eyez is a natural fit for the event. Eyez was the main attraction for this year's online event and he did Prince good, as he always does, in addition to performing some of his powerful original songs.

He will also be performing an online concert at R&R studios on Thursday, April 30 at 9 p.m., as part of a socially distant concert series that the studio has been putting out. The studio is the ideal setting to keep artists at safe distances while providing quality sound and streaming capabilities on multiple platforms.

Eyez is accustomed to the Prince comparisons and was even tapped by Morris Hayes himself, Princes longtime keyboardist and musical director. Eyez reached out to Hayes in the simplest way, through Facebook, and didnt really expect to gain any traction from their interactions.

When Hayes held an event for his World Symphony for Peace organization here in Houston, he asked Antonio Eyez to participate. More than anything, he was just surprised I think, says Eyez of the impression he made on Hayes that night.

It was like, We get a lot of people who do Prince, but not make it their own, he was surprised and intrigued by that. It was really cool to experience him as a musician and an artist himself, says Eyez.

Hayes even recently gave a shout out to Eyez while discussing his work and friendship with Prince via Facebook on the anniversary of the singers death.

Eyez was raised in a musical family here in Houston and has played guitar from a young age. His mother, father and grandfather surrounded him with music and were active in gospel quartet groups. Eyez describes it as, Its kind of like if you hear D'angelo mixed with some church, you're going to get quartet, he chuckles.

The multi-instrumentalist and singer embodies the future and breaks down prefabricated rules of genres and gender. Anyone who caught his electrifying set at this year's BowiElvis Fest can testify that he is one part Jimi Hendrix, another part Prince and a perfect fit for Bowie but mostly, hes just himself.

Even at an event as diverse as BowieElvis, Eyez stood out musically and visually with his performance. He donned a fishnet mask, large gold earrings and blew the roof off of the small and packed Big Top lounge that night.

"To be honest, I just want to be able to have a clear message of truth and bringing back real musicianship. I really want to bring that truth to musicianship and artistry back to the stage and also being in fashion, having to look like what you sound like," says Eyez of his approach to performing live.

Its all in there you know, says Eyez of his influences. I think that comes from a lot of studying for sure. I studied D'angelo, Prince, George Clinton, Sly Stone, a whole bunch of other people. I try to get a good combination of all of those elements and make it my own.

Eyez has had the opportunity to work as a touring band member for many artists, including CJ Chenier, son of the King of Zydeco Clifton Chenier. When asked what lessons he has taken from being a backing member to fronting his own band, Eyez says wisely, the importance of the longevity of the music as opposed to just getting in, getting a buck and leaving.

This year Eyez released his solo album, The Second Coming on his own record label, Spacewar Music. The Second Coming sonically is a funky trip to outer space with Eyez maintaining both feet grounded lyrically, tapping into basic human emotions and the common experience of mankind.

Songs like Transhuman show off Eyez vocal abilities and his unique knack for being understated yet powerful.

It's pretty rough right now for a lot of people, says Eyez. Thats why we wanted to write songs like Transhuman, because there's all kinds of people on this world that are looking for something and ultimately they're looking for themselves and where they fit in this world. I think that's something that needs to be spoken about at this particular time.

The Second Coming is rooted in funk but has strong elements of rock sprinkled throughout the album. "Aquarius Rage" takes Eyez down a darker road, with its heavy bass lines sounding off as a warning to the listener of the impending rage they are about the experience.

Eyez admits that people in his personal life often mistake the angry track to be directed at them, but in reality it was his response to being told repeatedly that his music didn't fit neatly enough into any category to be played on the radio stations he approached.

"Right now things are changing in the way where the old system is not going to be the same once things get back to normal because people are finding different ways to get heard and there's not going to be a need for the old radio formula," says Eyez.

Eyez recorded the album in the most futuristic yet simplest way possible, on his iPhone. He described how he used accessible technology to achieve the interplanetary sounds he was seeking, without stepping into a studio.

The artist has been hustling in the way Houston is known for, putting out new songs and videos during this time in quarantine. Though he, like all artists, had his gigs canceled due to COVID-19, he's not letting that stop him from putting out content any way he can.

The good thing about right now is that people are listening and they are able to use platforms to push it and get people more interested.

For his online concert at R&R Studios, Eyez assures he will have all the bells and whistles and will take advantage of the space he is being provided with to help Houston get out of its collective funk with some good funk, seeing this as an opportunity to reach new audiences.

The online concert will be streamed live through the R&R Studio YouTube page, Facebook page, Twitch and Instagram as well on Antonio Eyez own social media accounts.

Gladys Fuentes is a first generation Houstonian whose obsession with music began with being glued to KLDE oldies on the radio as a young girl. She is a freelance music writer for the Houston Press, contributing articles since early 2017.

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Things To Do: Antonio Eyez Will Perform At R&R Studios April 30 - Houston Press

Make It Scream, Make It Burn, Leslie Jamison

Leslie Jamison knows how to write a good personal essay because she doesn't assume you want to read about her personally. This was true in her first collection, Empathy Exams, and it is true in her second, Make It Scream, Make It Burn, which pieces together the things that interest Jamison most. In "Sim Life," Jamison examines our e-companions, those virtual characters we find ourselves strangely invested in. In "The Quickening," she reflects on the anxieties of pregnancy, at times addressing her unborn daughter directly, drawing the reader into the most private spaces of pre-parenthood. Each essay is an exercise in thoughtful restraint, never allowing itself to be confused for the work of a diarist.

Black Is the Body, Emily Bernard

On its most superficial level, Black Is the Body is a collection about storytelling within the familyas Bernard lays out in the subtitle, these are 12 stories from her grandmother's time, her mother's time, and her own. Beneath that, Black Is the Body is an expertly crafted collection about blackness in America, as only Bernard has lived it. One essay, "Interstates," documents the time when Bernard, her parents, and her white fianc pulled over to change a flat tire, exposing the family to every prejudice that may pass them on the highway. Other stories examine the relationship between white and black life in the American South, two experiences "ensnared in the same historical drama."

Interior States, Meghan OGieblyn

There are some writers who leave the worlds of devout religionworlds that are at once large, and impossibly smalland spare no second thoughts, rejecting both the baby and the bathwater. Meghan O'Gieblyn's debut collection leaves no thoughts behind, turning to her upbringing of conservative evangelicalism for a series of essays offering razor-sharp cultural criticism on the state of American life. "Ghost in the Cloud," a particular strong point, sews together the parallel theologies of transhumanism (technology that works to avoid death) and Christian millennialism (salvation that works to avoid death). O'Gieblyn is unapologetic in her takes, producing wholly original commentary slated for these times.

Human Relations and Other Difficulties, Mary-Kay Wilmers

Mary-Kay Wilmers, one of the founders of the London Review of Books and its sole editor since 1979, has a lot to say about writing, and women, and the ways women write for themselves and for men. Human Relations and Other Difficulties is the product of a veteran career in book reviewing, and it showsthe essays are clever, frank and delightfully readable. Some provide the literary commentary that Wilmer is known foron Joan Didion, Alice James and Jean Rhyswhile others turn inward, looking to Wilmer's own life as a child and a parent. "There's nothing magical about a mother's relationship with her baby," Wilmer writes of early motherhood. "Like most others, it takes two to get it going."

If there were ever a time to renew your love for the natural world, as the late poet Mary Oliver did throughout her career, it's now. Upstream, a collection of essays published three years before Oliver's death, is the author in her purest formreflecting on the beauty of codfish, grass, and seagulls on the beach. Life, as she writes about it, is precious in all things, without ever dipping into sentimentality. Oliver's meditation on her literary counterparts, including Walt Whitman, a childhood "friend," gives rare insight into the making of the poet, while other essays invite the reader to observe the outdoors with new eyes.

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Five Essay Collections to Read in Quarantine - Willamette Week

OISTE.ORG Foundation endorses preserving the human right to privacy statement during the Covid-19 pandemic signed by a group of more than 300 academics and experts on the human right to privacy

Geneva, 23 April 2020 - OISTE.ORG, a Swiss based foundation with special consultative status with ECOSOC and a recognized member of the not-for-profit constituency of ICANN endorses the views expressed in the "Joint Statement on Contact Tracing" dated April 19, 2020 and signed by a group of more than 300 academics and experts on the human right to privacy.

Governments worldwide have declared or will soon declare national states of emergency to face the Covid-19 threat. Under a state of emergency, governments are legally entitled to dictate measures of exception that would not be accepted or tolerated under normal circumstances. States of emergency are used as a rationale for suspending constitutional rights and freedoms because there is a higher "public good" that makes it justifiable. Nevertheless, experts sound a warning alarm: there is a high risk that governments will overstep and impede rights and freedoms in response to Covid-19. At the present critical juncture, some of the contact tracing applications that are being proposed may override the privacy-protection clauses of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The debate about "contact tracing" using modern digital technologies and the respect of the fundamental human right to privacy is one example of the need to be vigilant of the breaking point where exceptional measures can do more wrong than good. The liberal state has the same obligation to ensure the health and the well-being of its citizens as to guarantee that State surveillance of the individual does not become the norm. There is no doubt that digital technologies have a role to play on the lockdown ease, but not at any price.

Recently, a number of European institutions launched the Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing: https://www.pepp-pt.org/ with the objective of interrupting new chains of SARS-CoV-2 transmission by informing potentially exposed people using their Bluetooth devices, though very quickly the two main Swiss technological universities, the EPFZ and the EPFL withdrew their support to the initiative since it is privacy intrusive. That is why the Joint Statement makes the following recommendations:

The authors of the Joint Statement point the following privacy-protecting initiatives as examples of good practice: DP-3T : https://github.com/DP-3T,TCN Coalition : https://tcn-coalition.org/, PACT (MIT) : https://pact.mit.edu/, PACT (UW) : https://covidsafe.cs.washington.edu/

Carlos Moreira, Secretary General of the OISTE Foundation and co-author of the bestselling book "The Transhuman Code" noted: "The digital universe has to be infused by ethical principles. The human right to privacy has to be protected and respected at all times, even during the present pandemic. Applications that permit contact tracing and respect the human right to privacy are being developed."

The OISTE Foundation signed The International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance right after they were launched at the 24th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in 2013. OISTE invites other organizations to join: https://necessaryandproportionate.org/

About OISTE FOUNDATIONFounded in Switzerland in 1998, OISTE was created with the objectives of promoting the use and adoption of international standards to secure electronic transactions, expand the use of digital certification and ensure the interoperability of certification authorities' e-transaction systems. The OISTE Foundation is a not for profit organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, regulated by article 80 et seq. of the Swiss Civil Code. OISTE is an organization in special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC) and belongs to the Not-for-Profit constituency (NPOC) of the ICANN.

Company Contact:Dourgam KummerFoundation Council Memberdourgam.kummer@oiste.org

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OISTE.ORG Foundation endorses preserving the human right to privacy statement during the Covid-19 pandemic signed by a group of more than 300...

The original Soldat was highly regarded at the time of its release during the 2000s. Players flocked to the title to get their multiplayer combat action on. It set the stage for a lot of similar games and will go down as one of the better 2.5D combat games to date.

It has been nearly 18 years since the original released, so naturally, fans have anxiously waited for a sequel. Finally, the wait is about to end as Soldat 2 hits the market during the second quarter of this year. So much time has passed, but not enough to make fans forget about the incredible combat action.

Even better, theres a demo right now for Soldat 2 on Steam. It doesnt have all of the features that will be available at launch, but theres definitely enough to get your beak wet. Transhuman Design appears to be keeping the buzz going leading up to this highly anticipated sequels release.

It looks like the developer is keeping some successful elements found in the original, and expanding upon them in all of the right ways for this pending sequel. For example, Soldat 2 will have many more customizeable options. Players will have access to a stage editor, where theyll be able to shape the grounds on which they play. That includes changing the rules, structures, weapons, and aspects of gameplay.

The added customization options should take the Soldat franchise to new heights and attract a new wave of fans whove never had the pleasure of playing the original. As far as what specifically will be available in the demo, players can look forward to online multiplayer with dedicated servers. There will also be procedurally generated levels that should keep each match different from the next.

Whats also important to note is the mod tools that players can access will be user-friendly. You dont have to be a modding wizard to have success out of the gate. Rather, the controls and systems will be pretty approachable. That should give rise to unique matches and limitless hours of fun.

If all of this action sounds like your cup of tea, then head on over to Steam today. In addition to checking out Soldat 2s free demo, you can also go back to the original Soldat. Its also available for no charge on the Steam platform. The developer is doing a solid by giving fans these free experiences, and it should help the sequel gain more attention heading into its release later in the year.

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The Demo For Soldat 2 Is Now Free On The Steam Platform - Happy Gamer

by Clark Elliston, Assistant Professer of Religion and Philosophy, Schreiner University

Friends are all-too-frequently taken for granted, both in everyday human experience and in theology. It seems that for many people friends simply emerge; a shared laugh or thought becomes many and through some unseen alchemy a friend is created. Theologically the situation is a little more delicate. The concept of friendship poses a problem for theology insofar as friendship, in both antiquity and early theology, remains largely a preferential love. We choose our friends based on any number qualities, but we nevertheless choose them. This is a good gift, but as Soren Kierkegaard makes all too plain, this can be problematic for followers of a Savior who commands a neighbor-love of all persons. A preferential love which by necessity excludes others (as no one can love the whole world equally) thus violates the universality of Christs command to love all. Yet even here there are perplexing tensions. After all, the New Testament repeatedly mentions the beloved disciple and Jesus suggests an appropriate category of friendship when he notes that the greatest love is laying ones life down for friends. Nonetheless such difficulties, as well as the embedded character of human friendship, have made it strikingly absent from much theological discourse.

Yet like so many areas of human life in a technological world, sociality too has been affected. Study after study indicates that the social life of Westerners is suffering. We are more lonely, depressed, and anxious than ever before. We also know that self-reported social encounters are perhaps the greatest source of meaning and happiness available to us. Yet this is not to say that we simply need more social encounters after all, we are in the midst of one of the greatest social revolutions in history courtesy of the Internet. Though we may seclude ourselves physically from the surrounding world, most people will have hundreds of online interactions a day. As we work harder, as traditional ties lessen, and as the allure of instant communication grows, we should not be surprised as social media opportunities increase. Yet this transition into an online context poses myriad problems. Not least is the devolution of friendship as a fundamental form of human relationship. Instead, social media technologies promise ever-greater connectivity to others while paradoxically eroding constituent elements of friendship classically considered.

Two immediate issues arise when considering the digitalization of friendship through social media. First, social media friendship lacks consideration of character and the time it takes to cultivate character. Second, social media friendship remains crucially limited in terms of its presence with the other as friend. These issues, to be sure, do not undermine the project of social media entirely meaningful encounters with others can happen on several platforms. However, social media disciplines and forms our online relationships in crucial ways. When this disciplined thinking and formation creeps into other realms of life it becomes toxic.

When Aristotle wrote one of the most influential treatises on friendship, books seven and eight of the Nicomachean Ethics, he delineated between three types of friendship. Two are immediately familiar to us: friendships based on pleasure and on utility. In these we are friends with those whom we enjoy or who provide clear benefit to our personal projects. These are inferior modes of friendship, however, relative to friendships based on virtue. The friendship of virtue, in contrast, centers upon the character of the friend. We befriend those whose character we admire and who admire us for our character. While this emphasis on virtue possesses problems of its own, it nevertheless offers insight into a crucial facet of authentic friendship, namely that friendship should involve something other than deferred self-love. Friendships of virtue rightly privilege an other for their performance of virtue, rather than our own gratified desires or pursuits.

Second, social media cannot mediate the distance between persons. If time poses an immediate issue for the cultivation of relationship, then we should not be surprised that place does as well. More specifically, friendship is centrally related to presence with and for the other. This is poignantly and pastorally put best by Nicholas Wolterstorff when he writes about the death of his son:

If you think your task as comforter is to tell me that really, all things considered, its not so bad, you do not sit with me in my grief, but place yourself off in the distance away from me. Over there, you are of no help. What I need to hear from you is that you recognize how painful it is. I need to hear from you that you are with me in my desperation. To comfort me, you have to come close. Come sit beside me on my mourning bench (Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son, 34).

The images of proximity in this passage resonate. It is not the demonstration of either wit or wisdom which mitigates the distance between self and other, but the sheer presence of oneself alongside another in suffering. Whereas social media, as a quintessentially intellectual exercise, exists primarily in the mind, genuine friendship becomes incarnate in the concrete situations in which we find ourselves. The sympathy that undoubtedly exists in social media communities is thus closer to pity than compassion. Pity remains, while deeply sympathetic, apart from the one being pitied. I can pity someones circumstance from a distance. In contrast, and as indicated above, the practice of compassion requires that I be both present and willing to get my hands dirty. This is profoundly difficult and undermines the easy deployment of what we commonly call compassion.

Social media can be engaged wisely, and it indeed allows for convenient communication. Yet, its value lies primarily in its capacity to support already-existing friendships it is not generative of friendship. Friendship requires the patient cultivation of virtue alongside the courageous willingness to walk alongside another in their suffering. Such friendships school us for loving both God and world. Thus, Nobody would choose to live without friends even if he had all the other good things. (Nicomachean Ethics, VIII.i).

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Friending the World Sociality and the Transhuman Vision - Patheos

by Victoria Lorrimar

In engaging with transhumanist visions of the future, and the more general notion of human technological enhancement, from a theological perspective, a helpful starting point is the place of technology within a doctrine of creation.

Within a Christian understanding, an examination of the biblical language for creation (i.e. a word study of the Hebrew brand ytsar the first of which is reserved only for the action of God while the second is an activity that both God and humans carry out) suggests that it is appropriate to speak of humans as being genuinely creative from a theological perspective. Drawing on a metaphor of God as divine artist, we might situate human making within a theology of creation, rather than relegating it to the more distant doctrines of preservation, providence or redemption. Trevor Hart sums up this approach, arguing that viewing creation as a project divinely begun and established, yet one that is handed over to us with more to be made of it yet and inviting our responsible participation in the making, affords a fruitful perspective on the matter (Making Good, 2014: 8).

For a long time, the semantic scope of creation rejected the possibility of such parallels and served to underscore the radical otherness of God. We can chart the historical shift which saw the notion of creation extended from its previous preserve of God alone to human artistry. Creation proper may still apply solely to the work of God in certain instances, but the idea of creation more generally has expanded in scope.

In fact, we can track the understanding of human creativity as it diverges from its humble scriptural origins. The language of creativity is first ascribed to humans during the Renaissance, as the idea of art being a faithful imitation of divine creativity gave way to the idea of the artist or poet as a creator in their own right. This extends through the Romantic era and the Enlightenment period, with the result that the modern understanding of the arts is, on the one hand, more limited than its classical and mediaeval counterparts, in that earlier understandings of art encompassed human productivity more generally, but also more audacious in the claims it makes on behalf of human capacities and originality.

From the time of Francis Bacon, the father of modern science, we see this understanding of human capacities bound up in the promise of empirical science, the immense confidence in the expansion of human knowledge, the drive to master nature and the flourishing of utopian thought. This emphasis on dominion came to be enmeshed within theological understandings of creation, as creation found its way into the vocabulary used for human activities.

This does not mean, however, that it is inappropriate to speak of humans as genuinely creative. Hart, after an extensive historical analysis of the language of creation, reaches the conclusion that: at various key points in the story of Gods creative fashioning of a world fit for his own indwelling with us, divine artistry actively solicits a corresponding creaturely creativity, apart from which the project cannot and will not come to fruition (Making Good, 2014: 37).

We find similar ideas in the work of Jacques Maritain and Dorothy Sayers, who reinforce the theological significance of human making and its proper place within a doctrine of creation. Maritain describes the creativity of the artist as a development of divine creation, a work proceeding from the whole soul which bears the image of God. Though he distinguishes the creation of God (who is able to truly generate another substance through divine utterance) and human works of creating (which can only ever be signs), Maritain nevertheless grounds the dignity of art in his assertion that it realizes in act one of the fundamental aspects of the ontological likeness of our soul with God. Sayers, too, locates human creativity in our being made in the image of a triune Creator, introduced in her play The Zeal of Thy House(1937) and unpacked further in The Mind of the Maker (1941).

The challenges posed by transhumanist visions of the human future require us to develop a sufficiently robust account of theological anthropology in return. Of course, theological anthropology is a very broad category, and Ive focused on the understanding of human creativity within that. If we reflect on enhancement technologies, this prompts the question as to whether these kinds of technology are a legitimate exercise of our creativity, set within the framework of a broader doctrine of creation.

Most of the detailed theological treatments of human creativity we might turn to focus almost exclusively on the arts. If they do treat technology, they tend to have developed within the science and religion field and often are accompanied by an over-privileging of rationality and an epistemological confidence in human capability that neglects an account of fallenness and the need for discernment (here Im thinking mainly of Philip Hefners created co-creator proposal outlined most comprehensively in his 1993 work The Human Factor). In these latter discourses, even if they are moving beyond a foundationalist epistemology, the role of the imagination for understanding and discernment is often neglected.

Yet, transhumanism as a philosophy is veryimaginative. There are all kinds of synergies with science fiction that other scholars have drawn out, but (whatever we say about some of the ideologies involved) we have to admit that transhumanist visions of transcendence are captivating for many (even if not always taken seriously). If we are to engage these movements from a theological perspective then we need to meet them with equally compelling theological accounts of the future, and the good news is that Christian theology has a deep well of resources to draw on in this area.

James McClendon argued for the need to enter the tournament of narratives competing for attention within a postmodern milieu. Presented in ways that recruit the imagination (as James K. A. Smith describes the imperative for good stories in the moral arena), the visions of transcendence and glorification proclaimed so confidently in transhumanist literature are ripe for reclamation by Christian theologians, philosophers, writers and artists. We might respond with a fuller vision of the human future, a greater hope to set alongside the imaginings of transhumanists and techno-utopians. Of course, this is already a move to eschatology, but then we dont want to separate out creation and redemption as entirely independent doctrinal loci.

Whereas technology itself tends to occupy many of the classic roles of a deity in the present technological paradigm, theologians are able to expose the pretensions to self-love inherent in certain technological mindsets (as theologian Brian Brock puts it). A Christian account of hope declares that in conceiving, assessing and implementing technologies, we bear neither the burden of correctly envisioning or accomplishing redemption for ourselves nor the risk and dread of complete failure. Technology occupies its proper place within the work of a gracious God who allows creation to participate in bringing the creation toward glorious fulfilment.

By reflecting on our technological activity in the context of theological accounts of co-creation (recognising and challenging the ways in which understanding has diverged from a biblical account of creativity), and by setting imaginative portrayals of Christian hope alongside transhumanist projections, we might think of theology as entering the tournament of narratives competing for victory over the human (and non-human, an aspect often neglected by transhumanists!) future.

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Technology and Human Creativity in Theological Perspective - Patheos

In 2017, when a premature lamb was successfully grown to term inside an artificial womb, a bio bag, spectators argued that human fetuses would be next. In October 2019, Dutch researchers were awarded 2.9 million to develop a prototype. In a time of a pandemic where everyone is affected and people fear for their life, could artificial wombs represent a glimpse of hope for a better future?

Unlike existing incubators that provide artificial respiration, this technology simulates the biological environment and feeds the fetus oxygen and nutrients through tubes, in the same way the placenta and umbilical cord do. This would allow premature babies, whose lungs are often not developed enough to breathe air and have high mortality rates to grow to term outside the uterus, which is the largest supporting argument for the technology.

Artificial wombs will help babies born prematurely survive. Thats the main help, Zolton Istvan, a transhumanist figurehead running in the 2020 US presidential election as a Republican, told Screen Shot. This is an intrinsic part of the transhumanist movement since it will use radical science to change an existing institution of humanity, he added.

Artificial wombs could eliminate risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth although, currently, the mother is still an integral part of the birthing processan embryo cannot be fertilised and planted in an artificial womb, first it must be partially grown inside a uterus. If this was possible, it would be what is called ectogenesis.

It will also give women a third choice when it comes to abortion. Instead of aborting, they can have the fetus transplanted into an artificial womb, Istvan added. Theres a lot of fighting between pro-life and pro-choice, having a third choice regarding abortion will ease societys divisiveness. Terminating a pregnancy without having to end the life of the child presents vast social and ethical questions, such as an increased pressure on the state to provide the necessary equipment and resources. In 2018, there were 205,295 abortions in England and Wales.

Speaking to Screen Shot, Elizabeth Chloe Romanis, a lawyer and bioethicist at the University of Manchester, explains that Access to choices in pregnancy are subject to lots of social, legal and medical control and we need to make sure that the artificial womb is not used to deny women access to reproductive healthcare like abortion.

Although technology is not yet advanced enough for ectogenesis, many see bio bags, which could hinder female autonomy, as a stepping stone. Removing the natural dependency on women to have children could be integral in achieving true gender equality and balanced parenting. As a result of this, what it means to be a mother could be redefined.

At its very basic level, the technology would mean women no longer have to leave their jobs or go through labour, both things which Ivstan sees as positives. If neither parent was tied to a child physically, maternity and paternity leave would potentially equalise.

Giulia Cavaliere, a lecturer specialising in bioethics and reproductive technology at Lancaster Medical School, agrees with the fact that artificial wombs will allow women to become mothers in the same ways as men became fathers, by enjoying all the positive stuff while not experiencing any of the negative physical, psychological, professional and personal effects.

She added: There are also other benefits; women who could not or would not want to gestate and birth children could still be able to have genetically related children. A society where women are less subjected to health-related risks is a better society. This would be particularly impactful for women without a uterus, male same-sex couples and single males.

Itsvan explained that it is likely that womens pay will increase as a result of the technology, because womens careers wont be interrupted. At the moement, growing embryos into babies outside of a womb is restricted legally and technologically, with no evidence an embryo can be taken to term from scratch with current bio bags, and it being illegal to do so.

Instead, legal definitions and potential backlash to existing functionalities must be managed. Romanis explained that what is most interesting is how this will change some of our ideas about birth. A subject in an artificial womb is not completely born, even though they have been delivered from their mother, because they are still undergoing gestation and are not interacting with the external environment. The social response is hard to predict. Should we treat it like a foetus, or like a born baby?

Regulation will play a part in this, determining whether artificial wombs are restricted for medical use. While depicted as freedom and equality-promoting for all women, as Romanis said, if used generally bio pregnancies could exaggerate class divide with fewer middle-class couples opting for natural pregnancy or, on the contrary, it could see vulnerable mothers who smoke, take drugs or are from a minority group being coerced into using the technology.

If artificial wombs become an option in the near future, it remains uncertain whether women will opt for it without good reasons as Romanis highlighted how invasive the procedure would be. Although it is facing important financial, technological and legal hurdles, the continued development of this niche health tech no doubt holds the key to both true gender equality and widespread social controversy. As controversial as they are, artificial wombs are also something exciting to look out for in the near futurea positive thing to think about while stuck at home.

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What is an artificial womb and can it work for humans? - Screen Shot

Observation Pointsis a new, semi-regular discussion of key details in our culture.

TheFast & Furiousmovies are ridiculousness incarnatethe artistic expression of that weird noise your dishwasher makes when a fork gets caught between the grates. Yet strangely, they just work. The physics-defying stunts, the over-the-top lunacy, the complete disregard for coherence and the tried-and-true emphasis on family. It all just somehow clicks together. Thats why its such a monumental letdown that the coronavirus forced F9to abandon its planned May release until April 2021.

The delay gives us roughly 12 months to ponder the future of the franchise and a total of 20 months between series releases when accounting for Augusts Hobbs & Shaw. I dont know about you, but thats too damn long without any fresh Fast & Furiousin my life. So in lieu of the blockbusters we were promised, here is my completely logical plan for the future of the franchise that I definitely have not been thinking about non-stop for the last two years.

SEE ALSO: Mission: Impossible Director Brian De Palma Had Zero Interest in Making Sequels

Here is the official plot synopsis forF9from Universal:

Vin Diesels Dom Toretto is leading a quiet life off the grid with Letty and his son, little Brian, but they know that danger always lurks just over their peaceful horizon. This time, that threat will force Dom to confront the sins of his past if hes going to save those he loves most. His crew joins together to stop a world-shattering plot led by the most skilled assassin and high-performance driver theyve ever encountered: a man who also happens to be Doms forsaken brother, Jakob (John Cena).

Thats not a whole lot to go on. But we do know that Jakob is working withThe Fate of the Furiouscyber terrorist villain Cipher (Charlize Theron). Thanks to the trailer, we also know that Han (Sung Kang) is somehow alive after seemingly being killed by Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) inTokyo Drift. How? Fuck you, this is Fast & Furious, thats how!

InHobbs & Shaw, an unknown villain that uses a computerized voice to communicate leads the terrorist organization Eteon, which specializes in transhumanism. This mysterious mastermind enhances Brixton Lore (Idris Elba) through cybernetics, suggesting advanced bioengineering and technological capabilities. Thats not how Han survivedJakob rescued him and held him hostage to extract information about Dom and his crew, obviouslybut it will come into play later.

And finally, its a safe betat some pointthat one or more members of Doms team will drive in space, given the conspicuous placement of a rocket-powered car in the F9 trailer. Beating theMission: Impossible franchise to that particular punch is a badge of honor.

Thats what we know so far about info teased relating to F9. In our version of the Fastfranchise,F9reveals that, unbeknownst to them, Jakob and Cipher have been serving under this anonymous puppet master for years. Whats more, there are clues indicating that this antagonist has ties to the Diplomatic Security Service, where Dwayne Johnsons Hobbs used to work. Boom, nowFast & Furioushas its own Thanos-lite Big Bad to contend with, though his identity remains unknown.

Fast & Furious 10was meant to arrive on April 1, 2021, but withF9moving into that slot thanks to the COVID-19 lockdown, Universal is going to be forced to delay. In the interim, the studio can pivot to a sequel to the franchises first successful spinoff.

This time around, Hobbs & Shaw have been tasked with investigating the destruction of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the worlds largest and highest-energy particle collider and the largest machine in the world, currently built beneath the France-Switzerland border near Geneva. (We know the Hobbs & Shaw post-credits scenes teased a deadly virus, but that just feels yucky after COVID-19.) What concerns authorities more than the supercolliders destruction is what wasntfound in the rubble: central working components of the machine. This technology is used to explore quantum mechanics, general relativity and the deep structures of space and time. In the wrong hands, it poses a global threat.

Naturally, Eteon is behind it all (and no, Ryan Reynolds Locke is not the secret bad guy). To retrieve the stolen materials, Hobbs and Shaw must pull off a daring raid on the organizations secret compound. But instead of finding missing machine parts, they come acrossprepare for our first Holy shit! momentGisele Yashar (Gal Gadot), the love of Hans life who was seemingly killed off in Fast & Furious 6.Shes unconscious, hooked up to a host of medical machines, but very much alive.

Brixton wasnt Eteons only cybernetic human test subject, after all. Dun, dun, dunnnn.

Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham were not going to appear inF9 thanks toHobbs & Shaw. Assuming Universal doesnt use the 11-month delay to add them into the film, Fast & Furious 10will take on added importance as a reunion of sorts. You can practically hear the box office banknotes rolling in.

Here, our characters are puzzling over Giseles survival, reintegrating her back into the crew (she and Han navigate a V-12 engines worth of sexual tension, obviously) and still searching for Eteon and their supercollider. All of a sudden, a mortally wounded Ciphernot seen since escaping in F9turns up at HQ with a warning. You must stop him, she says as she slips Dom a flash drive before dying. One of their most hated rivals using her last breath to help them? Shit must be getting real.

The flash drive contains detailed files on what Eteon is planning with their supercollidera tear in the space-time continuum that enables time travel, because why the hell not at this point?!The plans also reveal the last piece Eteon needs to complete it which sends our heroes on a mission to intercept them.

A massive battle breaks out immediately upon their arrival. Every rule of physics that can be broken on screen isbroken. Everything that can be on fire ison fire. Every bicep comparison between main characters that can be made is made. You know, normalFast & Furiousstuff.

When the dust settles, Roman (Tyrese Gibson) isheld at gunpoint bywait for itKeanu Reeves! Reeves character is revealed to be the mastermind behind Eteon andHobbs childhood friend/former partner who was believed to be killed on their first mission together. (Hobbs, of course, still blames himself to this day.) He murders Roman (sorry, Tyrese, but we needsome emotional fallout) and escapes, leaving our heroes distraught and defeated.

That brings us to

Reeves bad guyintent on ruining Dom, Hobbs and the whole crew before taking over the worldflings himself to the future in order to kill the adult versions of Doms son Brian and Hobbs daughter Sam, who are totally married and also happen to be badass super spies themselves. Han and Giseles kid is their guy in the chair tech expert too. What is the Fast & Furiousfranchise if not a soap opera soaked in diesel fuel?

Adult Brian is played by Shia LaBeouf, adult Sam is played by Keke Palmer, and Han and Giseles kid is played by Steven Yeun. LaBeouf will win his first Oscar for the role.

So our crew follows Reeves villain into the future where they pair up with the now-grown versions of their own children in an X-Men: Days of Future Past-esque set-up that doubles as the conclusion to the current iteration of theFastseries and a bridge to the new spinoff franchise Universal has been planning this entire time.

MIND = BLOWN.

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How the Fast & Furious Movies Should End (and Live on Forever) - Observer

The comment was made by Anders Sandberg, a senior research fellow at the universitys Future of Humanity Institute. His work focuses on the potential risks future technology could pose to human civilisation.

Mr Sandberg has also spent decades involved with the transhumanist movement, which consists of people who believe humans can and should use technology to artificially augment their capabilities.

Speaking to Express.co.uk he argued humans in the future could enjoy greatly expanded lifespans and could even have their brains uploaded onto computers for safekeeping.

Asked how long humans could live Mr Sandberg replied: There is no fundamental ceiling but you are going to need to solve certain problems.

Accidents is the first one cryonics wont help you if a bus runs over you and turns you into mush.

Even if ageing and disease is not a problem you need to handle accidents and probably that means having some form of backup copies. You need some form of uploading or artificial body.

Probably the human brain cant handle that much information so you need to extend it as you get older.

You want to remember what needs to be remembered and maybe put other stuff in cyber storage.

Transhumanists believe humans can halt the ageing process and natural death.

According to Mr Sandberg this is one of the most provocative aspects of their programme.

He explained: Transhumanists have essentially since day one been saying we should really extend the human lifespan and this is perhaps one of the most controversial claims ever made.

We get way more pushback when talking about life extension than cloning or uploading into computers or going to space or taking drugs to become a more moral person.

Thats nothing compared to the potential of oh you might live much longer than you expected.

READ MORE:Academic explains how humans could become part mechanic cyborgs'

That is kind of dreadful to many people so they get very upset and start defending disease, sickness and death very strongly.

Its weird because if one believed their arguments we should be shutting down hospitals left and right and having people naturally and painfully die which of course people dont normally do. Normally we are very keen on having good hospitals and ambulances.

Mr Sandberg is the co-founder of Swedish thinktank Eudoxa and previously chaired the Swedish Transhumanist Association.

Transhumanist ideas have been gaining ground over recent years, with transhumanist political parties emerging in countries across the world including the UK.

An American transhumanist, Zoltan Istvan, recently ran against Trump for the 2020 Republican Presidential nomination.

Mr Sandberg also suggested advances in AI and drugs that improve human abilities are likely to play a role in the future.

READ MORE:US Presidential hopeful plans to ABOLISH DEATH using technology

He asserted: Its very likely artificial intelligence is going to become extremely powerful relatively soon.

Not necessarily the kind of self-willed Hal like being but at least very smart services that can solve problems for us which might speed things up.

I also have been working quite a lot on the ethics of cognitive enhancement. What about making ourselves smarter?

The good news is there are various things like smart drugs that might be helpful for certain mental tasks.

The bad news is there doesnt seem to be anything that really boost intelligence itself. That seems to be very complicated and we dont understand the brain well enough.

Oxford Universitys Future of Humanity Institute was founded in 2005 to focus on the opportunities and threats that could emerge for the human species.

It is headed by Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom, who grabbed wide attention with his 2014 book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies.

Asked what the world could look like in 40 years time Mr Sandberg replied: think a time traveller going 40 years into the future is first going to be super disappointed because it looks almost the same.

On the surface I think its going to be very similar theres going to be vehicles moving around, maybe without any drivers, there are going to be houses around and so on and then they start interacting with people and theyre going to realise this society works completely differently.

We most likely are going to have quite a lot of enhancements around that are regarded as everyday.

People are not going to think that the morning cognition enhancing pill is any weirder than the morning coffee they might even be the same thing.

The existence of a lot of machine learning and probably nanotechnology making a lot of material way more alive than they used to.

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Oxford academic claims future humans could live for thousands of years - Express.co.uk

Nathan Thornburgh and photographer Shane Carpenter were in New Hampshire last month for their longterm reporting project on the states odd presidential primary. In hindsight, it looks more surreal than ever.

It is unnerving to look at the pictures at this moment, in this week. Photographer Shane Carpenter and I have been working on a longterm project about the New Hampshire presidential primary for four election cycles spanning 16 years, but the things Ive come to love about the campaign up therethe intimacy of retail politicking, the electricity of the big ralliesnow just trip alarms in my mind. All the handshakes. All the pressed flesh, the leaning in, the campaign buses filled with coughing staffers, the moist microphones, the communal pens at the polls. The collective spittle of a talkative, aging electorate grabbing the shoulders of talkative, aging candidates. The entire thing feels so antediluvian.

But still, this is how it was just a few weeks ago. Were at the end of New Hampshire series of The Trip Podcastthe final episode is with Zoltan Istvan, who is both a lesser-known candidate for president and an avowed transhumanist obsessed with using technology to defeat deathso it seems a good time to publish a few of Shanes photographs from our time there.

We spent some time, as we always do, getting to know the brave and occasionally delusional lesser-known candidates who pay to be on the official ballot in the hopes of stealing some votes for themselves or their cause. And there were mainstream moments, like the Mcintyre-Shaheen candidate cattle-call in the big downtown arena. That one was cathartic for Shane and me in particular; the last time we were at that arena was for Trumps final 2016 rally before the primary in New Hampshire. He used the word pussy while ad-libbing with the crowd; he booed and badgered the press as they stood in their pen. It was the kind of monster truck rally political event that has become all too familiar over the last four years. The next day, Trump won.

This year, the New Hampshire primary was held on February 11, twelve days after the first U.S. coronavirus patient had been diagnosed in Washington State. No candidate mentioned it once while we were there; no voter asked any questions about it. On Primary Day, Shane and I drove down from Dixville Notch, where we had witnessed the campy traditions of the midnight vote. The next day we left the state; I drove back to Boston and took the Acela to New York City.

Less than two weeks after that, the Biogen conference kicked off at the Marriott Long Wharf in Boston. So far, 97 confirmed cases have been reported among conference attendees, spreading throughout the U.S. and even to China.

Now the virus is everywhere, and these pictures are unnerving to look at, but somewhere in here youll see the next president of the United States (and no, Im not talking about our lesser-known candidates like self-described jailhouse lawyer Mary Maxwell, Arkansan actual lawyer Mosie Boyd, or Zoltan Istvan). And though its hard to know what the half-life of social distancing will be after this pandemic ends, I do know that many of the building blocks of the new America we get after this one has molted are in these photos. The fervor, the turnout, the radical belief in participatory democracy. Well need them all.

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Electioneering on the Eve of the Virus Nathan Thornburgh and photographer Shane Carpenter were in New - Roads and Kingdoms

Be Brave. Good Health. Stay Strong. These three (albeit optimistic) convictions grace childlike artwork pinned to an overturned wooden cable spool in an Albuquerque neighborhood near the University of New Mexico. As coronavirus spreads, a yard full of art reminds us to keep our convictions.

Big Techs version of cable no longer signals a 5G future filled with exuberant STEAM lesson plans guaranteeing a creative class career. Coronavirus has frozen the future in time, requiring repurposed cable spools as tables, with the cable itself used to rig some backyard makeshift permaculture system, at best.

Artwork expresses much more than our irrelevant textbooks and quickly outdated news reports. While stocking up on beans and rice is essential, bravery, health, and strength is more essential in the sink or swim chance environment of COVID-19 contagion. This is a viral contagion that, in addition to its disconcerting capacity to mutate, can also ostensibly live much longer than three days on surfaces. Cruise ships have incubated viral traces living up to 17 days: hows that for an epidemiological learning curve?

Its fortunate schools are closed: what can teachers tell students? Fearful and grumpy, from pre-K to college, they miss their friends desperately, hopefully shuttered in the home their parents secured for the family before the virus hit hard. Homeless students didnt fare that well in this high-stakes game of life they are learning about too young.

Far from Big Techs imposter educated-class vision of a transhumanist egalitarian future with optimized minds delivered by Artificial Intelligence/Big Data, even if your gifted children are quarantined for their own protection, viral contagion of pandemic proportions is not the future trans-humanists plan for.

Hiveminds be damned, the children are still going to sit in parks and hold hands!

At least big boxes like Walmart and Amazon are mass hiring for warehouse work. You might find work making ventilators and masks at one of the repurposed factories. Or you can help innovate the 3-D-printed kind.

Commissary-style prices are looking quite attractive to big-box retailers, as usually spoiled companies adjust profit margin expectations, since prisoner releases will make it harder to price gouge prison commissaries anyway. Healthcare workers, too, are paying dearly, some with their lives.

The global COVID-19 toll surges upwards toward half a million official cases; the line between death and life blurs depending on your chance lot. Whether grave illness, layoff stress, or rent relief describes your days better, life has changed, and uncertainty abounds, especially regarding the newly reconfigured social sphere.

The stock market is trying something new by surging upwards, just as news of a $2 trillion bailout has arrived at a pandemic near everyone. New York states cases double every three days, possibly leaving Wall Street rather empty with no one left to ring that opening bell.

COVID-19s dramatic and tragic spreading has fingers pointing in all directions: plenty of culprits to blame. Death kindly stops for too many, and Trump-era deregulation appears to be curtailed momentarily, but its effects are everywhere when you look closer.

For example, nuclear weapons make the list of essential businesses to remain open, while some nuclear industry employees are encouraged to work from home if possible.

COVID-19 takes no hostages. Many lessons are lost. Setting better priorities and being better prepared for next time or taking time to stop and smell the flowers are quaint lessons from already bygone days that seem more indulgent than the new realities suddenly thrust on everyone living and breathing.

The virus lives longer and spreads faster, winning the race against our now humbled science. Real-time, tech-savvy data on Twitter can update the most well-intentioned graphic renderings, but neighborhood artwork, guided by children, is our real-time information, emerging from imaginations with more time on their hands than ever, but with less certainty than we could have ever imagined.

Adult reality consoles little, with little to show but a nightmare in exchange for all our hard work.

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MultiBrief: Surviving coronavirus: Bravery, health, and strength - MultiBriefs Exclusive

Contemporary engraving of Marseille during the Great Plague in 1720 Public Domain

It is a truism that the Black Death helped produce the age of humanism. Through making death ever-present, the plague undermined a system of religious authority in which the church and the church alone claimed to have answers to the fundamental questions of human existence; the priests naturally still asserted that this was the case but were now as likely as not to drop dead once they did so. Amid the dissolution of the churchs legitimacy as well as, more specifically, its monopoly on truth and salvation, survivors began tending to all that was immediate and material, specifically in the form of the particular and the human.

It was out of this reorientation in which humans became the central focus of concern and inquiry a worldview in which the secular and the particular were seen as valuable in and of themselves that the Mona Lisa and Vitruvian Man, Rousseau and Marx, and Hitchcock and Dylan emerged.

Humanism has simultaneously been cogently condemned, as the civilizational project elevating above all else human interests has led to a particularly ferocious rapacity that views other animals and the environment as means merely to be exploited for human ends. It is but one of many ironies that Europes mining industries, and with them European concentrations of lead, dramatically expanded in the centuries following the Black Death. And, of course, in reality there exists not some monolithic humanity but instead a minute ruling class that justifies its atrocities through speaking for, while extracting the life and wealth from, the vast majority. From the annihilation of the Peasants Revolt to the mass slaughters committed by Leopold II and George W. Bush, the exaltation of humans always implied in practice not humanity per se but a self-appointed elite living through the subjugation of everyone else.

That said, it is interesting to note that the current pandemic is, aside from its exponentially growing number of victims, primarily being experienced through highly mediated online apparatuses including so-called social media. If 9/11, perhaps the most recent major crisis of a comparable order in the US, was largely experienced passively through watching television, coronavirus has of yet been experienced mainly through not only reading but also writing out ones fears and anxieties to an audience of readers on attention-economy sites such as Facebook.

Such virtual interaction laid the groundwork for and meshes with the physical distancing that governmental and other authorities are currently mandating. All you had to do was observe some friends hanging out in a bar to see that we have long been isolated from one another. This goes beyond the supposedly stodgy lament of one who agrees that attention is the highest gift we can give each other. If the discourtesy of not listening to a friend is supposedly beyond politics, the reason that we are ignoring each other is not. We are lost not in beautiful mountains or other wonders of existence when we endlessly ask our interlocutors to repeat themselves but in social media and dating sites in which algorithms determine the distribution of physiologically addictive rewards and thereby shape intrinsically individualistic and competitive behavior that not only isolates but also homogenizes us. Quarantining us in our apartments or houses, proscribing human interaction within six feet, and sanctioning societys revulsion toward human secretion, breath, odor, and matter, the state has committed its authority and coercive force to the digital revolution as well as the broader transhumanist projects of Musk and other powerful misanthropes whose fantasies of self-obliteration are peddled as mystical transcendence.

Locked into a hyper-capitalistic internet whose material purpose is the commodification of our subjectivity and an ensuing eradication of our interiority, the particular is, more systematically than ever, being erased from human reality. If the Black Death helped usher in humanism, coronavirus, for better or worse, may well hasten its end.

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Coronavirus and the Rise and Fall of Humanism - CounterPunch

Sen. Bernie Sanders addresses a news conference in Burlington, Vt., March 11, 2020. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)Bernie Sanders isnt a relic. Hes a preview of things to come.

Democrats are breathing a sigh of relief. Joe Bidens victories on Mini Tuesday make his delegate lead all but insurmountable. Bernie Sanderss electoral weakness, compared with his performance four years ago, has dulled the fear of an incipient socialist takeover of the worlds oldest political party. The left is said to have talked itself into believing its own propaganda and helped President Trump equate Democrats with socialism. Victory in the primary did not come from pledges to eliminate private health insurance or impose wealth taxes. It followed from the perception that Biden is the candidate best able to defeat Trump.

Dont write off the socialist revival just yet. Sanders might not win the Democratic nomination. But this outcome does not mean the forces that propelled him to second-place finishes in the two most recent Democratic primaries will vanish overnight. Abandoning the intellectual fight against socialism, both inside and outside the Democratic Party, would cede the field to an increasingly sophisticated and networked band of ideological activists whose influence in media and politics is greater than their numbers. Such ambivalence could have devastating consequences for American society.

The resurgent left has pushed Biden far beyond where he stood as vice president. And a socialist infrastructure guarantees the philosophys longevity. Aspiring Democratic politicians must at least deal with, if not pay obeisance to, groups such as the Working Families Party and the Democratic Socialists of America. Especially if they inhabit a deep-blue district ripe for picking by the Squad.

Fashionable, lively, radical, and controversial outlets, including Jacobin, Current Affairs, the Young Turks, Chapo Trap House, and Secular Talk, complement popular Instagram and Twitter accounts. And the New York Times magazines 1619 Project shows that the mainstream media is responsive to, and willing to participate in, the latest trends in anti-Americanism.

The most obvious reason not to dismiss the Sanders phenomenon is demographic. On Super Tuesday, Sanders won 30- to 44-year-olds by 18 points, and 18- to 29-year-olds by a staggering 43 points. He defeated Biden by nine points among Hispanic voters and by 25 points among Asian voters. Asian Americans are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the country. Hispanics are second. Sanderss protege, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 30-year-old woman of Puerto Rican descent, represents this ethno-generational cohort. Their place in American life will not be denied.

Right now, socialism is unpopular. Last month, only 45 percent of adults told Gallup they would vote for a socialist for president. Last year, a 51-percent majority said socialism would be a bad thing for the United States. But Gallup also found that the number who said socialism would be a good thing had risen to 43 percent in 2019 from 25 percent in 1942. A majority of Democrats have held positive views of socialism since 2010. A willingness to adopt the socialist ideal is most pronounced among the young. A YouGov poll conducted last year for the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation found that 70 percent of Millennials are either somewhat or extremely likely to vote for a socialist.

It is the decline in institutional religion that drives the resurgence of socialism. Gallup found that church membership among U.S. adults has dropped precipitously over the last two decades, to 50 percent in 2018 from 70 percent in 1998. Why? Because the percentage of adults who profess no religious affiliation has more than doubled. It has gone to 19 percent from 8 percent. The Millennials exhibit the lowest percentage of church membership among generations. Pew says the number of Americans who identify as Christians fell more than ten points over the last decade as the number of religiously unaffiliated spiked. Here too the largest falloff was among Millennials.

Religion not only offers answers to the most powerful, definitive, and ultimate questions of human existence and purpose. It anchors individuals in a particular authoritative tradition defined by doctrinal orthodoxy and refined through multigenerational practice. People released from these bonds are capable of believing anything. Thus, socialism has returned at the same time as climate apocalypticism, transhuman and transgender ideology, anti-vaccination movements, anti-Semitism, conspiracies, and ethnonationalism. In this climate of relativism and revisionism, where the most outlandish theories are a Google search away, both Marxism and utopian socialism seem credible. Nothing is too absurd.

Irving Kristol said that it is easy to point out how silly and counterproductive and even deadly socialism has been, in so many respects, but difficult to recognize its pull as an emotional attachment. The love of equality and progress makes for a special and durable political passion. Socialism, wrote Irving Howe in 1954, is the name of our desire. In the absence of an intellectually coherent and morally compelling account of the inequalities inherent to liberal democracy, so will the desire remain.

This piece originally appeared on the Washington Free Beacon.

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The Fight against Socialism Isnt Over - National Review

ActorHarry Hains, whose roles included appearances on American Horror Story: Hotel'sfifth-season episode "Devil's Night" andThe OA's second-season episode "Angel of Death," has died at age 27.

Hains' mother, actressJane Badler (V: The Series, Mission: Impossible), announced the news on her Instagram.

"On Jan 7 my beautiful son died. He was 27 and had the world at his feet. But sadly he struggled with mental illness and addiction," Badler wrote. "A brilliant spark shone bright too short a time .. I will miss you Harry every day of my life."

Back in October, Badler had posted a throwback photo of her children, as she reflected on motherhood:

The young actor and model also appeared in such genre fare asA Haunting at Silver Falls: The Returnand was scheduled to appear in an upcoming horror film titledKlowns, among many other projects, according to his IMDb page.

Hains was also a musician, performing under the name ANTIBOY. Hains described ANTIBOY as "a trans human/android from afuture in which all social constructs - including gender, sexuality, and race - have been destroyed." Attitude Magazine named Hains one of its rising stars:

A memorial service for Hains will be held on Jan. 12 at Hollywood Forever in Los Angeles.

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Harry Hains, actor in American Horror Story and The OA, dies at 27 - SYFY WIRE

WISeKey to Hold its 13th Annual Cybersecurity IoT Bloackchain Roundtable in Davos on January 22, 2020

Geneva December 23, 2019- WISeKey International Holding Ltd ("WISeKey", SIX: WIHN, NASDAQ: WKEY), a leading global cybersecurity and IoT company, today announces that it will hold its 13th Annual Cybersecurity Roundtable in Davos on January 22, 2020 (starting at 6:00pm CET), at the Piano Bar of Hotel Europe (Promenade 63, 7270, Davos Platz, Switzerland).

This closed-door event will take place during the upcoming World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos. For more information and registration details visit https://www.wisekey.com/davos/.

Agenda for the 2020 Cybersecurity Roundtable includes the following events:

Cybersecurity Tech AccordAs a core signatory of the Cybersecurity Tech Accord, this networking reception hosted by WISeKey and the Cybersecurity Tech Accord will include a panel conversation focused on the role cybersecurity plays in ensuring the trust in our digital economy, and how the technology industry can work together to further improve the security of our online ecosystem. It will particularly look at the role of technology can play in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, with a special focus promoting peace, justice, and strong institutions.

The Cybersecurity Tech Accord is a public commitment among now more than 130 global technology companies to protect and empower civilians online and to improve the security, stability and resilience of cyberspace. Since forming the Cybersecurity Tech Accord, signatories have supported initiatives on email and routing security, implemented Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) in their own operations, participated in global requests for comments on the UNs new High Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, and endorsed the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace as an early supporter. Additionally, the group has coordinated with like-minded organizations such as the Global Cyber Alliance, the Internet Society, and the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise (GFCE).

2020 Blockchain Outstanding AwardsChina Blockchain Application Center will present the "2020 Blockchain Outstanding Awards" to companies and individuals who have made great impacts globally to the development of Blockchain industry in the past year.

TransHuman Code for a Sustainable Era RoundtableFollowing the Tech Accord panel discussion, WISeKey will hold its 3rd Annual "TransHuman Code Meeting of Minds Roundtable." This year the roundtable will have special focus on Human Sustainability using Deeptech technologies. The TransHumanCode Platform coupled with AI agents, data mining, machine learning, and natural language search, will comprise the latest Deeptech revolutionary technologies. They comprised of AR/VR, IoT wearables like smart glasses, autonomous sensors, and decentralized computing with blockchain. This decentralized computing will provide greater security and data authentication, speeding everything up. Adding advanced integrations, the TransHumanCode platform secured by WISeKey will seamlessly work with physical environment. It will overlay everything including conversations, roads, conference room, and classrooms with AI-powered interaction and intuitive information.

In the TransHumanCode era, every physical element of every building in the actual world will be fully digitized. There will be virtual avatars for each human being and one can roam in virtual work or meeting places. This means that every piece of information around the world will become human centric.

The final version of the "transHuman Code" book bestseller will be distributed and an insightful interactive conversation will start on the precarious balancing act between technology and humanity in the application of AI, blockchain, cybersecurity, IoT, and robotics to education, employment, communication, transportation, communities, security, government, food, finance, entertainment and health.

We truly look forward to welcoming you. Historically, this event has been quickly oversubscribed. To avoid disappointment, please CLICK HERE to book your place now.

About WISeKey

WISeKey (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 Secures the pervasive computing shaping todays Internet of Everything. WISeKey IoT has an install base of over 1.5 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 edge of IoT as our semiconductors produce a huge amount of Big Data that, when analyzed with Artificial Intelligence (AI), can help industrial applications to 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.

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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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WISeKey to Hold its 13th Annual Cybersecurity IoT Blockchain Roundtable in Davos on January 22, 2020 - GlobeNewswire

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For your everyday tweeting, Uber Eating, back-to-back meeting tech bro, the idea that rapid technological change could have its downsides is an inconvenient truth.

Thats why weve rounded up 18 books puncturing Silicon Valley utopianism. From the rise of Big Data to the fall of Theranos, these authors delve into the tech fairy tales weve been sold and uncover the underlying truth.

Arm yourself with the tools to take on Big Tech from this bestselling list of tech experts.

Mike Isaac, the award-winning New York Times technology reporter, digs deep into the history of Uber, the worlds best known -and most controversial -ride-hailing firm.

Praised for laying out the companys many woes without making a caricature of the companys eccentric ex-CEO Travis Kalanick, Isaac offers the essential guide to understanding how Uber became what it is today.

As the company continues to face down controversy around the world, this book puts the pedal to the metal in a way nothing else has before.

Find it here

Richard Seymours dark polemic on the digital age might be the most sobering on this list.

Hardly a day goes by without the President of the United States firing vitriol at his enemies via social media, as Seymour observes in what he assures his readers is a horror story come to life.

Seymour dedicates his book to the Luddites those that smashed machinery apart during the industrial revolution with his tongue firmly in his cheek.

Reading it might just make you want to do the same.

Find it here

In Emily Changs shocking foray into the exploits of some of the worlds most unsavoury tech bros, drug-fuelled sex parties are the norm in the suburbs of Silicon Valley.

Rejected as salacious nonsense by Elon Musk who is himself alleged to have attended one such party Changs work exposes the Valleys notoriously male-dominated and sexist culture.

In the final chapter, Chang reveals: Writing this book has been like going on a trek through a minefield, with fresh mines being laid as I walked.

Dont miss it.

Find it here

Read the inside story of the startup that continues to make headlines around the world.

After founding Theranos, a healthtech company which claimed to have revolutionary blood-testing capabilities, Elizabeth Holmes set a series of calamitous events in motion.

John Carreyrou received universal acclaim for his forensic analysis, seeking sources from top to bottom within Theranos, the sham company that drew massive investments from the likes of Rupert Murdoch and Carlos Slim.

While it remains to be seen what will become of Holmes, Carreyrous hard-hitting investigation is now set for a Hollywood adaptation, directed by The Big Shorts Adam McKay and starring Jennifer Lawrence.

Find it here

Invisible Women exposes what author Criado Perez dubs the one-size-fits-men bias in design and technology, highlighting the endless number of mismatches in everyday life, from fitness monitors to items of clothing to car safety.

The winner of the Financial Times Best Business Book of 2019, Invisible Women is a compelling insight into the dangers of treating male bodies as the default in policymaking.

Find it here

Financial Times journalist Rana Foroohars deep-dive critique of the internets pioneers takes a forensic look at the biggest companies dominating our lives, including: Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Uber.

In examining each case study, Foroohar unpicks how the tech giants slowly but surely started to betray their founding principles, from Googles old mantra Dont be evil to Mark Zuckerbergs vision of creating communities around the world.

Like with so many on our list, Dont Be Evil might leave you feeling a little more nervous about the world we live in, but a lot more informed.

Find it here

Jamie Susskind confronts some of the most important questions of our time, effortlessly mapping his knowledge of political theory onto the latest developments from Silicon Valley, revealing a host of ethical quandaries and impracticalities.

Susskind doesnt hone in on any particular companies, instead abstracting their capabilities and what they might mean for all of us in our everyday lives or, as he calls it, the digital lifeworld.

For all its grand implications, Future Politics is an accessible read, peppered with self-deprecating humour and pop cultural references throughout, and will make you only more curious about the road ahead.

Find it here

Shoshana Zuboff, a professor of social psychology at Harvard Business School, has been using the term surveillance capitalism to describe the economic model of Big Tech since at least 2014, around five years before publishing this weighty tome.

She offers the reader a shocking insight into the business model that underpins the digital world, detailing in razor-sharp detail how the likes of Facebook and Google are using our data to advance their interests.

Zuboff effortlessly infuses what we already know with her trademark academic analysis, allowing us to grasp the big picture. The landmark book is a follow-up of sorts to her previous work, 1988s The Age of the Smart Machine, which was likewise considered definitive in its field.

Find it here

Automating Inequality is an unsettling insight into the world of robotic decision-making, exploring how algorithms are already being used to make decisions about who should be paid, who should be surveilled and in some cases who should be born.

Eubanks, a professor of womens studies at the University of Albany, paints a compelling picture of inequality at large, intensified by the distancing of human beings from human affairs.

The unfiltered impact of new technology on issues like race, class and gender exemplifies how machines have yet to learn how to make decisions the way humans do.

Find it here

Jamie Bartletts manifesto for technological resistance, longlisted for the Orwell Prize, offers a comprehensive overview of the threats posed by the Internet to our very way of life.

Most recently heard hunting down the Missing Cryptoqueen for the BBC, Bartlett offers a sobering guide to the ways in which both individuals and institutions can stop Big Tech from taking over our culture, elections, economy and more.

Bartlett works at think-tank Demos, and previously presented a two-part BBC documentary series called The Secrets of Silicon Valley.

Find it here

While technically more a series of sociological experiments than tech expos, Bloodworths book dramatically reveals the everyday reality of those working in the UKs tech-driven gig economy.

Whether stacking shelves in an Amazon warehouse or seeking passengers as an Uber driver, Bloodworth steps into the lives of those doing Big Techs heavy lifting without seeing much of the reward.

Selected as The Times current affairs book of 2018 and longlisted for the Orwell Prize, Hired is an in-depth study of the conditions imposed on those benefiting least from the technological revolution.

Find it here

Christopher Wiley, the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower, lifts the lid on his time at the now-infamous political consultancy.

Revelations abound about the companys working culture, including the behaviour of former CEO Alexander Nix, while Wiley reveals bit by bit the kind of power he wielded while rifling through individuals personal data.

While the true impact of Cambridge Analyticas work in the US, UK and elsewhere around the world continues to be argued, Wileys insight gives you the best chance yet of making that assessment for yourself.

Find it here

Algorithms are everywhere, organising the unfathomably large quantities of data produced by each of us every day.

In We Are Data, John Cheney-Lippold spells out what the implications might be for our algorithmic identities in the digital age, and how they underpin everything from architecture to accountancy.

A professor of digital studies at the University of Michigan, Cheney-Lippold implores his readers to try to fully grasp the problems that lie ahead, so that we might have the best chance of reaching a solution.

Find it here

Stuart Russell already has one of the best-known books on artificial intelligence to his name, having authored Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach in 1995 with co-writer Peter Norvig.

Now, Russell returns to the question and doesnt hold anything back.

The University of California professor outlines the darker consequences of pushing the frontiers in artificial intelligence or, as he calls it, the most important question facing humanity.

Find it here

Writing with the pace of a thriller novel, Andy Greenberg tells the story of Russias infamous hacking group of the title.

Sandworm is the must-read guide to state-sponsored hacking, described by the LA Times as a comprehensive look at the technical, military and political stories of this new hidden war.

Find it here

With his 2018 book, journalist Corey Pein set out to learn how such an overhyped industry as tech could sustain itself as long as it has.

He slowly works the crowds at conferences, pitches his wacky ideas to investors and interviews a cast of ridiculous characters: cyborgs, tech bros, hackers and obedient employees all feature.

LWWWD is an incisive portrait of a self-obsessed industry hellbent on succeeding by whatever means necessary.

Find it here

Martin Moore has some big questions for Big Tech, breaking his book into three overarching themes: hackers, systems failure, and alternative futures.

From the rise of alt-right media outlets like Breitbart, through to the rise of what he dubs surveillance democracies, Moore maps a path from old Soviet disinformation campaigns through to those alleged to have played a part in the 2016 US Election.

A seriously engaging work that should be read by anyone curious about the impact of new technology on national security.

Find it here

One of the most unsettling and illuminating books about the internet ever written, so says the New York Times, New Dark Age reveals the dark clouds gathering over our dreams of a digital utopia.

Looking at the ways machines have already began besting their human competitors, such as the AI that defeated chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov, Bridle suggests a new path forward: centaur chess, a kind of team-up between humans partnered with computers.

The implications for a post- or transhuman world are to say the least mind-blowing.

Find it here

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Misinformation, hacking, and imploding startups: 18 books to read in 2020 that puncture Silicon Valley utopianism - Business Insider

In the first episode of Years and Years, a family shindig is interrupted by the whine of air-raid sirens and the news that Donald Trump has fired a nuclear missile at the Chinese a moment of hysteria-inducing horror that doubles as the shows starter pistol. Thats right: impending Armageddon is merely an aperitif when it comes to the devastation the Lyons family faces in Russell T Daviess breathtakingly ambitious dystopian drama. By the time the series ends in 2034, the UK has experienced 80 consecutive days of rainfall, while dirty bombs have made thousands homeless, a fascistic politician in the light-entertainer mould has risen to power and the government has set up a series of secretive concentration camps. Between them, the Lyons have lost their wealth, their health, their freedom and, in some cases, their lives.

The plot of Years and Years felt like the news ticker tape of nightmares brought to life, but it was so much more than a parade of atrocities. Daviess great trick was to meld the wild catastrophising of shows such as Black Mirror with the daily trials of a Mancunian every-family you could really get behind. The result resembled a mashup of soap and sci-fi: Corrie transposed on to a backdrop of staggering political and environmental ruin.

Years and Years dramatised the tipping point at which the news becomes our lives

Opening on the actual date of broadcast, 14 May 2019, Years and Years followed the personal and increasingly political struggles of the Lyons clan: 92-year-old Muriel, her grandchildren Rosie, Stephen, Daniel and Edith, plus their partners and kids. But the Lyons werent just a family they were society under a single surname. They were gay, straight, lesbian, trans, white, black, Asian, disabled and elderly. They were lone parents trying to make ends meet, moneyed middle-class professionals, refugees, never-ending gap year nomads and wealthy retirees rattling around cavernous suburban piles. It wasnt a realistic setup Davies, who has called himself a great believer in quotas, says he was driven by a desire to be representative but it allowed its creator to flesh out a cross-section of society, and create a 3D diagram of varying degrees of privilege.

At its heart, Years and Years was not a show simply about how bad the news could get. It dramatised the tipping point at which the news becomes our lives, and worked at predicting the pain that is largely still to invade our cushy western existences. Characters fell with a shocking abruptness (Daniels descent from a plush flat to the bottom of the freezing sea) or via a piecemeal disintegration (Stephens banking-glitch-prompted slide into the gig economy) that felt frighteningly convincing.

This was realism fit for a world that no longer feels particularly real. That it felt so frighteningly convincing can be credited to its stellar cast, which included Rory Kinnear, Jessica Hynes and Emma Thompson. But it was also down to the fact that many of its atrocious events the ascent of populist leaders, the flooding, the economic crashes, the extinctions have already taken place. Davies, best known for his showrunner stint on the Doctor Who revival, first conceived of Years and Years two decades ago, and began writing after Trumps election victory in 2016. Nobody could blame him for managing to stay only a few steps ahead of the worlds increasingly distorted curve.

The shows embrace of technology is one way that Davies managed to imagine a chilling future. In the first episode, Stephens teenage daughter, Bethany, announces she is transhuman. Initially played for laughs, the idea steadily gains credence until it is revealed to underpin the entire show in a spine-tingling finale that grapples with ideas about what it means to be a human being. In fact, that uncommon optimism about technology runs through the structure of the series. The constant communication made possible by smartphones has long been the scourge of screenwriters its hard to maintain peril when salvation is only a WhatsApp message away but Davies makes it a dramatic asset, using multi-person voice-and-video calls to drive the plot.

There are superficial reasons to admire Years and Years, and there are more profound ones. The show humanises the bad news cycle one that sees the shocking morph into the status quo on a daily basis. Davies attempts to counteract the apathy that can grow out of relentless dismay. He does this not through shock value, but by creating rounded characters that draw empathy, outrage and horror from our increasingly hardened hearts. By no means an easy task, but an indisputably noble one.

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The 50 best TV shows of 2019: No 4 Years and Years - The Guardian