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Category Archives: Transhuman News

Sam Altman’s Second Coming Sparks New Fears of the AI Apocalypse – WIRED

Posted: November 28, 2023 at 12:39 pm

Open AIs new boss is the same as the old boss. But the companyand the artificial intelligence industrymay have been profoundly changed by the past five days of high-stakes soap opera. Sam Altman, OpenAIs CEO, cofounder, and figurehead, was removed by the board of directors on Friday. By Tuesday night, after a mass protest by the majority of the startups staff, Altman was on his way back, and most of the existing board was gone. But that board, mostly independent of OpenAIs operations, bound to a for the good of humanity mission statement, was critical to the companys uniqueness.

As Altman toured the world in 2023, warning the media and governments about the existential dangers of the technology that he himself was building, he portrayed OpenAIs unusual for-profit-within-a-nonprofit structure as a firebreak against the irresponsible development of powerful AI. Whatever Altman did with Microsofts billions, the board could keep him and other company leaders in check. If he started acting dangerously or against the interests of humanity, in the boards view, the group could eject him. The board can fire me, I think thats important, Altman told Bloomberg in June.

It turns out that they couldnt fire him, and that was bad, says Toby Ord, senior research fellow in philosophy at Oxford University, and a prominent voice among people who warn AI could pose an existential risk to humanity.

The chaotic leadership reset at OpenAI ended with the board being reshuffled to consist of establishment figures in tech and former US secretary of the treasury Larry Summers. Two directors associated with the effective altruism movement, the only women, were removed from the board. It has crystallized existing divides over how the future of AI should be governed. The outcome is seen very differently by doomers who worry that AI is going to destroy humanity; transhumanists who think the tech will hasten a utopian future; those who believe in freewheeling market capitalism; and advocates of tight regulation to contain tech giants that cannot be trusted to balance the potential harms of powerfully disruptive technology with a desire to make money.

To some extent, this was a collision course that had been set for a long time, says Ord, who is also credited with cofounding the effective altruism movement, parts of which have become obsessed with the doomier end of the AI risk spectrum. If its the case that the nonprofit governance board of OpenAI was fundamentally powerless to actually affect its behavior, then I think that exposing that it was powerless was probably a good thing.

Governance Gap

The reason that OpenAIs board decided to move against Altman remains a mystery. Its announcement that Altman was out of the CEO seat said he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. An internal OpenAI memo later clarified that Altmans ejection was not made in response to malfeasance. Emmett Shear, the second of two interim CEOs to run the company between Friday night and Wednesday morning, wrote after accepting the role that hed asked why Altman was removed. The board did not remove Sam over any specific disagreement on safety, he wrote. Their reasoning was completely different from that. He pledged to launch an investigation into the reasons for Altmans dismissal.

The vacuum has left space for rumors, including that Altman was devoting too much time to side projects or was too deferential to Microsoft. It has also nurtured conspiracy theories, like the idea that OpenAI had created artificial general intelligence (AGI), and the board had flipped the kill switch on the advice of chief scientist, cofounder, and board member Ilya Sutskever.

What I know with certainty is we don't have AGI, says David Shrier, professor of practice, AI, and innovation, at Imperial College Business School in London. I know with certainty there was a colossal failure of governance.

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The New Progressive Nihilism – Compact Mag

Posted: at 12:39 pm

Since the dawn of the modern age, the conquest of disease and death has been a central dimension of progressive optimism. Modern thought has long dreamed of a day when the human lifespan would know no upper limitwhen, as Condorcet put it, nature has fixed no limits to our hopes. Declining infant mortality, increasing life expectancy, and a growing arsenal of cures for once deadly illnesses have encouraged these hopes. To be sure, the dream of life extension sometimes mutates into a hubristic denial that death and dying are a part of life, as with the transhumanist fantasies that captivate many of Silicon Valleys techno-optimists. Nonetheless, as the philosopher Martin Hgglund has argued, the conviction that no life can ever be complete is closely linked to the broader modern conception of progress.

Recently, however, a retreat from this core conviction has been underway across the West, especially among self-declared progressives. This is one way to understand the jubilation with which many on the Western left responded to Hamass Oct. 7 attack on Israel. It takes a profound pessimism about the world to see mass slaughtercarried out by a group animated by overtly anti-modern politicsas an exhilarating act, as apparently did many of those who took to the streets to express solidarity with the attackers and turned the paragliders Hamas fighters used to descend murderously on a music festival into a positive symbol. How did we arrive at this point?

As progressive optimism declined, so did the notion that politics could reach for something beyond itself. In its place has been substituted a progressive nihilism. In the late 20th century, the vanishing of a utopian horizon left only a politics of subversion, in which disruption became an end in itself. Think of the carnivals against capitalism of the late 1990s and early aughts.

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Is Laughter All Weve Got? On David Baddiels The God Desire – lareviewofbooks

Posted: at 12:39 pm

THE LESSON OF The God Desire: On Being a Reluctant Atheist (2023), its author concludes, is bleak. Despite, or (as he holds) because of, this desire, there is no God and hence no comfort and hope in the face of death. But as we know from, say, Jonathan Swift or Isaac Bashevis Singer, the bleakness of its lesson does not exclude the books enjoyability. Much of the enjoyment of this book comes from the one thing that David Baddiel thinks he can offer to lighten his messagelaughter. For example, he quotes a line from Maurice MaeterlinckThe living are just the dead on holidaythat, he says, sends bad shivers down his spine, but it is also very funny.

The humor in this short and serious book will not surprise readers who know its author as a successful British performer and writer of comedy. Its seriousness will not surprise those familiar with his well-received book on antisemitism, Jews Dont Count (2021), and a play, Gods Dice (2019), that, like Michael Frayns Copenhagen (1998), finds drama in the history of quantum physics. Baddiel also writes novels and books for children and is a keen observer and analyst of the game of soccer.

Baddiels life is clearly one of considerable achievement, but it is compromised, he explains, by his fear of death and a related, unsatisfied desire for God to exist. He loves God in the way he does Santa Claus: in neither case, sadly, is the object of his love real. He finds himself, therefore, a reluctant but also fundamentalist atheist. This means, first, that he knows, rather than merely believes, that there is no God. It means, too, that he rejects various ersatz Gods to which people have turned for spiritual solacenature, wonder, love. None of these, he insists, do anything to allay our fear of death.

This fundamentalist atheism might seem to align Baddiel with the newor, less politely, undergraduateatheism of such figures as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. He dislikes, however, their dismissal of great religious traditions as mere fairy stories. The tradition in which he was brought up, Judaism, is a repository of rituals, acts, and customs that have enabled a people to survive persecution and worse. Moreover, the New Atheists are guilty of a macho pretense that people require no spiritual solace when confronted with anxiety about the prospect of death.

God, asserts Baddiel, is all about death. It is the horror of oblivion and nothingness that has been the main driver of religious belief. God has served other functionsfor instance, to provide meaning and narrative structure to peoples livesbut Baddiel would agree with Tolstoy, in his Confession (1882), that these are spin-offs from the main role. Whatever meaning I am tempted to assign to my life leaches out with my death. There is, for Baddiel, nothing self-obsessed in this lust to survive after death. He endorses John Updikes suggestion that it is because of our love and praise of the world that we cant bear to think of [the] shutting of our window onto it.

Many historians of religion will challenge the claim that God is all about death, emphasizing instead a felt need for a God who maintains order and harmony, say, or who sanctions the moral law. But Baddiel might be willing to soften his claim and simply point out that many people, himself included, desire the existence of a God who guarantees survival after death, and that its for them that his book is written. Moreover, his argument for atheism doesnt turn on any particular form of the God desire but on its strength. It is not like traditional arguments against the existence of God, such as that deriving from the problem of evil. Indeed, Baddiel wants to bat away nearly all familiar arguments on the subject, pro or con. Even when one is unable to detect flaws in their reasoning, he indicates, these arguments have no power to persuade.

Baddiels own argumentwith its Nietzschean and Freudian tracesis that the very intensity of the God desire shows belief in the divine to be delusional. To the obvious objection that, in general, strongly wishing for something does not exclude its existence, Baddiel replies that it does so in cases where the something is invisible. When, that is, something cannot be, in concrete terms, experienced, an intense desire for it shows it to be a fantasy. There is surely some confusion here. Visible or invisible, a things existence or nonexistence cannot be settled by what people wish to be real. Wishes cannot dictate what is out there.

That said, Baddiel is driving at two important points. The first is the fact that when you desperately want a belief to be true, you should be especially careful in your judgment. Perhaps youve paid insufficient attention to reasons against the belief, or have surrounded yourself only with people who reinforce it. Second, as Baddiel notes, projection of features onto the world in accordance with our desires is a familiar phenomenon. The lover, desperate for the beloved to return his love, reads into simple gestures and words emotions that may not be there. For Baddiel, the believers alleged experience of Gods love is similarlyand economicallyexplained in terms of a wish-fulfilling projection onto reality. But while these considerations should be taken seriously, they do not warrant the claim, by fundamentalist atheists, to know that God is a delusion. Moreover, this is a claim to which religious believers have a reply. The experience of Gods love during prayer, meditation, or moments of personal crisis, they insist, is a palpable, concrete one, quite different in kind from the young lovers wishful projection of love reciprocated.

William James long ago noted that an impasse is soon reached between competing interpretations of putative religious experience. For those who have it, its veridicality cannot be in doubt, while for those, like Dawkins, who are religiously tone-deaf, testimonies to religious experience are ones whose truth they are no more obliged to recognize than that of reports of encounters with gremlins or angels. Baddiels claim to know that God does not exist may be unwarranted, but nonetheless, like others to whom religious experience is foreign, he has no reason to believe in God and to look to God, therefore, for comfort and hope in the face of death.

But might he look elsewhere for this? He doesnt consider any nontheistic proposals for a sort of survival of personhood after death, such as the Buddhist teaching of rebirth. Nor does he discuss transhumanist scenarios in which, say, electronic copies of ones brain are supposed to ensure a sort of survival. What would worry Baddiel, Im sure, about such speculations is that they at best promise only a sort of survival. The coming into existence after my death of somebody or something that has some kind of continuity with myself is small comfort. Despair at the shutting of my particular window onto the world is hardly alleviated by the prospect of a related, but nevertheless different, window opening.

So, are Baddiel and fellow atheists who share his anxieties left with nothing except some laughter to lighten their lives? Perhaps the following thought might give a little more light. Baddiels claim that [d]eath is shit simply because of the prospect of oblivion strikes me as too simple. In my own case, certainly, I find anxiety about my death to be a mlange of largely inchoate fears and feelings. They include, in addition to the image of the closing window, a concern about dying well, a nagging fear of having significantly wasted my life, a sympathy for those who might miss me, a hope that my death might benefit some people or creatures, and an unpleasant sense of objects that matter to me falling into the hands of people to whom they mean nothing.

None of these are happy thoughts, but unlike the blank horror of oblivion, they are ones that, however modestly, a person can do something about. I can leave money to a good charity and bequeath my paintings to someone who will care for them. I can try to cultivate a certain calm and dignity that will serve me, and those around me, during the final days. I might even try to finish writing the big book that Ive been too lazy or lacking in confidence to complete.

I would like to think that David Baddiel might find in these and other strategies not a reconciliation with death but rather an accommodation with it that goes a bit beyond the laughter that, at present, is all I got.

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Luxury industry set to reach $1.6 trillion in sales this year – Glossy

Posted: at 12:39 pm

According to a November study by the management consultancy Bain and the Italian luxury association Altagamma, the global luxury market is projected to reach $1.6 trillion in 2023 sales, marking an 8-10% increase from 2022. Growth is set to outpace that of the last few years, with sales surpassing pre-pandemic levels.

There is a question mark regarding the profitability of brands, both this year and next year, said Federica Levato, senior partner and EMEA leader of fashion and luxury at Bain, and co-author of the annual Luxury Goods Worldwide Market Study. Theres increased attention being placed on scenario-based budgeting for next year. So far, brands have been very good at absorbing the delta costs of economic impacts in their prices and gross margins. But with the consolidating growth rates, the cost base is increasing.

The report, which came out on November 14, is based on macroeconomic data like GDP and the consumer confidence index, as well as Bains and Altagammas latest luxury industry forecasts. It also factors luxury industry players trading performance, annual reports, quarterly results and analyst reports, as well as findings from 100 expert interviews.

The European luxury market is expected to grow 7% to $111 billion in 2023, as a rebound in tourism offsets weakening in local consumer spending, the report found. Local tourist spending has surpassed pre-pandemic levels, driven by the sales of full-price products. In the U.K., the luxury market faces setbacks due to the removal of tax-free shopping in 2020, as well as a lack of tourism. According to a study from March by the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, visits to British attractions in 2022 increased 69% compared to 2021, but the attractions saw 37.8 million fewer visits compared to 2019. For 2024, the report predicts GDP growth of 1.4% in the U.K.

The U.S. luxury market continues to slow down due to a number of macroeconomic factors, including inflation, student loan repayments, a weaker luxury ecosystem in the U.S., a declining consumer demand for department stores and a lack of post-lockdown savings. GDP growth is forecasted to grow 1.5% in 2024. The U.S. has gained traction as a luxury market, going from $88 billion in sales in 2019 to $110 billion this year. As a result, many brands are focusing on their top-spending customers.

Brands are focusing on top-customer strategies and developing dedicated value propositions, products and experiences for that audience, said Levato. Meanwhile, the entry-level or core customer can feel a bit left behind. [Retailers] dont have a dedicated customer experience for that customer.

And while Gen Z isnt driving significant sales, the demo is bringing influence. In an economic downturn, Gen Z doesnt have big purchasing power, but millennials and Gen X do, said Levato. But Gen Z is by far the generation that is influencing the other generations the most, in terms of tastes, value systems and cultural change. Brands who engage in that dialogue will win out.

Top-selling luxury categories are shifting, from small leather goods to others. Jewelry is set to reach $32.7 billion in market value in 2023. A big driver is the fine jewelry category, which is proving to be an investment proposition for high-net-worth customers, along with ready-to-wear investment pieces. For its part, Tiffany & Co. re-opened its flagship on NYCs Fifth Avenue in May after a reported $70 million renovation. The goal was to attract more high-net-worth customers and reintroduce customers to Tiffany & Co.s retail proposition, according to the company.

The premium beauty market is also seeing growth, which is being driven by the lipstick effect among aspirational customers in the Americas and Europe. Prada, for one, re-launched its beauty collection in July to focus on design-led palettes and logoed lip products.

Overall, brands are focusing on their own channels to reach customers, as multi-brand retailers struggle to define their value proposition and customers increasingly seek out branded physical experiences. Multi-brand retailer Showfields, for one, filed for bankruptcy in October after closing its Manhattan store. As time goes on, DTC is becoming less about e-commerce and more about a combination of physical and digital touchpoints.

We talk about trans-human retail a mixture of physical retail enabled by technologies and digital touchpoints that enhance the customer experience as a whole, said Levato. Finding a new and relevant role for the multi-brand channel needs to start from the brands themselves, because its also helpful for the brand to enhance the value proposition there for the customer.

According to the report, online and mono-brand channels are expected to account for two-thirds of the entire luxury market by 2030. The brands that are poised to win in the long term are leading on sustainability and embracing technology, said Levato.

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SKILLET’s JOHN COOPER Explains Why He Believes ‘Queer … – BLABBERMOUTH.NET

Posted: at 12:39 pm

During a recent appearance on the "Conversations That Matter" podcast, John Cooper, the frontman and bassist for the Grammy-nominated Christian rock band SKILLET, weighed in on "queer theory", a field of study that challenges existing traditional ideas about identity, sexuality, and gender particularly that of heteronormativity, or the belief that heterosexuality is the natural, moral, or "normal" expression of sexuality. The 48-year-old musician, who is promoting his recently released second book, "Wimpy, Weak And Woke", said in part: "I believe that queer theory is literally the end of all things. There will be no meaningful conversations even able to have in the world if queer theory actually becomes as ubiquitous as it seems like it is already becoming. There will be no distinctions between anything. If you embrace queer theory, and you embrace the idea that men can be women and women can be men, or you can be both, or neither, blah, blah, blah, then you will end up having to accept that there really is no difference between mankind and beast. It just follows. And in fact, the queer theorists would probably be, like, 'Yeah, that's right.'"

He continued: "Sexuality, to me, that's the key. If the church does not stand our ground on sexuality, we lose everything. We absolutely lose everything.

"This is just so upsetting to me. A lot of Christians just do not believe that it's as bad as it is They just refuse to believe it. And they keep saying, 'Guys, there's nothing new under the sun. It's always been this bad. You're making it seem like it's worse.' That's just not true. It hasn't always been this bad.

"Transgenderism is the most civilizational-shifting thing that has happened in I don't even know how long. You're talking about something that could change the trajectory of human nature forever. And, of course, if anybody's done the reading, I'm not gonna get into this, and I don't write about this in the book, but if anybody knows what transhumanism is, we're one step away from transhumanism, which we won't even get into," he added, referencing the position that human beings should be permitted to use technology to modify and enhance human cognition and bodily function, expanding abilities and capacities beyond current biological constraints. "And transgenderism sort of makes that possible. It's a sort of Gnosticism that really will bring us into a man-and-machine kind of thing coming in together. It's absolutely horrifying."

Cooper previously warned against transgender ideology earlier this year in an interview with The Daily Signal.

"We don't even believe in objective reality now," he lamented, referring to American society. "We are saying you can be a Christian as you want to, as long as you privatize it. You can be a Christian at your home. Just don't go around telling people. But in the public sphere, [where] we used to be able to talk about religion and objective reality In the public sphere, we are going to make peoples personal subjective feelings be public truth.

"So if you say, 'I'm a boy, but I know I'm actually a girl, and I believe it in my heart,' the public has to say your inner feelings are true," he added. "But if somebody says, 'No. I can see objective reality. You are a boy,' that's not publicly true, though it can be a privately held belief if you want.

"That's the way to end all things," Cooper said. "That is the destruction of objective reality."

In various interviews over the years, Cooper has said that he "always had faith in God" and that his mother was a "Jesus fanatic." He also claimed that he was willing to put his career on the line to take a stand for Christ.

In 2021, Cooper was asked by the "Undaunted.Life: A Man's Podcast" what he would say to someone who says that Satan works through rock music, and thus Christians shouldn't play rock music. He responded: "I would say Satan can work through just about anything. I would say that music is created not by the Devil; [it is] created by the Lord. All things were created by God. So instead of thinking that the Devil owns a genre of music, I would say capture that music and bring it back into subjection under the lordship of Christ."

As for what he would say to someone who says it is sinful for Christians to have tattoos, Cooper said: "I understand why Christians think that, because of the Old Testament. I would say it probably takes a little bit of a longer explanation of Old Testament law and what it meant. But a short version would be there are some things in the Old Testament that were a picture of something in the New Testament. There are some things that are not pictures, like murder we don't murder, we don't steal, so and so forth. Dietary restrictions, things like that, were a picture of something.

"Here's what God wanted: God wants to make his people set apart and holy unto his name," he continued. "And I don't think that God does that any longer from the way that we look; he does that now because of Christ's work on the cross, his resurrection, and he sanctifies us, which sets us apart from the sinner and the pagan."

SKILLET's latest album, "Dominion", was released in January 2022 via Atlantic.

"Wimpy, Weak And Woke" was released on November 14.

John's debut book, "Awake & Alive To Truth", has had over 10 printings and won the Book Impact Award at the 2021 K-Love Fan Awards. His podcast, "Cooper Stuff", continues to grow rapidly as well with over four million downloads and more than two million YouTube views.

John Cooper press photo courtesy of The Media Collective

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DC This Week Roundup – Superheroes Across Space and Time – GeekDad

Posted: at 12:39 pm

Steelworks #6 cover, via DC Comics. Steelworks #6 Michael Dorn, Writer; Sami Basri/Vicente Cifuentes, Artists; Andrew Dalhouse, Colorist Ray 8.5/10

Ray: The final issue of this miniseries has the biggest threat yet for our heroesa giant robot Steel armor, remotely controlled by deranged weapons manufacturer Charles Walker II. Hes a rather cartoony villain, but secondary villain Silver Mist has a slightly more sympathetic backstoryone that plays a key role when he decides to switch sides at the last minute and assist the floundering super-family against an enemy that seems to have their number in every way. Theres a clever reveal about why some members of the heroes feel so much more affected by the Kryptonian energy than others, and the issue ends on an ambiguous but hopeful note as Steel reviews his plans to transform Metropolis and rededicates Steelworks to his larger goals. This issue also has a surprisingly big focus on Lana Lang, who has her powers yet and is set to marry John, so itll be interesting to see where thats followed up on.

Ray: This continues to be the most bizarre Harley run weve had yetwhere else can you see Bud and Lou possessed by cosmic entities? As Harley kicks the hijackers out of her beloved hyenas, they return to Lady Quark, who creates another new attempt to bring Harley under controla powerful Harley AI that travels the multiverse targeting her counterparts. Harley is forced to align with another bizarre allyrobot detective Lux Kirby, who takes her on a trip through the multiverse to find other Harleys who have been targeted. Despite the truly bizarre plot in this issue, I did enjoy a lot of the quieter moments, including the reunion between Harley and Ivy even if the crisis is far from over.

The backup was bizarre in a very different way, as Grace Ellis and Steve Lieber take Harley into the comicsliterally. She explores a comic about herself, going from ad pages to script pages before finally bursting out of the page itself to confront the source of her problems. It might just be the most meta comic around.

Ray: After two issues setting up the threat of Blue Earth, Amalak, and a mysterious Kryptonian plague, this issue nicely dials things back for a fairly emotional issue as Paige holes up in the Fortress of Solitude seeking answers. While Omen deals with Blue Earth rioters back in Metropolis, Paige bonds with an elderly Kryptonian lion named Hamlet who is nearing the natural end of his lifeand the inevitable extinction of his species. As the animal isolates itself before the end comes, Paige tries to offer it comfort and find some herself. But this is the DCU, and its never long before the outside world comes calling. The dark moments in this issue are nicely balanced by some positive concepts about the way we all play a role in the world, but I do think the creative team is still struggling to figure out where Paige fits in the DCU and in the Super-familywhich is, of course, the meta point of the series.

Ray: As Terry and Kyle reach the core of the Garden and are confronted by a trio of DCs most iconic plant-based superheroes and villains, it becomes clear that this situation is far more than it first appeared to be. Its not a simple case of missing children but rather a cosmic-level threat led by a surprising face. As the truth of John Constantines involvement in the world under Gotham is revealed, Kyle comes into his own as a hero. The cat-human boy hybrid has been the most interesting part of the story, as he might become Terrys first real partner in the fieldassuming that both of them survive a cosmic battle for Gotham. On the surface, Donovan Lumos, the corrupt metahuman corporate titan, puts his plan into actionand accidentally potentially unleashes an apocalypse just in time for the final issue. This series may be a bit too chaotic at times, but its definitely an interesting ride.

Ray: The last of the three Asian-American heroes introduced as part of a new initiative for DC, City Boy has flown a little under-the-radar but has a fascinating set of powers and a compelling backstory. While the main villainwhose name calls back to his true origins or identitywas a hateable figure, Cameron is both the hero of the story and its biggest threat, as his grief over his abusive mother passing away without giving him closure spirals out of control and threatens to envelop the world. As all the cast of the cities he visitedBatman, Superman, Nightwing, and Swamp Thingunite to save their cities and guide Cameron out of the void, the Intergang plot almost feels forgotten, with the villains beating a hasty retreat. However, the final moments of the issue pack a real emotional punch as Cameron is finally able to find some peace with the help of his new allies.

Ray: This series has been doing some very interesting things with the concepts of transhumanism and AI, as Cyborg finds himself up against a villain who comes from the brain patterns of his fathers rival Markusall the while Markus is still alive and being hunted by himself. While the new entity Solace makes a powerful villain, its also hard to disagree with himthe concept of a being being created as a mental double, but confined to a robot body and forced to serve the real person is rather horrifying and just asking for a robot rebellion. And thats exactly what Markus getscausing Cyborg to call in backup from the Titans. The Fearsome Five, now with some reinforcements, provide the main threat this issue, but the larger plot involving Markus and Solace are in full swing by the end of the issueleading to whats sure to be a tense finale.

Ray: Nikolas Draper-Ivey brings down the curtain on his second Static miniseries with an issue that reveals the mastermind behind the Bang Baby hunters who have been torturing Rubber-Band Man and killed Statics young friend Quincyand its a surprising twist that casts a dark pall on the earlier issues of the series. As Static and Ebon confront the villains behind the entire plot, the two former enemies find an uneasy understandingone that continues even after the immediate threat is vanquished. These two characters, on opposite sites of the law but driven by the same central goal to protect the innocent, have been the heart of this series and Im hoping to see more of their dynamic in the future. The final scene, set at Quincys funeral, feels like its commenting on some very real and hard-to-talk-about things. Im not sure whats next for Static, but Im hoping that Draper-Ivey is involved.

To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.

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Dubai to kick off ‘World’s Largest Gathering of Futurists’ tomorrow – Government of Dubai Media Office

Posted: November 26, 2023 at 12:47 pm

Dubai Future Forum, the worlds largest gathering of futurists, is set to kick off tomorrow and run for two days, November 27 and 28.

Organised by Dubai Future Foundation (DFF), the forum takes place at the Museum of the Future under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Chairman of the Executive Council and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of DFF.

The agenda includes four main themes: reimagining nature, empowering future generations, the human-machine relationship, and transformations in human life.

More than 150 speakers from the UAE and around the world will participate in 70 panel discussions and keynote speeches, in addition to workshops covering areas such as space, sustainability, environment, energy, food, health, medicine, education, technology, artificial intelligence, digital economy, governance, and many others. The forum will be attended by more than 2,500 futurists from 100 countries, in addition to around 100 international institutions.

Day 1 The first day of the two-day forum will host panel discussions, keynotes, fireside chats, workshops, and more, bringing together an array of specialists, including: His Excellency Ambassador Majid Al-Suwaidi, Director General & Special Representative of the UAE COP28 Presidency; Dr. Sultan Al Neyadi, Astronaut at Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC); Hazza Al Mansouri, Astronaut at MBRSC; Stephen Bowen, Astronaut at NASA; Warren Hoburg, Astronaut at NASA; and Paul Savo, Assistant Professor at Stanford University.

Speakers will discuss topics such as the currency of the future, innovations in the energy sector, the role of strategic foresight in developing future policies, and preparing for the era of artificial intelligence.

Day 2 Her Excellency Ohood Al Roumi, UAE Minister of State for Government Development and Future, will start the second day with a keynote address on how to develop effective, sustainable policies. She will be followed by another keynote speech from Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen, CEO, Founder and Chairwoman of Openwater, in which she will discuss revolutionizing disease diagnosis and cures.

The second and final day will also host: Prof. Marc Buckley, Regenerative Futurist, ALOHAS Regenerative Foundation; whurley (William Hurley), Founder and CEO of Strangeworks; Prof. Matthew Agarwala from the University of Cambridge; Laurel Patterson from UNDP; Daniel Blume from the OECD and Dr. Grzegorz Ombach from Airbus; in addition to several artists.

They will discuss quantum computing, how nations will define success in the future, how nature and tech will change city planning, how we can foster ethical algorithmic decision-making, and what travel will look like in 2071. In addition, a workshop on day two will witness the launch of the UNICEF Youth Foresight Playbook.

Activations On the sidelines of the Dubai Future Forum, Dubai Future Labs and its partners at Japan Science and Technology Agency and the MIT Senseable Dubai Lab will showcase work across robotics and automation as well as leveraging data to better understand our urban landscape.

Another activation will present a unique opportunity to safely taste cultivated meat, chocolate created in a lab, as well as eggs and milk produced completely animal-free, as part of putting the future of food to the taste test.

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Destroying the Space Station Will Cost NASA $1 Billion – Futurism

Posted: at 12:47 pm

It's going out with a bang. Totaled Recall

The International Space Station has been continuously hosting astronauts for 23 long years now and its age is really starting to show, including in the form of cracks and leaks.

Now, NASA is discussing how best to dispose of the station in the early 2030s. And the price tag of the plan is staggering.

As Scientific American reports, the space agency estimates that it'll likely cost almost $1 billion to safely decommission the ISS,inducing it to harmlessly burn up in the Earth's atmosphere. That price is likely inflated due to the agency's refusal to use Russian vehicles, per the report, a complicating factor given the station's reliance on these craft.

The plan will also mark the end of decades of peaceful scientific cooperation in our planet's orbit, a symbol of international unity, especially when it comes to US-Russia relations.

"In terms of civilian cooperation, I think many would describe it as the biggest project ever embarked upon in human history," Maia Cross, a political scientist at Northeastern University, told SciAm.

Broadly speaking, there are two options to get the ISS out of orbit. Engineers could either simply have the station plummet uncontrollably towards the Earth's atmosphere or they could orchestrate a more careful descent, using a special spacecraft to point it in the right direction.

In the case of the former, there's a risk of giant pieces of space station striking populated areas back on the ground.

"An uncontrolled reentry could significantly impact people on the ground, including fatalities, injuries and significant property damage," George Nield, president of the company Commercial Space Technologies, told SciAm.

Either way, scientists now have the task of minimizing the amount of debris that could fall on people down below, which is far easier said than done since the station orbits the entire planet every 90 minutes.

Ideally, it should stay pointed in the right direction as it's burning up in the atmosphere, which is made even harder by the uneven and unpredictable thickness of the Earth's protective layer.

As a result, NASA will have to develop and construct a custom-built vehicle that's powerful enough to deorbit and also accompany the station as it makes its descent.

Even with the help of Russia's Progress vehicles, it still would be a "challenge," Nield told SciAm, but given worsening US-Russia relations, even that option isn't on the table.

But if there's one certainty, it's that the ISS will go out with a bang, a bright inferno in the sky marking the bittersweet end to decades of international cooperation and scientific breakthroughs.

More on the ISS: NASA Astronauts Let a Tool Bag Drift Away and You Can Now Spot It With Binoculars

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These Futuristic Treehouses in the Cotswolds Are Now Available to … – Time Out UK

Posted: at 12:47 pm

Theres just something about trees. Theyre beautiful, obviously, and after being among them you somehow come away feeling so much more relaxed and peaceful. Tree huggers are definitely onto something.

Its one thing going on a woodland walk, but how about spending a few days fully submerged in the forest? Soon, youll be able to go to the Cotswolds to do just that.

TreeDwellers is apparently the UKs first treehouse specialist and in March it is launching a collection of seven amazing treehouses within Cornbury Park, an ancient woodland that is over 1,000 years old.

The curved, futuristic properties, each elevated three feet above the forest floor, are designed to elevate the senses and encourage guests to move from the beta brainwaves of the high alert to the alpha brainwaves of the calm and restful.

As well as some classic luxuries like a freestanding bath, a hamper of local treats, a private outdoor shower and a wood-burning stove, there are a few extra features that take the experience to a whole other level.

Theres a tablet to connect you to a concierge team, an on-site shop, meditation tracks available through the sound system and a yoga platform. Most intriguing of all, theres a forest megaphone a nine-metre wooden structure that is meant to enhance the soundtrack of the forest. Guests are encouraged to sit in there and bathe in the forest audio, inspired by the popular practice of shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) in Japan. Sounds like some seriously hardcore relaxing.

Here are some more renders of what the rentals will look like.

The treehouses sleep either two or four guests and start from 210 a night (minimum two night stay). They are available to book here.

If youre pining for a getaway among the flora and fauna, check out our roundup of some more of the UKs most incredible treehousesthat you can actually stay in. And here are five more outdoorsy retreatsfor ultimate unwinding and reconnecting with the natural world.

Did yousee thatthe UKs pizza of the year has been crowned?

ICYMI:This picturesque town has been voted the UKs best place to visit at Christmas

Stay in the loop: sign up to ourfree Time Out UK newsletterfor the latest UK news and the best stuff happening across the country.

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These Futuristic Treehouses in the Cotswolds Are Now Available to ... - Time Out UK

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Scientists Test "Caviar," Alarmed by What They Find – Futurism

Posted: at 12:47 pm

Bad news for sturgeons. Ersatz Eggs

Sorry, Europeans: your delectable and pricey caviar comes with a huge caveat. According to new research, half of it is illegal and in fact may not even be caviar at all.

As detailed in a new study published in the journal Current Biology, a team of researchers examined nearly 150 samples of commercial caviar and sturgeon meat from four European nations Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and Ukraine near some of the last remaining wild populations of the fish species.

To begin with, they found that some of the fish eggs contained zero traces of sturgeon which as any gastronome will eagerly tell you, means that they don't technically count as caviar, but as merely roe.

More pressingly, however, is their legality. Sturgeon are critically endangered, and thus only caviar coming from farmed sturgeon is allowed to be sold internationally. But the staggering proportion of illegal samples identified by the researchers suggests that efforts to protect wild species of the fish are falling deeply short.

"Our results indicate an ongoing demand for wild sturgeon products, which is alarming, since these products endanger wild sturgeon populations," the researchers wrote in the study.

Found only in the Danube River and the Black Sea, just four species of caviar-producing sturgeon remain in Europe, and all of them have been protected by the Convention on International Trade In Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) since 1998.

In spite of that formal protection, though, an analysis of the samples' DNA and isotope patterns revealed that an alarming 21 percent of the caviar came from wild sturgeons which is very fishy and very illegal.

Before proceeding, a salve for the wounded caviar connoisseur: just three samples still a notable two percent, mind you turned out to be total fakes coming from catfish and perch rather than sturgeon.

Still, 29 percent of these products violated CITES regulations by labeling the caviar with incorrect information on its species and country of origin, while a total 32 percent constituted outright "consumer deception" in most cases meaning that they were marketed as being "wild" when they actually came from a fish farm.

According to the researchers, it's sort of an open secret over there that these "wild" products, fake or not, get sold with little pushback. That such a demand exists should give lawmakers and conservationists considerable pause. And, as the researchers note, European regulators can't cry foul and shift the blame to foreign poaching, because the illegal fishing is happening right at home.

"Although poaching and illegal wildlife trade are often considered a problem in developing countries, these findings bear evidence that a high ratio of poached sturgeon products originates from EU and accession candidate states," the researchers wrote. "The control of caviar and sturgeon trade in the EU and candidate member states urgently needs improvement to ensure that Danube sturgeon populations will have a future."

More on fishing: People Are "Fishing" by Just Throwing Dynamite in the Water

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