Monthly Archives: September 2022

ATHENS The recently-released book Cyborg Sapiens, written by Dimitris Orfanidis and published by Elkistis, covers very serious topics Artificial Intelligence, the Upgrading () even the transformation, of the human species via technological implants and genetic alteration, etc. Precisely because they address realities that may be coming but cannot yet be grasped, attention has been drawn to this publication precisely because it is a book of poetry, not non-fiction poets and artists being historically the presenters of states of being that are not visible or here yet.

The book presentation September 19 at the War Museum in Athens featured a learned panel moderated by journalist Fanis Papathanasiou. The participants were Orfanidis, Theofanis Tasis, professor of Contemporary Practical Philosophy at the Alpen Adria Universitt, who also teaches at College Year in Athens, Sonia Tourkolia, president of Educational and Cultural Society of Kyparissias, Sophia Lignou, President of Greeces Court of Appeals, and actor Vassilis Paleologos.

The event was organized by the society Literary Circle of Greek Judges( ) and indeed the Amphitheater was filled with judges, lawyers, and artists. Lignou is the Societys current president, Orfanidis, a judge of the Court of Appeals, is its Past President and current General Secretary.

A lively Q & A followed and Xenia Dimitriou, past Prosecutor with the Supreme Court of Greece, noted Orfanidis succeeded with his small volume of poems in eloquently encapsulating writing on the topic to date.

The value of the event, however, was the dramatization of such matters material that seems far off and abstract to us when encountered in books and articles through readings by Paleologos and others of the poems, many of which are in the voices of individuals of the future who are already living the realities being addressed. The poetry shows that while we cannot predict facts, one can explore the implications, legal, ethical, spiritual, of current developments.

Orfanidis fourth published poetry collection was inspired by a life experience. He was shaken by the power of technology to seize our souls. While he was enjoying a beautiful vista on the seashore, he noticed someone nearby captivated by a similar view on his cell phone. That prompted him to devour existing writing on these topics, books like Homo Deus and works by Professor Tasis.

Tasis and Orfanidis and later the Q&A participants touched on notions practical and philosophical: How and where are lines to be drawn? Who draws the lines and makes the decisions? Who gets the new goodies and how? What are the points of no return we must look out for and will we be able to see and act upon them in time?

The ideas that emerged during the event and the reception that followed in the Museums Foyer were pessimistic but fear is a good engine for driving people to learn and prepare to act, and that motivates the efforts of both Orfanidis and Tasis.

The discussions showed there are many slippery slopes here, as well as lines that are seemingly strongly drawn but in reality are too easily smeared.

Much has already happened, as some participants noted. We interact with AIs on the phone without realizing it. Will they gain consciousness and become our rivals or will they develop into less threatening things, not artificial persons but just cognitive functions that will add their (considerable) power to the invisible hand of the free market that already makes so many of our individual and collective decisions?

Almost everyone agrees implants would be a blessing for healing people with hearing, seeing, or even cognitive disabilities but once the hardware and software in mastered, the leap from maintaining health to granting super powers is small.

And to what degree can individuals or societies just say no to things like brain enhancements, for adults and for their children, when companies and schools might merely just suggest it but those who dont go alongare cast aside or left behind?

The poems also ask at what point do humans with implants and other enhancements become Cyborgs? Would they constitute a new species? Are we here we enter the realm or science fiction (or are we already there) who remain human going to be subjugated or eliminated by the transhuman? Again, how do you apply the brakes? Who applies the breaks?

The discussion also addressed the rise of political or religious movements that might try to advance the process perhaps erasing or replacing God or thwarting it.

With titles like Artificial Salvation, Not a (Big) New Deal, Artificial Intelligence Service, Fake Babies, Dolce Vita, and of course, Brave New World, Cyborg Sapiens is a lesson on the power of poems and a sermon on taking greater responsibility for the future.

Originally posted here:
Cyborg Sapiens Book Opening Window on Future Presented in Athens - The National Herald

Spotted

07:30

by Mary Harrington

Do you trust this man? Credit: Getty

Biotech is entering a new era, with massive US government support: last week the US Government signed an executive order that assigned $2 billion in government funding for high risk, high reward biotech projects such as CRISPR gene editing, artificial meat and further development of the mRNA technology behind the Covid vaccine.

With this shift, as I noted last week, a new paradigm of health is emerging, not as a default state where doctors are on hand to help get us back to normal when something goes wrong. In the new, transhumanist vision, humans are a kind of meaty machine whose basic functioning can be engineered toward a vision of health thats something more than the default, via biomedical interventions. And doctors are engineers we depend on in perpetuity to keep supplying new and better upgrades.

Last weeks executive order gave another signal that this dream of engineers with limitless power to upgrade nature is increasingly dominant within the worlds only superpower:

- U.S. Government

In the paragraphs that follow theres plenty of throat-clearing about protecting against accidental or deliberate harm, and safeguarding United States principles and values and international best practices. But anyone who feels reassured as a result should glance again at the third sentence in the passage Ive quoted, which makes it clear that this path of limitless upgrades will be open from the word go to commercial exploitation.

For we already have a well-worked example of how easily harm can be redefined, as values come under pressure from commercial imperatives: child gender transition. Consider, for example, the different perverse incentives in publicly and privately-funded healthcare systems where this protocol is concerned. In recent years, European nations with publicly funded healthcare systems have rowed back on paediatric gender medicine, for example citing severe side effects and lack of evidence. America, though, has an insurance-based healthcare system, where the incentive is for more and more advanced and expensive interventions and here, perhaps coincidentally, senior public medical officials call the protocol essential, life-saving and evidence-based.

And while the NHS is closing its only child gender clinic, calling it inadequate, in the US gender care for children is an explosive growth area. The first such US clinic opened in 2007, and there are now (according to the HRC) 50 such institutions, though the real number is probably as high as 300 clinics providing biomedical upgrade services to children.

Of course its not just about following the money; its also about values. America has long valorised those who overcome odds or disregard limits to realise a seemingly impossible dream. So when new technologies promise to overcome our physiological limits, extending that American Dream to human nature itself, no wonder many are enthused. And from this perspective, the harm and violation of values consists in submitting to unchosen biophysical norms. Here, radical interventions are defended as a means of protecting children from the trauma of undergoing the wrong puberty.

We are plunging blindly into the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution, guided by an ascendant paradigm that views harm as a refusal to intervene in whats normal and health as structurally reliant on ongoing biomedical intervention. The reality, though, often falls short of this hubristic dream. Theres already no shortage of testimony from children who regret having interrupted their normal maturation and irreversibly surgically re-sculpted their bodies in accordance with the transhumanist paradigm of freedom-through-upgrades.

And when we extrapolate the now US Government-backed drive to accelerate biotech innovation, we can reasonably expect these children to be merely the first bow-wave of living collateral damage. If we continue on this path without any framework for defending our normal human organisms as right in themselves, without upgrades, there will be plenty more.

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America embraces the fourth industrial revolution - The Post - UnHerd

Video game adaptions have a checkered history, but anime consistently seems to be the best medium for alternative content based on video games. Following in the footsteps of shows like Castlevania and Arcane, Netflixs new Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is a phenomenal adaption of the source material that fully makes use of the series key themes about transhumanism in a cyberized world. In fact, it delivers a more compelling story than anything found in Cyberpunk 2077.

The events of Edgerunners take place one year before the start of Cyberpunk 2077, and the Night City of the anime will look quite similar to anyone thats played the game. The show uses locations from the game, and there are even a few familiar characters that pop up along the way. Edgerunners follows David Martinez, a street kid struggling to survive while his mother scrounges every penny she can to send him to Arasaka Academy. Like most stories in the cyberpunk genre, tragedy hits Davids life and continues to strike throughout the series.

Before long, David has a life-changing meeting with an Edgerunner named Lucy and joins up with a group to start pulling off jobs. In the games universe, an Edgerunner refers to someone who lives on the edge and generally works jobs outside of the law, outfitting their bodies with cyberware and other technical enhancements. Lucy is instantly one of the most memorable anime characters in recent memory. Shes a stylish and aloof netrunner with a traumatic past that informs so much of her identity, and the way the show peels back her layers is a wonder to behold.

Cyberpunk Edgerunners does a great job of integrating the UI of the game into animation.Netflix

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is filled with plenty of action, explosions, and cursing, but whats most impressive about the show is the surprisingly thoughtful and emotional relationship at the heart of everything.

Underneath all the neon glamour Edgerunners is really a story about two people struggling to find their place in a hostile world while protecting each other. They each have their own development arc across the 10-episode series, but their evolving relationship is the most compelling part of whats going on.

Theres also a strong ensemble cast to back up the core duo. The foul-mouthed and diminutive Rebecca stands out as a hilariously unhinged highlight, while the unscrupulous villain Faraday makes a good foil to David.

Impeccable pacing in a meaningful overarching narrative full of memorable characters is the recipe for good TV, and Edgerunners has it all. Each episode has at least some kind of action, and it becomes unabashedly violent and/or gory at some points.

Studio Trigger was the absolutely perfect choice to bring Cyberpunk to anime, as the studios trademark eclectic style works wonders here. The bright neon colors of Night City really pop, and the animation really has a sense of impact with bullets exploding heads and massive blows from mechanical arms making horrific bone-crunching noises.

Characters like Rebbecca stand out as some of the best the Cyberpunk series has to offer.Netflix

Action scenes consistently make use of dynamic camera angles, and there are some neat tricks the animation does to represent characters moving at high speeds. All of this is highlighted by a bumping soundtrack that sports a few original songs on top of plenty of ones from Cyberpunk 2077.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners really feels like it makes a blueprint for how CD Projekt Red should approach this franchise moving forward. Sure the show has all the Choombas and other slang the game does, but theres a genuineness that the anime has that the game simply lacks. Although there are certainly some strong narratives in the game, much of Cyberpunk 2077s storytelling feels like it's specifically trying to be hard and edgy.

While Edgerunners has a lot of those same elements, its more concerned with making characters that feel like real people. Because of that, the seasons climax feels memorable and important. So much of Edgerunners story isnt happy, but it definitely winds up feeling immensely cathartic.

LEARN SOMETHING NEW EVERY DAY.

Continue reading here:
You need to watch 2022's best video game adaptation ASAP - Inverse

Cover image: Abiding Grace by Jenn Ravenna Tran

As a professor of theology and religious ethics, I believe that there is value in understanding what religions teach and how those teachings impact peoples lives and cultures. As a religious person, Im also deeply invested in reckoning with how my religious tradition and those I encounter affect me personally and the folks I loveand its hard to turn this off. For some folks, Magic: The Gathering is a needed escape from these heavy questions; but for me, Magic and especially its lore are a playground in which these issues can be played with and poked in a way that is insulated, at least some small amount, from the higher stakes of critique of a real religious tradition.

Where do I see this happening most fruitfully? So glad you asked. Here are my rankings for the top 10 religious institutions in Magics multiverse that I think have the most to say about contemporary issues in (western) religion and spirituality:

Due Respect by James Ryman

This universalist evangelical movement ostensibly welcomes mana of all colors, as long as the white mana is in charge. The Machine Orthodoxy just wants to purify and compleat you, and if it has to do that by colonizing other worlds and forcing you to comply with groupthink, then thats what it will do. Really, its no trouble.

The Machine Orthodoxy is an obvious and monstrous evil reminiscent of Star Treks Borg. The terrifying Giger-esque New Phyrexians are our projection of fascistic terror, with all its promised disintegration of individuality. The villainous eugenic aim of Yawgmoth and his worshippers has been brought forward and twisted into the dream of even greater multiversal domination.

Part of this twist is the relentlessly literal and materialist mind of the New Phyrexians, who have only recently begun to understand what a soul. There is something fascinating about how Phyrexians receive and understand informationlike anyone, according to the structures of possibility within their own worldview. As the medieval dictum goes, what is received is received in the mode of the receiver. Nevertheless, the alien nature of the New Phyrexians is distancing enough that Im more interested in the Old Phyrexia.

Phyrexian Scriptures by Joseph Meehan

Thats right, GIve me that old time religion. On Old Phyrexia, Yawgmoth came to have the power of a god, and that included having followers! If you like H.R. Giger-esque body horror (I do not) and eugenics, and/or listening to Fear Factory, this might be the place for you.

The design of Phyrexia and its scriptures is inspired by the Christian mythology surrounding Hell, where Yawgmoth is considered the great creator and the spheres of Phyrexia are patterned after the layers of Dantes Inferno. The scriptures, which appear on the eponymous card and in the flavor text of six cards, read the way one may expect a religious text to read. The flavor text on Dark Ritual is represented below, in Josephs Meehans rendering:

From void evolved Phyrexia. Great Yawgmoth, Father of Machines, saw its perfection. Thus the Grand Evolution began.

Evil cults are often meant to be readily understood as villains, and we arent meant to think too much about them, but theres something here about the notion of transhumanism and our faith in science and medicine to solve our problems and carry us forward that might be worth teasing out.

Find more about Phyrexia at: The Grail Legend in Magic Lore

Preacher by Quinton Hoover

Do you want a mishmash of everything Jesper Myrfors wants to critique about Christianity? This Church is for youits got everything: Inquisition, a Fire and Brimstone Preacher, and likely references to antisemitic violence. Whatever it may have once been before the Brothers War, The Church of Tal became a devoted witch-hunting institution in the centuries after the Sylex blast, adopting the credo Suffer not a magician to live almost verbatim from the planeswalker King Jamess Bible.

Given the Churchs history of reacting against the immense violence of artificers and wizards, theres probably something interesting to say here about the danger of the oppressed becoming the oppressor, but the Dark wasnt yet ready to say it.

Read more about Magic & Witch Hunting at Religion & Horror in the Season of the Witch

Have you ever gotten so upset over religious complacency that you founded your own massively popular breakaway sect of zealots and doomsayers which elevated you to such prestige that you were able to convince an eternally young woman to have an affair with you, only to have her leave you for a Sarpadian dwarf, so you decided to tell everyone she was the reincarnated high priest of the evil dark lord of a different religion, and sent your former concubine to go and kill her, not realizing that your intended victims brother had godlike magical powers and could incinerate you? Well thats what it feels like to drive the new Ford F-150.

The Farrelites were a charismatic cult of personality, preaching the end times, demonizing their enemies, and waging a culture war within Icatia, all while the cult leader manipulated women within his sphere of influence. Can someone go check on whether they ended up making Icatia great againits gone? Oh. hm.

Revival by Paul Canavan

Ravnica is what you get when you think to yourself, wow, what if every church in Prague was actually the architectural style for the whole world. The Orzhov Syndicate is what you get when you reduce 16th century Catholicism to the doctrines of purgatory and indulgences and the material excesses of clergy and make it an entire churchs personality. The resulting institution functions something like a mob or a crime family, which the wealthy extorting the weak and less powerful, and binding them to contracts that they will likely never repay.

Like Innistrads Church of Avacyn, what started out as a two-dimensional portrait of a Church run like a shady bank later becomes an idea for at least a faint consideration of deeper issues. When Kaya kills the Obzedat and assumes leadership of the guild, the notion of debt, penance, and reparation are briefly raised, and the confluence of the spiritual and the economic set the stage for some potentially worthwhile reflection on how money and faith interact. The story during the WAR era didnt quite get there, but perhaps next time.

Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose by Lie Setiawan

Another take on 16th Century Catholicism. If doing a what if with indulgences and purgatory wasnt enough, the Legion of Dusk on Ixalan seemingly compares the Spanish Catholic conquistadors to bloodthirsty vampires. But wait, they arent really conquistadors

I mean, sure, theyre pale and they dress in clothing and armor styled after the 16th century. They have Spanish names, and sail galleons across the seas from their homelandand admittedly, they do have hostile encounters with the natives. But they arent really colonizing anything. Adanto is just a temporary thing while they look for the Immortal Sun. We promise! We also promise they arent Catholics. Yes, they apparently have a supreme pontiff, and they build cathedrals and practice a kind of baptism and the consumption of a sacrament in honor of their founder. But look, its not like they said that Catholics are bloodthirsty, colonizing fanatics.

Caricatures aside, the stories of the Apostle Mavren Feins epiphany upon finding Elenda, about how the purpose of their faith has been twisted and misunderstood in her absence, and about VItos resistance to this news, has resonances with the experience of many young religious people who begin to see the world and their old faith with new eyes (or those who refuse to) after leaving home for the first time. Whether we explore this further in the coming years Ixalan set is yet to be soon, but I hope we do!

Read more at: The Thorn in Our Side: Vito & the Legacy of the Spanish Conquest

Basri, Devoted Paladin by Jason Rainville

Have you ever spent your life training to be worthy of special service to your gods so you could pass the test and go to the afterlife, but in reality your gods had been dominated generations ago by an immensely powerful dragon wizard from another world in an elaborate plot to create an unstoppable army of undead super soldiers so he could invade a different world and reclaim his lost immortality? Well thats that it feels like to drive the new Ford F-150.

Amonkhets population is the victim of a different sort of pyramid scheme, a sham religion replacing their original, indigenous faith. Using their old gods, who seemed to be genuinely concerned about the ideals and concepts they represent and embody, Nicol Bolas twisted the Amonkhetis understanding of spirituality to funnel power to himself, manipulating the beliefs of the Amonkheti for his own dark purpose.

This story is common enough in American culture: a strong personality tweaks Christianity just enough to walk away with the riches of their congregation while still maintaining all of the appearance of being a religious expression concerned with the spiritual well-being of its members and even still perhaps possessing ministers who are serving from genuine and benevolent conviction.

While we havent gotten to see him in action in the story, yet, Basri Ket is a fascinating example of someone healing from the spiritual loss that is felt when a religious community is rocked by scandal and the revelation that so much of what they believed was a distorted fabrication. What Basri Ket does in the wake of this knowledge is to separate enduring truth from its abuse by demogogues. Taking up Oketras ideal of solidarity, Basri begins a new faith that aims at something transcendent without reliance upon the falsified cosmology of the Amonkheti religiona tremendously fascinating approach in an era where more and more people in developed nations are disaffiliating from organized religion while remaining as spiritual as they ever were.

Idyllic Tutor by Jaime Jones

If the poems, dialogues, and philosophy we have from Ancient Greece is any indication, the Greek Gods were, for layfolk, almost never gods of exclusive devotion (henotheism) until very late (4th to 2nd centuries BCE). However, being in any sense devoted to Heliod, as a pilgrim, champion, or priest would certainly cause consternation. In the wake of rumblings about Heliods actions regarding Elspeth, and with whispers mounting that gods are the patterns that we perceive, given sentience, there are few places in the multiverse that are likely to have more lively conversations about philosophy of religion.

What is the power of collective belief? Can collective belief become so strong that it develops something of its own will and life? Is that (all) what religion is? Is that the truth of religious doctrine? If thats the case, then what is apotheosis (ascending to godhood), really? Is it giving oneself over so fully to the collective belief that ones name becomes symbolic of, even synonymous with some primal force? Like Fred Rogers, and kindness? The way the world of Theros provokes theological questions like these is why Ive ranked it at number 3.

Read more at:Reflections on the Return of Idyllic Tutor

Abiding Grace by Jenn Ravenna Tran

If, for your mental health one day, you need to daydream about a religion that is everything it says it is, an institution dedicated to the teachings of its legitimately benevolent founder, that sets out to protect the weak and help those in need, then the Church of Serra might be for you. This Churchs floating towers are a little piece of heaver, Serras Realm on Dominaria.

The Serran Church preserves a lot of the aesthetics that we expect in Christianity-inspired fantasy churches, like glorious stained glass, takes it to the next level, and sets it within an institutional structure wherein the strongest authority figures all take the form of strong, flying women. If the current Church is keeping the old traditions of Serras Realm alive, then it also has hymns and liturgy! High Church Anglicans rejoice!

Idealistic depictions of institutions like this one help us to imagine whats possible, to put our hopes and aspirations into a form where we can examine and improve them, and learn from our own narratives about our motivations and our goals. While having too rosy an idea of any institution can blind us to inequities and other moral failures, not pausing to imagine a better world can tempt us toward an unhelpful nihilism. The goodness of the contemporary Church of Serra is a gleaming respite from the often depressing examples of religious institutions elsewhere.

Read More at The Church of Serra

Arlinn, the Packs Hope by Eric Deschamps

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. Karl Marx, Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right, 1844

What if we made Marxs words about religion the entire plot of a Magic: The Gathering set?

Seriously though, while the initial premise of Innistrads main institutional religion could seem like it leans into a thin literalization of Marxs critique, recent visits to Innistrad hint at the possibility for deeper reflection about how to hold on to faith and rebuild after the institution is rocked by corruption and scandal, or after your relationship to yourself puts you at odds with the beliefs of many in the Church (cf. Odric, Thalia, and Arlinn).

Now that the Church is rebuilding and many folks are turning to Sigarda, and folk religions are returning in the absence of the Avacynian Churchs persecutions, the religious landscape on Innistrad is poised to become one of the most interesting places in the multiverse to ponder issues analogous to contemporary real-world religious issueswhich is why Ive given it the top spot!

Read More at As Hallowtide Approaches: Negotiating Faith and Festival

I hope youve enjoyed this tour of different religious expressions in the multiverse. There are so many more religious or quasi-religious institutions we might have examined, and in more detail, that Ive omitted for a lack of lore, or because they land in an area that is far enough outside of my expertise that I didnt think I could fairly articulate the issues they raise. If these 10 provoked any deeper thinking, then Ive done my job, and I am happy to leave the rest to you for now.

Until next time.

Jacob Torbeckis a researcher and instructor of theology and ethics. He hails from Chicago, IL, and loves playing Commander and pre-modern cubes.

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Top 10 Magic Churches Through Which To Work Out My Real World Feelings About Religion - Hipsters of the Coast - Hipsters of the Coast