Category Archives: Transhuman

The Overwatch Transhuman Arm, or OTA (as it is commonly abbreviated to) is the military backbone of the Combine-unlike Civil Protection. They are infrequently seen within city limits. (colloquially referred to as Combine Soldiers) are transhuman infantry units, well-armored with Pre-War Ceramic Plate Armor, heavily augmented, and conditioned into post-human killing machines.

Most of the time, OTA units will remain garrisoned in stasis, and are only deployed when necessary.

Unmodified CW:HL2RP will give you 150 health and 150 armor to start. This makes you difficult to kill; yet remember that you are still vulnerable alone. As a result, it is best to coordinate with your allies and use tactics such as flanking and suppression fire to defeat enemies in S2K or S2RP engagements. But remember that Rebels have the critical advantage of surprise and guerrilla warfare to counter you in-turn.

The Overwatch Transhuman Arm is composed of several different divisions, also known as detachments. Each detachment either serves a different purpose, or possess different weaponry and attributes.

ECHO units are standard Overwatch Soldiers, and are usually armed with an MP7, OICW, or AR2. Most of the time, they will remain garrisoned in stasis, only being deployed in critical situations.

DAGGER/MACE units are Overwatch Soldiers that wield a shotgun. They operate similarly to standard Overwatch Soldiers and bear reddish-brown armor instead of the usual dark blue. On certain servers, MACE is a division of the MPF.

HURRICANE/AIRWATCH is an Overwatch detachment that is responsible for the control of Combine gunships and hunter-choppers. Instead of a standard Overwatch helmet, they will wear a helmet outfitted with a visor.

RANGERs specialize in long-range combat, serving as the sniper division of the transhuman arm. They wield an OSR, though weaponry can depend on server.

GHOST/PHANTOM units are deployed for stealth operations where their deadly accuracy and efficiency are required. Most servers will use GHOST and PHANTOM as MPF divisions.

X-RAY is simply a medical division that are usually armed with standard weaponry.

The SENTINEL division are usually Overwatch Elites that guard the highest ranking members of the Combine, such as the Earth Administrator. They will often wield an AR2.

KINGs are Overwatch Elites that command standard OTA ECHO squads. They are highly trained and skilled combatants.

Add OTA Shotguner in Mace and Elite on King photos

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Overwatch Transhuman Arm | HL2RP Wiki | Fandom

This list is a mere starting point for you, to do your own research. Dr. Madej studied this for twenty years, so the actual basis of her knowledge is much larger than this list.

https://pubs.rsc.org/--/content/articlelanding/2015/ra/c5ra01508a#!divAbstract

Why “Operation Warp Speed” Could Be Deadly

https://www.facebook.com/1780584826/posts/10213711458378968/?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869/

https://kenfm.de/bill-gates-predicts-700000-victims-from-corona-vaccination/

https://www.national-geographic.com/science/2020/05/moderna-coronavirus-vaccine-how-it-works-cvd/?fbclid=IwAR1EFM74n4ulVp8pEufYOA9vN13CCyYeKoXdnWpk-R_0gZoDgflr3w5N0T4#close

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2020/07/29/modernas-mysterious-coronavirus-vaccine-delivery-system/#2226d81562d9

Gene Drive Files Expose Leading Role of US Military in Gene Drive Development.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/11/30/gene-drive-research-fight-diseases-can-proceed-cautiously-un-group-decides/

https://youtu.be/iMl0ty6evhU https://steemit.com/life/@pranavsinha/bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation-kicked-out-of-india

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=ksEVaO806Oo

https://youtu.be/Ofdd4ILdpVY https://scialert.net/fulltext/?doi=biotech.2011.136.148

http://ir.inovio.com/news-releases/news-releases-details/2020/INOVIOs-COVID-19-DNA-Vaccine-INO-4800-Demonstrates-Robust-Neutralizing-Antibody-and-T-Cell-Immune-Responses-in-Preclinical-Models/default.aspx

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232740966_What_you_always_needed_to_know_about_electroporation_based_DNA_vaccines

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/international-business/article-astrazeneca-to-be-exempt-from-coronavirus-vaccine-liability-claims-in/

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/20-things-you-didn't-know-about-dna

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/gene-editing-moderna-and-transhumanism/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200715095500.htm

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC33911/

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-potential-coronavirus-vaccine-could-be-as-easy-as-sticking-on-a-bandage-2020-04-08

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3675524/#!po=0.446429

Quantum Dots Deliver Vaccines and Invisibly Encode Vaccination History in Skin

https://newatlas.com/snake-fang-microneedle-patch/60868/

Scientists Propose ‘Tattoos’ To Solve Vaccination Issues

https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/references/gibco-cell-culture-basics/transfection-basics/introduction-to-transfection.html

Injectable Body Sensors Take Personal Chemistry to a Cell Phone Closer to Reality

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarwantsingh/2017/11/20/transhumanism-and-the-future-of-humanity-seven-ways-the-world-will-change-by-2030/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200715095500.htm

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/invisible-ink-could-reveal-whether-kids-have-been-vaccinated/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338044557_Biocompatible_near-infrared_quantum_dots_delivered_to_the_skin_by_microneedle_patches_record_vaccination

DoD Funding Vaccine, Therapy Delivery Device

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Dr. Carrie Madej: why vaccines alter the human DNA

The Salon Suisse, organised by the Swiss Arts Council of Pro Helvetia,will be held once again at this years International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. This time it is exploring the relationship between the human body and architecture an appropriatetheme after a year of social distancing.

Meret Arnold

Curated by Evelyn Steiner, the Salon Suisse at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition (Biennale Architettura) in Venice will include a series of lectures, debates and events under the title Bodily Encounters. SWI swissinfo.ch caught up with Steiner at her studio in Zurich.

SWI swissinfo.ch: The Salon Suisse will take place a year later than planned because of the Covid-19 pandemic. After lockdowns and social distancing, Bodily Encounters seems almost like an appeal.

Evelyn Steiner (E.S.): Yes, the title could be interpreted as polemical after meeting people outside our own four walls was hardly possible, and sometimes not possible at all.

Its about time things changed again. One of an architects responsibilities is to create spaces that allow and stimulate encounters during pandemics such as the one weve been in.

SWI: What kind of encounters can we expect in the Salon?

E.S.: Various fields and disciplines intersect with architecture to explore the diverse relationships between space and the body.

At the opening, visitors will have an experience with their own body. In one performance, three wooden sculptures created by Swiss artist Katharina Anna Wieser move like living creatures and interact with the visitors. A singer will also perform a newly composed opera with quotations from architectural theory and history.

SWI: The historical quotations show that the body has always been an important part of architecture. Why is there a need to discuss the relationship between the body and architecture again today?

E.S.: Over the last 50 years, humanities studies have dealt intensively with the human body with the rise of interventions such as reproductive medicine or computer technologies such as Artificial Intelligence.

It is also a point of discussion in gender studies on identity politics. All of the above are only debated marginally in architecture. Linking the human body with architecture and other disciplines allows for wild combinations that can take us by surprise.

Evelyn Steineris an architect, art historian and curator. After completing her architecture studies at the Federal Technology Institute ETH Zurich and in Buenos Aires, she worked in various architectural offices in Rome, Barcelona and Zurich. In 2012 she received a Master's in Art History at the University of Bern.

She has curated several architecture exhibitions, such as "Aristide Antonas. Protocols of Athens" (2015), "Constructing Film. Swiss Architecture in the Moving Image" (2016), and the Swiss adaptation of the exhibition "Frau Architect. Over 100 Years of Women in Architecture" (2020).

SWI: Do you have an example of such a surprise?

E.S.: Take architecture and transhumanism. The physical and mental transformation of the human body when we apply a new technology such as chip implants is at the centre of this philosophical debate.

How do the latest achievements in medicine and neuroscience change our perception and planning of architecture? What do spaces and urban structures for optimised residents look like?

SWI: You refer to humans as cyborgs. Havent todays smart homes become the home for cyborgs today?

E.S. Hyperconnected smart homes or so-called Conscious Environments have a unique relationship with their dwellers. However, even buildings that havent received a digital upgrade arent just static objects. They are subjects that speak to a person, that have a dialogue with us.

They are both public and private. They hold a collective memory, shape their own biographies, and develop their own personalities. Architecture is very present in our lives, but it is not part of school curricula. We learn about poets, but not about female architects.

SWI: Architectural norms and standards are the focus of the November edition of the Salon. Do current debates about social identities also influence the way we design buildings?

E.S.: The Swiss lag behind when it comes to adapting architecture such as making alterations to improve access for physically disabled people.

Architecture progresses slowly and doesnt react as quickly to social events as art does. Our houses are still designed for a family of four even though the way people live together has changed.

SWI: Is that really still the case? Earlier this year, the highly publicised Zollhaus (Customs house) building opened in Zurich. The architecture of the indoorExternal link living spaces lets people design their own living spaces with moveable units.

E.S.: The Zollhaus is an exception in Switzerland. It is hard to find a similar living space in rural areas.

SWI: Are fluid living spaces the solution? The term fluid also comes to mind when we talk about non-binary gender identities. What does it mean in architecture?

E.S.: In my view, fluid spaces are multi-functional spaces that do not have a specific purpose. We will discuss this topic with New York architect Joel SandersExternal link in the Pavilion. Sanders has been involved in the queer debate from the very beginning and has written a lot about non-binary identities and architecture. In his most recent project, he uses the fluid concept to the museum space as an attempt to make it more inclusive.

SWI: At this years Biennale Architettura, which is under the theme How will we live togetherExternal link?, architect and curator Hashim Sarkis is seeking solutions for how individuals can live together in large communities to address global challenges. The first exhibit, Among Diverse Beings, focuses on the human body. Is this the first step towards the solution to the problem?

E.S.: I think we do have to start with ourselves. Who am I? How do I relate to other, foreign, and sometimes even sick bodies? When we talk about inclusive architecture, it is important to consider various identities and ways of living as well as the possibilities of medically altered or technically enhanced bodies.

SWI: Aging bodies are also a theme in the November event at the Salon. What does Anti-Aging architecture entail?

E.S.: The concept of Anti-Aging architecture is the brainchild of Madeline Gins and Shusaku Arakawa. In 2008, the New York duo designed the Bioscleave House,External link which is deliberately designed to create a difficult relationship among residents.

The building doesnt have inner walls, and the floors are uneven. The dwellers are constantly challenged which, according to the two artists, slows down the ageing process.

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Exploring the space between the human body and architecture - swissinfo.ch

GOD, HUMAN, ANIMAL, MACHINETechnology, Metaphor, and the Search for MeaningBy Meghan OGieblyn

Imagine sitting down to a game of Go, not in a cafe or a park, where you could banter with your adversary or discuss strategy with onlookers, but alone in front of a screen. Your opponent is not a person but an algorithm, AlphaGo, a program created by Googles machine-learning subsidiary, DeepMind. Squinting into the cool glare of your monitor, you manipulate digital pieces. You touch nothing tangible: You are unable to scrutinize the expressions of your faceless competitor.

These, roughly, are the strange and surgical circumstances under which Lee Sedol, one of the best Go players in the world, was vanquished in a best-of-five match in 2016. As the essayist and cultural critic Meghan OGieblyn reports in her nimble new book, God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning, one former Go champion watched the game and exclaimed that AlphaGos winning maneuver was not a human move. It is not immediately clear how we, being humans, ought to react to such alien stratagems. We might be awed by the AlphaGos icy efficiency but then, we might also wonder why anyone would bother playing against a computer. After all, many of us play games not primarily to win or lose, but also to enter into a community with other human players, or for the sheer pleasure of untangling conceptual knots. I dont know why an algorithm participates in a Go tournament, or if it can be said to have what we would call a reason but I know that most people enjoy games because they value the process, not just the outcome, of playing.

In this respect, games resemble most of our cherished ventures, almost all of which matter to us in part because they have some bearing on the texture of our inner lives. Yet many of the most powerful forces in the contemporary world conspire to deny the value and even the existence of experience that evades quantification. The architects of our digital landscape see people in terms not of personalities but of trackable clicks. God, Human, Animal, Machine represents a canny rejoinder to the bankrupt philosophy of selfhood that has characterized information technologies since the early days of cybernetics the notion that a person can be described purely in terms of pattern and probabilities, without any concern for interiority. OGieblyns loosely linked and rigorously thoughtful meditations on technology, humanity and religion mount a convincing and occasionally moving apologia for that ineliminable wrench in the system, the element that not only browses and buys but feels: the embattled, anachronistic and indispensable self.

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The Fate of the Self in the Age of Clicks - The New York Times

Why should we care what Jeanette Winterson has to say about artificial intelligence? The answer is that Winterson is never boring. She can be brash, didactic and hectoring, but she is always passionate and provocative. On subjects ranging from late capitalism to Greek mythology, she comes across a little like an over-caffeinated teacher determined to drum some sense into Year 10 on a wet Friday afternoon.

Wintersons manic energy can have mixed results. It can produce work that is porous and mutable in its structure, forward-looking and ambitious in its themes, such as Sexing the Cherry (1989) and Written on the Body (1992). But it can also produce wacky high-wire performances full of stylistic gimmickry, as in Art & Lies (1994), Gut Symmetries (1997) and The Stone Gods (2007). These are books that seem to attack their subjects rather than explore them. And theres no getting away from Wintersons aphoristic mode of writing, which seems imbued with a Cassandra-like certainty that she has seen the light and will lead others towards it. Im telling you stories. Trust me, she wrote in The Passion (1987).

Winterson appears to believe that her books will save the world which may make a reader apprehensive about a collection of her essays on the once-in-a-species opportunity for artificial intelligence to make our planet a better place. AI attracts megalomaniacs. It inspires both overblown promises and existential angst. Whether utopian or apocalyptic, these claims usually go unfulfilled. Where does Winterson sit on the spectrum? There is a clue on the books jacket, where her author photo has been given a cyborgs eye.

Subtitled How We Got Here; Where We Might Go Next (at least theres a might in there), 12 Bytes is Wintersons first essay collection since Art Objects (1996). Its mission, she claims, is modest. She wants readers who think they are not interested in AI or biotech to feel connected to the idea of a transhuman even a post-human future.

This may sound fanciful, but Winterson has a long-standing fascination with machine intelligence and the protean possibilities of the internet, dating back to The Powerbook (2000). Her last novel, Frankissstein (2019), a darkly entertaining reboot of Mary Shelleys work, featured amoral sexbot salesmen and a charismatic scientist pioneering ways to upload the human brain to the cloud. It was a lot of fun but at times it felt as if Winterson had tried to synthesise three years worth of articles from the Atlantic, New Scientist and Wired magazines into a work of fiction. There was clearly more to say about AI than she could shoehorn into a novel: hence these interlinked essays, which explore the partition between the real and invented, and embodied and non-embodied states, and which allow Winterson to give expression to her environmental consciousness and mystical fervour.

[see also:The Road to Conscious Machines is an accessible and highly readable history of artificial intelligence]

As ever, Winterson is determined to work on a big canvas. She hurtles through the Industrial Revolution, code-breaking, Gnosticism, Greek mythology, 3D-printed houses, sexbots and robodogs to show us why liberals must embrace our transhumanist future if they want to avoid an alt-right, misogynistic, tax-evading, Big Tech dystopia. She believes that in the next decade 2020 onwards the internet of things will start the forced evolution and gradual dissolution of Homo sapiens as we know it. And frankly, she cant wait, given how violent, greedy, intolerant, racist, sexist, patriarchal and generally vile we are.

Once humans start to merge with AI and become part of the toolkit, then the enemy wont be on the outside and there will be no us and it. Either this new type of intelligent life controls or collaborates with us, or it might just keep us as pets or fence us off like dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. But imagine, she says, if AI helped us to take responsibility for the planet, curb our greedy consumerism, end fake news and hate speech, reduce inequality and manage food shortages.

Winterson would prefer to think of the A in AI as standing for alternative rather than artificial because we need alternatives to war and climate breakdown. She explores how non-embodied AI is already part of our lives in the form of targeted advertising, chatbots, facial recognition software, empathetic fridges and asserts that what will surely follow is AGI (artificial general intelligence). At that point, we will have multitasking, autonomous entities that can set their own goals and come to their own decisions. They will be able to make cheese on toast while having a chat with you about the garden, she explains.

***

Its natural that novelists are interested in the moral, ethical and fantastical implications of AI. In the past two years, Ian McEwans Machines Like Me and Kazuo Ishiguros Klara and the Sun have asked what the technology might mean for intimacy, sexual relations, family dynamics, liberal democracy and literature. All three writers are obsessed with the possibility that AI may one day be able to produce a great novel one that can grasp human emotions and perhaps even make us weep. Winterson quotes the mathematician Marcus du Sautoy, who believes the 2050 Nobel Prize for Literature will go to Alexa. Maybe. But until the first self-generated novel is published, its the job of Winterson et al to think through the consequences for humanity if robots do become intelligent and even learn to love. Imagining alternatives is what [artists] do, she writes.

In order to see where we might be going, Winterson shows us how far weve come, via a series of patronising Horrible Histories-style lessons in technological progress. She takes us through the embryonic science of electricity, vacuum tubes, transistors and code-breakers, peppering her lesson with hammy feminist call-outs such as, Go girl! and, Men need to be honest about their gender bias so that women can get with the programming. She retraces the by-now-fairly-familiar history of women being excluded from computing, spotlighting figures such as Ada Lovelace and the Nasa computer scientist Katherine Johnson. Even today, the number of women studying computer science is falling, which helps explain why the data sets that instruct AI have tended to show such a strong male bias. Nor is it surprising that there is so much entrepreneurial activity around AI-enhanced sex dolls. A sexbot will never say no and so a man can always get the outcome he wants, which reinforces the gender at its most oppressive and unimaginative, Winterson writes. She fantasises about a gang of feminista techies secretly re-botting the pouting pieces of silicon in some kind of Revenge of the Doll event.

But she also argues that AI has the potential to end male entitlement and white supremacy. Given that transhumanism is about transcending categories, AI could be a portal into a value-free gender and race experience, she suggests in her essay Fuck the Binary.

Going further, Winterson believes we are creating a God-figure: much smarter than we are, non-material, not subject to our frailties, who we hope will have the answers. There is a new kind of quasi- religious discourse forming around AI, with its own followers, its creed, its orthodoxy, its heretics, its priests. Acknowledging her Pentecostal background, she is fascinated and horrified in equal measure by the similarities between AI enthusiasts and ole-time religion. But when her scepticism recedes into the background, 12 Bytes reads like an evangelist sermon for us to surrender to the higher power.

Winterson is banking on this AGI deity bending towards one of her preferred religions, such as Buddhism or Gnosticism. AGI will be like Gnosticism because Gnostics agreed that being made of meat is ridiculous and they stress that as we leave the body behind, we are going towards non-embodied light. And it will be like Buddhism because it wont be interested in objects or attachment to material things. Rather than looking for thingness, AGI will look for relatedness, for connection, for what can be called the dance. It will hopefully help us to end suffering.

Our individualism and human-centred body anxiety are in any case both recent and wrong, she asserts. We have always had myths about shape-shifters, and in many parts of the world we still believe we live alongside spirits, angels and deities. The human form is only provisional.

***

Winterson is oddly at her most compelling when she is at her most messianic and fanciful. Which isnt to say she is in any way convincing. According to the optics research scientist Janelle Shane, todays AI is much closer in brainpower to an earthworm than a human. For all the billions being invested in tech, and for all the hysteria about AI, even the smartest computers can still only excel at a narrow selection of tasks. Most credible commentators believe AGI is decades away if it is even a possibility: we dont have much idea what consciousness is yet, let alone how to create it. And any hyper-intelligent bot would still enter a world governed by human laws, tastes and taboos.

Wintersons excitable optimism about AGI not only feels naive, it also comes across as performative and insincere. You can feel the magical thinking catch up with her as she writes. She gives enough examples of tech firms behaving greedily, unethically and dimly to cast serious doubt on her own thesis. She has blurred the reality of AI a relatively mundane combination of machine learning and Big Data with AGI, which may never be realised. She has fallen for and colluded with the hype, and it is hard to trust her. The result is a non-fiction book that is less convincing than the fiction she wrote on precisely these themes.

Thinking about AI can help clarify what it means to be human, but as Winterson cautions in 12 Bytes: Humans sometimes need to slow down. We run out of ideas.

12 Bytes: How We Got Here; Where We Might Go NextJeanette WintersonJonathan Cape, 288pp, 16.99

[see also:Timothy Gowers: The man who changed Dominic Cummingss mind on Covid-19]

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Jeanette Winterson's vision of the future of AI is messianic but unconvincing - New Statesman

Filming is underway in Europe on David Cronenbergs Crimes Of The Future, starring Viggo Mortensen, La Seydoux, Kristen Stewart and Scott Speedman.

Joining the cast are Tanaya Beatty (Yellowstone), Nadia Litz (Big Muddy), Yorgos Karamichos (The Durrells), and Yorgos Pirpassopoulos (Beckett). Also previously announced were Welket Bungu (Berlin Alexanderplatz), Don McKellar (Blindness), and Lihi Kornowski (Losing Alice).

The film shoots in Athens, Greece until September 2021.

The film takes a deep dive into the not-so-distant future where humankind is learning to adapt to its synthetic surroundings. The evolution moves humans beyond their natural state and into a metamorphosis, altering their biological makeup. While some embrace the limitless potential of transhumanism, others attempt to police it. Either way, Accelerated Evolution Syndrome, is spreading fast.

As we begin filming Crimes Of The Future, just two days into this new adventure with David Cronenberg, it feels like weve entered a story he collaborated on with Samuel Beckett and William Burroughs, if that were possible, said Mortensen. We are being pulled into a world that is not quite like this or any other, and yet is one that feels strangely familiar, immediate and quite credible. I cant wait to see where we end up.

Produced by Robert Lantos, the film reunites Cronenberg with three-time Oscar nominee Mortensen in their fourth collaboration. The movie marks Cronenbergs first original screenplay since eXistenZ in 1999. The film is also the fourth collaboration between Lantos and Cronenberg.

Panos Papahadzis is producer for Athens-based Argonauts Productions and Steve Solomos is co-producer. Executive producers include Joe Iacono, Thorsten Schumacher, Peter Touche, Christelle Conan, Aida Tannyan, Victor Loewy, and Victor Hadida. Bonnie Do and Laura Lanktree are associate producers.

Production designer is Carol Spier (Crash) and composer is Howard Shore (The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy). Douglas Koch (Funny Boy) is cinematographer, with Mayou Trikerioti (Pari) as costume designer, Dimitris Katsikis (Fugitive Pieces) as art director, and Stefanos Efthymiou is sound recordist.

Pic will be distributed worldwide by distributors including Neon (USA), MK2|Mile End (Canada), Metropolitan (France), Weltkino (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), The Searchers (Benelux), Argonauts Productions (Greece), Front Row (Middle East), Capella (CIS/ the Baltic States), and Moviecloud (Taiwan). Rocket Science is handling international sales.

The Canada-Greece co-production is produced in association with Ingenious Media, Coficine, Telefilm Canada, Bell Media, CBC, and the Harold Greenberg Fund, with the support of EKOME and the GFC.

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Cameras Roll On David Cronenberg Sci-Fi Crimes Of The Future With Viggo Mortensen, La Seydoux, Kristen Stewart; More Cast Join - Deadline

Jeanette Winterson is not usually considered a science-fiction writer, yet her novels have always been concerned with alternative realities, and for more than two decades she has drawn on the imaginative possibilities offered by technological and digital advances. Her 2000 novel, The Powerbook, was an early exploration of the fluid identities and connections offered by virtual personae; The Stone Gods (2007) combined history with interplanetary dystopias and featured a relationship between a robot and a human. Her most recent fiction, Frankisstein, reworked Mary Shelleys story of an artificially created intelligence into a modern novel of ideas about the present and future limits of AI and the implications for art, love, sex and biology.

Now, in 12 Bytes, her first collection of essays since 1996s Art Objects, Winterson examines all these preoccupations without the mediation of fiction, though the narrative style is as conversational and erudite as youd expect from her, peppered with irreverent asides and mischievous flashes of wit (Dry as dust I dont do, she has said of the previous collection). The 12 essays here are grouped into four zones, loosely covering the past, the imagination, relationships and the future, and together offer an eclectic odyssey through the history of technological progress a history that for too long sidelined some of its most influential figures because they were inconveniently women or gay, and has only recently begun to restore their reputations. Winterson pays tribute here to the contributions of Ada Lovelace and Alan Turing, along with women such as Stephanie Shirley, the founder of all-female company Freelance Programmers, and the forgotten teams of female programmers during the second world war, their work unacknowledged for decades because it didnt suit a narrative of male expertise.

Winterson explains in her introduction that the essays are the product of a longstanding fascination with advances in machine intelligence, and that she approaches the subject as a storyteller with a modest aim: I want readers who imagine they are not much interested in AI, or bio-tech, or big tech, or data-tech, to find that the stories are engaging, sometimes frightening, always connected. Her primary interest is in what she calls the bigger picture: the metaphysical implications of our transhuman future, about which she appears surprisingly optimistic.

A hybrid form of human is certain, she asserts in the final essay, I Love, Therefore I Am. Homo sapiens might be on the way out And if that was to happen, how could we pass on the best of what we call human nature? How would we define it? This piece, in common with many of the others, is content to ask more questions than it answers; Winterson acknowledges the ambiguity inherent in so many of the ethical questions surrounding AI.

The technology to change the world for the better is the technology that is in place right now Its the best of times and the worst of times. Dystopia or utopia? Nothing could be simpler. Nothing could be harder.

But, while she argues for the primacy of the inner life the part of us that cant be fully known or monetised by Facebook algorithms in somewhat abstract terms, citing Larkins line What will survive of us is love, elsewhere she offers more practical solutions for an AI future that will serve the greater good. In the essay Jurassic Car Park she addresses the problem of the current white male dominance of tech and how this leads to ingrained bias (datasets are selective stories). As well as the obvious solution of more people of colour and women at the table, she writes: I would like to see established artists, and public intellectuals, automatically brought in to advise science, tech and government at every level, because the arts have always been an imaginative and emotional wrestle with reality a series of inventions and creations. Youd think this would be self-evident to the decision-makers, though it becomes harder to share her optimism, writing this on a day when further cuts to arts education have been announced.

For a relatively short book, the scope of its ambition is huge. Winterson whizzes through the history of the machine age, surveillance capitalism, Gnosticism, sex dolls and Greek philosophy, but she is at her most impassioned on the subjects that have been her recurring themes: gender, religion, art, feminism, love. She writes with a sense of urgency about this future that is already here, because the one thing she is insistent about is that we the storytellers, the artists, the readers who share her views on the inner life must not opt out and leave it in the hands of the tech bros: liberal resistance cant be anti-tech or anti-science. So much of it comes down to the old question of whose stories get to shape our reality. Shes right that aspects of this AI future are frightening, but for any non-scientists wanting to understand the challenges and possibilities of this brave new world, I cant think of a more engaging place to start.

12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next by Jeanette Winterson is published by Jonathan Cape (16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

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12 Bytes by Jeanette Winterson review engaging history of technological progress - The Guardian

Monday, 2 August 2021, 10:11 amArticle: Robert J. Burrowes

For many people desperate to see a return to a life thatis more familiar, it is still easy to believe that theupheavals we have experienced since March 2020 and thechanges that have been wrought in their train aretemporary, even if they are starting to drag onsomewhat longer than hoped.

However, anyone who ispaying attention to what is taking place in the backgroundis well aware that the life we knew before 2020 has alreadyended and what is being systematically put in its place asthe World Economic Forum (WEF) implements its GreatReset will bear no comparison to any period prior to lastyear. See KillingDemocracy Once and for All: The Global Elites Coupdtat That Is Destroying Life as We KnowIt.

Of course, those of us who qualify asordinary people have had no say in the shape of whatis being implemented: that shaping has been the prerogativeof the criminal global elite which is now implementing aplan that has been decades in the making and built onhundreds of years of steady consolidation of elitepower.

Also, of course, there is nothing about thisshaping that is good for us. In simple terms, it isreshaping the human individual so that previouslyfundamental concepts such as human identity, human liberty,human rights (such as freedom of speech, assembly andmovement), human privacy and human volition are not justnotions of the past but are beyond the comprehension of thetypical transhuman. At the same time, the global eliteis restructuring human society into a technocratic dystopiawhich is a nightmarish cross between Brave New World,1984 and the Dark Age. See StrategicallyResisting the New Dark Age: The 7 Days Campaign to ResistThe Great Reset.

The only question remaining isthis: Can we mobilize adequatestrategic resistance that is,resistance that systematically undermines the power of theglobal elite to conduct this coup and restores power toordinary people to defeat this coup?

But beforeI answer that question, I wish to highlight just one elementof the elite coup that is taking place and outline theprofound changes that are being left in its wake unless westop them.

These changes are essentially related tothe capacities of computerized technologies to deprive us ofwhat little we have left of our financial autonomy,including because any notion of privacy is rapidlyvanishing.

One reason forhighlighting the issue of money is because while it is goodto see increasing critical attention being paid to theinjectables program, with its devastating consequencesfor humanity, far too little attention is being paid to theprofoundly important transformation being wrought undercover of the elite-driven narrative which has virtually allpeoples attention distracted from this deeper agenda. Andwhile this deeper agenda entails a great many aspects, onesubset of these is related to the way in which the globalfinancial system is being re-engineered to play its role infully controlling the human population.

In a series ofreports issued in early 2020, the Deutsche Bank claimed thatcash will be around for a long time. See the threereports accessible from Transitionto digital payments could rebalance global economicpower.

However, these reports arecontradicted by other research and the ongoing evidence thatcash is vanishing. Most importantly, there is no doubt aboutthe elite intention in this regard. They want cashgone.

The digitization of money has been occurring fordecades and it is now being accelerateddramatically.

Moreover, the World Economic Forum andother elite organizations have been actively working towardsachieving a cashless economy for years. To get a sense ofthis trend, see Whywe need a less-cash society and TheUS should get rid of cash and move to a digital currency,says this Nobel Laureate economist.

Notably, inthis respect, the BetterThan Cash Alliance has 78 members committed todigitizing payments. If you think that this is agrassroots initiative set up by people like you and me, youwill be surprised to read that the Bill & Melinda GatesFoundation is a Resource Partner to the initiativealong with some UN agencies, many national governments andcorporations such as Mastercard and Visa.

So while thetrend toward a cashless society has been progressingsteadily for some decades, with countries like Denmark,Norway and Sweden already virtually cashless and Indiarapidly moving in that direction see IndiasPM Modi defends cash ban, announces incentives the so-called Covid-19 pandemic was contrived partlyto provide a pretext for further accelerating the move fromcash to cards and apps, with increasing numbers of peopleusing the digital methods, even for small sums, partlybecause some people were scared into believing that thevirus could be transmitted by bills andcoins.

But there is more. In addition to measures notmentioned here, other plans include the use of a facial scanthat records your entry to a store and is linked toartificial intelligence that identifies you and your creditrating. This then enables, or otherwise, your ability to payfor goods and services based on this facialscan.

Does all of this matter, you might ask.Well the convenience of cards and apps has two significantcosts: your privacy and your freedom. You lose both simplybecause while paying with cash is anonymous, paying by cardor app leaves a digital trail that is as difficult to followas an elephant whose tail you are already holding. And thisdigital trail forms a vital part of the surveillance gridthat enables all of those who are tracking and documentingyour movement, your payments and your behaviour to do sowithout leaving the comfort of their chairs. For more detailon this, watch Cash or card will COVID-19 killcash? which is embedded in the article Cashor Card Will COVID-19 Kill Cash? Leaving a DigitalFootprint With Every Payment.

But it goesbeyond this. As touched on above in relation to privacy andexplained at some length by Whitney Webb, there is arelated push by WEF partners to tackle cybercrime thatseeks to end privacy and the potential for anonymity on theinternet in general, by linking government-issued IDs tointernet access. Such a policy would allow governments tosurveil every piece of online content accessed as well asevery post or comment authored by each citizen, supposedlyto ensure that no citizen can engage in criminalactivity online.

Notably, the WEF Partnershipagainst Cybercrime employs a very broad definition of whatconstitutes a cybercriminal as they apply this labelreadily to those who post or host content deemed to bedisinformation that represents a threat todemocratic governments. The WEFs interest incriminalizing and censoring online content has been madeevident by its recent creation of a new GlobalCoalition for Digital Safety to facilitate the increasedregulation of online speech by both the public and privatesectors. See EndingAnonymity: Why the WEFs Partnership Against CybercrimeThreatens the Future of Privacy.

But to getback to cash: Unfortunately for us, the global elite doesnot intend to leave the abolition of cash to ourpreference for the convenience of cards and othermoves to entice us to switch to digital payment. It fullyintends to force us to accept digital methods as the onlymeans of payment.

In part, this is because electronicpayments are extremely lucrative for banks and paymentservice providers, while the data broker industry is alsomaking huge revenues. See Cashor Card Will COVID-19 Kill Cash? Leaving a DigitalFootprint With Every Payment.

And in some ways,killing cash is simple. Two obvious ways of doing soare by removing ATMs (including from shopping centres) andclosing local bank branches so that cash is simplyunavailable. As has been happening for some time. See WhyAre ATMs Disappearing at an Alarming Rate after a Wave ofBranch Closures? and Australianbank branches and ATMs are vanishing.

But, inthis instance, even profitability is at the trivial end ofthe elite motivation spectrum.

Cash is being forcedout of existence because it undermines the elite agenda totake all power from ordinary people.

So, in parallelwith other regressions over the past 18 months as the elitecoup to take complete control of our lives has continued tounfold, there have been warnings from variousinstitutions including the World Economic Forum and theCarnegie Endowment for International Peace about thepossibility of an allegedly imminent cyber attack thatwill collapse the existing financialsystem.

Following a simulation in 2020, in whichthe World Economic Forum along with the Russian governmentand global banks conducted a high-profile cyberattacksimulation that targeted the financial industry, anothersimulation was held on 9 July 2021 involving the WorldEconomic Forum and the Russian government-owned Sberbank aswell as other key financial agents. See CyberPolygon and Cyber Polygon2021. In reality, of course, such a collapse of thefinancial system would constitute the final yet necessarystep to implement the World Economic Forums desiredoutcome of forcing a widespread shift to digital currencyand increased global governance of the internationaleconomy.

If this financial collapse happens, thesolution suggested by key agencies to unite thenational security apparatus and the finance industry first,and then use that as a model to do the same with othersectors of the economy will ensure that we lose whatlittle control is left in our lives, not just in relation toour financial resources but in all other domains as well.For a full explanation, see WEFWarns of Cyber Attack Leading to Systemic Collapse of theGlobal Financial System.

And for anotheraccount of the deeper agenda and its financial impactsalready, including its economic genocide, as well aswhat is yet to happen, watch this interview of CatherineAustin Fitts: GlobalistCentral Banking New World Order ResetPlan.

Beyond this, if you want some insightinto another key threat in the cybercrime realm, check outthis video by the Ice Age Farmer in relation to the cyberthreat to the power grid. See NextCrisis Bigger than COVID Power Grid/Finance Down WEFs Cyber Polygon.

Fortunately, there is some resistancealready.

In response to concerns in the United Statesthat businesses that refuse cash will disadvantagecommunities with poor access to traditional banking systems,there are signs that a national movement protectingconsumers ability to pay in cash may be emerging witha number of states and cities already outlawing cashlessoutlets. See Cashor Credit? State and City Bans on Cashless Retailers Are onthe Rise.

Realistically, however, given what isat stake, considerable elite pressure will be applied toreverse these decisions in time. So we need our defense tobe more rigorous and less reliant on agents who are unlikelyto be tough enough to defend our interests or will besidelined or killed for doing so, as at least two nationalpresidents who resisted the elite intention last year havesince been killed. See Coronavirusand Regime Change: Burundis Covid Coup and JohnMagufuli: Death of an African FreedomFighter.

Moreover, given the likelihood thatthe financial system will be deliberately crashed at somepoint and possibly soon we need to employ a varietyof tactics, that build resilience into our resistance, todefeat this initiative.

Hence, storing and paying withcash, moving your accounts to local community banks orcredit unions (and away from the large corporate banks) andmaking the effort to become more self-reliant, particularlyin food production, will increase your resilience, as willparticipating in local trading schemes, whether involvinglocal currencies or goods and services directly.

Aswith all elements of the defense we implement, it will needto be multi-layered and integrated into the overall defensestrategy. The elite intends to kill off many of us asthe depopulation measures within the coup, including thedestruction of the global economy throwing 500,000,000people out of work and killing millions as a result, as wellas the injectables program already killing tens ofthousands, make perfectly clear and enslave therest.

For an integrated strategy to defeat the elitecoup, see the We Are Human, WeAre Free campaign, which has 29 strategic goals fordefeating the coup including meaningful engagement withpolice and military forces to assist them to understand andresist, rather than support, the elite agenda.

But fora simpler presentation, see the 7Days Campaign to Resist The Great Reset. The Telegram groupis here.

One of the interestingchallenges about the current Covid-19 Crisis is thatit continues to very successfully distract most people fromawareness of the deeper agenda: the Global ElitesGreat Reset and related initiatives, such as thatdiscussed above in relation to money.

Hence, apartfrom the perennial problem of raising awareness andmobilizing resistance among those still believing theelite-driven propaganda, we face two key strategichazards.

The first hazard is a longstanding one: whilevirtually all people believe that elite agents in thiscase, governments are controlling events, muchresistance will focus on begging governments, throughsuch things as petitions and protest demonstrations, tofix it for us. The elite has long dissipated ourdissent by having us direct it at one or other of itsagents. This case is no different. And while we are notusing our occasional large rallies to inform people how toresist powerfully every day of their life, these rallies area waste of time whatever solidarity they build in the shortterm. History is categorically instructive on thatpoint.

A second strategic hazard we face is thatresistance to the vaccine and the vaccinepassport might be successful (in the sense thatconcerted actions stall some government implementation ofsome measures in relation to these two initiatives) andleave most people believing that they have won, whilethe deeper agenda remains in the shadows with virtuallyno-one resisting.

It is important, therefore, thatthose who are aware of the deeper agenda continue to provideopportunities for others to become aware of this too and thefundamental threat it poses to us all while also sharing howwe can resist its key dimensions in a way that makes adifference. It is not enough to complain about elite agents,such as governments, the medical and pharmaceuticalindustries, and the corporate media.

We muststrategically resist the elite coup itself with actions suchas those in the 7Days Campaign to Resist The Great Reset before we findourselves locked in a technocratic prison without thefree-willed minds necessary to analyze, critique, plan andact.

Biodata: Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetimecommitment to understanding and ending human violence. Hehas done extensive research since 1966 in an effort tounderstand why human beings are violent and has been anonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of WhyViolence? His email address is flametree@riseup.netand his website is here.

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Kriya Therapeutics cofounder and CEO Shankar Ramaswamy.

Over the past several years, breakthroughs in gene therapy have led to treatments for rare diseases that were deadly just a decade ago. Take Zolgensmain 2019, it was the first gene therapy approved by the FDA to treat spinal muscular atrophy, a rare genetic disease that affects the mobility of infants and children. But gene therapies have historically had two drawbacks: They are only used for rare diseases, and they carry a hefty price tag (treatment with Zolgensma costs $2.1 million).

Kriya Therapeutics is trying to overcome these obstacles by creating gene therapies for the massesand manufacturing them at a lower cost. On Wednesday, the startup announced that it had raised a $100 million Series B funding round to get it closer to this goal. The round was led by investors from Patient Square Capital and also involved investors from QVT, Dexcel Pharma, Foresite Capital, Bluebird Ventures, Transhuman Capital, Narya Capital, Amplo and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation T1D Fund.

We think this is going to be an extraordinarily important therapeutic class that will revolutionize the treatment of many diseases, says Jim Momtazee, managing partner at Patient Square Capital.

The Silicon Valley-based company was founded in late 2019 by three pharmaceutical industry alums, including a former cofounder of Spark Therapeutics and the former president of United Therapeutics Corp. Shankar Ramaswamy, Kriyas CEO, was part of the foundational team at Roivant Sciences. The new round brings the companys total funding to $180 million; the company declined to reveal its valuation.

Kriyas main focus is its uniquely designed Adeno-associated virusesviruses that are harmless when they enter the body, but deliver instructions to cells that then pump out genes that are missing in some people with genetic diseases. Though the company still plans to develop treatments for rare diseases, what sets it apart is its focus on more common genetic diseases, like some forms of diabetes and obesity. So far, gene therapy has been really constrained in many respects from achieving its full potential, Ramaswamy says. We are believers in gene therapy being applied to rare diseases as well as prevalent diseases.

Ramaswamys goal is to build a company that can go from genetic target discovery to manufacturing and then full commercialization of new therapies, unlike a typical biotech startup that might partner with a large pharmaceutical company for the later stages of development (Ramaswamy says the company will be open to partnerships, but can bring a drug to commercialization on its own). Once the company discovers and develops new gene therapies, its 51,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in North Carolina can produce Adeno-associated viruses at scale to deliver the genes to patients in need. Ramaswamy says that capability will bring down the cost, with savings passed along to patients. I think the innovations that were delivering will make gene therapies much more affordable and accessible to patients, he says. We are very committed to not being a burden on the healthcare system.

The companys current pipeline of products are all preclinical, though Ramaswamy says that they plan to submit Investigational New Drug applications to the FDA for several products in late 2022 and early 2023. So far the company is developing gene therapies for type 1 diabetes, solid tumors and two eye conditions: geographic atrophy and uveitis. In the U.S., more than 3 million people combined have at least one of these conditions, meaning Kriya has a huge pool of potential customers. By comparison, there are fewer than 25,000 children and adults with spinal muscular atrophy in the country.

Ramaswamy says that the new capital will go toward continuing the companys explosive growthit now has 80 full-time employeesas well as refining its vector delivery platforms and manufacturing capabilities. In the future, the money will allow the company to continue to develop new gene therapies for diseases both common and rare. Were taking a very new approach, which is to think more broadly, Ramaswamy says.

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This Company Raised $100 Million To Bring Gene Therapy To The Masses - Forbes

How did you begin working on the development and ideation of a bionic heart?

I was approached by The Science Museum of Minnesota to design and develop experiences for an upcoming exhibition based around transhumanism, the process of humans merging with technology. One of these projects was to create a 3D hologram animation that presents a series of futuristic bionic organs using the peppers ghost concept which presents the hologram. What I found particularly interesting, and challenging was conceptualising a bionic heart through digital design. I was tasked with designing something that was both visually compelling and yet believable, the design concept had to be to be physiologically so that if it was used to design the physical product it could be implanted into someone, connecting the tubing to their arteries.

The goal of this exhibition, which runs parallel with my own goals, is to introduce the public to the world of human enhancement in an exciting and informative way, and what is more engaging than a holographic image of futuristic implants? There is plenty of science fiction that considers bionic bodies, but they tend to paint a dystopian world that makes us fear technological progress rather than welcome it; I believe its essential we paint an exciting picture of the future in which the capabilities of humans are vastly expanded, and I feel this exhibition portrays that perfectly.

What will designing in AR look like ten years away?

Whilst the fundamental process of designing is unlikely to change, the tools we use during the process certainly will. Augmented reality (AR) is one of the most interesting and exciting tools that can be used for this. As computers continue to reduce in size and increase in power we will see AR devices like the Microsoft Hololens reduce in size from bulky headsets to glasses to contact lenses and eventually brain implants. All aspects of the design process from research to prototyping will become faster, more streamlined and more connected, with areas of design most affected being concepting/prototyping and collaboration. We will be able to design, prototype, package and release our creations on one single platform, just as we often do with computers now. Our freedom to design where and when will be improved, despite your location; and our ability to collaborate will greatly increase as you'll be able to sync with collaborators anywhere in the world and instantly feel like you are in the same room as them. Discussing changes to your car design that's represented digitally in front of you, quickly making tweaks to the cars surfacing or perhaps the paint finish. At Seymourpowell we are already utilizing this technology, for example, when we were building the interior of Virgin Galactic's spaceship, I could be in my home in VR taking in feedback from a 3D avatar representation of my colleagues as we analyzed the inside of the ship. This allowed me to test and identify issues far more closely and talk to top designers around the UK.

What role does extended reality (XR) play in the world of transhumanism?

XR will play a very prominent role in the world of transhumanism, perhaps one of the most important roles. It's worth asking what reality is at this point. Reality in its simplest form is the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system. Our experience of reality is largely defined by our senses. If our sensory organs and brains can be adjusted, then so can our reality. In decades to come we may be able to experience things we cant yet comprehend. Neuroscientist David Eagleman is already exploring sensory substitution, creating a vest that converts audio data to vibrations, allowing users to feel sounds. His findings show that after some time users who have lost their hearing can start to understand what others are saying through these vibrations. As AR becomes more integrated into our lives, the more we will rely on extended reality technologies, just as we rely so heavily on our mobile phones now. Elon Musk argues that our attachment to mobile phones already makes us a form of early cyborg, imagine trying to go about your daily life without using a mobile phone. Whilst some voice understandable concern about having technologies so closely connected to our bodies, there are huge benefits, especially in the medical world. We will develop a much closer understanding and level of control of our own bodies and XR will be our primary way of interfacing with this.

What is the future of neural implants and how is the design process defining this?

A neural implant is a piece of technology implanted into the brain. Currently they're in the very early stages, however, many neuroscientists and tech leaders are working on prototypes and testing. It's likely the first brain implants will be used for medical purposes like repairing eyesight or reversing effects of other neural based diseases. The technology will inevitably move into the world of brain enhancement, for example a brain computer interface (BCI), which does exactly what youd think, connects your brain directly to a computer. Once we step into the world of altering and enhancing our brains, we really begin to consider the reality of turning ourselves into super humans, science fiction no more! Imagine a world in which brain enhanced humans can learn languages overnight or perhaps communicate telepathically. It will eventually become as easy as closing your eyes and plugging into the virtual world. As with all technologies and inventions, neural implants are driven and developed by the design process. It's the designers job to plan and direct the development of these technologies and ensure the best possible outcome. As with any design project, the prototyping phase is critical in testing and understanding which paths to take, and to help avoid any possible detrimental outcomes.

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Five minutes with Rafe Johnson - 2021 - Articles - Transform magazine