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Category Archives: Transhuman

WEF agenda envisions an augmented society ruled by Internet of Bodies, digital ID – The Sociable

Posted: September 2, 2022 at 2:39 am

The unelected globalists at the World Economic Forum (WEF) are envisioning an augmented society ruled by digital identity and transhumanism via the Internet of Bodies.

Digital identity has long been on the Davos agenda and has been gaining speed ever since the official launch of the great reset in June, 2020.

On August 17, 2022, the WEF published a story by Callsign CEO Zia Hayat on its Agenda blog claiming, Digital identity is vital element of building trust both online and in our wider economies to everyones benefit.

According to Hayat, If we dont know for certain who we are interacting with online, we cannot have trust. Digital identity must therefore be the foundational element to our digital economy.

But its not just for our digital economy that the unelected globalists want to usher-in digital identity for all.

They want that digital identity be embedded into every aspect of our lives even under our skin!

This digital identity determines what products, services and information we can access or, conversely, what is closed off to us World Economic Forum, 2018

Technology will become more intertwined with the body in the form of implants Kathleen Philips, WEF Agenda, 2022

For years, the WEF and its partners have been pushing digital ID for a number of reasons including:

Digital identity is also a foundational element for building a Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-style system of social credit where access to goods and services are based on a citizens behavioral score.

When trust is broken in one area, a citizen may be locked out of participating in just about every aspect of society.

As scary as chip implants may sound, they form part of a natural evolution that wearables once underwent Kathleen Philips, WEF Agenda, 2022

Going hand-in-hand with digital identity and subsequent digital ID is the push for a transhumanist future.

The WEF published another blog post in August, this time exploring how merging humans with technology will create an augmented society and that stakeholders in society will need to agree on how to ethically make these amazing technologies a part of our lives.

Written by imec VP of R&D Kathleen Philips, the article describes augmentation as going beyond rehabilitative healthcare whereby the extension of rehabilitation where technological aids such as glasses, cochlear implants or prosthetics are designed to restore a lost or impaired function.

Philips goes on to say that when the merging of humans and technology is added to completely healthy individuals, then what you get is augmentation.

Welcome to the Internet of Bodies (IoB).

The WEF is fully behind widespread adoption of the IoB despite recognizing the enormous ethical concerns that come with having an unprecedented number of sensors attached to, implanted within, or ingested into human bodiesto monitor, analyze, and even modify human bodies and behavior.

The Internet of Bodies might trigger breakthroughs in medical knowledge []Or it might enable a surveillance state of unprecedented intrusion and consequence RAND Corporation, 2020

Increased IoB adoption might also increase global geopolitical risks, because surveillance states can use IoB data to enforce authoritarian regimes RAND Corporation, 2020

As acknowledged by Philips herself, the idea of augmenting a perfectly healthy human being with technology carries many ethical concerns.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in 2020, National Academy of Medicine presidentVictor Dzautold the Davos elites that augmenting humans beyond their natural capabilities was crossing the ethical line.

I think youre in pretty safe ground when you use these technologies for the purpose of curing disease, treating disease, or at least addressing impairment, he said.

I do think you start crossing the line when you think about enhancement and augmentation.

Fast forward two years and nine months, and the Davos Agenda blog is saying, As scary as chip implants may sound, they form part of a natural evolution that wearables once underwent.

I do think you start crossing the line when you think about enhancement and augmentation Victor Dzau, WEF Annual Meeting, 2020

Should you implant a tracking chip in your child? There are solid, rational reasons for it, like safety. Would you actually do it? Is it a bridge too far? Kathleen Philips, WEF Agenda, 2022

The unelected globalists are even seeding the idea of implanting children with tracking chips while claiming to be concerned about the ethical concerns.

The limits on implants are going to be set by ethical arguments rather than scientific capacity, Philips wrote, adding, For example, should you implant a tracking chip in your child? There are solid, rational reasons for it, like safety. Would you actually do it? Is it a bridge too far?

While children were used as a use case for digitally tagging, tracking, and tracing people like cattle, the same concept can be applied to the rest of humanity for our safety of course!

This is what the so-called fourth industrial revolution (4IR) is really all about in the words of WEF founder and executive chair Klaus Schwab, What the Fourth Industrial Revolution will lead to is a fusion of our physical, our digital, and our biological identities.

Another way of looking at the 4IR is the merger of humans beings with technology while simultaneously creating a control grid to monitor and enforce compliance.

What the Fourth Industrial Revolution will lead to is a fusion of our physical, our digital, and our biological identities Klaus Schwab, WEF, 2019

Brain implants take us one step further and allow us to tap straight into the bodys operating system Kathleen Philips, WEF Agenda, 2022

Going back to Philipss blog post on an augmented society, she acknowledges that the brain is part of our human operating system, stating, Brain implants take us one step further and allow us to tap straight into the bodys operating system.'

But what does it mean to tap into someones operating system?

Historian Yuval Noah Harari has already answered this question on several occasions.

When you tap into a persons operating system, what you get is the ability to hack human beings.

This means governments and corporations would know more about you than you know about yourself.

When humans become hackable, they risk losing all their free will. They will be able to be manipulated in seemingly unconceivable ways.

We are no longer mysterious souls; we are now hackable animals Yuval Noah Harari, WEF, 2020

Ethics will advise us Kathleen Philips, WEF Agenda, 2022

In her WEF blog post, Philips asks, When do we enter the grey zone?

The answer is simple. Weve already entered that grey zone.

To give one recent example, a Pentagon-sponsoredRAND report publishedin November, 2021 outlined the technological potentials of this controversial transhumanist research, which includes potentially adding reptilian genes that provide the ability to see in infrared, and making humans stronger, more intelligent, or more adapted to extreme environments.

This means that governments are already fundamentally altering what it means to be human, funding research into creating super humans that are smarter, faster, and stronger through human performance enhancement.

Its happening now, but not to worry!

Philips assures, Ethics will advise us.

Authoritarianism is easier in a world of total visibility and traceability, while democracy may turn out to be more difficult World Economic Forum, 2019

It all starts with digital identity, and the agenda continues to move toward an augmented society.

Those who control the data and the technology are poised to rule the world, but the future doesnt have to be this way.

We all have choices.

You can choose to trust that your digital overlords are doing whats best for society, or you may use common sense and reason to see through their agendas and therefore feel compelled to speak out to friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, or anyone else who will listen.

Of course, there are many people whose minds are already made up, choose not to see, or are too busy just trying to get by that they dont have the time to look into these things.

Knowledge is power.

What will you do with the knowledge youve acquired?

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WEF agenda envisions an augmented society ruled by Internet of Bodies, digital ID - The Sociable

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Prebunking Disinformation | prebunking disinformation – Patheos

Posted: at 2:39 am

Prebunking DisinformationThe SST AlliancePrebunking Disinformation

I propose fighting truth decay by prebunking disinformation. I propose that scientists, skeptics, and theologians ally with one another to prescribe evidence-based reason for the health of our common good. Lets call it the SST Alliance.

Recently I found myself writing an editorial for the forthcoming final 2022 issue of Theology and Science. I ended up saying that theologians and scientists along with skeptics should form an alliance on behalf of evidence-based reasoning. This alliance could defend us against the intellectual plague now infecting the globe through digital social media. The symptoms of our infodemic include too much information, misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, just plain lies, and profiteering off untruth such as perception management (PM) firms.

The forces of disinformation have become a threat to social cohesion, world peace, and even the fecundity of Planet Earth. More than one million Americans have died of a pandemic disease that deniers have variously claimed to be a deliberate pandemic or a nonexistent media hoax, wails skeptic Daniel Loxton(Loxton 9-10/2022, 15). The very course of national, international, and planetary events is now being influenced by disinformation. The climate crisis burns out of control, with necessary action having been delayed for decades by denialist pseudoscience(Loxton 9-10/2022, 15).

Post-truth, as the societal manifestation of a prolonged subclinical collective trauma response, is a reflection that society is profoundly wounded, is the diagnosis of theologian Jennifer Baldwin(Baldwin 2018, 104).

Conspiracy theories and pseudoscience are no longer merely weird, crazy, or looney. Theyre dangerous. Our defense against truth decay and promotion of the common good must include prebunking disinformation.

Prebunking is basically debunking as the avante-garde.

What is prebunking disinformation? Well, lets call to mind debunking. It was the summer of 1952 when flying saucers buzzed the White House in Washington DC. The unknown aircraft were tracked by multiple radar screens. Scrambled pilots chased them, radioing their exploits to the control tower. The nation was in a state of alarm.

The Pentagon was in a pickle. Top military brass had determined that the Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) were not hostile or dangerous. But, the Soviet Union was. How could U.S. national defense officials discriminate between the non-hostile flying saucers and the lethal missiles that Russia might send to destroy North American cities?

The problem: too much information. How could the new U.S. Air Force filter through the whelming flood of UFO reports to find hostile Soviet threats? The solution: debunking. The U.S. Air Force set a policy of debunking citizen reports of unidentified aerial phenomena. By debunkingproviding alternative natural explanations as well as discrediting the reputations of those who reported sightingsthe military could reduce the net number of cases requiring thorough examination. The now famous astronomer, J. Allen Hynek, then at Ohio State, became the chief information debunker. The rest makes for quite a textured history down to the present time.

Its time now for critical thinking to expand with the speed of a California wildfire. To change our metaphor, lets hone our critical thinking into a sharp sword to cut through the blur between truth and untruth.

So, just what does it mean to be a critical thinker? Ive long contended that critical consciousness begins with holding two different accounts of the same subject in your mind at one time. These two differing accounts could be ones own plus that of someone else. Only after weighing the merits of each account does the critical thinker then render a sound judgment.

Now, let me introduce Helen Lee Bouygues, founder of the Paris-based Reboot Foundation that promotes reflective forms of thought in schools. She was recently interviewed for Skeptical Inquirer. Bouygues describes critical consciousness as I understand it. Being a good critical thinker means questioning your assumptions, walking through problems logically, and then reflecting on your thinking to better understand it(Bouygues 9-10/2022, 18).

What about the sharp sword of critical thinking? Note Bouygues motto: SHARP. What does this stand for? SHARP stands for: Stop, Hone, Accumulate, Reason, and Perspectivize(Bouygues 9-10/2022, 18). By accumulate, she refers to accumulating evidence. Where Bouygues puts perspectivize, I would put something like, render judgment.

Bouygues employs the word, prebunk. I like that word. According to Bouygues, prebunking takes the form of educating ourselves about various disinformation techniques. Knowing the enemy is the best way to arm oneself in the battle for truth.

Now, I must admit, that Ive not yet fully prebunked myself. Im still a tad nave. Im still more gullible to misinformation and disinformation than I wish to be. Even so, I like that word, prebunk. I wonder if we might expand its meaning to include an aggressive skepticism regarding pseudoscientific claims and acerbic political rhetoric?

Truth matters, says the theologian. The danger of modern political lying is not merely that we will believe lies, but that we will lose the capacity to distinguish what is real from what we merely wish was real, and will stop thinking this difference even matters, avers theologian Lisa Stenmark. This kind of lying undermines the very foundation of public life and judgment, destroying the world itself, and this worldlessness undermines our sense of reality and of community(Stenmark 2018, 5).

Truth matters, says the scientist. Misinformation has reached crisis proportions, say Jevin D. West and Carl T. Bergstrom, writing for the National Academy of Sciences. It poses a risk to international peace, interferes with democratic decision making, endangers the well-being of the planet, and threatens public health(West 4/2021).

Truth matters, says the skeptic. To combat truth decay, we need to prebunk disinformation by taking two doses of critical thinking. At least according to skeptic Daniel Loxton. First, we all must accept that misinformation matters(Loxton 9-10/2022, 16). The days when we could chuckle and dismiss conspiracy theories as looney are over. Truth is now a matter of life and death.

The second dose, again according to Loxton, is study the intricacies that go into manufacturing denial, misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, deceit, and lies. Disinformation Studies is the discipline (Loxton 9-10/2022, 17). I recommend starting with websites such as Tools that Fight Disinformation Online along with Catalogue of all projects working to solve Misinformation and Disinformation, even though some links are not connecting.

The third dose of critical thinking in our fight against truth decay is this: create a spirited alliance between Scientists, Skeptics, and Theologians. Im prescribing an SST Alliance defending and promoting evidence-based reasoning as a chief ingredient in public policy formulation.[1]

Now, we must acknowledge that scientific reason and theological reason, though overlapping, are not exhaustively identical. Systems biologist and philosopher of science Stuart A. Kauffman confesses that Science is not the only pathway to truth (Kauffman, 2008, p. xii). Reason can take us beyond the physical reality described by science. Or, perhaps more precisely, the theologian finds its meaning within a more comprehensive horizon that includes revelatory truth. Philosopher of science Kelly Smith shows how one can build on the other.

Science is a very powerful heuristic for exploring the natural world, but it is not an ultimate arbiter of truth. If we are clear about that, then we are free to go beyond scientific evidence as long as we acknowledge what we are doing and take care not to damage science in the process. So, if one chooses to overlay the fact of increasing complexity with a faith claim that supports a sense of purpose and meaning, science should have nothing to say about this one way or another(Smith 2020, 5).

In sum, theologians can just like the scientist in the lab next door hold up evidence-based reason regarding the world we live in as our cultures desideratum.

We should expect, nevertheless, that a few scientists and nearly all skeptics might be suspicious that theologians should be their allies in defending and promoting evidence-based reasoning.[2] Theologians are frequently dismissed for being superstitious, ideological, or just plain ignorant.[3] Therefore, a responsibility falls on the shoulders of the theologians to demonstrate their age-old commitment to the partnership of faith and reason (fides et ratio).

It is clear from history, then, that Christian thinkers were critical in adopting philosophical thought(Pope 1998, 39). These are the words of His Holiness, Pope and Saint John Paul II, issued Fides et Ratio in 1998. This special activity of human reason, the pontiff continued, yields indispensable and celebrated results in the different fields of knowledge and fostering the development of culture and history(Pope 1998, 5). Through reason the critical theologian becomes a public theologian, contributing positively to the development of culture and history.

Will the scientist let alone the skeptic welcome the theologian into a partnership for prebunking disinformation? Perhaps the theologian should be on his or her or their best behavior.

We cannot take for granted that theologians or other religious leaders should be trusted when it comes to evidence-based reason. A quick surf of the internet uncovers many religious figures looking like the west end of a horse facing eastward.

Much to my chagrin, too many alliances have already been formed. Unhealthy alliances. There are soul-selling political alliances between evangelicals and the Republican Party. Correspondingly, the theology of liberal Protestants has become the Democratic Partys platform with just a little prayer added. The Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus, Kirill, marches in Vladimir Putins war against Ukraine. One can only wonder: where did Jesus go? Where did reason go? It seems that our worlds Christian leaders are practicing soul abuse.

Churches need to teach their members about discernment, now more than ever, says progressive Patheos columnist, Jayson Bradley. I believe that evangelical Christians are particularly susceptible to believing dangerous conspiracy theories, and they need to learn how to become more discerning. Susceptible? Or responsible for our post-truth society?

Bradley is a progressive who blames evangelicals. Which is more difficult? An alliance binding theologian with scientist and skeptic? Or, an alliance binding evangelicals with progressives?

Perhaps todays public theologian needs to convert the churches to evidence-based reasoning right along with converting the internet. This is a pretty tall order. Perhaps the theologian should seek allies. How about our scientists and our skeptics?[4]

Patheos columnist James McGrath aches when watching Christians contribute to the post-truth culture. The problem of spreading rumorshas the potential to be deeply evil. We must prescribe fighting truth decay within the church while, simultaneously, debunking disinformation in the digital media.

In the most recent issue of Skeptical Inquirer, editor Kendrick Frazier warns us to repent like the prophets warned ancient Israel to repent. Suddenly, says Frazier, the things we skeptics have been warning about for decadesthe dangers of a population unable or unwilling to discern truth from nontruthhave become a mainstream concern(Frazier 9-10/2022).

If this were the 1960s, theologians might call this the secular work of the Holy Spirit. If skeptics live up to their commitment to defend and promote evidence-based reason, then theologians as well as scientists might find them to be good allies. Would an SST Alliance be possible?

Ted Peters pursues Public Theology at the intersection of science, religion, ethics, and public policy. Peters is an emeritus professor at the Graduate Theological Union, where he co-edits the journal, Theology and Science, on behalf of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, in Berkeley, California, USA. His book, God in Cosmic History, traces the rise of the Axial religions 2500 years ago. He previously authored Playing God? Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom? (Routledge, 2nd ed., 2002) as well as Science, Theology, and Ethics (Ashgate 2003). He is editor of AI and IA: Utopia or Extinction? (ATF 2019). Along with Arvin Gouw and Brian Patrick Green, he co-edited the new book, Religious Transhumanism and Its Critics hot off the press (Roman and Littlefield/Lexington, 2022). Soon he will publish The Voice of Christian Public Theology (ATF 2022). See his website: TedsTimelyTake.com.

This fictional spy thriller, Cyrus Twelve, follows the twists and turns of a transhumanist plot.

Baldwin, Jennifer. 2018. Knowledge, Power, and Fear: The Role of Religion and Science in Populism and Our Shared Public Life. In Navigating Post-Truth and Alternaive Facts, by ed Jennifer Baldwin, 97-112. Lanham MA: Lexington.

Bouygues, Helen Lee. 9-10/2022. Rebooting Critical Thinking by Julia Lavarnway. Skeptical Inquirer 46:5 18-19.

Frazier, Kendrick. 9-10/2022. Skepticisms Newly Recognized Relevance. Skeptical Inquirer 46:5 4.

Kauffman, Stuart A. 2008. Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion. New York: Basic Books.

Loxton, Daniel. 9-10/2022. Critical Study of Nonsense Finally a Mainstream Concern. Skeptical Inquirer 46:5 14-17.

Peters, Ted. 2018. Public Theology: Its Pastoral, Apologetic, Scientific, Politial, and Prophetic Tasks. International Journal of Public Theology 12:2 153-177; https://brill.com/abstract/journals/ijpt/12/1/ijpt.12.issue-1.xml.

Pope, John Paul II. 1998. Fides et Ratio. Vatican: http://web.archive.org/web/20131001225220/http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ESL0036/_INDEX.HTM.

Smith, Kelly C. 2020. Cosmogenesis, Complexity, and Neo-Natural Faith in the Context of Astrobiology. Religions 11 (12): 1-10.

Stenmark, Lisa. 2018. Modern Political Lying: Science and Religion Critical Discourse in a Post-Truth World. In Navigating Post-Truth and Alternative Facts, by ed Jennifer Baldwin, 3-18. Lanham MA: Lexington.

West, Jevin, and Carl Bergstrom. 4/2021. Misinformation in and about science. PNAS 115:15 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1912444117.

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What Is A Human? – The American Conservative

Posted: August 29, 2022 at 7:26 am

As ever, Paul Kingsnorth's Substack is one of the most important Substacks in the world, and it's not even close. In his latest essay, Kingsnorth talks about how the public controversy over transgenderism is not really about male and female. It's about human nature itself. The beginning of the essay is a reminder about how insane -- honestly, insane -- the public dialogue is around trans today, and how fast it got there. Five years ago, if you had said that a Berkeley law professor would have testified contentiously before Congress that women aren't the only people who give birth, people would have thought you were bonkers. But it happened this week. Excerpts from Kingsnorth's latest:

Back in America - now ground-zero for the abolition of biology - thousands of girls are undergoing double mastectomies, and teenage boys are being given puberty-blocking drugs designed tochemically castrate rapists.Eleven year old girls aretaughtthat if you feel uncomfortable in your body, it means you are transgender - which may explain why, in some classrooms,a quarter of the childrenidentify as precisely that. The concept oftrans kids- a notion that would have been inconceivably baffling to most people even a few years back, and for many still is - is now beingpushedso hard that it starts to look less like the liberation of an oppressed minority than an agenda to reprogramme society with an entirely new conception of the human body - and thus of nature itself.

Kingsnorth gets into The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Carl Trueman's invaluable book (now out in an abridged, reader-friendly version) about the roots of the West's falling apart, which, as PK points out, began with Trueman trying to answer the question of how it is the phrase "I am a woman trapped in a man's body" came to be meaningful. Kingsnorth:

Meanwhile Nietzsche and Darwin both helped, wittingly or unwittingly, to undermine the foundational assumptions of Western Christianity, thus unmooring the culture from its spiritual roots. Finally, figures such as Herbert Marcuse and Wilhelm Reich provided the justification for the removal of sexual taboos which exploded in the sixties counterculture and brought us into the pornified present.

It is this latter development, suggests Trueman, that may prove to be most significant. Identity in the contemporary West is now cored around sex and sexuality - a situation which he believes is arguably unprecedented in history. Trueman identifies Wilhelm Reich and his countercultural successors as prime movers in this culture shift. Sexual liberation, to Reich, represented the latest stage of the ongoing liberation of the individual from both nature and culture.

In his 1936 bookThe Sexual Revolution, Reich argued that sexual repression had been imposed and weaponised by governments and churches for centuries as a means of controlling the masses. Liberation of the individual was thus intimately tied up with liberated sexuality:

The existence of strict moral principles has invariably signified that the biological, and specifically the sexual, needs of man were not being satisfied. Every moral regulation is in itself sex-negating, and all compulsory morality is life-negating. The social revolution has no more important task than finally to enable human beings to realise their full potentialities and find gratification in life.

Sexual freedom is human freedom.

It doesn't take much to move from that point to accepting that one's "true self" is not a self that is given, or a self that is shaped by limits, but a self that is fully chosen, against the bounds presented by nature or society. Transgenderism is just the next phase in humankind's revolt against nature, says Kingsnorth. More:

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What does a transhumanist billionaire [Martine Rothblatt -- RD] who wants to make God have to do with a teenage boy who feels uncomfortable in his body? The answer is that Rothblatt isfar from the only personwho believes that the path to a disembodied, posthuman and post-natural future leads directly through the shattered gender binary. Looked at this way, the question of what pronouns to use, or who should be allowed into which bathroom, suddenly starts to look a lot more momentous than the newspapers are telling us. The unifying driver is the desire fortrans-cendence: the latest stage in what another transhumanist,Kevin Kelly, calls our ongoing liberation from matter.

I dont mean to suggest that the activists currently beavering away to queer the gender binary all have this end in mind, let alone that everyyone who considers themselves to be transgender buys into this worldview, or has even heard about it. But this is the direction of travel. People with gender dysphoria, girls with short hair, boys who play with dolls, people whose sexualities differ from the norm: they are not, in fact, the real issue.

The real issue is that a young generation of hyper-urbanised, always-on young people, increasingly divorced from nature and growing up in a psychologised, inward-looking anticulture, is being led towards the conclusion that biology is a problem to be overcome, that their body is a form of oppression and that the solution to their pain may go beyond a new set of pronouns, or even invasive surgery, towards nanotechnology, cyberconsciousness software and perhaps, ultimately, the end of their physical embodiment altogether.

I strongly urge you to read the whole thing -- and to subscribe. Unless we rise against these elite controllers, the day is coming when these writings will be outlawed.

This is all profoundly Luciferian. You know that, right? You should. Does anybody at your church ever talk about this stuff? If not, why not? If your church isn't talking about this stuff, it is not preparing you for the present that's here and the future that's coming.

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McDermott: Pinner may have been crackers, but in today’s GOP, she was practically normal – St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Posted: at 7:25 am

St. Louis County Republicans last week surely feel they dodged a bullet with the exit from the November ballot of Katherine Pinner, who was briefly the partys nominee for St. Louis County executive. Whatever issues shed hoped to focus on in her campaign, the real issue would have been the lawsuit she filed against her former employer alleging that its mask mandate was satanic and that getting vaccinated displeases God.

Pinner thus took her place among a long line of loons in elective politics these days. Not all, but most, hail from the rightward side of the political spectrum. Which invites some legitimate questions about what has happened to the once-sober conservative movement.

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Pinner is the 55-year-old political novice who emerged from out of nowhere this month to win the Republican nomination for the countys top political post. Online, she had voiced beliefs consistent with QAnon, the culty crowd that thinks a dark world of all-encompassing conspiracies hums just beyond plain sight a good-versus-evil epic that casts Donald Trump, improbably, as the former.

Pinners posts pointed out that if you replaced each B in President Bidens Build Back Better legislation with 6, youd end up with the mark of the devil. As voters started catching onto this plan of 6uild 6ack 6etter, the democrats quickly changed their slogan, she wrote. (Shes right. I remember the memo from headquarters.)

She suggested that coronavirus vaccines were laced with nanotechnology designed to bar code nine billion people in order to inventory them.

Its all connected, she warned.

Because, yknow, its always all connected.

After winning the Aug. 2 primary, Pinner apparently got some good advice and did some online house cleaning to remove indications that she is, well, crackers. But it seems she couldnt rein in her demons for long. The $1.2 million lawsuit Pinner filed last week against her former employer, the American Association of Orthodontists, for its pandemic policies, alleges that vaccines prompt transhumanism changes in the body that can lead to being barred from Gods graces. And it claims mask-wearing is associated with dehumanization and satanic ritual abuse.

In the latest head-spinning twist, Pinner late Thursday told the county Republican chair she plans to drop out of the race, without explaining why. Its a welcome if undeserved reprieve for the party, which can now put someone less demonstrably loopy on the ballot.

But the question remains: Why do Republicans, here and around America, keep nominating candidates who, if they approached them on the sidewalk, would prompt them to cross the street?

The poster-child for this phenomenon, of course, is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia. Evidence of her psychosis is too voluminous to detail here, so lets leave it at her suggestion that Californias wildfires were caused by space-based lasers controlled by a cabal of Jewish overlords.

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colorado, hasnt achieved quite that level of bonkers, but its not for lack of effort. Among her litany of lunacy was a speech in June declaring, The church is supposed to direct the government Im tired of this separation of church and state junk thats not in the Constitution. (Narrator: Except in the very first words of the very first amendment in the Bill of Rights.)

Republican candidates coming up through this years congressional primaries promise more of this derangement. Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who has more motive than anyone to get Republicans seated, no matter the details recently worried aloud that his party might fail to take back the Senate because of what he diplomatically called candidate quality issues.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, Pennsylvanias Republican Senate nominee, has pushed such quack remedies that it prompted an essay in the normally staid Scientific American headlined: Dr. Oz Shouldnt Be a Senator or a Doctor. Arizona Republicans have nominated to the Senate 36-year-old Blake Masters, who has praised the anti-tech manifesto of Ted Unabomber Kaczynski. In Georgia, GOP Senate nominee Herschel Walker the former NFL star who has already been in the politically awkward position of having to issue clarifications to the media regarding how many children he has fathered by how many women bashed Bidens new climate law last week by asking, Dont we have enough trees around here?

Then (as always) theres Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who last week lambasted Dr. Anthony Fauci at a fundraising event. Fauci, the federal governments top infectious-disease expert, is retiring in the face of conservative fury over his allegiance to science instead of Trump. But thats not good enough for DeSantis, who told the crowd that someone needs to grab that little elf and chuck him across the Potomac. Its worth noting that this elevated rhetoric comes from the man who many Republicans view as the more-sane alternative to Trump for the GOPs 2024 presidential nomination.

Despite the controversy surrounding Pinners brief presence on the St. Louis County ballot, she perhaps shouldnt completely discount a future in the GOP. At the rate its going, todays Republican Party will likely have a place for people like her for a long time to come.

Kevin McDermott is a Post-Dispatch columnist and Editorial Board member. On Twitter: @kevinmcdermott Email: kmcdermott@post-dispatch.com

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Stray – A simple and focused game in a world of games that go astray – Flayrah

Posted: at 7:25 am

Okay, this one may not technically be a furry game. If the late Fred Patten were to start this review off, he may have asked something along the lines that if you as a player moves around the world as a cat with a robot companion augmenting their ability to interpret the society around them, is that game actually anthropomorphic? Perhaps its more in line with transhumanism, but in this case more transfelinism, where your feline character is augmented by their technological companion.

And like Adam Jensen of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the cat you play certainly didnt ask for this.

The opening of the game reminded me of Milo and Otis, an old movie of a dog and a cat that end up getting lost in the woods and need to make their way back home. Basically it was the predecessor of Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey. In this case, the unnamed feline protagonist you play as is just catting around with other cats when you find yourself in trouble and are separated from your companions and fall down into a strange lost society of automatons.

You go on your own heros journey through this strange world that has established itself under what appears to be a giant blast shield facility. In order to return to the surface youll need to help your new robot friends, while avoiding the perils of an invasive species that has taken root in the darkness of this underworld.

While the game has been noted to be on the shorter side, it is very much a complete and contained experience. It has moments of tension and balances it well with a cathartic sense of discovery and exploration. I noted while playing that the designer definitely took inspiration from Valve works, and this includes their understanding of Battle Fatigue.

Things can work their way to a bit of an intensity when dealing with the headcrab like creatures that want to chew on your cat hide, but your moments of fleeing and fighting are spaced out where it doesnt become fatiguing.

The world is fun and immersive and the robot characters are interesting. There are certain embellishments that were fun, such as a fully functioning pool table in the bars that you can bat the ball around with your paws. Desks are littered with items to knock down, though disappointingly it doesnt cause frustrations if the owner of said desk watches you knock things off like the true feline you are.

I would recommend this game if you are a curious sort, you know, like a cat. You like to explore places and enjoy the story of a exotic society. If youre the kind that likes a more visceral or reaction based game of skill, you may not enjoy it so much. Take your time and take in the environment around you and youll get the most out of it. Talk to as many folks as you can and do the tasks they ask of you to get the most out of it. Heck, you can even nap around and take in the world as the camera pans out. Because cats like their naps.

Not much to say, its a short game and its mostly the story which I cant go into without spoiling things. Its a nice and contained experience that should you enjoy its premise enough, youll come back to experience it again like a film or a book. Its sometimes refreshing to experience a game that is a contained experience rather than one that expects to be a service it sells to you for the next decade.

To me, I would rather pay 30 bucks for a complete and enjoyable experience even if it is short, then to get it for free and go through a bunch of immersion breaking microtransactions. If that is too pricey for you for a seven hour experience, then you can feel free to wait for the price point to come down.

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Stray - A simple and focused game in a world of games that go astray - Flayrah

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Axiom Verge 2 The Games Sole Creator, Thomas Happ, Discusses How Science Fiction Impacted Bot… – Happy Gamer

Posted: at 7:25 am

Fans eagerly anticipated solo developer Thomas Happs follow-up game after the original Axiom Verges 2015 release for the PlayStation 4 to much critical acclaim. In 2021, Axiom Verge 2 was exclusively made available on the Epic Games Store for the PC and PS4, and it is now available on the PS5 and Steam. Many of the elements that fans of the first Axiom Verge gameplay loved to see in the follow-up, such as the abundance of collectibles, power-ups, and weapons, are present in the sequel. Still, it also differs drastically from the original in several ways.

Happ discussed Axiom Verge 2s new mechanics and influences in an interview. Due to this, despite sharing a Metroidvania history, the sequel takes a unique approach to exploration, fighting, and puzzles.

RELATED: Phantasy Star Online 2 Is Finally Coming To PC, Yet As A Microsoft Store Exclusive

The first Axiom Verge featured a high-concept science fiction story with elements of transhumanism, the fungibility of reality, and a dubious biomechanical alien race. Many of the ideas in Axiom Verge 2 are carried over from its predecessor, but it also finds some new sources of inspiration.

The connecting thread between both games can be found in the writings of Alastair Reynolds, a former astronomer, and physicist who now writes hard sci-fi and space opera. Huge time stretches, nearly omnipresent nanotechnology and space opera themes like those found in the Mass Effect franchise are all present in both Happs and Reynolds novels.

RELATED: Dark Moonlight Is An Upcoming Action Horror Adventure Announced For PC

Although they could be let down, players seeking clarification on Traces story might be. Even though the events of AV2 provide Axiom Verge with new context, it is not a straight sequel to the first games narrative, leaving numerous unsolved questions and room for other tales in the Axiom Verge universe.

The narrative of Axiom Verge 2 includes a tonal shift in terms of storytelling in addition to the new gameplay and influences.

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Axiom Verge 2 The Games Sole Creator, Thomas Happ, Discusses How Science Fiction Impacted Bot... - Happy Gamer

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From Silk Road to NFTs: Why Musician and Artist Tycho Sees Web3 as the Endgame – Decrypt

Posted: at 7:25 am

Tycho first heard about crypto back in the Silk Road days, calling the underground marketplace the coolest thing in the world at the time. Now, decidedly legit, hes launching his own Tycho Open Source Community using Polygon NFTs.

Tycho says he bought his first hardware wallet in 2011, but didnt put Bitcoin on it. In an interview with Decrypt, the artistalso known as Scott Hansen, or ISO50 from his blogging days in the aughtsshared the story of how he got into crypto and Web3.

In 2016, he bought Ethereum and vowed to never sell it, just to see what happened with it.

We should get this thing Ethereum, he recalled telling musician Jakub Alexander at the time while on tour. Bitcoin is old school but Ethereum, this things cool.

He then all but forgot about his crypto for years as he kept making music and visual art. Hansen designed all the graphics for his albums and engineered his distinct melodic, ethereal electronic soundmusic which earned him two Grammy nominations.

Our pact was that we should never sell any of it, and see what happens with it, he said of the ETH hes still hodling today.

In 2021, Hansen released some NFTs on Nifty Gateway and OpenSea, which he calls a learning experience. Inspired by the likes of Beeple, Justin Blau (3lau), and artist Reuben Wu, Hansen sees Web3 and crypto as a great fit for his community.

We knew each other from speaking at graphic design conferences back in the day, Hansen said of Beeple, who recently collaborated with Madonna on an NSFW NFT collection.

Tychos communitywhich he says includes VFX artists, musicians, and other graphic designerswas first formed in the blogosphere but has since spread to a token-gated Discord server.

Given its collaborative and professional members, its not unlike the one music producer Illmind is also building through NFTs with his Squad of Knights, which offers holders IRL perks like recording studio space and musical collaboration opportunities.

Hansen sees Web3 as a way for artists to get rid of the middleman of social media.

Web2 social media platforms came around and kind of hijacked this whole thing, Hansen said of how social media changed internet communities. It doesnt really feel like a two-way street anymore.

When he learned about Medallion, a full-service crypto platform, Hansen was intrigued. He said he started working with the company because he found their terms appealing.

What is interesting to me about the Web3 space and leveraging Web3 to this end is, with Patreon, youre just creating a login, Hansen said.

But with his Open Source community, which grants holders access to things like advance album listening parties, and livestreams, the artist owns the data.

Hansen said he always wants the NFTswhich act as access tokensto be free, while additional perks might cost money or crypto in the future.

I think this was the endgame, to create this kind of community space, this Web3 community, Hansen said.

As for whether Hansen will release any music NFTs under his Tycho alias in the future, its something he says hes exploring. Hansen told Decrypt he has a couple releases on the horizon that he might turn into music NFTs, but that he doesnt have concrete plans yet.

When asked why electronic artists like Steve Aoki, 3lau, deadmau5, Dillon Francis, and himself are so open to Web3 compared to artists in other genres, Hansen has a few ideas.

Electronic musicians in general [] have to be somewhat technically adept to even be able to get into it, and I think youre probably pretty interested in technology just as a general concept anyways if youre getting into this kind of music, he said.

As someone with a background in computer science, digital graphic design, and electronic music, Web3 and crypto felt like a natural thing for Hansen to explore.

In his view, Web3 hasnt leveled the playing fieldits still hard for new musicians to find successbut he believes Web3 will eventually become the norm.

Im not looking at it [...] as this like utopian vision that it kind of was being touted as at the beginning, he said. But I definitely think its another tool in the toolkit of artists, so anytime we have any other kind of leverage I think that is going to shift [the] power dynamic in some way.

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From Silk Road to NFTs: Why Musician and Artist Tycho Sees Web3 as the Endgame - Decrypt

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The Three-City Problem of Modern Life – WIRED

Posted: at 7:25 am

But today there is a third city affecting the other two. Silicon Valley, this third city, is not governed primarily by reason (it is practically the mark of a great entrepreneur to not be reasonable), nor by the things of the soul (the dominant belief seems to be a form of materialism). It is a place, rather, governed by the creation of value. And a large component of value is utilitywhether something is useful, or is at least perceived as good or beneficial.

I realize that some people in Silicon Valley think of themselves as building rationalist enterprises. Some of them might be. The citys guiding spirit, however, is summed up by investor and podcast host Shane Parris, popular among the Silicon Valley set, when he says: The real test of an idea isnt whether its true, but whether its useful. In other words, utility trumps truth or reason.

Our new centurythe world from 2000 to the present dayis dominated by Silicon Valleys technological influence. This city has produced world-changing products and services (instantaneous search results, next-day delivery of millions of products, constant connectivity to thousands of friends) that create and shape new desires. This new city and the new forces it has unleashed are affecting humanity more than anything Tertullian could have imagined.

And this new city is growing in power. Never before have the questions of Athens and the questions of Jerusalem been mediated to us by such a great variety of things that vie for our attention and our desires. Silicon Valley, this third city, has altered the nature of the problem that Tertullian was wrestling with. The questions of what is true and what is good for the soul are now mostly subordinated to technological progressor, at the very least, the questions of Athens and Jerusalem are now so bound up with this progress that its creating confusion.

It is hard to escape the utilitarian logic of Silicon Valley, and we lie to ourselves when we rationalize our motivations. The most interesting thing about the cryptocurrency craze was the ubiquity of white papersthe framing of every new product in purely rational terms, or the need to present it as a product of Athens. And then there was Dogecoin.

Were not living in a world of pure reason or religious enchantment, but something entirely new.

Reason, religion, and the technology-driven quest to create value at any cost are now interacting in ways we scarcely understand, but which have vast influence over our everyday lives. Our two-decades-long experiment with social media has already shown the extent to which reason, or Athens, is being flooded with so much content that many have referred to it as a post-truth environment. Some social psychologists, like Jonathan Haidt, believe its making us crazy and undermining our democracy. Humanity is at a crossroads. We are trying to reconcile various needsfor rationality, for worship, for productivityand the tension of this pursuit shows up in the things we create. Because the three cities are interacting, we are now living with technology-mediated religion (online church services) and technology-mediated reason (280-character Twitter debates); religiously adopted technology (bitcoin) and religiously observed reason (Covid-19 cathedrals of safety); rational religion (effective altruism) and rational technology (3D-printed assisted-suicide pods).

If Tertullian were alive today, I believe he would ask: What does Athens have to do with Jerusalemand what do either have to do with Silicon Valley? In other words, how do the domains of reason and religion relate to the domain of technological innovation and its financiers in Silicon Valley? If the Enlightenment champion Steven Pinker (a resident of Athens) walked into a bar with a Trappist monk (Jerusalem) and Elon Musk (Silicon Valley) with the goal of solving a problem, would they ever be able to arrive at a consensus?

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The Three-City Problem of Modern Life - WIRED

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Transhumanists want to upload their minds to a computer. They really won’t like the result – Big Think

Posted: August 6, 2022 at 7:48 pm

If you are reading these words, your brain is alive and well, stored within the protective confines of your skull where it will reside for the remainder of your life. I feel the need to point this out because there is a small but vocal population of self-proclaimed transhumanists who believe that within their lifetimes, technological advances will enable them to upload their minds into computer systems, thereby allowing them to escape the limitations of their biology and effectively live forever.

These transhumanists are wrong.

To be fair, not all transhumanists believe in mind uploading as a pathway to immortality, but theres enough chatter about the concept within that community that excitement has spilled out into the general public so much so, that Amazon has a comedic TV series based on the premise called Upload. These may be fun stories, but the notion that a single biological human will ever extend their life by uploading their mind into a computer system is pure fiction.

The concept of mind uploading is rooted in the very reasonable premise that the human brain, like any system that obeys the laws of physics, can be modeled in software if you devote sufficient computing power to the problem. To be clear, were not talking about modeling human brains in the abstract, but modeling very specific brains your brain, my brain, your uncle Herberts brain each one represented in such extreme detail that every single neuron is accurately simulated, including all the complex connections among them.

It is an understatement to say that modeling a unique, individual human brain is a non-trivial task.

There are over 85 billion neurons in your head, each with thousands of links to other neurons. In total, there are about 100 trillion connections, which is unfathomably large a thousand times more than the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Its those trillions of connections that make you who you are your personality, your memories, your fears, your skills, your peculiarities. Your mind is encoded in those 100 trillion connections, and so to accurately reproduce your mind in software, a system would need to precisely simulate the vast majority of those connections down to the most subtle interactions.

Obviously, that level of modeling will not be done by hand. People who believe in mind uploading envision an automated scanning process, likely using some kind of supercharged MRI machine, that captures the biology down to resolutions that approach the molecular level. They then envision the use of intelligent software to turn that scan into a simulation of each unique brain cell and its thousands of connections to other cells.

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That is an extremely challenging task, but I cannot deny that it is theoretically feasible. If it ever happens, it is not going to happen in the next 20 years, but much, much further out. And with additional time and resources, it also is not crazy to think that large numbers of simulated minds could co-exist inside of a rich and detailed simulation of physical reality. Still, the notion that this process will offer anyone reading this article a pathway to immortality is utterly absurd.

As I stated above, the idea that a single biological human will ever extend their life by uploading their minds is pure fiction. The two key words in that sentence are their life. While it is theoretically possible with sufficient technological advances to copy and reproduce the precise form and function of a unique human brain within a simulation, the original human would still exist in their biological body, their brain still housed within their skull. What would exist in the computer would be a copy a digital doppelgnger.

In other words, you would not feel like you suddenly transported yourself into a computer. In fact, you would not feel anything at all. The brain copying process could have happened without your knowledge, while you were asleep or sedated, and you would never have the slightest inkling that a reproduction of your mind existed within a simulation. And if you found yourself crossing a busy street with a car racing toward you you would jump out of the way, because you would not be immortal.

But what about that version of you within a simulation?

You could think of it as a digital clone or identical twin, but it would not be you. It would be a copy of you, including all your memories up to the moment your brain was scanned. But from that instant on, it would generate its own memories. It might be interacting with other simulated minds in a simulated world, learning new things and having new experiences. Or maybe it interacts with the physical world through robotic interfaces. At the same time, the biological you would be generating new memories and having new experiences.

In other words, it would only be identical for an instant, and then you and the copy would both diverge in different directions. Your skills would diverge. Your knowledge would diverge. Your personalities would diverge. After a few years, there would be substantial differences. Your copy might become deeply religious while you are agnostic. Your copy might become an environmentalist while you are an oil executive. You and the copy would retain similar personalities, but you would be different people.

Yes, the copy of you would be a person but a different person. Thats a critical point, because that copy of you would need to have its own identity and its own rights that have nothing to do with you. After all, that person would feel just as real inside their digital mind as you feel within your biological mind. Certainly, that person should not be your slave, required to take on tasks that you are too busy to do during your biological life. Such exploitation would be immoral.

After all, the copy would feel just like you feel fully entitled to own its own property and earn its own wages and make its own decisions. In fact, you and the copy would likely have a dispute as to who gets to use your name, as you would both feel like you had used it your entire life. If I made a copy of myself, it would wake up and fully believe it was Louis Barry Rosenberg, a lifelong technologist in the fields of virtual reality and artificial intelligence. If it was able to interact with the real world through digital or robotic means, it would believe it had every right to use the name Louis Barry Rosenberg in the physical world. And it certainly would not feel subservient to the biological version.

In other words, creating a digital copy through mind uploading has nothing to do with allowing you to live forever. Instead, it would just create a competitor who has identical skills and capabilities and memories to the biological version, and who feels equally justified to be the owner of your identity. And yes, the copy would feel equally justified to be married to your spouse and parent to your children.

In other words, mind uploading is not a path to immortality. It is a path for creating another you who immediately will feel like they are equally justified owners of everything you possess and everything you have accomplished. And they would react exactly the way you would react if you woke up one day and were told: Sorry, but all those memories of your life arent really yours but copies, so your spouse is not really your spouse, your kids are not really your kids, and your job is not really your job.

Is this really what anyone would want to subject a copy of yourself to?

Back in 2008, I wrote a graphic novel called Upgrade that explores the absurdity of mind uploading. It takes place in the 2040s in a future world where everyone spends the vast majority of their lives in the Metaverse, logging in the moment they wake up and logging out the moment they go to sleep. (Coincidentally, the fictional reason why society went in this direction was a global pandemic that drove people inside.) What the inhabitants of this future world didnt realize is that as they lived their lives in the Metaverse, they were being characterized by AI systems that observed all of their actions and reactions and interactions, capturing every sentiment and emotional response so it could build a digital model of their mind from a behavioral perspective rather than from molecular scanning.

After 20 years of collecting data in this dystopian metaverse, the fictional AI system had fully modeled every person in this future society with sufficient detail that it didnt need real people anymore. After all, real humans are less efficient, as we need food and housing and healthcare. The digital copies didnt need any of that. And so, guess what the fictional AI system decided to do? It convinced all of us biological people to upgrade ourselves by ending our own lives and allowing the digital copies to replace us. And we were willing to do it under the false notion that we would be immortal.

Thats what mind uploading really means. It means ending humanity and replacing it with a digital representation. I wrote Upgrade 14 years ago because I genuinely believe we humans might be foolish enough to head in that direction, ending our biological existence in favor of a purely digital one.

Why is this bad? If you think Big Tech has too much power now having the ability to track what you do and moderate the information you access imagine what it will be like when human minds are trapped inside the systems they control, unable to exit. That is the future many are pushing for. Its terrifying. Mind uploading is not the path to immortality some believe.

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A fake salsa band ignites the rebirth of an old New York record label – EL PAS USA

Posted: at 7:48 pm

A new album will land on the salsa dance floor by the end of this week; one that fuses rhythms from the 1970s with the technological dystopias of the future. Behind it is Ansonia Records, a label that, after its creation in 1949 among Latino immigrants from New York, would produce several merengue, jibara, bomba, guaracha, mambo, and boogaloo albums, before stopping altogether in 1990. This Friday, after more than 30 years, Ansonia Records will return with a salsa album.

Hermano del futuro, vengo buscando iluminacin; brother from the future, I come looking for enlightenment. So says one of the songs from the new album, called Metamorfosis, by the old salsa group Renacimiento. But there is a catch: Renacimiento does not exist. It never did. It is a fake group, and this is a fake cover, explains musician Eblis lvarez, founder of the Colombian group Meridian Brothers, who had already experimented with various genres, from cumbia to vallenato. A group that practices tropical cannibalism, says lvarez. This year, Meridian Brothers decided to launch a group of salseros straight out of fiction: Renacimiento.

Renacimiento [rebirth] is the typical name that musicians would give a salsa group in the 1970s, lvarez tells EL PAS. For example, in the Nueva Trova movement there was talk of a political rebirth, but at the same time they combined this with a spiritual factor: when one listens to groups like La Columna de Fuego [from Bogota] or Los Jaivas [from Chile], there was a common pattern: everyone was waiting for a rebirth of the soul, and of society.

Although on stage Renacimiento is made up of five artists Mara Valencia, Alejandro Forero, Csar Quevedo and Mauricio Ramrez, besides lvarez when the album was recorded it was the founder who played all the instruments, besides doing the voice of the salsero that accompanies the songs. The album has nine tracks, some similar to the older, slower salsa, and others to the faster, contemporary style. Between the piano, the timbales and the percussion, we find verses with the concerns of the 21st century: love that communicates by algorithm, or the threats of atomic bombs that take us to the cemetery. Metamorfosis, the single that has already been released, begins with a man who wakes up turned into a robot and longs for a time when nightclubs really had an atmosphere, not like now, full of cameras, full of drones.

I wanted it to sound like salsa from the 1970s, says lvarez. There is no originality, or the originality of this lies in being able to replicate the music as best as possible, but in terms of the material there is nothing original, as it is made with the collective unconscious of Latin America, of Colombia, of Latinos. This is an extrapolation from the 1970s to today, and it speaks of transhumanism, like the matter of highest concern that everything, absolutely everything, is now packed inside the damn cell phone.

The rebirth includes both the album and the label, as this is the first recording in more than 30 years to be released by Ansonia Records, a company created in 1949 and later forgotten, despite having been one of the first labels founded by a Latin migrant in the United States. Puerto Rican Rafael Prez, its founder, brought Dominican, Puerto Rican and Cuban musicians from Latin Harlem or the South Bronx, who had not found a home among American record companies, to several studios. He produced his records before the time of the powerful Fania, which made New York salsa famous.

To Liza Richardson, an American radio host who was also a music supervisor on series like Narcos or the movie Y tu mam tambin, Ansonia Records is a gem. In the early 1990s, she found an Ansonia album in the stations archives and, fascinated by the labels production, became close to the heirs of Prez. In 2020, she bought the record label with the intention of reactivating it. She, with the help of a small team, has begun to digitize more than 5,000 Ansonia-produced songs; an eighth of them can already be found on streaming platforms like Spotify.

Souraya Al-Alaoui, manager of Ansonia Records, explains that most of the artists chosen by the label were focused on the Latin American diaspora. That was their base; they valued the traditional sounds from islands like Cuba or Puerto Rico, and were not looking to become westernized.

Johnny Pacheco, founder of La Fania, started with Ansonia Records, and Ansonia was an inspiration for what would later become La Fania, says Al-Alaoui. Ansonia was also a pioneer as a label owned by a Latino, an independent label with a founding message: this is from us and for us. Thats why it was an inspiration for what came after.

Over the years, La Fania grew and the seed of Ansonia Records faded away. The label never managed to promote its musicians in concerts like La Fania did, and after the arrival of the digital world, they did not set up a website or try to upload their music to any streaming platforms. Thus, it became a label that was only known by a small group of music lovers, like Liza Richardson and Eblis lvarez.

Now, we are hoping to release a new record every year, and we are thrilled to start with this one by Meridian Brothers, says Richardson. This is an album that looks to the past but tries to move towards the future, and that is exactly what we are trying to do: look to the past to, at some point, be able to grow again, to thrive.

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A fake salsa band ignites the rebirth of an old New York record label - EL PAS USA

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