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Proposed Legislation Banning New Physics Torture Weapons in the European Union

EUROPEAN COMMISSION

REGULATION

Council Regulation (EC) No _________________ of _________, 201_ concerning weapons systems operating on new physics principles used to torture or inflict other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment including electronic weapons, electromagnetic weapons, magnetic weapons, directed energy weapons, geophysical weapons, wave-energy weapons, frequency weapons, genetic weapons, scalar weapons, psychotronic weapons, chemtrail aerosol weapons, implant weapons, vaccine-based weapons, nanotechnology weapons, high frequency active aural high altitude ultra low frequency weapons, information technology weapons.

There are three basic types of EU legislation:

regulations, directives and decisions.A regulation is similar to a national law

with the difference that it is applicable in all EU countries.

European Commission ec.europa.eu

The European Commission differs from the other institutions in that it alone has legislative initiative in the EU. Only the Commission can make formal proposals for legislation: they cannot originate in the legislative branches. However, the Council and Parliament may request the Commission to draft legislation, though the Commission does have the power to refuse to do so. Under the Lisbon Treaty, EU citizens are also able to request the Commission to legislate in an area via a petition carrying one million signatures, but this is not binding.

August 29, 2013

Council Regulation (EC) No _________________ of _________, 201_

Council Regulation (EC) No _________________ of _________, 201_ concerning weapons systems operating on new physics principles used to torture or inflict other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment including but not limited to electronic weapons, electromagnetic weapons, magnetic weapons, directed energy weapons, geophysical weapons, wave-energy weapons, frequency weapons, genetic weapons, scalar weapons, psychotronic weapons, chemtrail aerosol weapons, implant weapons, vaccine-based weapons, nanotechnology weapons, high frequency active aural high altitude ultra low frequency weapons, information technology weapons.

Official Journal _______________________________________

Council Regulation (EC) ________________________________

of ______________ 201_

concerning weapons systems operating on new physics principles used to torture or inflict other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment including but not limited to electronic weapons, electromagnetic weapons, magnetic weapons, directed energy weapons, geophysical weapons, wave-energy weapons, frequency weapons, genetic weapons, scalar weapons, psychotronic weapons, chemtrail aerosol weapons, implant weapons, vaccine-based weapons, nanotechnology weapons, high frequency active aural high altitude ultra low frequency weapons, information technology weapons.

(hereinafter collectively referred to as new physics torture weapons).

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 133 thereof,

Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,

Whereas:

(1) Pursuant to Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms constitutes one of the principles common to the Member States. In view of this, the Community resolved in 1995 to make respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms an essential element of its relations with third countries.

(2) Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 3 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms all lay down an unconditional, comprehensive prohibition on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Other provisions, in particular the United Nations Declaration Against Torture and the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, place an obligation on States to prevent torture.

(3) Article 2(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union states that no one shall be condemned to the death penalty or executed. On 29 June 1998, the Council approved Guidelines on EU policy towards third countries on the death penalty and resolved that the European Union would work towards the universal abolition of the death penalty.

(4) Article 4 of the said Charter states that no one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment. On 9 April 2001, the Council approved Guidelines to the EU policy toward third countries, on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment . These guidelines refer to both the adoption of the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports in 1998 and the ongoing work to introduce EU-wide controls on the exports of paramilitary equipment as examples of measures to work effectively towards the prevention of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment within the Common Foreign and Security Policy. These guidelines also provide for third countries to be urged to prevent the use and production of, and trade in, equipment that is designed to inflict torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and prevent the abuse of any other equipment to these ends.

(5) It is therefore appropriate to lay down Community rules on use and on trade with third countries in new physics torture weapons. These rules are instrumental in promoting respect for human life and for fundamental human rights and thus serve the purpose of protecting public morals. Such rules should ensure that Community economic operators do not derive any benefits from trade that either promotes or otherwise facilitates the implementation of policies on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, which are not compatible with the relevant EU Guidelines, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and international conventions and treaties.

(6) For the purpose of this Regulation, it is considered appropriate to apply the definitions of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment laid down in the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and in Resolution 3452 (XXX) of the General Assembly of the United Nations. These definitions should be interpreted taking into account the case law on the interpretation of the corresponding terms in the European Convention on Human Rights and in relevant texts adopted by the EU or its Member States.

(7) The Guidelines to the EU Policy toward third countries on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment provide, inter alia, that the Heads of Mission in third countries will include in their periodic reports an analysis of the occurrence of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in the State of their accreditation, and the measures taken to combat it. It is appropriate for the competent authorities to take these and similar reports made by relevant international and civil society organisations into account when deciding on requests for authorisations. Such reports should also describe any new physics torture weapons used in third countries for the purpose of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

(8) In order to contribute to the prevention of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, it is considered necessary to prohibit the supply to third countries of technical assistance related to goods which have no practical use other than for the purpose of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment by new physics torture weapons.

(9) The aforementioned Guidelines state that, in order to meet the objective of taking effective measures against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, measures should be taken to prevent the use, production and trade of new physics torture weapons, including parts and equipment thereof, which are designed to inflict torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. It is up to the Member States to impose and enforce the necessary restrictions on the use and production of such equipment.

(10) In order to take into account new data and technological developments, the lists of new physics torture weapons and parts and equipment thereof covered by this Regulation should be kept under review and provision should be made for a specific procedure to amend these lists.

(11) The Commission and the Member States should inform each other of the measures taken under this Regulation and of other relevant information at their disposal in connection with this Regulation.

(12) Member States should lay down rules on penalties applicable to infringements of the provisions of this Regulation and ensure that they are implemented. Those penalties should be effective, proportionate and dissuasive.

(13) This Regulation respects the fundamental rights and observes the principles recognised in particular by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union,

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

CHAPTER I

Subject matter, scope and definitions

Article 1

Subject matter and scope

1. This Regulation lays down Community rules governing new physics torture weapons.

Article 2

Definitions

For the purposes of this Regulation:

(a) new physics torture weapons means weapons or weapons systems operating on new physics principles used to torture or inflict other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment including but not limited to electronic weapons, electromagnetic weapons, magnetic weapons, directed energy weapons, geophysical weapons, wave-energy weapons, frequency weapons, genetic weapons, scalar weapons, psychotronic weapons, chemtrail aerosol weapons, implant weapons, vaccine-based weapons, nanotechnology weapons, high frequency active aural high altitude ultra low frequency weapons, information technology weapons.

(b) torture means the use of new physics torture weapons to commit any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes including but not limited to intentional psychological programming, experimentation, voice to skull communication, artificial telepathy, remote influencing, remote inducement of physical or mental illness, mood management, mind control of persons or populations, remote virtual sexual assault, remote virtual rape, forced reproductive sterilization by means of chemtrails aerosol weapons, forced reproductive sterilization by means of vaccinations, (RHIC- EDOM) radio hypnotic intracerebral control and electronic dissolution of memory, remote transmission of images or films to brain, remote reading and controlling of thoughts, subliminal thought control, tinnitus, remote introduction of implants into body via vaccination, remote introduction of implants into body via chemtrails aerosol weapon, remote introduction of implants into body via food, water or potable liquid, remote introduction of implants into body via nanobot, remote scarring of body, remote introduction of inorganic particles into body, telephone terror including remotely induced epilepsy, muscle pains and cramps in neck and legs, headaches, severe toothaches, sudden falling off of healthy teeth while talking on the phone, remotely induced backaches, vibrations in various parts of the body, itching, ear tumors, brain tumors, respiratory diseases, asthma, immediate diarrhea and vomiting, remote deformation of victims body parts and organs including deformed bloated abdomen, deformed neck, lumps and channels on the head, shoulders widened, blown up arms and legs, deformed genitals and other deformations, remote inducement of extreme weight gain or abnormal weight loss endangering the victims health, genetically engineered vaccines that alter DNA, or GE vaccines with certain characteristics or inclusions of nanoparticles or RFID chips or other materials, remote inducement of blindness, cataracts or eye cancer, remote control of gangstalking or gangstalkers, gangstalking, commission of the following crimes in conjunction with the use of new physics torture weapons: harassment, breaking and entering of private property, ransacking of private property.

(c) assassination means the intentional use of new physics torture weapons to cause the death of a person by means including but not limited to heart attack; strangulation; suffocation; fast-acting cancer; diabetes; myocardial infarction; hemorrhage in brain; thrombosis in lungs; infectious disease.

CHAPTER II

Weapons systems operating on new physics principles used to torture or inflict other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment

Article 3

Use prohibition

1. Any use of a new energy torture weapon to torture or inflict other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment on any individual in the European Union or on any European Union citizen shall be prohibited, irrespective of the geographical location of such weapon, inside or outside of the European Union.

Article 4

Export prohibition

1. Any export of a new energy torture weapon shall be prohibited, irrespective of the origin of such weapon.

2. The supply of technical assistance related to a new energy torture weapon, whether for consideration or not, from the customs territory of the Community, to any person, entity or body in a third country shall be prohibited.

Article 5

Import prohibition

1. Any import of a new energy torture weapon shall be prohibited, irrespective of the origin of such weapon.

2. The acceptance by a person, entity or body in the customs territory of the Community of technical assistance related to a new energy torture weapon, supplied from a third country, whether for consideration or not, by any person, entity or body shall be prohibited.

Article 6

Absolute prohibition

1. High frequency active aural high altitude ultra low frequency weapon The manufacture, deployment, or operation of any new physics torture weapon known as a high frequency active aural high altitude ultra low frequency weapon that uses high frequency (HF) electromagnetic or scalar wave transmission to excite the ionosphere or any other part of the Earths atmosphere over the territory of the Community in order to torture or inflict other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment on any individual, weather modification in the European Union or on any European Union citizen, irrespective of the geographical location of the ground component of such weapon, inside or outside of the Community shall be absolutely prohibited. The combination of those weapons from different locations is also forbidden.

2. Chemtrail aerosol weapon The manufacture, deployment, operation, or dispersal of any new physics torture weapon known as a chemtrail aerosol weapon in or over any part of the Earths atmosphere over the territory of the Community in order to torture or inflict other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment on any individual in the European Union or on any European Union citizen shall be absolutely prohibited.

CHAPTER III

General and final provisions

Article 6

National Security

In any case where an individual, organisation or Member State charged with violation of this Regulation shall plead national security or other reasons for secrecy as a legal defense to its actions, that individual, organisation or Member State shall be required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that its actions were in fact directly related to national security or other reasons for secrecy and not to an intention or negligence to torture or inflict other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Article 7

Penalties and Compensation for Victims

1. Member States shall lay down rules on penalties applicable to infringements of this Regulation imposing a minimum criminal penalty of twenty (20) years without possibility of parole to a maximum of life in prison without possibility of parole plus a fine of 1,000,000 Euros for each individual infringement and shall take all measures necessary to ensure that they are implemented. The penalties provided for must be effective, proportionate and dissuasive.

2. Compensation for Victims Member States shall lay down rules on compensation to victims of any infringement of this Regulation which shall include:

(a) the costs of any surgery and physical or psychological therapy to fully restore the physical and mental health of the victim;

(b) financial compensation to the victims family for pain and suffering endured as a result of any infringement of this Regulation;

(c) financial compensation to the victim for loss of income and loss of property due to any infringement of this Regulation.

Member States shall take all measures necessary to ensure that such rules are implemented. The compensation provided for must be effective, proportionate and fair to the victim and the victims family. Wherever possible, the individual or organisation committing the infringement shall be held financially responsible for paying compensation, except that the victims and their families shall be entitled to compensation hereunder regardless of the ability of the individual or organisation committing the infringement to pay.

3. Member States shall notify the Commission of those rules by _____________201_ and shall notify it without delay of any subsequent amendment affecting them.

Article 8

Territorial scope

1. This Regulation shall apply to the customs territory of the Community.

Article 9

Entry into force

This Regulation shall enter into force on ____________ 201_.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

Done at _____________________, ______________ 201_

For the Council

The President

Go here to read the rest:

Transhumanist Agenda War Crimes Tribunal

Transhumanism is not entirely the same thing as adopting other technologies. We are biological beings, and our personalities, decisions, what we are, is totally dependent on us staying biological. A simple example is hormone levels in your blood.

For example if you feel you won an argument online, your serum testosterone level will go up. You will instinctively know that any success, however meager it is (and winning an online argument is, well, not the greatest of successes), will lead to such an increase. On the other hand, losing an argument (or any other kind of failure, however small) will lead to a decrease in your T-levels.

This will actually motivate you to try your best to strive to achieve success and avoid failures. (However small.) By the way, this wont work on females so much: this is one of the reasons males behavior is so different from females.

Now if you upload yourself to a computer right after death (or if half your brain is already a computer before death), you wont have any hormones any more affecting your decisions. This will outright change your personality. Even if hormones could (and would) be totally simulated, you (or at least some of the people uploading themselves) will eventually change yourself in some ways. For example even biologically we use drugs which change our behavior. Why wont we use something (enhancements etc.) which change our behavior once were effectively computer programs? These computer programs will then further change themselves. Then the already changed programs will decide to change themselves even further. At one point it wont resemble the original biological being at all even assuming the simulation and upload were both perfect to begin with, which is a question. (And even assuming the uploaded program will be you in a philosophical sense my instinct says it would only be a copy and not me myself.)

Now you are quite correct probably that those super-enhanced computer software things could easily turn out to be much more efficient at conquering and ruling the world than biological humans. The question is, in what sense could those transhuman beings be considered humans at all? My suggestion is they wont be humans at all. Not only that: they wont have anything in common with biological humans, or any biological beings at all. Please remember that we have a lot in common with apes, so the statement well, the change from human to transhuman will just be the same as ape to human is definitely false.

In other words, transhumans (especially the versions uploaded to a computer to there live forever) will essentially be cyborgs or T-800s or AIs which will be stronger and smarter than us. Endorsing it as well, theyre more efficient is stupid: the same stupid as inviting extraterrestrials to the Earth with the slogan theyre better, so they deserve Earth more than us. We dont know what theyll be up to, but they will have the ability to destroy us, and its foolish to expect these things to be benevolent. Over time, they (some of them, at any rate and probably those will be the strongest and smartest ones) could change beyond anything we can imagine, and might decide to get rid of us.

Why is this in our interest to encourage this? AIs (if possible to create them) might eventually destroy us anyway, why hasten the process?

Continue reading here:

Virgin Primitivist vs. Chad Transhumanist, by Anatoly ...

Star Trek and Dune came out in the late 1960s. Transhumanism, as we think of it in a modern sense of a utopian ideology, only really get real traction in the 1980s or thereabouts.

Click to expand...

We are only now even starting to scratch the surface of what might even reasonably be considered transhumanism with our personal data networks and the very beginnings of even rudimentary MMI technology being released to the public.

None of the Star Trek series, for example, were released by the time that transhumanism 'became a thing', if it even has now. When Star Trek was big, people tied- and still do, in many respects- genetic engineering to eugenics and the Nazis; look at the debate going on over, say, sex-selective abortion.

In the respect that transhumanism has made it big in Sci-Fi, I think that was probably a product of the information revolution in the late 80s and early 90s. To that end, however, I think that its proponents vastly underrated the difficulties of creating a useful MMI and vastly overrated the potential utility of practical mechanical augmentation, while underrating the growth patterns and effects of our information networking society. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that in 15-20 years we've passed what originally was conceptualized as transhumanism by, in many ways, simply due to a different understanding of technological growth patterns. Just like how sci-fi from the early 20th century shows colonies on the moon, humanoid robots, and video phones but no email.

Continue reading here:

The most anti-transhumanist popular SF | Page 2 ...

Humanity+ is dedicated to elevating the human condition. We aim to deeply influence a new generation of thinkers who dare to envision humanity's next steps. Our programs combine unique insights into the developments of emerging and speculative technologies that focus on the well-being of our species and the changes that we are and will be facing. Our programs are designed to produce outcomes that can be helpful to individuals and institutions.

Humanity+ is an international nonprofit membership organization which advocates the ethical use of technology to expand human capacities. In other words, we want people to be better than well.

Mission Statement: Humanity+ is an international nonprofit membership organization which advocates the ethical use of technology to expand human capacities. In other words, we want people to be better than well.

Where does Humanity+ advocate the ethical use of technology? What are the human capacities to be expanded? How does Humanity+ foster people being better than well? The following is written by Natasha Vita-More:

Humanity+adopted theTranshumanist Declaration.The Transhumanist Declaration was a a joint effort between members of Extropy Institute, World Transhumanist Association, and other transhumanist groups worldwide. TheTranshumanist Frequently Asked Questions(FAQ) is located at Humanity+'s website and is a collection of contributions by numerous authors, later edited by Nick Bostrom, and is updated as necessary by others. There are other FAQs on transhumanism, such asThe Transhumanist FAQwas developed by ExI and members of Humanity+ and earlier WTA.

Approximately 6000 people follow Humanity+ (including members and newsletter subscribers). Humanity+ followers come from more than 100 countries, from Afghanistan to Brazil to Egypt to the Philippines.Supporting and sustaining memberselect the Board, and participate in Humanity+ leadership and decision-making. Humanity+ members also participate in more than four dozenchaptersaround the world.

First, join Humanity+, and subscribe to the Humanity+ newsletter.

You may also enroll in one of our discussion lists and join one of our local H+ chapters, which can be found in countries and languages all over the world.

Mailing Address: Humanity+, Inc. 5042 Wilshire Boulevard Suite 14334 Los Angeles, California 90036

Read the original post:

Humanity+ Mission

Tuesday August 22, 2017

If there werea pill that made yousmarter without studying, stronger without exercising, and happier without trying, would you take it?

That's the premiseof the 2011movie, Limitless,in which actor BradleyCooper plays astruggling writer who is offered a drug that promises him access to the full capacities of his brain.

Soon enough Cooper's character hasfinished writinghis book, acquired a wide range of newof skills, and is on his way to becoming one of the richest and most powerfulpeople in the country.

The fictitious scenario isfarfetched, but the idea of using drugs for self-enhancement is completely grounded in reality and it's possible you're participating in self-enhancement without even knowing it.

When thinking about LSD, your mind probably conjuresup images of the Beatles oruntethered hallucinations.

But there are also people some of them prestigious jobs with high stakeswho are using LSD to boost their performance at work.Microdosinginvolves taking small doses of LSD far less than you would use to have a full on hallucinatory trip in order to boost productivity and focus.

PJVogt, host of the hitpodcastReply All, and show producer PhiaBennindecided to put microdosing to the test, all while hiding their social experiment from their colleagues to see whether anyone would notice.

Thetales of the paranoia, accidental 'macrodosing,' and the very mixed results that ensued are all documented in a hilarious Reply All episode thatyou can listen to here.

Caffeine has been shown to boost athletic performance. (Unsplash/Kyle Meck)

Of course, regular LSD doses, however small, may not be everyone's cup of tea.

But there's also a legal, relatively safe drug that has been proven to make athletes perform better. It can also make you more alert and focused,and there's a pretty good chance some of it is already in your system right now.

If you haven't guessed yet it's caffeine.

Terry Graham,professor emeritusat the University of Guelph, spent years studying the effects of caffeine. After Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was disqualified fordoping at the 1988 Olympic games in Seoul, Graham asked for funding to study whether caffeineaffects athletic performance with the hypothesis that its positive effects would be inconsequential.

"I was absolutely, 100 per cent wrong," he said. "Caffeine was a tremendous stimulant to exercise endurance and performance."

The boost provided by caffeine occurs within the muscle itself. Muscles are made up of motor units groups of muscle cells that contract all at once. When caffeine is present, each of those units produces a little more tension than usual, making the entiremuscle contractionstronger.

"Many of the substances that athletes can use to promote a better performance only act within acertain window, it could be strength, sprinting, or a prolonged activity. Butcaffeine seems to be able to influence all of these types of activities, so it's quite universal," he explained.

If tiny doses ofLSD, and big doses of coffee don't appeal to you as means of self-enhancement, there's always transhumanism abroad movement that aims to overcome our human limitations.

People involved with transhumanism believe that humans can be improved through things like smart drugs and gene editing. The three major strands aresuperintelligence, superlongevity, and superhappiness.

As explained by David Pearce, a philosopher and prominent figure in the transhumanist movement, this re-alignment of the basic human conditionshinges on something called the hedonistic imperative.

"Each of us has this approximate hedonic set point, some people are very, by today's standards, fortunate. They're pretty cheerful and they vacillate with a relatively high hedonic set point. Other people are more depressive and gloomy, and seem to fluctuate around gradients of ill-being."

"Nature didn't intend us to be happy, at least permanently happy, And we're just starting to decipher the particular genes and alleles associated with having either a high or low hedonic set point. Iwouldvery much hope that every future civilization would be based on everyone enjoying a high hedonic set point."

If you're trying to figure out your hedonic set point, Pearcesays toimagine a time in your life where you were happier than usual then imagine if you could feel that way all the time.

"If suffering were a recipe for nobility of character perhaps there would be some kind of case for obtaining it, but ... typically prolonged suffering tends to embitter. So we can argue what it actually means to be human. If we abolish suffering, would it have taken away our essential humanity?"

"Nature is exceptionally miserly with pleasure, an I see the challenge ahead isdelivering an extremely rich quality of life for everyone, but doing so in ways that don't compromise social responsibility or intellectual progress."

To subscribe to the podcastand hear more episodes of CBC On Drugs, follow the linkhere.

Read the original here:

Stronger, smarter, happier - what if a drug could make you a better version of yourself? - CBC.ca

The study is reminiscent of Robert Boyles 17th-century suggestion to replace the blood of the old with the blood of the young. Photograph: Science Photo Library/Getty Images

What we now call intergenerational fairness has suffered a lot lately, and its not about to be improved by the news that the Baby Boomers are sucking the blood of the young. Although, in fairness, they are only after the plasma.

In Monterey, California, a new startup has emerged, offering transfusions of human plasma: 1.5 litres a time, pumped in across two days, harvested uniquely from young adults.

Ambrosia, the vampiric startup concerned, is run by a 32-year-old doctor called Jesse Karmazin, who bills $8,000 (6,200) a pop for participation in what he has dubbed a study. So far, he has 600 clients, with a median age of 60. The blood is collected from local blood banks, then separated and combined it takes multiple donors to make one package.

Its no coincidence his scheme is based near San Francisco. The idea has become faddish in tech circles. While anti-ageing products usually hold more appeal with women, two-thirds of the more than 65 participants who have signed up for this trial are men. Mike Judges Silicon Valley sitcom recently parodied the notion, with arch-tech guru Gavin Belson relying on a blood boy following him around to donate pints of sticky red at inopportune moments.

That fictionalised account may well be based on the real-life adventures of Peter Thiel, the PayPal founder, who has expressed interest in having transfusions (Gawker even reported that he was spending $40,000 (31,000) a quarter on regular transfusions from 18-year-olds).He, and various other thinkers who radiate out towards the death-evading transhumanist movement, are fascinated by heterochronic parabiosis the sewing together of two animals in order to create a living chimera. Studies going back decades show the regenerative effects of one organism being joined to another. In the 17th century, Robert Boyle he of Boyles Law suggested replacing the blood of the old with the blood of the young.

In 2012, the University of Cambridges Dr Robin Franklin led a group that showed blood from young mice could replace myelin sheaths crucial for combatting MS in older mice. But it was a 2014 Harvard report that seems to have kickstarted the present revival of interest in transfusions. There, scientists injecting old mice with the plasma of a younger generation found it improved their memory and their ability to learn. Conversely, injecting old blood into young seemed to knobble the young rodents.

The scientific community has rolled its eyes at the trial element of Ambrosia. There is no control group and, with participation costing so much, no one involved is very randomised. Despite these criticisms of the science, Dr Karmazin is still reporting positive results. His team has found that levels of carcino-embryonic antigens fell by around 20%, as did the level of amyloids proteins involved in cancer and Alzheimers disease respectively.

Improvements in sleep seem to be the most glittering prize to emerge so far: As people get older, they have much more difficulty sleeping, Dr Karmazin noted. Improve that and you get benefits in mood, immune system, weight management and much else.

It answers the question: how do you sleep at night after leeching the blood out of busboys and students? Just fine, thanks.

See the article here:

Ambrosia: the startup harvesting the blood of the young - The Guardian

August 16, 2017 By Hal Ostrander and Daryl Smith

Watching my grandkids laugh, explore and have fun, I shake my head and wonder where this culture of ours will take them. Do we realize how fast the future is rushing to meet our posterity, and us? In the days ahead, the contours of civilization likely will radically alter, sacred and secular alike, and in ways staggering to think about.

Consider the past: In 1790, 90 percent of people worked on farms; 1870, 50 percent; today, less than 1 percent. In 1900, 90 percent of the population was rural; today 90 percent is urban. Folks worked 60 hours a week over six days with a life expectancy of 47 years. Three percent of homes had electricity, and 15 percent had flush toilets.

Only one in five households owned a horse, and an eighth-grade education was the norm with college graduates numbering a scant 7 percent. Halfway through 2017, its hard to fathom the scale of change weve undergone and harder still to grasp whats yet to take place.

Just look at computing

In 1965, Gordon Moore, Intels co-founder, predicted transistors on circuits would double roughly every two years. His estimate has held true, but he couldnt have foreseen 2017 as the 10th anniversary of the iPhone. Now we can contact anyone around the world instantly from our pockets!

Remarkably, smart phone circuitry is 150 million times more powerful than the computer NASA used to navigate Apollo 11 safely to the moon in July 1969. At the time, NASA computers stored only a megabyte of memory each, were car-sized, and cost $3.5 million apiece.

If the trend continues

Today theres no stopping things! Forgive the technicality, but the development of carbon-based transistors in hand with quantum/nano-biological computing will take whats listed below and advance things to ever higher levels:

If the trend continues, artificial intelligence (AI) could emerge exponentially, with no turning back! Processing power exceeding the human brain may suddenly slap an unsuspecting public in the face. The brightest minds in the industry are alleging that one day, hopefully soon, machines and robots will simulate human intelligence successfully, solving challenges previously reserved only for conscious thinking.

Weak and strong AI

There are three waves of weak AI. The first solves problems very fast and works very well in video games, Excel sheets, TurboTax, etc. The second is where machines seem to learn via millions of pieces of data Siri, Cortana, Watson, AlphaGo, Microsofts Tay, Twitter, Chatbox and self-driving cars. But none of these can explain the why of things.

Whether third-wave, weak AI is achievable is an open question. Because humans can abstract things based on small amounts of data, third-wave AI tries for the same, operating on minimal information.

The stuff of sci-fi for now, strong AI is what cognitive science is really striving for machines that function with human-like minds, crossing the threshold into self-awareness/consciousness. Eventually downloading human consciousness to a computer is part of the game plan as well.

Whos charting our future?

Some of the smartest and wealthiest people in Silicon Valley, the venture techno-capitalists, are teaming up to invest billions to make strong AI happen. Even Google and NASA are cooperating to this end.

Sanctioning the likes of Ray Kurzweils think-tank, Singularity University, and Zoltan Istvans Transhumanist Party, futurist investors are siding, paradoxically, with an inelegant duo a hyper-optimistic form of scientism (only science can get at truth) and a transhumanist vision striving to achieve omnipotence (as if achieving divinity).

One dissenting voice, Elon Musk, warns his colleagues optimism about AI isnt justified: If our intelligence is exceeded, its unlikely well remain in charge of the planet. Bill Gates himself comments about AI, I dont understand why some people are not concerned.

What is lacking

Coming too fast, Christians must begin thinking soundly about the implications of futurity ASAP! Most techno-futurists assume as true the rationale lying behind philosophical naturalism, which popularizes the universe as a closed system into which nothing god-like can intervene to impose its will.

In the beginning, only particles and impersonal laws of physics reigned, and human beings are just bio-chemical machines without souls. Put crassly, were meat machines. Christians, of course, recognize immediately how short-sighted this is.

It doesnt mean, however, believers wont be influenced or charmed by futurist agendas. Some will! While we know futurists lack an adequately Christian sense of reality, their impact on society may well create a sense of uneasiness about our next cultural steps as followers of Christ.

A google of questions

So, how far will God allow things to go? Theologizing about techno-futures is imperative if were to remain comprehensively Christian throughout. Responding to bizarre worlds in the making is paramount. The choices well make individually when faced with techno-options unavailable to earlier generations will be weighty. The church must push for answers to questions raised by the techno-future, however alarming:

Will Christians:

Brief conclusion

Answering questions related to future shock comes down to the worldview on the table, with profound implications about how individual lives and corporate society should conduct themselves considering the techno-futurist demands coming our way.

Too few Christians and church traditions ask the question, Just because we can, should we? The simple answer is no, but the issues require sophisticated reasoning. According to Scripture, what you see in the mirror is a uniquely ensouled eternal being, created in Gods image and likeness and more than sufficient for the purposes he grants us.

Hal Ostrander is online professor of religion and philosophy at Wayland Baptist University. Daryl Smith is former adjunct professor of religion at Dallas Baptist University and currently an information technology corporate manager.

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Analysis: Future Shock - Baptist Standard

Hey there tech fiends, it's that time of the week again. Once again, there's an exclusive premiere for you here today that's well worth your time. Before we dive into it, here's the usual weekly reminder that if you're looking for more shred jams, all prior editions of this series can be perused here.

At this point, Arkaik doesn't need much in the way of a lengthy introduction. They're a well-known staple in the tech-death world, and fans of the genre by and large already know them. While I'm of the opinion that their prior full-length, Lucid Dawn, was a rare dip in quality for the group, I'm quite pleased with what their upcoming album, Nemethia, has to offer. From what I've heard so far, Nemethia is everything I was hoping the follow up to 2012's Metamorphigntion would be, and then some. Since the new one shows the band not merely content to construct material that will please prior fans, but sees them actively branching out across the board with a stylistic evolution I did not anticipate. So for fans of Arkaik old and new, I'm proud to premiere a new song and music video for "Futile State".

The song itself kicks off with a deathly groove peppered with audible elastic bass guitar lines, quickly spiraling towards an overload of killer lead guitar work,paired with an endless array of back and forth growls and screams, and made complete by an onslaught of maniacal and spidery rhythm riffs and machine-like drumming. To call "Futile State" a pummelling effort would be an understatement, this is a war zone and your ears will either embrace its rage or become overwhelmed amidst the chaos within it. I love the push and pull dynamic at work here between groove and shred that "Futile State" expertly exploits and finds comfort in.

As for the vibe and themes the music video that accompanies's "Futile State" seeks to explore, I'll leave it to a statement from the band to explain what's going on. Arkaik had this to say about it: "The song is about the feeling of existential futility and the catharsis it can create. The video is a blend of ideas. I took inspiration from Plato's Allegory of the Cave, mixed with neo-shamanism and put a transhumanist spin on it. Nikko DeLuna is great at taking my ideas and bringing them to life. It was a pleasure to work with him again, and the rest of our team. Enjoy!"

So jam out to "Futile State", and if you're digging the music, you can pre-order Nemethia through Unique Leader Records here and here. The album drops on September 29th. Be sure to follow the group over on the Arkaik Facebook Page if you aren't already doing so.

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Tech-Death Tuesday: Join ARKAIK In Embracing The Joys Of Living In A "Futile State" - Metal Injection.net

InRadicals: Outsiders Changing the World,Jamie Bartlettprobes into the worldviews and lives of individuals, groups and movements who are seeking to change the way we live now and examines their ostensibly radical properties. Bartletts natural storytelling abilities, shapedby his sensitive yet probing approach, make for an engaging read. This book inspires both enthusiasm and caution aboutradical thinking today, writesDavid Beer, and raises questions regardinghow radical ideas take hold and circulate.

Find this book:

Among the characters described in Jamie BartlettsRadicals, Im finding it hard to shake the image of the grinders. A particularly dedicated and self-focused branch of biohackers, grinders operate on their own bodies, adding microchips, devices and prosthetics as they seek to turn themselves into living DIY cyborgs. This is a kind of meat and metal transhumanism one that the grinders see as standing apart from the abstractions and pointless waffle of the transhumanist movement. The transhumanists want to think about how technology can extend and enhance human life; the biohackers want to get stuck into the practicalities of testing and experimenting.

This is where Bartletts book is so successful. He is a natural storyteller andRadicalsis a book of tales. Showing understanding and humility, moving himself into the role of outsider or studied observer when needed, Bartlett exercises the art of storytelling. The chapters follow a series of individuals and groups to explore their apparently radical properties. Each looks closely at the toils, successes and failures of those figures and the features of their thinking that might lead them to be labelled radical. Often mixing individual human stories with those of the movements of which they are a part, the book ranges across a transhumanist presidential hopeful, eco-protestors, mushroom-eating gatherings, a commune pursuing self-sufficiency, a libertarian nation-state start-up and a comedian-led anti-establishment political party, through to an interlude on the Prevent strategy and an account of some disturbing multinational Islamophobia.

Bartletts ability to be probing whilst remaining sensitive and non-dismissive draws out intriguing details that could easily have been lostthe state of the mattress in a commune love-shack, the emotional post-match reactions to hallucinogens, the character traits in a Five Star meeting, the revelation that a coffin-shaped bus was used partly to try to highlight a problem with American democracy and so on. For want of a more accurate comparison, this is documentary storytelling in the mode of Louis Theroux. As a result, subtleties emerge, such as tension between what appears, on the surface, to be philosophically aligned: for instance, biohackers and transhumanists. Intriguing and sometimes fraught with a little jeopardy, you cant help but get hooked on the narratives.

In places, the stories seem unreal or like Bartlett is gate-crashing a film set. In other cases, the stories are grim and all too gritty, upsetting in how easy it is for unpalatable ideas to circulate and create action. There is a message here about what happens when frustration builds. Bartletts argument is that we need different radical approaches, however unsettling, to enable genuine debate to thrive. Radicals are important, Bartlett suggests, because they bring both disobedience and the possibility of getting things wrong.

Genuine radicals, by definition, are hard to find. An easy point to make about a book like this would be to take issue with the selection of stories chosen. In places I found myself wondering if these were, indeed, all that radical. Psychedelics and free-love communes seem a bit dog-eared. People have been implanting themselves withRFID chipsfor well over a decade. And setting up a new nation state has even been the focus of a fairly well-knowncomedy series. In places Bartlett acknowledges this, and adds reflections on the unoriginality of what he is seeing. Im not sure that matters though. In all cases, the contemporary context lends new life or new circumstances to even old ideas. And anyway, this seems to be a book about peopletryingto be radicals. I started to wonder if these characters were actually trapped in the idea of what a radical is, causing patterns to be repeated. Bartletts stories are laced with more than enough self-awareness for him to see the limits of the various propositions on display. As I read the accounts, I sometimes imagined the author flashing a knowing glance to cameraoccasionally that glance was tinged with discomfort and even, in some key moments, deep concern.

Bartletts radicals may not always be all that radical, and they certainly bring out a strong sense of disgust in some cases, but their stories tell of something beyond the surface. These stories often feel symptomatic. As well as being a book about radicals, it is a book about problems. Sometimes the radicals are trying to solve the problem; in other cases they embody one. As Bartlett begins the book, he claims that: although we have more information, fast computers and clever analysts to understand these problems, we seem less and less capable to predict or affect any of them. We cant data-analyse our way out of a number of these issues, especially as we are data-analysing our way into quite a few of them.

Undoubtedly we find ourselves in a moment thatcalls for some radical thinkingwhich is probably something you could have said for most moments in history. Bartlett acknowledges that there were some political shifts whilst he was working on his book, shifts that altered what might be seen to be radical. Genuinely radical thinking cant now deal only in grand issues: it needs to ask how we can stem the rise in homelessness, transcend growing prejudice and divisions, make social housing safe, reopen libraries or rebuild crumbling health and education systems.

Bartletts prediction is that there is more to come. His book was finished in 2016 and the events of 2017 seem to lend it some credibility. He identifies the shifts in 2016 as being early signs of a more significant realignment and that political norms will change. Prediction is difficult at the moment, but this one seems to have some weight. If this realignment does continue to unfold, then some radical notions might well be guiding it.

Bartletts book inspires both caution and enthusiasm for radical thinking. The current moment is defined by a battle for ideas in a mutating public sphere of social media, algorithms and unfettered real-time reaction. In this context, Id be a bit worried that we dont really fully understand how ideas circulate or who is able to conjure the authority to make those ideas visible and give them power. As Bartlett points out, it is what is seen to be possible that is at stake. As this book begins to illustrate, it is not just ideas themselves that matter, but how they become part of the world; how they are promoted, controlled and silenced. This is no fault of Bartletts, but Im left wondering about the mechanisms by which radical ideas take hold.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of Democratic Audit. It was originally publishedhereand is repostedwith the permission ofDavid Beer.

David Beeris Reader in Sociology at the University of York.Popular Culture and New Media: The Politics of Circulationis now available in paperback. His most recent book isMetric Power. You can find him on Twitter @davidgbeer.

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Book review | Radicals: Outsiders Changing the World, by Jamie Bartlett - Democratic Audit UK

Will you be chipped one day? Will you be forced, or strongly encouraged or incentivized, to have a microchip under your skin to make payment, identification and no doubt tracking all that much easier?

Three Square Market, a Wisconsin-based firm specializing in vending machines, recently offered its employees a chance to say goodbye to hard-to-remember log-in codes and the need for ID badges. Employees could sign up to have a dime-sized microchip implanted in their hands. Surprisingly, 50-some employees allowed a tattoo artist to insert the chips. The company hopes to generate enough buzz to sell consumers on one day opting for a wave of their chipped hands in front of its vending machines, instead of pulling out a credit card or using their smart phones.

Technology appears to be charting its course to land within us. This trajectory, I suppose, stands to reason. Tech continues to grow smarter and smaller.

I just want to say one word to you, one word plastics. Thats the advice the know-it-all businessman offers the title character of the 1967 classic The Graduate. Today I have one word for you: miniaturization.

From swarms of mosquito-sized killer drones to phones/augmented-reality tech/passports inside of us, mini could be the word that defines the future. Already in Sweden, according to USA Today, some 3,000 folks have microchips implanted that allow them to board the train with a swipe of their hands.

If you want to be chipped right now, you just need to go to Dangerous Things, a Seattle-based outfit. The company is big on transhumanism: the notion that through genetic and technological enhancement people will soon transcend what it means to be human. We will genetically engineer away disease. We will amp abilities and extend lifetimes to near immortality. We will be posthuman, even (in the words of some transhumanist theorists) homo deus. Ye will be as gods, I remember someone saying once.

There are some things, the company says on its web site (dangerousthings.com), we will likely never achieve through gene modification. The ability to store digital data in our bodies. The ability to compute data and perform cryptography in our bodies. The ability to transmit and receive digital data and talk directly to machines in their digital language.

The interconnected world of the Internet, in other words, will come to us to the point that we will become our phones and laptops. Truly we will live and move and have our being in the Web. We will swim within its currents.

Or drown.

Our bodies are our own, to do what we want with, the company continues on its web site, sounding the clarion call for bio-hacking. Sound familiar? That is the ideological tidal stream one of radical personal autonomy carrying us deeper into the 21st century and what may well be the abyss. This amounts (it is said smugly) to the right side of history. People are what they say they are and what they want to be, and will do what they want with themselves. And if anyone challenges these assertions, she is a bigot. And of course, Nazis were bigots; therefore, anyone who stands in the path of the declared right side of history is a Nazi. And you know what you do with Nazis, dont you?

The company invokes a familiar incantation to ward away any criticism: The socially acceptable of tomorrow is formed by boundaries pushed today, and were excited to be part of it. History, in this paradigm, advances by the knocking down of boundaries. What is socially acceptable in one time becomes regressive in the next, thanks to boundary-pushing radicals like Dangerous Things, and so the dialectical dance makes its way one transgression after another until we reach a utopia where money and sex and identity are as fluid and free as the waters of the ocean.

If this isnt the hijacking of Christian eschatology, that is, how the world will play itself until the end of times, and jury-rigged to disordered human desire bent on casting aside all restraints and becoming as gods onto themselves, Im not sure what it is. I do know it takes a society as wealthy as it is decadent to think history works that way, that progress is engendered by smashing one boundary after another and that, in this chaos, everything will come out swimmingly well.

Boundaries, like the guardrails on a road, can be there for a reason. The ones on roads can be replaced if they are knocked down. Its not so easy with the ones that maintain civilization.

For the ancient Greeks, those who, in their arrogance, confused themselves with the gods garnered the attention of Nemesis. Nemesis in Greek means to give what is due, for she is the agent of inescapable vengeance. By her hand many a civilization has been crippled, dispatched to the graveyard even. In our hubris, in our dreams of self-proclaimed godhood, I dont think a microchip in the hand will be much match for the sword Nemesis carries in hers.

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NEWMAN: A chip in the hand isn't worth much - Scottsbluff Star Herald

Zoltan Istvan is launching his campaign to become Libertarian governor of the American state of California with two signature policies. First, hell eliminate poverty with a universal basic income that will guarantee US$5,000 per month for every Californian household for ever. (Hell do this without raising taxes, he promises.)

The next item in his in-tray is eliminating death. He intends to divert trillions of dollars into life-extending technologies robotic hearts, artificial exoskeletons, genetic editing, bionic limbs and so on in the hope that each Californian man, woman and AI (artificial intelligence) will eventually be able to upload their consciousness to the Cloud and experience digital eternity.

What we can experience as a human being is going to be dramatically different within two decades, Istvan says, when we meet at his home in Mill Valley, California. We have five senses now. We might have thousands in 30 or 40 years. We might have very different bodies, too.

I have friends who are about a year away from cutting off their arm and replacing it with a prosthetic version. And sure, pretty soon the robotic arm really will be better than a biological one. Lets say you work in construction and your buddy can lift a thousand times what you can. The question is: do you get it?

For most people, the answer to this question is likely to be, Erm, maybe Ill pass for the moment. But to a transhumanist such as Istvan, 44, the answer is, Hell, yes! A former National Geographic reporter and property speculator, Istvan combines the enthusiasm of a child whos read a lot of Marvel comics with a parodically presidential demeanour. Hes a blond-haired, blue-eyed father of two with an athletic build, a firm handshake and the sort of charisma that goes down well in TED talks.

Like most transhumanists (there are a lot of them in California), Istvan believes our species can, and indeed should, strive to transcend our biological limitations. And he has taken it upon himself to push this idea out of the Google Docs of a few Silicon Valley dreamers and into the American political mainstream.

Twenty-five years ago, hardly anybody was recycling, he explains. Now, environmentalism has conditioned an entire generation. Im trying to put transhumanism on a similar trajectory, so that in 10, 15 years, everybody is going to know what it means and think about it in a very positive way.

What were saying is that over the next 30 years, the complexity of human experience is going to become so amazing, you ought to at least see it

Zoltan Istvan

I meet Istvan at the home he shares with his wife, Lisa an obstetrician and gynaecologist with Planned Parenthood and their two daughters, six-year-old Eva, and Isla, who is three. I had been expecting a gadget-laden cyber-home; in fact, he resides in a 100-year-old loggers house built from Californian redwood, with a converted stable on the ground floor and plastic childrens toys in the yard. If it werent for the hyper-inflated prices in the Bay Area (Its sort of Facebook yuppie-ville around here, says Istvan) youd say it was a humble Californian homestead.

Still, there are a few details that give him away, such as the forbidding security warnings on his picket fence. During his unsuccessful bid for the presidency last year he stood as the Transhumanist Party candidate and scored zero per cent a section of the religious right identified him as the Antichrist. This, combined with Lisas work providing abortions, means they get a couple of death threats a week and have had to report to the FBI.

Christians in America have made transhumanism as popular as its become, says Istvan. They really need something that they can point their finger at that fulfils Revelations.

Istvan also has a West Wing box set on his mantelpiece and a small Meccano cyborg by the fireplace. Its named Jethro, after the protagonist of his self-published novel, The Transhumanist Wager (2013). And there is an old Samsung phone attached to the front door, which enables him to unlock the house using the microchip in his finger.

A lot of the Christians consider my chip a mark of the beast, he says. Im like, No! Its so I dont have to carry my keys when I go out jogging.

Istvan hopes to chip his daughters before long for security purposes and recently argued with his wife about whether it was even worth saving for a university fund for them, since by the time they reach university age, advances in artificial intelligence will mean they can just upload all the learning they need. Lisa won that argument. But hes inclined not to freeze his sperm and Lisas eggs, since if they decide to have a third child, 10 or 20 or 30 years hence, theyll be able to combine their DNA.

Even if theres a mischievous, fake-it-till-you-make-it quality to Istvan, theres also a core of seriousness. He is genuinely troubled that we are on the verge of a technological dystopia that the mass inequalities that helped fuel US President Donald Trumps rise will only worsen when the digital revolution really gets under way. And he despairs of the retrogressive bent of the current administration: Trump talks all the time about immigrants taking jobs. Bulls**t. Its technology thats taking jobs. We have about four million truck drivers who are about to lose their jobs to automation. This is why capitalism needs a basic income to survive.

And hes not wrong in identifying that emerging technologies such as AI and bio-enhancement will bring with them policy implications, and its probably a good idea to start talking about them now.

Stephen Hawkings question to China: will AI help or destroy the human race?

Certainly, life extension is a hot investment in Silicon Valley, whose elites have a hard time with the idea that their billions will not protect them from an earthly death. Google was an early investor in the secretive biotech start-up Calico, the California Life Company, which aims to devise interventions that slow ageing and counteract age-related diseases. Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel has invested millions in parabiosis: the process of curing ageing with transfusions of young peoples blood.

Another biotech firm, United Therapeutics, has unveiled plans to grow fresh organs from DNA. Clearly, it is possible, through technology, to make death optional, the firms founder, Martine Rothblatt, told a recent gathering of the National Academy of Medicine in Los Angeles.

In attendance were Google co-founder Sergey Brin, vegan pop star Moby and numerous venture capitalists. Istvan fears that unless we develop policies to regulate this transition, the Thiels of this world will soon be hoarding all the young blood for themselves.

Clearly, it is possible, through technology, to make death optional

Martine Rothblatt

Istvan was born in Oregon in 1973, the son of Hungarian immigrants who fled Stalins tanks in 1968. He had a comfortable middle-class upbringing his mother was a devout Catholic and sent him to Catholic school and an eye for a story. After graduating from Columbia University, he embarked on a solo round-the-world yachting expedition, during which, he says, he read 500 works of classic literature. He spent his early career reporting for the National Geographic channel from more than 100 countries, many of them conflict zones, claiming to have invented the extreme sport of volcano boarding along the way.

One of the things he shares in common with Americas current president is a fortune accrued from real estate. While he was making films overseas in the noughties, his expenses were minimal, so he was able to invest all of his pay cheques in property.

AlphaGos China showdown: Why its time to embrace artificial intelligence

So many people in America were doing this flipping thing at the time, explains Istvan. I realised very quickly, Wow! I could make enough money to retire. It was just quite easy and lucrative to do that.

At his peak, he had a portfolio of 19 fixer-upper houses, most of which he managed to sell before the crash of 2008. He now retains nine as holiday rentals and uses the proceeds to fund his political campaigns (he is reluctant to name his other backers). Still, he insists hes not part of the 1 per cent; the most extravagant item of furniture is a piano, and his groceries are much the same as you find in many liberal, middle-class Californian households.

Istvan cant think of any particular incident that prompted his interest in eternal life, other than perhaps a rejection of Catholicism.

Fifty per cent of me thinks after we die we get eaten by worms, and our body matter and brain return unconsciously to the cosmos [] The other half subscribes to the idea that we live in a holographic universe where other alien artificial intelligences have reached the singularity, he says, referring to the idea, advanced by Google engineer Ray Kurzweil, that pretty soon we will all merge with AI in one transcendental consciousness.

However, when Istvan first encountered transhumanism, at university via an article on cryonics (the practice of deep-freezing the recently dead in the hope that they can be revived at some point), he was sold. Within 90 seconds, I realised thats what I wanted to do in my life.

After a near-death experience in Vietnam he came close to stepping on a landmine Istvan decided to return to America and make good on this vow. I was nearing 30 and Id done some great work, but after all that time Id spent in conflict zones, seeing dead bodies, stuff like that, I thought it would be a good time to dedicate myself to conquering death.

He spent four years writing his novel, which he proudly claims was rejected by more than 600 agents and publishers. Its a dystopian story that imagines a Christian nation outlawing transhumanism, prompting all the billionaires to retreat to an offshore sea-stead where they can work on their advances undisturbed (Thiel has often threatened to do something similar).

Istvan continued to promote transhumanism by writing free columns for Huffington Post and Vice, chosen because they have strong Alexa rankings (ie, they show up high in Google search results).

I wrote something like 200 articles, putting transhumanism through the Google algorithm again and again, he says. I found it a very effective way to spread the message. I covered every angle that I could think of: disability and transhumanism; LGBT issues and transhumanism; transhumanist parenting.

Hes proud to say hes the only mainstream journalist who is so devoted to the cause. A lot of people write about transhumanism, but I think Im the only one who says, This is the best thing thats ever happened!

Why your biological age may hold the key to reversing the ageing process

Istvans presidential campaign was an attempt to take all of this up a level. It sounds as if he had a lot of fun. He toured Rust Belt car parks and Deep South mega-churches in a coffin-shaped immortality bus inspired by the one driven by Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters to promote LSD in the 1960s.

His platform Make America Immortal Again earned a fair amount of publicity, but Americans seemed ill-prepared for such concepts as the AI imperative (the idea that the first nation to create a true AI will basically win everything, so America had better be the first) and the singularity. At one point, he and his supporters were held at gunpoint by some Christians in Alabama.

The experience taught him a salutary lesson: unless you are a billionaire, it is simply impossible to make any kind of dent in the system. Hence his defection to the Libertarian Party, which vies with the Greens as the third party in American politics. Every town I go to, theres a Libertarian meet-up. With the Transhumanists, Id have to create the meet-up. So theres more to work with.

The Libertarian presidential candidate, Gary Johnson, received 3.27 per cent of the votes last year, including half a million votes in California. About seven or eight million are likely to vote in the California governor race, in which context, half a million starts to become a lot of votes, Istvan explains.

His own politics are somewhere between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, he admits, and he has a hard time converting the right wing of his new party to causes such as basic income. (The general spirit of libertarian America is, Hands off!) But he believes transhumanism shares enough in common with libertarianism for the alliance to be viable; the core precepts of being able to do what you like as long as you dont harm anyone else are the same. And the gubernatorial campaign serves as a primary for the 2020 presidential election, when he believes the Libertarian candidate will have a feasible chance of participating in the television debates.

But whats wrong with death? Dont we need old people to die to make space for new people? And by extension, we need old ideas and old regimes to die, too. Imagine if William Randolph Hearst or Genghis Khan were still calling the shots now. And imagine if Mark Zuckerberg and Vladimir Putin were doing so in 200 years. Innovation would cease, the species would atrophy, everyone would get terribly bored. Isnt it the ultimate narcissism to want to live forever?

Istvan does concede that transhumanism is a very selfish philosophy. However, he has an answer for most of the other stuff.

Im a believer in overpopulation Ive been to Delhi and its overcrowded, he says. But if we did a better job of governing, the planet could hold 15 billion people comfortably. Its really a question of better rules and regulations.

And when discussing the desirability of eternal life, he turns into a sort of holiday rep for the future.

What were saying is that over the next 30 years, the complexity of human experience is going to become so amazing, you ought to at least see it, Istvan says. A lot of people find that a lot more compelling than, say, dying of leukaemia.

Still, it comes as little surprise that hes finding live for ever an easier sell than give money to poor people in 21st-century America.

I cant imagine basic income not becoming a platform in the 2020 election, he insists. And if not then, at some point, someone is going to run and win on it. The Republicans should like it because it streamlines government. The Democrats should like it because it helps poor people. Right now, Americans dont like it because it sounds like socialism. But it just needs a little reframing.

Basic-income experiments are already under way in parts of Canada, Finland and the Netherlands, but how would he fund such an idea in the US? He cant raise taxes libertarians hate that. And he doesnt want to alienate Silicon Valley.

If we did a better job of governing, the planet could hold 15 billion people comfortably

Zoltan Istvan

How do you tell the 1 per cent youre going to take all this money from them? It wouldnt work, he says. They control too many things. But Istvan has calculated that 45 per cent of California is government-controlled land that the state could monetise.

A lot of environmentalists are upset at me for that, saying, Woah, Zolt, you want to put a shopping mall in Yosemite? Well, the reality is that the poor people in America will never be able to afford to go to Yosemite. Im trying to be a diplomat here.

And he insists that if Americans miss those national parks when theyve been turned into luxury condos and Taco Bells, theyll be able to replenish them some day if they want.

Theres nanotechnology coming through that would enable us to do that, Istvan argues. We have GMOs [genetically modified organisms] that can regrow plants twice as quick. In 50 or 100 years, were not even going to be worried about natural resources.

Such is his wager that exponential technological growth is around the corner and we may as well hurry it along, because its our best chance of clearing up the mess weve made of things thus far.

The safety of genetically-modified crops is backed by science

Didnt the political developments of 2016 persuade him that progress can be slow and sometimes go backwards? Actually, Istvan argues that what were witnessing are the death throes of conservatism, Christianity, even capitalism.

Everyone says the current pope is the best one weve had for ages, that hes so progressive and whatever. Actually, Catholicism is dying, says Istvan. Nobodys giving it any money any more, so the pope had better moderate its message. As for capitalism, all of this nationalism and populism are just the dying moments.

Its a system that goes against the very core of humanitarian urges. And while its brought us many wonderful material gains, at some point we can say, Thats enough. In the transhumanist age, we will reach utopia. Crime drops to zero. Poverty will end. Violence will drop. At some point, we become a race of individuals who are pretty nice to each other.

But now weve talked for so long that Istvan needs to go and pick up his daughters from childcare. He insists that I join him. What do his family make of all of this?

My wife is a bit sceptical of a lot of my timelines, he says. Lisa comes from practical Wisconsin farming stock, and its a fair bet that her work with Planned Parenthood keeps her pretty grounded. They met on dating website match.com. Does she believe in all this stuff?

I dont want to say shes not a transhumanist, he says, but I dont think shed cryogenically freeze herself tomorrow. I would. Im like, If you see me dying of a heart attack, please put me in a refrigerator. She thinks thats weird.

We arrive at the community centre where Istvans daughters are being looked after. They come running out in summer dresses, sweet and sunny and happy to be alive. Both of them want to be doctors when they grow up, like their mum.

The Times/The Interview People

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Immortality: Silicon Valley's latest obsession ushers in the transhumanist era - South China Morning Post

This Dark Matter review contains spoilers.

For longtime viewers of Dark Matter, the story that unfolds in Built, Not Born is one that had been anticipated for quite awhile, and the payoff is quite satisfying. Tying the Dwarf Star transhumanist efforts with Two (whom they know as Rebecca) together with the origins of the Android seems obvious in retrospect, but it was a great resolution to one of the most enduring mysteries of the series so far. Although the season-long arcs were again put on hold just like last week, the interlude was a welcome one, and if previous experience holds true, it may all just relate in the end anyway.

To start off, Threes reluctance to help Androids robot friends must be applauded for several reasons. First, it reflected what would otherwise have been an awkward pivot from seemingly more important matters, like following up on Sixs idea of taking sides in the corporate war. Second, it allowed Three to have an ironic and painful discussion with Sarah about machines not being alive. And third, his later apology to Android for his prejudicial attitude and tendency to speak without thinking gave her the smile-inducing line, Its one of the things I like about you.

Of course, Android borrowed that line from Six who reminds her, and simultaneously the audience, that despite what we learn of her origins in this episode, shes far from an imperfect imitation but rather her own being with unique variations. When Six says, Youre more than just a series of programmed responses. Youre an original. And thats what we love about you, he might as well be speaking on behalf of the viewer.

Thats especially true once we find out that her creator and the creator of Victor and the others looks just like the Android we know and love for a reason. Dr. Irena Shaw was not only a disgruntled Dwarf Star employee who felt the super-soldier program that designed Rebecca was inhumane; she also grew to love the woman she helped create (fans of Zoie Palmer in Lost Girl were likely all a-flutter). That love likely allowed her to see the potential in giving emotional, self-aware androids the one last ingredient they needed to make them people: free will. The mystery of Androids origin could not have been more poignant, a story filled with romance and tragedy.

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The part that Victor plays is also wonderfully nuanced, both in his helpfulness in unlocking some of Androids memories and in his secretive motivation for calling for help in the first place. The first red flag that Victor wasnt telling the whole truth should have been when Ruac, who had been shot in the head, was revived and shouted, It was wrong! Clearly he had objections to Victor killing Anyas former owner. Did he remove Ruacs emotion chip to force the required self-termination? It even throws into doubt whether Anyas suicide was preventable! Does Victor have justification for his actions, or is he going down a dark path?

This is especially troubling given that he now has a Sarah android at his side. It wasnt his idea to use Dr. Shaws technology this way, but he obviously sees it as an opportunity. And the Galactic Authority wouldnt pop away from the corporate war or the conflict between Zairon and Pyr for no reason. So what is it about Sarah having a human mind combined with a stronger superior physical construct that will further Victors cause, whatever it might be? A truly compelling new mystery!

It was also a nice touch to have Dr. Shaws caretaker, Chase, look exactly like Arrian, the diplomatic android who had a bit of a crush on the blonde Five in Dark Matters season 2 finale. Chases suggestion that Android could be tweaked elicits an enjoyable defensiveness in Five, who rightly says that she likes this version better. So do we, Five; so do we.

But what do we make of the memories Victor unlocked for Android? Seeing Portia excited about Emilys nano-virus that initially woke up Androids hidden subroutines is an interesting transition point from the emotional Rebecca to the malevolent outlaw she became in Portia Lin. And Android telling Ryo-of-yore, You and the rest of the crew are self-seeking, ethically deficient, and morally barren, yet youre incongruously kind to me, gives us insightful character moments, but will it mean something more down the road? Time will tell.

In the meantime, this episode of Dark Matter was another welcome distraction from the corporate war and Ryos villainy. With three episodes left, those elements are sure to return with a vengeance, but it will be interesting to see how the time travel story and the android history lesson will inform the impending finale. If they were simply character building and tying up of loose ends from earlier seasons, great; if they end up tying in to what happens next, even better. Either way, Dark Matter fans cant help but be pleased although theyd be even happier with a season 4 renewal.

Read the original here:

Dark Matter Season 3 Episode 10 Review: Built, Not Born - Den of Geek US

On a recent evening at a start-up hub in Spitalfields, London, journalist and author Jamie Bartlett spoke to a small group of mostly under 40, mainly techie or creative professionals about his book Radicals: Outsiders Changing the World. The book, which Bartlett started to research in 2014, before Brexit and Trump, chronicles his time with a series of different radical groups, from the Psychedelic Society who advocate the careful use of psychedelics as a tool for awakening to the unity and interconnectedness of all things to Tommy Robinson, co-founder of the unabashedly far-right English Defence League, to the founder of Liberland, a libertarian nation on unclaimed land on the Serbian/Croatian border, to Zoltan Istvan, who ran as US transhumanist presidential candidate on a platform of putting an end to death. He campaigned by racing around America in a superannuated RV which hed modified to look like a giant coffin, dubbed the Immortality Bus. His efforts were in vain, and illegal, as it turned out: his campaign was in breach of the US Federal Electoral Commission rules.

Bartletts book has been damned with faint praise he has been called surprisingly naive about politics, and defining radical so broadly as to make the term meaningless. The general consensus goes that Bartletts journey through the farthest-flung fringes of politics and society is entertaining and impressively dispassionate, but not altogether successful in making a clear or convincing case for radicals or radicalism. But at the talk that night Bartlett challenged what he sees as the complacent acceptance and defense of our current political and governmental systems, institutions and ideas, of the kind of technocratic centrism that prevailed throughout the global North until very recently. Perhaps they need some radical rethinking. Many of the radicals Bartlett spent time with may be flawed, crazy or wrong literally, legally and morally but they can also hold up mirrors and magnifying glasses to political and social trends. And sometimes, they can prophesize them

Bartlett began the evening by saying, If democracy were a business, it would be bankrupt. A provocative statement, but one that he backs up. He pointed to research showing that only 30% of those born after 1980 believe that it is essential to live in a democracy. That rate drops steadily with age. A closer look at the research around peoples attitudes reveals widespread skepticism towards liberal institutions and a growing disaffection with political parties. Freedom Houses annual report for 2016 shows that as faith in democracy has declined so too have global freedoms 2016 marks the 11th consecutive year of decline in global freedom. While a lot of attention has been given to violent polarization, populism and nationalism rising out of anger at demographic and economic changes, Bartlett suggests that perhaps comfort and complacency are culprits too, and he is not the only one: only last weekFinancial Times columnist Janan Ganesh took up a similar theme.

What are the fringe ideas of today that might become ideas of the future? We cannot, of course, say, but Bartletts point is we should be paying much closer attention to the crazed hinterlands of human thought. In 2015 transhumanist Zoltan Istvan was talking about using technology to fundamentally change what it is to be human to augment our fleshy bodies with steel and silicon. One of Istvans favored refrains is the transformative effect of artificial intelligence on the way that we work, and the way that we live. In the past six months, it has become near-impossible to read a newspaper or a magazine without stumbling across a take on how AI is set to change our economy. Istvans other hobby-horse is immortality, and using technology to drastically expand the human lifespan ultimately to the point where it increases so fast that time cant catch up with us and we reach a kind of escape velocity. Putting Istvans quasi-religious language aside, increases in life expectancy and in our expectations of medical care pose real challenges to which we will need to find practical and political solutions. Kooky as they may seem, fringe movements have ideas, and ideas that may prove proleptic or prophetic.

Perhaps we are too attached to our traditional ways of doing things our political institutions and our centuries-old processes. Technology and society have completely transformed in the past fifty years and the way we engage with politics through technology has changed beyond recognition in the past year alone, but as Bartlett pointed out, our formal politics has not changed in two hundred years: our parliamentary democracies, our two-party systems. Young people today are deeply disdainful of labels of personal style, of sexual identity, and of political leanings; the labels no longer seem to fit. Younger generations are not apolitical on the contrary and likely do not reject the tenets of democracy, but rather, the way it is framed. The core ideas institutionalized 200 years ago are not the wrong ones, but their implementation might benefit from an injection of radical thinking from those firmly outside the mainstream.

Continued here:

Rethinking Radical Thoughts: How Transhumanists Can Fix Democracy - Raddington Report (blog)

It would be tempting to fall into a pool of contemporary cliche when describing Generation Gone. It is a story that involves the military-industrial complex, tech geniuses mad with power, transhumanism, broken relationships, societal betrayal, and millennials looking for some measure of justice for the future taken from them. And it would be easy to pick a side and wash the other in judgemental aphorisms about generational misunderstandings and the world in which we live. I have the feeling, however, that this will not be an easy book to cram into a single box, if this debut issue is any indication.

There are pages of Generation Gone #1 where the art and the characters are allowed to just breathe. No dialogue, just portraits of a life stunted by unseen forces, whether that be the cancer striking at a loved one or a mad transhumanist waiting to pounce. In the hard-hitting first issue to this new series, storytellers Ale Kot and Andr Lima Arajo explore the existential crises that come with despair, over confidence, and the loneliness that their main characters feel even when surrounded by those they love.

While working for the secretive governmental organization, known as DARPA, developing the next super weapon of war, tech genius Akio presents his plan to change the human race by using code that, when read, will rewrite the very DNA of the reader, creating true super humans. His Project Utopia is discarded and later confiscated by General West, the seeming head of the program Akio was hired to create, Airstrip One. In his spare time, Akio has tracked three hackers who plan on infiltrating Bank of America to steal back, as Akio puts it to West, what his generation has stolen from them: a future.

The potential for cliche comes to its apex with the disaffected millennial hackers, Elena, Nick, and Baldwin. While their educational history is put into question by West upon learning Akio has tracked the trio, allowing them to hack into a fake DARPA server, it is not remarked upon how these three came by their skills. They come together as longtime friends and lovers, in Nick and Elenas case, each for a different reason, explored in those wordless pages. Elena wakes early, heading to her job as a waitress before going home to care for her cancer-stricken mother. Baldwin, an African-American man, sees the headlines of another black man shot out of unfounded fear. Nick, the narcissist of the group, heads home, walking past pictures of a soldier, perhaps his brother, whose room he passes on his way to a meticulous self-care ritual. Even in their relationships with each other, they are alone.

Our first introduction to Nick and Elena defines their relationship throughout the story. Elena is in love with Nick, but he is concerned with control, wanting to turn her off. Later he threatens to break up with her on the spot should she drop out of the scheme to rob their way out of their troubles. His self-centeredness hurts Elena, but he is her anchor. Whether he is mooring her in the tempest that is her life or dragging her down remains to be seen. Nicks reckless and selfish behavior comes to a head as he nearly costs the team their anonymity while hacking into Akios fake DARPA. He is all about the score, the self, the win. Once behind their computer screens, the three hackers are in their element, but Nick is sucked in by the power he commands literally at his fingertips.

Akio brings up the isolation of technology in his conversations with the essentially analog West, apologizing for ignoring the chain of command, blaming it sitting behind a computer screen. This exploration of the disconnect of technology with reality can be seen as a take on the disconnect we have with each other through social media or as the disconnect between soldiers and the weapons of war through the use of drones and other technology meant to strike from afar.

In the end, as was telegraphed, Akios code infiltrates the trio causing six full pages of Exorcist-level fluid loss. Before the three hackers begin to leak out of their eyeballs, however, the code mesmerizes them. They are pulled to their screens tightly, even when addressing each other, attempting to pull out of the operation. They simply cannot look away. It takes rewriting their genetic code to rip them bodily from their computers and from the malaise that brought them to this point. The desperation, the isolation, the nihilism of the new millennium.

In the end, Generation Gone sets a provocative table. It could have fallen into any number of cliched traps. Instead, it gives the characters a chance to break through the obvious and, for lack of a better word, soar.

Generation Gone #1 review: Patience is a virtue

Is it good?

In the end, Generation Gone sets a provocative table. It could have fallen into any number of cliched traps. Instead, it gives the characters a chance to break through the obvious and, for lack of a better word, soar.

Lets the art do the talking

Gives a generational malaise a purpose

Embraces transhumanism

Just the one "they're millennials" line. It's a really good book, y'all.

Ales KotAndre Limacomic booksGeneration GoneImagereview

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Generation Gone #1 review: Patience is a virtue - AiPT! Comics

From left: Chris Conatser, Allison Page, Kevin Whittinghill, Zoltan Istvan and Allen Saakyan

Zoltan Istvan ran for President of the US as a "Transhumanist" with a campaign that called for massive government funding to eliminate human mortality. Donald Trump won with a much crazier campaign.

Earlier this week on the Eureka science show he talked about Transhumanism and his campaign to become California Governor in 2018.

Digital Transformation: A CXO's Guide

Reimagining business for the digital age is the number-one priority for many of today's top executives. We offer practical advice and examples of how to do it right.

The hosts Allen Saakyan and Kevin Whittinghill were joined by comedians Chris Conatser and Allison Page. The show uses comedy to educate its audience about important scientific issues.

No foodies...

You can tell by the expressions on their faces (photo above) that Istvan's description of Transhumanism and the chance to live hundreds of years wasn't very appealling. Especially the part when he said that we won't need sex or food in a future Transhumanist world.

Istvan looks like a TV presenter because he used to be one -- at National Geographic. And it was on assignment in Vietnam when he almost stepped on a landmine that he vowed to work on ending human mortality.

Excerpts from Istvan's talk:

- Initially we'll be able to extend our lifespans by 500 years or so. [Like Zeno's paradox we won't catch up with our mortality]

- Ageing will be treated and eliminated like any other chronic disease.

- Our organs will be replaced with fresh ones grown from our own cells so there is no rejection and no lifetime medications.

- Machines of various types and sizes will be embedded in our bodies to protect, heal and augment our senses.

- A bionic eye will replace one of our natural eyes and allow us to see beyond the tiny 1% of the light spectrum so that we can see things like carbon monoxide gas - useful for avoiding pollution.

- CRISPR will allow people to change their DNA to look like the people in the Star Wars bar scene - with tails and fur. [Costume shops - the disruption is coming.]

- Sex won't be anything like as we know it and might not even require other people.

- Eating and food won't be the same. Some Transhumanists want skin with chlorophyll. Lunchtime won't require a sandwich -- slip your shirt off and take a walk in the sun.

- Life extending technologies will come down in price and trickle down to the poorest of the poor.

I asked Istvan what will we be doing during our extra 500 years of life especially since our prime motivators of food and sex won't be present. He said this is the million dollar question, "We don't know."

I rephrased it and asked how will you spend the time? He said he would head back to school and pick up four doctorates and also learn how to play a bunch of musical instruments. That leaves 470 years to go...

Life is cheap...

As the last people were leaving the event a 42 year old man was shot dead outside the club. Transhumanism needs to address morality as well as mortality.

What an ironic commentary: we talk about the need for expensive transhumanist technologies to extend a person's life -- but a bullet bought for pennies has the final say. Stopping gun violence extends lives.

- - -

More info:

http://www.zoltanistvan.com/

600 Miles in a Coffin-Shaped Bus, Campaigning Against Death Itself

Eureka show

Eureka Youtube channel

See original here:

Salvation in Transhumanism: Humanity merges with machines and lives for ever - ZDNet

Zoltan Istvan is a futurist, transhumanist, author of The Transhumanist Wager, and a Libertarian candidate for California Governor.

The constant onslaught of new technology is making our lives more public and trackable than ever, which understandably scares a lot of people. Part of the dilemma is how we interpret the right to privacy using centuries-old ideals handed down to us by our forbearers. I think the 21st century idea of privacylike so many other taken-for-granted conceptsmay need a revamp.

When James Madison wrote the Fourth Amendmentwhich helped legally establish US privacy ideals and protection from unreasonable search and seizurehe surely wasn't imagining Elon Musk's neural lace, artificial intelligence, the internet, or virtual reality. Madison wanted to make sure government couldn't antagonize its citizens and overstep its governmental authority, as monarchies and the Church had done for centuries in Europe.

For many decades, the Fourth Amendment has mostly done its job. But privacy concerns in the 21st century go way beyond search and seizure issues: Giant private companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook are changing our sense of privacy in ways the government never could. And many of us have plans to continue to use more new tech; one day, many of us will use neural prosthetics and brain implants. These brain-to-machine interfaces will likely eventually lead to the hive mind, where everyone can know each other's precise whereabouts and thoughts at all times, because we will all be connected to each other through the cloud. Privacy, broadly thought of as essential to a democratic society, might disappear.

The key is to make sure government is engulfed by ubiquitous transparency too.

"While privacy has long been considered a fundamental right, it has never been an inherent right," Jeremy Rifkin, an American economic and social theorist, wrote in The Zero Marginal Cost Society. "Indeed, for all of human history, until the modern era, life was lived more or less publicly, as befits most species on Earth."

The question of whether privacy needs to change is really a question of functionality. Is privacy actually useful for individuals or for society? Does having privacy make humanity better off? Does privacy raise the standard of living for the average person?

In some ways, these questions are futile. Technological innovation is already calling the shots, and considering the sheer amount of new tech being bought and used, most people seem content with the more public, transparent world it's ushering in. Hundreds of millions of people willingly use devices and tech that can monitor them, including personal home assistants, credit cards, smartphones, and even pacemakers (in Ohio, a suspect's own pacemaker data will be used in the trial against him.) Additionally, cameras in cities are ubiquitous; tens of thousands of fixed cameras are recording every second of the day, making a walk outside one's own home a trackable affair. Even my new car knows where I'm at and calls me on the car intercom if it feels it's been hit or something suspicious is happening.

Because of all this, in the not so distant futureperhaps as little as 15 yearsI imagine a society where everybody can see generally where anyone else is at any moment. Many companies already have some of this ability through the tech we own, but it's not in the public's hands yet to control.

Massive openness must become a two-way street.

For many, this constant state of being monitored is concerning. But consider that much of our technology can also look right back into the government's world with our own spying devices and software. It turns out Big Brother isn't so big if you're able to track his every move.

The key with such a reality is to make sure government is engulfed by ubiquitous transparency too. Why shouldn't our government officials be required to be totally visible to us all, since they've chosen public careers? Why shouldn't we always know what a police officer is saying or doing, or be able to see not only when our elected Senator meets with lobbyists, but what they say to them?

For better or worse, we can already see the beginnings of an era of in which nothing is private: WikiLeaks has its own transparency problems and has a scattershot record of releasing documents that appear to be politically motivated, but nonetheless has exposed countless political emails, military wires, and intel documents that otherwise would have remained private or classified forever. There is an ongoing battle about whether police body camera footage should be public record. Politicians and police are being videotaped by civilians with cell phones, drones, and planes.

But it's not just government that's a worry. It's also important that people can track companies, like Google, Apple, and Facebook that create much of the software that tracks individuals and the public. This is easier said than done, but a vibrant start-up culture and open-source technology is the antidote. There will always be people and hackers that insist on tracking the trackers, and they will also lead the entrepreneurial crusade to keep big business in check with new ways of monitoring their behavior. There are people hacking and cracking big tech's products to see what their capabilities are and to uncover surreptitious surveillance and security vulnerabilities. This spirit must extend to monitoring all of big tech's activities. Massive openness must become a two-way street.

And I'm hopeful it will, if disappearing privacy trends continue their trajectory, and if technology continues to connect us omnipresently (remember the hive mind?). We will eventually come to a moment in which all communications and movements are public by default.

Instead of putting people in jail, we can track them with drones until their sentence is up

In such a world, everyone will be forced to be more honest, especially Washington. No more backdoor special interest groups feeding money to our lawmakers for favors. And there would be fewer incidents like Governor Chris Christie believing he can shut down public beaches and then use them himself without anyone finding out. The recent viral phototaken by a plane overheadof him bathing on a beach he personally closed is a strong example of why a non-private society has merit.

If no one can hide, then no one can do anything wrong without someone else knowing. That may allow a better, more efficient society with more liberties than the protection privacy accomplishes.

This type of future, whether through cameras, cell phone tracking, drones, implants, and a myriad of other tech could literally shape up America, quickly stopping much crime. Prisons would eventually likely mostly empty, and dangerous neighborhoods would clean upinstead of putting people in jail, we can track them with drones until their sentence is up. Our internet of things devices will call the cops when domestic violence disputes arrive (it was widely reportedbut not confirmedthat a smarthome device called the police when a man was allegedly brandishing a gun and beating his girlfriend. Such cases will eventually become commonplace.)

A society lacking privacy would have plenty of liberty-creating phenomena too, likely ushering in an era similar to the 60s where experimental drugs, sex, and artistic creation thrived. Openness, like the vast internet itself, is a facilitator of freedom and personal liberties. A less private society means a more liberal one where unorthodox individuals and visionariesall who can no longer be pushed behind closed doorswill be accepted for who or what they are.

Like the Heisenberg principle, observation, changes reality. So does a lack of walls between you and others. A radical future like this would bring an era of freedom and responsibility back to humanity and the individual. We are approaching an era where the benefits of a society that is far more open and less private will lead to a safer, diverse, more empathetic world. We should be cautious, but not afraid.

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Liberty Might Be Better Served by Doing Away with Privacy - Motherboard

For years Ive been firmly in the camp of those who argue that to the degree technology distracts us from being present to those we are with, its a bad thing.

I disagree, however, that the inevitable result of technology is social disconnection or that its bad for conversation.

When social critics drag out the image of a couple ignoring each other while tapping on their smartphones in a restaurant, they are whacking a straw man. This typically illustrates the speakers discomfort with technologys evolving role in our lives and unduly romanticizes what conversation was like before smartphones.

I encountered this trope most recently during a homily at a Sunday Mass. The deacon, a kind, wise fellow, was speaking on community as an aspect of love, as illustrated by the community of the Trinity. He pointed out our modern world was in danger of losing that essential community for which weve been designed. One of the culprits? Smartphones in restaurants.

You walk into a restaurant, he said sadly, and half the people arent talking anymore, just looking down at their smartphones.

Two questions occurred to me. One, is it true? Two, to the degree that it is, is it bad?

Before addressing these questions, I will point out I am not arguing for a culture of distraction. I keep most notifications shut off on my smartphone and clear most of my home screen so Im not tempted into 20 minutes of Facebook browsing when all I wanted to do was check the weather. This comes per the recommendation of Tristan Harris and his Time Well Spent initiative. Harriss group argues that app makers, who are currently using behavioral science and big data to make our tech more addictive, have a moral obligation to stop making Cookie Jam. (Okay, they dont single out Cookie Jam, but seriously, stop sending me invites. Im not going to play.) They dont argue against technology itself, only that it should serve us, not the other way around. Watch the video, its brilliant.

If were out to dinner together, Ill silence my ringer and keep my phone in my pocket. Ill look at you most of the time. That brings us back to the two questions.

Have you ever walked into a restaurant and seen half its diners looking at their phones? I never have. Not even close. A good number of people on phones? Sure. And for fogies like us who remember the days before smartphones, does it seem like a disproportionate number? Sure. But half is an overstatement, exaggeration for effect, or misperception.

If I acknowledge its rude to check my email, text messages or voicemail when Ive made a commitment of time and attention to my dining companion, what possible excuse could I have for suggesting people ought to feel comfortable taking their smartphones out at dinner?

Your smartphone is not just a messaging device. Its a part of your intellect, your memory, your augmented consciousness. This device, with its incredible processing power, memory, connectivity and even artificial intelligence, represents a step toward a transhumanist future. Transhumanism is a movement that believes technology will enhance human intellect and physiology, and strives to push that enhancement in beneficial directions.

This is already happening. Consider chess. You know who can beat a human in chess? A computer. You know who can beat a computer in chess? A human teamed with a computer. This hybrid player concept, known as a centaur, is an example of augmented human intellect. It also probably represents the future of work for most of us and certainly our children. Ignore at your peril.

Back to dinner. Youre telling me about the amazing trip you just went on. You take out your phone to show me pictures you took of the Painted Desert. Are either one of us distracted? On the contrary. Youve just opened a window into your mind and memory, and brought me closer to the experience youre trying to share than you likely could have otherwise.

But, grouses the curmudgeon, in our day we talked, used our words to describe these things. We didnt have to rely on pictures.

Which is BS and you know it. How many of you old-timers were forced, for the price of dinner at a friends home, to sit through 4,000 grainy vacation slides? If your host could have lugged the projector to the restaurant, he would have.

Speaking of words, lets say Im trying to recall for you a beautiful poem I read earlier in the week, or an erudite passage from an op-ed column. If used in a deliberate way, this massive, near-infinite library at our fingertips is not a distraction. Its a miracle.

Technology, used deliberately, clearly enhances human exchanges rather than diminishing them. Why then are we so concerned about each others tech habits at meals, on subway trains, in parks and airports?

We are misremembering the world before smartphones as one massive, sparkling community conversation. We forget the couple at the restaurant grimly poking at their soup, going the whole meal hardly saying a thing. We forget parents at breakfast tables tucked away behind morning newspapers while the kids read the backs of cereal boxes. People on subways and airplanes absorbed in novels, praying the person next to them wouldnt turn out to be a talker.

One of the things that makes living in communities as dense as ours tolerable is our remarkable ability to ignore each other when appropriate and engage when appropriate. The smartphone enhances both of those skills.

Finally, back to the homily, the Trinity, the ultimate conversation.

I recall once, traveling alone on a hot day in Paris, waiting in line to get into Notre Dame Cathedral. My spirit soared, lifted into the great vaults and arches, drawn heavenward, craving conversation with the eternal, the creator.

I sat down before the great altar and felt moved to pray an old prayer, the Rosary. This is typically prayed with a string of beads. Not having one in my pocket, I took out my smartphone, launched my Laudate app, opened the interactive Rosary and commenced to conversing with the Almighty. And regardless of what some of my fellow pilgrims may have thought seeing me bent over my smartphone, it was an excellent conversation.

(Ernesto Burden is the vice president of digital for Newspapers of New England, the Monitors parent company. He lives in Manchester.)

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My Turn: The smartphone as a social tool - Concord Monitor

In Radicals for Utopia, published last month, journalist Jamie Bartlett profiles Zoltan Istvan, who ran for president under the Transhumanist Party's banner in 2016. Along with several other journalists, Bartlett traveled across the southwest on Istvan's "immortality bus" (a rickety camper shaped like a coffin-slash-log cabin), and watched Istvan preach the gospel of transhumanism to fellow futurists and skeptics alike.

"Transhumanist science is undeniably exciting and fast-moving," Bartlett writes of watching Istvan tell a half-empty auditorium in Las Vegas that humanity will conquer death within 15 to 25 years. "But the science is not almost there."

He knocks Istvan for "flit[ting] with misleading ease between science and fiction, taking any promising piece of research as proof of victory." In another scene, Bartlett channels the frustration of other futurists who have tired of the transhumanism project altogether. "Transhumanists have been promising us jetpacks and immortality," one biohacker tells Bartlett. "We're sick of [their] bullshit promises." Later, we learn that Istvan is not particularly liked by even other transhumanists, that he is terrible at leading a political party, and that the chief goal of his campaign was to get people to pay attention to him. In other words, that he is like every other person who has ever run for president.

After painting Istvan as bumbling (when the immortality bus breaks down) and unscientific (when he expresses enthusiasm for cryogenics), Bartlett describes him as something like a villain.

"Transhumanism feels like the perfect religion for a modern, selfish age; an extension of society's obsession with individualism, perfection and youth," he writes. He accuses Istvan of "ignor[ing] current problems and overlook[ing] the negative consequences of rapidly advancing technology." It's an odd claim considering Istvan's presidential platform called for "the complete dismantlement and abolition of all nuclear weapons everywhere, as rapidly as possible." Nuclear weapons were once a rapidly advancing technology, they are currently a problem, and Istvan seems to be quite concerned about their negative consequences.

It's an even odder claim considering that the people who are dedicating themselves to the problems du jour don't seem capable of actually fixing any of them. Last I checked, the Israelis and Palestinians are still at it. Al Qaeda, too. The world is less poor than it once was, but there are still three-quarters of a billion people living in extreme poverty. In the U.S., black lives still matter less than blue and white ones. Is this really transhumanism's fault? What would Bartlett have Istvan do? Go back in time and donate the money he spent on the Immortality Bus to Hillary Clinton?

Bartlett then tells us that many other technologists and intellectuals are opposed to the world Istvan hopes one day to live (forever) in. Elon Musk "declared AI to be comparable to summoning the Devil," he writes. "Stephen Hawking said 'the development of artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.'" Francis Fukuyama "called transhumanism 'the world's most dangerous idea.'" Artificial intelligence seems to worry Barlett more than Istvan's other enthusiasms. He notes that self-driving cars will likely displace human truckers and that drones will displace human warehouse workers. Apparently, no one wants to live in a world where poor little boys and girls can't realize their dreams of living out of a long-haul cab and inhaling particulates in storage facilities.

All things considered, Bartlett's treatment of Istvan the candidate is fair. Anyone who desires the powers of the presidency deserves, at the very least, to have his or her vision for the job harshly interrogated. And many aspects of Istvan's vision are pie in the sky. But the techno fear-mongering throughout the rest of the chapter feels off. Everyone can't be expected to worry about everything, and there are plenty of people in Silicon Valley worried about the ramifications of automation and sentient machines. There's Musk, and also Y Combinator, which is running a basic income experiment right now in anticipation of a world with fewer menial jobs for humans. (Bartlett also notes that AI may displace doctors and lawyers, but he reduces it to an employment problem without acknowledging that it might also mean fewer misdiagnoses and overall better care.)

Nobody in Silicon Valley, or outside it, knows which line of inquiry will prove fruitful, or when. Ascribing carelessness, or malice, to the people pursuing those experiments is a disservice to the spirit of inquiry itself. As Scott Alexander noted in May, many of these folks are working on some rather amazing, life-affirming, world-improving applications. Regardless, it is farcical to lay blame for the bad (or the good) at the feet of transhumanists, who are mostly fanboys of the next big thing, not the people making it. And it is particularly disappointing to see someone bash these people for imagining how they might enjoy a future none of us can stop.

More here:

There's No Harm in Fantasizing About a Better Future - Reason (blog)

This genius Bizarro! comic by Dan Piraro is from a few years back.

More about Walt Disney's mythical cryonic suspension at Snopes.

Acting coach Bob Menery is not a professional sports announcer yet. Watching him talk gives me the same weird sensation as seeing Mel Blanc do Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny. Below is an older video of Menery experimenting with the voice.

When youre proud to admit you did it.

The fine young men of MegaIceTV made a live action re-enactment of the entire Pizza Delivery episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. What a fantastic way to spend a Saturday afternoon! The original is below. Dont miss their other bad/good videos either! (via r/DeepIntoYou)

Amazons Prime Day is one of the most clever user acquisition schemes on the web, echoing the mission of hallowed holidays like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. People like to shop. Thats cool, and Prime Day mines deep into the Amazon product labyrinth to drop prices on things you probably didnt even know existed, let []

If you are a UI designer, creating custom icons is often more trouble than its worth since you probably already spent an inordinate amount of time dealing with a range of application states, device sizes, and UX guidelines. Instead of reinventing the wheel for every project, consider using assets from Icons8.Icons8 is a massive online []

Python is one of the most robust programming languages around, but that doesnt mean its strictly for experts. Thanks to its versatility and elegant, human-readable syntax, Python is a great starter language for novices, and has significant applications for data scientists and web developers alike. To get up to speed with this powerful language, or []

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Very funny transhumanist Disney comic - Boing Boing

If youre imagining a Terminator-style machine sitting behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office, think again. The president would more likely be a computer in a closet somewhere, chugging away at solving our countrys toughest problems. Unlike a human, a robot could take into account vast amounts of data about the possible outcomes of a particular policy. It could foresee pitfalls that would escape a human mind and weigh the options more reliably than any person couldwithout individual impulses or biases coming into play. We could wind up with an executive branch that works harder, is more efficient and responds better to our needs than any weve ever seen.

Theres not yet a well-defined or cohesive group pushing for a robot in the Oval Officejust a ragtag bunch of experts and theorists who think that futuristic technology will make for better leadership, and ultimately a better country. Mark Waser, for instance, a longtime artificial intelligence researcher who works for a think tank called the Digital Wisdom Institute, says that once we fix some key kinks in artificial intelligence, robots will make much better decisions than humans can. Natasha Vita-More, chairwoman of Humanity+, a nonprofit that advocates the ethical use of technology to expand human capacities, expects well have a posthuman president somedaya leader who does not have a human body but exists in some other way, such as a human mind uploaded to a computer. Zoltan Istvan, who made a quixotic bid for the presidency last year as a transhumanist, with a platform based on a quest for human immortality, is another proponent of the robot presidencyand he really thinks it will happen.

See the rest here:

Could a robot be president? - Hot Air