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Antisemitism on the rise in America: An explainer and research roundup – Journalist’s Resource

Posted: May 28, 2022 at 8:41 pm

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Antisemitism, according to the Anti-Defamation League, is on the rise in America. The Jewish anti-hate organizations annual audit of antisemitic incidents showed a 34% increase including incidents of assault, vandalism and harassment year over year from 2020 to 2021. In total, the ADL recorded 2,717 antisemitic incidents in the United States last year, the most since the organization began tracking in 1979.

At the heart of many of those incidents are stereotypes or conspiracy theories, many of which have their roots in medieval Europe. In Buffalo, New York, for example, when a man massacred 10 people in a predominantly Black neighborhood, he reportedly adhered to the so-called Great Replacement conspiracy theory that Jews are attempting to replace white people in the U.S. with immigrants of color.

Jewish global domination is a conspiracy theory that goes back for decades. Among the notorious examples of antisemitic lie-spreading documents is The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a hoax document pretending to be a handbook of a Jewish elitist cabal intent on global control. Portions of the fake handbook were published in 1903 by a Russian newspaper,Znamya,though its origins are unclear.

Conspiracy theories and stereotypes about Jews can be found on extremist websites and in the halls of suburban schools. Journalists, who might not be aware of them, may inadvertently perpetuate those stereotypes. I am sympathetic to the plight of journalists, says Rabbi Jerome Chanes, a senior fellow at the CUNY Graduate Centers Center for Jewish Studies and the author of Antisemitism: A Reference Handbook. Its very tough for us to know what to do on a day-to-day basis.

In 2016, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, an intergovernmental organization founded in 1998, held a meeting called the Plenary in Bucharest. The group decided to adopt the following working definition of antisemitism:

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

Professor, author and Rabbi Michael Berenbaum, former project director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and first director of the museums Holocaust Research Institute, says antisemitism can be grouped into five categories:

There is religious antisemitism, there is political antisemitism, there is social antisemitism, there is economic antisemitism, there is also racial antisemitism, says Berenbaum, who served as deputy director of the Presidents Commission on the Holocaust from 1979 to 1980.

Racial antisemitism is a prejudice based on the belief that Jews comprise a distinct, perhaps inferior race with inherent genetic traits. This, Berenbaum says, was the Nazi form of antisemitism.

The Nazis were opposed to Jewish blood, he says. They didnt give a bloody damn about the identity you had, the tradition you follow, etc. They gave a damn about the blood.

The Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler in the 1930s and 1940s may no longer exist, but there are those in the United States and elsewhere who adhere to the Nazi ideology, including racial antisemitism. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Neo-Nazi groups share a hatred for Jews and a love for Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. While they also hate other minorities, gays and lesbians and even sometimes Christians, they perceive the Jew as their cardinal enemy.

Religious antisemitism is contempt for Judaism itself, including the belief that Jews should be converted away from Judaism. It also manifests itself in broad statements suggesting that Judaism threatens other religions, such as referring to all Jews as Christ-killers. Its worth noting that the Catholic Church officially repudiated this notion in a 1965 document called Nostra Aetate, stating that while there may have been Jewish authorities who wanted to crucify Jesus Christ, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today.

Social antisemitism is the exclusion of Jews from social situations. In the past, Jews were excluded from golf and sport clubs, as The New York Times reported in a 1959 article, Pattern of bias in clubs is found. More subtle examples persist today, such as holding a sports event on a Jewish religious holiday, so as to discourage Jews from attending or to penalize them if they prioritize their religious beliefs.

If youre living in rural eastern Washington, the issues that youre facing as a Jewish community tend to be that everything was presumptively white and Christian, says Ken Stern, director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate. Therefore, you may be asked to play football on Yom Kippur.

Economic antisemitism is the attempt to reduce Jewish economic influence and is often based on the false notion that all Jews are wealthy or greedy. Historically, in medieval Europe, Jews were limited to certain professions, including money-lending, in an attempt to prevent Jews from achieving too much influence. As Britannica explains, Because premodern Christianity did not permit moneylending for interest and because Jews generally could not own land, Jews played a vitalroleas moneylenders and traders.

Political antisemitism is the attempt to keep Jews out of political power, such as by spreading antisemitic messages about candidates during election season. (For some examples of how this can play out in local elections, see Rabbi Shlomo Litvins opinion piece Political debates should be spirited, but antisemitism has no place in our public square, published May 13 in The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky.)

Each type of antisemitism has its own goal, Berenbaum says. The goal of economic antisemitism, for example, is diminishment of a Jewish economic power and Jewish stranglehold on it.

For Nazis, the goal of racial antisemitism was the extermination of the Jews as a people.

If its religious antisemitism, then your goal is conversion, he said. If its political antisemitism, your goal can be the diminishment of Jewish political power, or the expulsion of Jews from the political entity.

The goal of economic antisemitism is to limit Jewish economic participation, which Berenbaum says used to be demonstrated by edicts forcing Jews to work in specific industries, or by glass pay ceilings. More recently, its the association of Jews with money.

Theres also growing concern about the intersection of antisemitism and anti-Zionism, which is opposition to the establishment and existence of Israel as an official Jewish state.

Opposition to Israeli politics is not always antisemitic in nature, according to Rabbi Elliot Dorff, rector and professor of philosophy at American Jewish University. He says Israel, like all nations, is a human society, and as a human society has things that it does that can be criticized.

But Dorff argues that anti-Zionism can also be used as a way to express antisemitism in a politically correct way.

Anti-Zionism can certainly be used as a substitute for anti-semitism on the grounds that thats more acceptable in polite society than antisemitism, Dorff says.

To help journalists identify and report on antisemitism, The Journalists Resource has compiled and summarized several academic studies and commentaries on the subject. Scholarly research can help newsrooms better understand discussions of antisemitism, identify both subtle and overt antisemitism while reporting the news, and examine their own coverage for unconscious bias against Jews.

This research roundup and explainer is published as a companion piece to our tip sheet, 8 tips to help journalists cover antisemitism and avoid perpetuating antisemitic stereotypes which will help journalists put the research into context.

A Quantitative Approach to Understanding Online Antisemitism

Joel Finkelstein, Savvas Zannettou, Barry Bradlyn, Jeremy Blackburn. American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Press, 2020

In this research paper, presented at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Conference on Web and Social Media, Joel Finkelstein, of Princeton Universitys Network Contagion Research Institute, and his co-authors use mathematical processes to search for and quantify the use of antisemitic language and imagery on fringe platforms.

They show that antisemitism increased significantly online during the time period studied, between 2016 and 2017, and that it fluctuates due to world events.

Specifically looking at message board 4Chan and social media platform Gab, Finkelstein and his coauthors searched hundreds of million comments for terms like Jew and several derogatory terms for Jews. They found what they term an explosion in diversity of coded language for racial slurs.

Racial and ethnic slurs are increasing in popularity on fringe web communities, the authors write. This trend is particularly notable for antisemitic language.

During the time period studied, researchers found that the term Jew appeared in 4% of posts on 4Chans politically incorrect page, and 3.1% of Gab posts.

The use of antisemitic language is increasing, the authors write, but it is not a steady increase; rather, it fluctuates in response to world events.

We find the frequency of antisemitic content greatly increases (in some cases more than doubling) after major political events such as the 2016 US Presidential Election and the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Furthermore, this antisemitism appears in tandem with sharp increases in white ethnic nationalist content on the same communities.

The researchers also looked at the spread of visual imagery, focusing on one image in particular, the so-called happy merchant meme, which depicts a large-nosed, bearded man greedily rubbing his hands together. That meme, they write represents an unambiguous instance of antisemitic hate, and is extremely popular and diverse in fringe web communities.

The studied meme was consistently shared on 4Chan, but more sporadically shared on Gab, researchers noting a substantial and sudden increase in posts containing Happy Merchant memes immediately after the Charlottesville rally.

Our findings on Gab dramatically illustrate the implication that real world eruptions of antisemitic behavior can catalyze the acceptability and popularity of antisemitic memes on other web communities, they write.

What breeds conspiracy antisemitism? The role of political uncontrollability and uncertainty in the belief in Jewish conspiracy

Mirosaw Kofta, Wiktor Soral and Micha Bilewicz, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

When the society suffers, it needs someone to blame, someone upon whom to avenge itself for its disappointments; and those persons whom opinion already disfavors are naturally singled out for this role. So begins this longitudinal study, published in a high-impact social science journal, which demonstrates that antisemitic conspiracy theories are linked to a persons belief that they lack political control, as opposed to a feeling of lack of uncertainty about whats going on in the political landscape.

That belief in a lack of control manifests itself, the authors write, in the proliferation of conspiracy-related stereotypes of Jews.

Psychological Research Examining Antisemitism in the United States: A Literature Review

Caroline C. Kaufman, Andrew J. Paladino, Danielle V. Porter and Idia B. Thurston. Antisemitism Studies, Fall 2020.

In this meta-review of studies examining the psychological underpinnings of antisemitism, researchers conclude that the different kinds of antisemitism result from different factors. This suggests, they write, that no single strategy for reduction of antisemitism would suffice.

Study selection for inclusion in the meta-analysis was reduced from an initial body of 550 papers, ultimately reduced to 15 that met researchers criteria, which included requirements that examined studied be in the English language, were empirical studies of human subjects, were recent and contained actual measurements of antisemitism.

Our review suggests that antisemitism reduction efforts should consider addressing factors concurrently in order to make a significant impact. Intervention efforts that address a single factor (religious identity, for example) without addressing other potential contributing factors (right-wing authoritarianism, racial prejudice) may not be as effective, they write.

Economic Freedom and Antisemitism

Niclass Berggren and Therese Nilsson. Journal of Institutional Economics, October 2020

This comparative study examines the ADLs global survey of antisemitic attitudes and compares it with the Fraser Institutes Economic Freedom of the World index, in an attempt to investigate why some nations harbor more antisemitism than others.

The authors suggest that economic freedom and the rule of law in any given nation have direct impacts on the presence and proliferation of antisemitic attitudes among the population. Jews are often seen as exploiters by those holding antisemitic attitudes. The authors write that when a nation has a strong rule of law, there is less of a tendency toward hostility against any groups stereotypically seen as exploitative, and thus there is less antisemitism.

The stereotype of the greedy Jew breeds more antisemitism in nations with more economic openness. As the authors write, Jews, perceived as a greedy international network with particular abilities in the area of finance and banking; and with hindrances for transactions across the countries of the world being low, they will be believed by many to be more able to enrich themselves at the expense of others.

Our empirical findings confirm the two predictions: The more economic openness, the more antisemitism; and the stronger the rule of law, the less antisemitism. These findings indicate a complex relationship between markets and attitudes towards Jews.

Arguing About Antisemitism: Why We Disagree About Antisemitism, and What We Can Do About It

Dov Waxman, David Schraub and Adam Hosein. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2021.

In this report, Dov Waxman, of the Department of Political Science at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), along with coauthors David Shraub, of the Lewis & Clark Law School, Portland, and Adam Hosain, from the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Northeastern University, argue that charges of antisemitism are often contested because there are different ways of thinking about antisemitism and identifying it.

They write that while some cases of antisemitism are blatant hateful statements against Jews the use of swastikas, for example, and violence perpetrated against Jews many are not so obvious.

Antisemitism, like racism, is not always easy to spot, they write. We argue that identifying antisemitism can be difficult and often contentious because there are different ways of thinking about antisemitism, and these different approaches can yield different conclusions about whether something is antisemitic or not.

Antisemitism, whether conscious or unconscious, is often obscured, the authors write. To identify antisemitism, the key is to focus on the perpetrators motives, focus on the victims perception, focus on objective effects or outcomes and focus on discourse and representation.

While the motives behind openly aired antisemitism can be obvious (tiki torch-wielding neo-Nazis chanting, Jews will not replace us, as happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, for example), a perpetrators motives might often not be apparent. Waxman and his coauthors argue that the range of possible motivations that count as antisemitic goes beyond conscious intentions to harm Jews to include, for instance, certain forms of affect, as well as unconscious sources of behaviour.

On the Perils of Positive Antisemitism

Yehuda Bauer and Moshe Fox. Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, 2018

While most antisemitism is expressed as disdain for Jews, the authors argue that the belief that Jews as a people are influential or wealthy can result in what they term positive antisemitism.

Perpetrators of this kind of antisemitism seek to have relationships with and the support of Jews for their own personal gain. It accepts the usual antisemitic trope of a worldwide cabal of powerful Jews who aim to influence or control parts or even all of the non-Jewish world, the authors write. But the conclusion is the opposite of the traditional one: It is a good idea to cultivate Jewish power and have it on ones side.

Authors Yehuda Bauer, a historian and academic adviser to Yad Vashem, the world Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, and Moshe Fox, a historian and former Israeli diplomat, look at positive antisemitism through history, beginning with the misconception that Jews have an outsized influence in world affairs.

It seems that the fear or glorification of Jewish power and influence has its origins in early Christianity, they write, stemming from the idea that Jews were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus, and only people possessed by Satan could murder the Son of God.

In the early 1900s, the idea of a Jewish global conspiracy took shape as the so-called Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a hoax document pretending to be handbook used by a cabal of wealthy, influential Jews.

The Balfour Declaration, rather than a hoax conspiracy theory of Jewish global dominance, was the British governments 1917 statement of support for the creation of a Jewish state. But it had its roots in the same idea of outsized Jewish influence, Fox and Bauer write, specifically in a desire to cultivate relationships with powerful and wealthy people of Jewish descent.

The emergence of that document was at least partly rooted in the antisemitic view that Jews were a powerful group, the positive conclusion being that they were worth luring to the British side, they write.

A few decades later, then-Secretary of State George C. Marshall accused President Harry S. Truman of yielding to the Jewish vote when the president recognized the fledgling Jewish state eleven minutes after it had declared independence, Bauer and Fox write, arguing that both Trumans desire to court Jewish influence and money and Marshalls assertion-had their roots in antisemitism.

Today, names of wealthy Jews such as Hungarian-born hedge fund owner and philanthropist George Soros and casino and newspaper owner Sheldon Adelson are often cited, by those espousing the conspiracies of Jewish global control, as evidence of outsized Jewish influence.

Memetics and the Viral Spread of Antisemitism through Coded Images in Political Cartoons

Yaakov Kirschen, The Yale Papers: Antisemitism in comparative perspective, 2018

A series of high-level seminars were hosted at Yale University between 2006 and 2011, titled, Antisemitism in Comparative Perspective. Exploring the antisemitism from a variety of perspectives, The Yale Papers is a selection of the papers presented at the seminars, plus other working papers, conference papers and lectures.

In Memetics (originally published in 2010) the author, a political cartoonist for The Jerusalem Post, examines common visual tropes used to demonize Jews both throughout history and in modern usage. There are, Kirschen writes, themes that have transcended history and continue to emerge in political cartoons and elsewhere in the media.

The graphic images themselves speak clearly without the words of the cartoon, as many of the same powerfully communicative images appear over and over again in the work of different cartoonists, he writes. They are like a familiar cast of characters.

For example, the use of a Star of David, often called a Jewish star, is used to signify Jews as a group. Kirschen shares a 2003 cartoon by the late Tony Auth, a longtime political cartoonist for The Philadelphia Inquirer who won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1976. (Ed. note: As described in a follow-up article in the Jewish newspaper The Forward, the cartoon depicts Arabs cordoned into jail-like sections of a Jewish star. A number of readers and observers inferred a comparison between Israels security fence and a concentration camp in the cartoon, with many offended by the use of a giant Star of David as a restrictive symbol rather than its representation as the national symbol of Israel and the Jewish people.)

Kirschen calls the use of such images, including characters with large noses, puppeteers, vampires and others, a specific set of graphic codes rich in anti-Jewish meaning.

Stereotyping codes address the question, what are Jews like? These codes transmit the belief that there is a set of traits and characteristics that is common to all Jews. They then define those Jewish characteristics and present them graphically. Stereotyping codes depict Jews as controlling the world and the media and as being money-hungry, brutal, blood-spilling murderers of everyone from Jesus to Palestinian babies in Gaza, he writes.

For example, also in 2003, another Pulitzer Prize-winning artist, Dick Locher, published a cartoon in The Chicago Tribune in which he addresses the question of how to bridge the gulf in Middle East negotiations, as Kirschen writes. The cartoon features a Jew with a huge beak-like nose being tempted to follow a trail of dollar bills.

Kirschen also examines the use of such imagery in viral memes, images intended to be shared widely on social media platforms, including images of Jews as vultures or snakes, Jews as vampires, hook-nosed Jews or puppeteer Jews.

He says memes bear significant resemblance to and pull from images used long before the digital age, appearing in woodcuts, etchings, paintings, murals, and stained glass windows.

Twentieth century mass movements used image codes taken from these medieval works alongside newly created image codes in cartoons, which were mass produced in newspapers and magazines and presented as valid political commentary, he writes.

The difference between similar imagery shared pre-Internet and in the modern era, Kirschen says, is the breadth of dissemination: What once might have only circulated around a small city, state, or even country can now freely cross international boundaries and leap across continents.

Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism

Robert Wistrich, Jewish Political Studies Review, 2004 (originally presented as a written statement at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, and published in its official record on Feb. 10, 2004)

Wistrich (who was, before he died in 2015, professor of European and Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and head of the Universitys Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism) argues that anti-Zionist rhetoric often uses antisemitic terminology and concepts.

Wistrich argues that while antisemitism and anti-Zionism have tended to converge over time, they are two, exclusive ideologies.

There have always been Bundists, Jewish communists, Reform Jews, and ultra-Orthodox Jews who strongly opposed Zionism without being Judeophobes, Wistich writes. So, too, there are conservatives, liberals, and leftists in the West today who are pro-Palestinian, antagonistic toward Israel, and deeply distrustful of Zionism without crossing the line into antisemitism.

But he argues that many of the themes used to characterize and demonize Israel have their roots in historically antisemitic movements.

I believe that the more radical forms of anti-Zionism that have emerged with renewed force in recent years do display unmistakable analogies to European antisemitism immediately preceding the Holocaust, he writes.

The movement to boycott Israeli made goods, for example, arouses some grim associations and memories among Jews of the Nazi boycott that began in 1933. (Indeed, such actions go back at least fifty yearsearlier when anti-Semitic organizations first used economic boycotts as a weapon against Jewish competitors).

Perhaps more blatantly, some anti-Zionists have compared Israel and its treatment of the Palestinian people to the Nazi Party and its systematic extermination of Jews, LGBTQ people and other marginalized groups, Wistrich writes.

Anti-Zionists who insist on comparing Zionism and the Jews with Hitler and the Third Reich appear unmistakably to be de facto anti-Semites, even if they vehemently deny the fact, Wistrich writes. This is largely because they knowingly exploit the reality that Nazism in the postwar world has become the defining metaphor of absolute evil.

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Antisemitism on the rise in America: An explainer and research roundup - Journalist's Resource

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Religious Transhumanism 11: What about the body? | cybernetic immortality – Patheos

Posted: at 8:40 pm

What about the body? Lets ask a Lutheran about Cybernetic Immortality & Disembodied Intelligence

Of the many promises to enhance human existence through technology made by our transhumanist friends, one stands out as particularly fantastic and thought provoking. That is cybernetic immortality. Cybernetic immortality prolongs human intelligence in a disembodied or post-biological form. After the body is discarded, our mental processes will continue in the computer cloud. So goes the H+ promise.

Cybernetic immortality looks a lot like the immortal soul of Cartesian or premodern religious belief. Is this what attracts the religious transhumanist? Can we achieve through technology what religion promised but failed to deliver? Might Christians find in transhumanism a shortcut to immortality and salvation?

Not on your life! At least according to Lutheran theologian Jamie Fowler. Jamie believes that God became incarnate in Jesus Christ. To become incarnate means to enter the flesh. What has been redeemed by God is the human person in the flesh, in the body. God promises a resurrection of the body, not an escape from the body either as an immortal soul or as a postbiological intelligence. We compared and contrasted Radical Life Extension, Cybernetic Immortality, or Resurrection of the Body in a previous Patheos post. In this post, we take up resurrection of the body with more detail.

If we ask Jamie Fowlerand we will interview Jamie belowwhether she plans to become a religious transhumanist, we can predict her answer. No way!

Our transhumanist friends tantalize our imaginations with visions of human transformation. These processes require critical thinking and visionary accounts to assess how technology is altering human nature and what it means to be human in an uncertain world (Vita-More, 2019, p. 49). Here in Patheos we will take the advice of Natasha Vita-More and engage in critical thinking. We will ask Jamie Fowler to help us think about the human body in Gods gracious plan of redemption and resurrection.

This post is one in a series on religious transhumanism and its critics. Weve interviewed Micha Redding on evangelical Christian transhumanism, Lincoln Cannon on Mormon transhumanism, Michael LaTorra on Buddhist transhumanism, and James Hughes on UU transhumanism. Weve also interviewed Hava Tirosch-Samuelson who vehemently repudiated H+ based on Jewish theology. In this series of Patheos entries I would like to explore theological reasons for embracing or jettisoning the H+ vision of a transformed humanity. Here we pit against each other cybernetic immortality and resurrection of the body.

Transhumanists believe in transforming humanity through technological enhancement. Here is Ray Kurzweil.

My views are certainly consistent with the Trans-humanist movement. My only hesitation is that I dont like the term Transhumanism because it implies that we will transcend our humanity. The way I articulate this is that we will remain human but transcend our biological limitations. To transcend limitations is precisely what being human is all about.

One form of transcending our biological limits is shooting for postbiological existence, called either cybernetic immortality or whole brain emulation (WBE).

We start by postulating that our present mind is a pattern. Allegedly, our mind is an information pattern attached to a biological substrate. Once we have captured the pattern, we can remove the mind from our brain and upload the it onto a silicon substrate. Then, perhaps even into the cloud. Once in the cloud, no longer will the vicissitudes of the body drag the mind toward discomfort, pain, suffering, or death.

Cybernetic immortality is achieved through whole brain emulation. The basic idea is to take a particular brain, scan its structure in detail, and construct a software model of it that is so faithful to the original that, when run on appropriate hardware, it will behave in essentially the same way as the original brain. The once biological brain becomes substrate independent. In short, a disembodied mind.

Uploading a human brain means scanning all of its salient details and then reinstantiating those details into a suitably powerful computational substrate, Ray Kurzweil tells us. This process would capture a persons entire personality, memory, skills, and history (Kurzweil, 2005, pp. 198-199). Postbiological intelligence will live on in disembodied form. At least as long as no one pulls the plug on our lap top. Nothing short of disembodied cybernetic immortality will have been achieved.

What great news! Cybernetic immortality, brags Donald Braxton, will be able to continue a non-biological life in a virtual reality for as long as the simulation can run. Thus, the transmigration of the soul will no longer be a matter of faith, but a scientific fact(Braxton, 2021, p. 8).

Theologians puzzle and ponder whole brain emulation. What are its implications? Modern transhumanism is a statement of disappointment. Transhumanists regard or bodies as sadly inadequate, limited by our physiognomy, which restricts our brain power, our strength and, worst of all, or life span. Transcendence will not be found in the murky afterlife of the usual religions, but in technological and biological improvement (Alexander, 2003, p. 51). Would Brian Alexander prefer to keep his body replete with restrictions on his brain power and life span? Why not trade this dying bag of bones for the ecstasy of thinking in disembodied form among the stars?

Jamie Fowler is a systematic theologian in the Lutheran tradition. She is currently pursuing a doctorate at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. As a laboratory genetics researchers, she gives special attention to Theology and Science.

TP. Jamie, in your research for your doctoral dissertation, you are investigating the work of divine grace in, with, and under what is physical. What do you believe to be the decisive theological point here?

JF. I believe the decisive theological point that unites divine grace and our physical existence is the Incarnation! In the incarnation, Christian faith claims the presence of Gods Word in our world. Gods Word is particularly located in this universe, on this planet, in Israel. Gods Word lives in history as the human person Jesus of Nazareth. Because Jesus is fully God and fully human, from a biological perspective, the Incarnation instates the physical existence of Gods Word as a living organism. But wait, theres more: through Jesus God connects all the dimensions of our existence the physical, the social, the spiritual dimensions and so on into the very life of God. In his death and resurrection Jesus retains his multidimensional linkage to us.

This multidimensional linkage is the pathway by which grace travels to those who have faith in the salvific power of Christs death and resurrection. Because Christ was a physical being, he transmits his grace to us through a multitude of interconnected dimensions. Consequently, we receive grace multidimensionally. Take the Eucharist, for example. When we eat the Eucharist, we utilize our physical and biological dimensions. We take grace which is really present When we believe in Christs presence in the Eucharist as we eat, we open our spiritual dimension. For the Christian, and more specifically the Lutheran, this pathway of grace is not possible without the physical connection between God and creation. Thus, the Incarnation is the decisive theological point from which divine grace works in, with, and under our physical existence.

TP. When it comes to embodiment, why would transhumanism pose a problem for a Lutheran?

JF. Hopefully my answer above illustrates the fact that, for a Lutheran, physical existence, or embodiment, is paramount to faith and salvation.

Yet, physical existence does not play a central role in Transhumanist philosophy. In fact, for transhumanists our physical existence, characterized by aging and eventually death, is a problem to be overcome. Transhumanists envisage a day when postbiological human beings will be free from all corporeal restraints.

For example, Ray Kurzweil, futurist, inventor, and transhumanist, anticipates that, around the year 2030, biotechnology will enable a union between humans and genuinely intelligent computers and/or AI systems. The resulting human mind/computer would be free to roam a universe of its own making, uploading itself at will on to any suitably powerful computational substrate.

Thus, when it comes to embodiment, the problem transhumanism poses for a Lutheran is the formers radical rejection of the human body. For a Lutheran, discarding bodily existence is nothing short of a rejection of God as both Creator and Redeemer.

TP. If a Lutheran must choose between (1) Radical Life Extension, (2) cybernetic immortality, or (3) resurrection of the body, which will it be? Which do you believe to be most authentically Christian?

JF. Both Radical Life Extension and Cybernetic Immortality are Transhumanist ideals that grapple with the problem of aging/death. Radical Life Extension (RLE) intends to overcome aging and death to some extent by genetically altering the human body. Cybernetic Immortality (CI) aims to shed the human body by transferring ones self-consciousness from that individuals biological body to a suitable, intelligent substrate. Even though RLE and CI have different methods, they both, albeit to different degrees, reject the natural human body.

A Lutheran would not choose either of these options in the face of aging and death. Instead, the Lutheran hopes for eternal relationship with the Creator, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit in addition to the entire body of Christ in Gods Kingdom. The Lutheran yearns to be resurrected at the appointed hour. In the resurrection, God fulfills and perfects human beings with new, immortal bodies that are blessedly free from the threats of aging and death. Thereby, Lutherans like Roman Catholics wait in faith for their resurrected bodies. Such bodies cannot be manufactured. Resurrection is the work of God alone.

Furthermore, the Resurrection of the body is the only authentic Christian choice when compared to RLE and CI. The New Testament of the Bible, the central Christian text, tells of Jesus Christs death and Resurrection and then the resurrection of the dead.

So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. (1 Corr 15: 42-44 NIV)

As we can see, Christian salvation is marked by the resurrection of the body. When God assumed a natural body, God gathered our physical bodies, our entire existence, in all dimensions into Gods life. Without the Incarnation, the general resurrection of natural bodies to spiritual bodies is not possible.

TP. Any final words?

JF. As I have observed above, Transhumanist philosophy and technology holds the human mind in the highest esteem. Yet, Transhumanism regards the body as merely a husk in which individual subjectivity resides. This perspective is Cartesian and dualistic because it clearly relegates mind and matter into two, separate existential realities.

However, according to the biologists and neuroscientists, Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, authors of the Santiago Theory of Cognition. The Santiago Theory claims that living systems are by definition cognitive systems. Living is itself a process of cognition. And this applies to all organisms, with or without nervous systems. In short, body and mind are inseparable.

To put it another way,the structure (matter) and organization (mind) of any organisms are two aspects of a single self-making process. In other words, mind and matter are two sides of the same coin. And that coin is Life. According to this theory, the mind cannot be extracted from the physical body. The human mind does not exist apart from the biological body.

Thus, uploading our minds onto a suitable AI substrate as Kurzweil would have us do, is simply not possible. We might successfully transfer a shadowy imprint of our thoughts, emotions, memories, habits, and behaviors onto the substrate. However, this Transhumanist eschatological hope will never be achieved because the human mind cannot be extracted from the human body.

In conclusion, let us acknowledge and celebrate especially in this highly technological age that we ARE our bodies! Our individual bodies contribute to our individual identities. As a Lutheran, I believe that all bodies matter. When God assumed existence in Jesus, God did not fail to assume a body! To that end, Christ was resurrected to new life with God, a new Life that still included a BODY.

TP. Lutherans are not alone among Christians in looking forward to what St. Paul promised in 1 Corinthians 15:42-44. In the eschatological resurrection, Paul anticipates a spiritualized body, a soma pneumaticon. This vision of the resurrected body looks nothing like the disembodied cybernetic mind in the transhumanist vision. Here is Carmen Laberge of Reconnect Radio. The body is part of Gods good creation, described as the temple of the Holy Spirit for those who are redeemed, and Jesus bodily incarnation, resurrection and ascension demonstrate the value God places on the physical human body. So then, should we. And yet, it is not the body that is to be worshipped nor is this flesh-suit eternal (LaBerge, 2019, p. 774). Yet, it is the bodily creation that God redeems in the Easter resurrection of Jesus and your and my promised resurrection into the eternal kingdom of God.

In sum, there is no consonance between the transhumanist vision of cybernetic immortality and the Christian vision of an eschatological resurrection of the dead.

Ted Peters directs traffic at the intersection of science, religion, and ethics. 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. He 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.

Alexander, B. (2003). Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion. New York: Basic Books.

Braxton, D. (2021). Religion Promises but Science Delivers. The Fourth R: Westar Institute 34:3, 3-9.

Kurzweil, R. (2005). The Singularity if Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. New York: Penguin.

LaBerge, C. F. (2019). Christian? Transhumanist? A Christian Primer for Engaging Transhumanism. In e. Newton Lee, The Transhumanism Handbook (pp. 771-776). Switzerland: Springer.

Marturana, Humberto R., and Francisco J. Valero, 1980. Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living. Dordrecht: Reidel.

Peters, T. (2019). Artificial Intelligence, Transhumanism, and Rival Salvations. Covalence, https://luthscitech.org/artificial-intelligence-transhumanism-and-rival-salvations/.

Peters, T. (2019). Boarding the Transhumanist Train: How Far Should the Christian Ride? In e. Newton Lee, The Transhumanist Handbook (pp. 795-804). Switzerland: Springer.

Peters, T. (2019). The Ebullient Transhumanist and the Sober Theologian. Sciencia et Fides 7:2, 97-117.

Vita-More, N. (2019). History of Transhumanism. In N. Lee, The Transhumanism Handbook (pp. 49-62). Switzerland: Springer.

World Transhumanist Association. (2015). Transhumanist Declaration. http://humanityplus.org/philosophy/transhumanist-declaration/.

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Elon Musk is promoting transhumanism as part of Agenda 2030. – Logically

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Elon Musk is a self-proclaimed advocate of transhumanism. However, there is no transhumanism in Agenda 2030.

Many conspiracy theories related to Agenda 2030 of the World Economic Forum (WEF) have been doing rounds on social media since the WEF's annual conference at Davos, Switzerland, kicked off this week (May 22, 2022). One such claim was linked to Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Automotive. A Facebook user posted a video of an old interview with Musk where he can be heard talking about transhumanism. However, his statements were wrongly linked to the Great Reset initiative of the World Economic Forum's Agenda 2030.

Transhumanism is the belief that humanity can be enhanced with human physiology and intelligence using science and technology. Sometimes this amounts to humans "merging" with machines, or other sci-fi predictions.

Elon Musk is a self-proclaimed advocate of transhumanism. During the World Government Summit in Dubai in 2017, Musk argued that humans could become redundant in the face of AI. Further, he went on to say, "AI threatens to become widespread, humans would be useless, so there's a need to merge with machines to become a sort of cyborg," according to a CNBC report. In 2020 Musk also launched Neuralink, a new brain-computer interface that attempts to implant a brain chip that enables the computer and other devices to communicate with the brain. Neuralink is believed to help cure neurological disorders.

However, there is no connection between Elon Musk's interest in transhumanism to the Agenda 2030 laid forward by WEF's Great Reset initiative.

The Great Reset initiative of the World Economic Forum's Agenda 2030 aims to build the foundations of the economic and social system for a fairer and more resilient future and a requirement for sustainable development by eradicating poverty. The WEF is a global foundation that seeks to influence governments and business leaders. Likewise, the "Agenda 2030" plan from the WEF is also not anywhere associated with transhumanism.

The WEF's "Great Reset initiative" has been the subject of many conspiracy theories. Logically recently debunked claims around WEF's agenda 2030 to propagate the Great Reset Conspiracy theory.

The is no link between Elon Musk's stance on transhumanism with Agenda 2030, and the WEF has not mentioned transhumanism anywhere in its Agenda 2030. Conspiracy theorists are making baseless connections to justify the existence of a fictitious conspiracy "Agenda 2030."

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PEW and transhumanism: Public has mixed concerns about arriving era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and human enhancement – Genetic Literacy Project

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Americans regard advances in artificial intelligence and human enhancement technologies with a degree of caution and uncertainty.

Anew Pew Research Center reportlooks in depth at three of the growing number of AI applications: the use of facial recognition by police, the use of computer algorithms by social media companies to find false information on their sites and a future with driverless passenger vehicles. It also explores three developments tied to the convergence of AI, biotechnology, nanotechnology and other fields that raise the possibility of dramatic changes to human abilities in the future: computer chip implants in the brain to advance peoples cognitive skills, gene editing to greatly reduce a babys risk of developing serious diseases or health conditions, and robotic exoskeletons with a built-in AI system to greatly increase strength for lifting in manual labor jobs.

Americans wariness about this wide arc of emergent developments runs through many of the surveys findings. This wariness often centers on concerns about whether people would retain control of their lives, possible unanticipated impacts as these technologies become widely available, and uneasiness about how far these advances might go in changing fundamental human traits and social realities. Some remain uncertain of where they stand on these developments, and about half or more see restrictions on their use that would make them more acceptable.

The survey of 10,260 U.S. adults was conducted between Nov. 1 and 7, 2021. Here are five key themes that run through peoples answers on these questions.

Far more Americans anticipate positive than negative effects from the widespread use of facial recognition technology by police to monitor crowds and look for people who may have committed a crime: 46% think this would be a good idea for society, while 27% think this would be a bad idea and another 27% are unsure. By narrower margins, more describe the use of computer algorithms by social media companies to find false information on their sites as a good rather than a bad idea for society (38% to 31%).

One of the factors tied to Americans largely cautious take on these new and emerging developments stems from doubt that these potential human enhancements would make life better than it is now or that reliance on AI would improve on human judgment or performance. On these questions, less than half of the public is convinced improvements would result. For example, 32% of Americans think that robotic exoskeletons with built-in AI systems to increase strength for manual labor would generally lead to improved working conditions, while 36% think their use would not make much difference and 31% say they would make working conditions worse.

Another concern for Americans is tied to the potential impact of these emerging technologies on social equity. For instance, 57% of Americans say the widespread use of brain chips for enhanced cognitive function would increase the gap between higher- and lower-income Americans, while just 10% say it would decrease the gap. There are similar patterns in views about the widespread use of driverless cars and gene editing for babies to greatly reduce the risk of serious disease during their lifetime.

Views are also tied to peoples sense of how these technologies would be used and who might benefit or be harmed by their rollout. About two-thirds (66%) of Americans think the widespread use of facial recognition technology by the police would lead them to monitor surveillance of Black and Hispanic neighborhoods much more often than other neighborhoods.

The public largely agrees when it comes to standards for ensuring the safety and effectiveness of technologies still in development. Across the four of these technologies in the survey, large majorities support the idea that higher standards should be applied, rather than the standards that are currently the norm. About nine-in-ten Americans (87%) say that higher standards for testing driverless cars should be in place, rather than using existing standards for passenger cars. And 83% believe the testing of brain chip implants should meet a higher standard than is currently in use to test medical devices.

There are sharp partisan divisions when people think about possible government regulation of these new and developing technologies. Americans are often closely divided in their views of government regulation of these six scientific and technological developments. For example, when it comes to regulating the use of facial recognition technology by police, 47% of Americans say their greater concern is that government regulation will go too far, while 51% instead say their greater concern is that government will not go far enough.

Across all six technologies the survey explored, a majority of Republicans and independents who lean to the Republican Party say they are more concerned about government overreach, while a majority of Democrats and Democratic leaners worry more that there will be too little oversight.

Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say their greater concern is that the government will go too far regulating of the use of facial recognition by police (59% vs. 36%). Conversely, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say their concern is that government regulation will not go far enough.

People are relatively open to the idea that a variety of actors in addition to the federal government should have a role in setting the standards for how these technologies should be regulated. Across all six applications, majorities believe that federal government agencies, the creators of the different AI systems and human enhancement technologies and end users should play at least a minor role in setting standards.

One element of public caution in thinking about these six developments is the desire to retain human control over these new and emerging possibilities. Some of the mitigating steps we explored related to the issue of human autonomy. For instance, seven-in-ten Americans say they would find driverless cars more acceptable if there was a requirement that such cars were labeled as driverless so they could be easily identified on the road, and 57% would find driverless cars more acceptable if a licensed driver was required to be in the vehicle.

Similarly, about six-in-ten Americans think the use of computer chip implants in the brain would be more acceptable if people could turn on and off the effects, and 53% would find the brain implants more acceptable if the computer chips could be put in place without surgery.

About half or more also see ways that advances would be more acceptable to them when it comes to the use of robotic exoskeletons, facial recognition technology by police and gene editing in babies to greatly reduce the risk of serious disease during their lifetime.

Note: Here arethe questions usedfor this report, along with responses, andits methodology.

Cary Funk is director of science and society research at Pew Research Center. Find Cary on Twitter @surveyfunk

Lee Rainie is director of internet and technology research at Pew Research Center. Find Lee on Twitter @lrainie

A version of this article was originally posted at Pew Research and is reposted here with permission. Find Pew Research on Twitter @pewresearch

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David Cronenberg Gets Back to Basics in Crimes of the Future – Vanity Fair

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Its too bad that the title Bodies Bodies Bodies is already taken (by an upcoming horror film), because it would be a great name for David Cronenbergs new film, Crimes of the Future, which premiered here at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday. Cronenbergs first film in eight years is about body obsession, imagining a time maybe decades (or more?) from now when humanity eagerly melds with the synthetic.

In some ways, Crimes of the Future is an eco-horror, an imagining of where our species might be headed now that there have been microscopic bits of plastic found teeming in nearly all of us. Cronenberg envisions a world in which people have begun mutating, producing new internal organs for as yet unknown purposes. While their use is sussed out, their existence has become a cult-like fascination, creating a new genre of performance art.

Viggo Mortensen plays just such an artist: Saul, a weather-beaten man whose body is working overdrive inventing new parts. These developments may be killing him. Or maybe its the constant surgeries, performed as public shows by his partner, Caprice (La Seydoux). These peculiar acts have caught the attention of culture vultures and of a government organization that tags new organs, as a way to delineate between regular anatomical matter and the ominous other stuff.

Theres a mystery at work in the film, gruesomely involving a murdered child. Saul and Caprice become ensnared in that bit of intrigue while continuing to explore what I suppose you could call their craft. The film is rather opaque in its plotting, forcing a viewer to lean forward, squinting to gain an understanding of just what is going on in these dank operating theaters and junkyard hangouts.

Crimes of the Future is more style piece than narrative story, a jumble of ideas and images that have been swirling in Cronenbergs singular mind for years now and are finally manifest and sallow. It may prove tricky for some to get on the films eerie-weird wavelength, though lifelong Cronenberg fans will no doubt be happy to see him mucking about in the gooey and grotesque after some time spent in the more polished realms of crime (A History of Violence, Eastern Promises) and celebrity satire (Maps to the Stars). Crimes of the Future is undeniably a Cronenberg film, with its mecha-organic contraptions that look like bones (a la eXistenZ) and the faintest of wry smiles curling up at the pictures edges.

As he has done before, Cronenberg makes great use of Mortensen, who plays Saul with a disarming warmth that stands in pleasant contrast to the broader films chilly murk. Mortensen has vital chemistry with Seydoux. Together they create a recognizably human dynamic amid so much otherworldly strangeness and unease. That the people in Crimes of the Futureincluding Kristen Stewart, as a perhaps overly invested government organ trackerare very much people, not unlike those wed meet in our reality, gives the film a crucial grounding. With these sturdy anchors in place, Cronenberg can stretch his film toward the various gonzo directions of his singular interest.

Much early hay has been made about the body-horror aspect of Cronenbergs film, buzzed about as a film that would send Cannes audiences running for the exits to escape its gory onslaught. Take it from a squeamish person that much of that chatter has been overblown. There are some gnarly things in the movieparticularly a bit of mouth play on an open wound (of a sort) that will dreadfully linger in my head for some timebut for the most part, Cronenbergs approach to these surgical oddities is clinical enough to prevent true revulsion.

Really, the most unsettling image in the film is Saul struggling to eat breakfast while he sits in a rattling, yanking kind of chair made of synthetic bone (I think), meant to stabilize or stimulate (Im really not sure I parsed that one) his body for ideal food consumption. Its quite frightening to think of a quotidian task made so strange and difficult by both failing personal health and technological advancement.

Though, is any of this actually advancement? Cronenberg is coy about whether what hes showing us is meant to startle us into action to prevent such a future, or if there is a cold comfort in its inevitability. Maybe the film is saying we should just sit back and await the surreal wonder of our own mechanical breakfast chairs. Or maybe hes making a sort of doomsday prophecy.

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Painting on Another Plane: Mandy Cao – MutualArt.com

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Trapped in her dreams, in the half-lit purgatory of insomnia, neither awake nor sleeping, an anonymous young woman wanders through the half-world of the in-between, touching mysterious plants, and embracing the astral entities she encounters a swan, long black lines of unraveled thread, a huge wolf. She is dark-haired, beautiful, and naked. We never see her face. This is the landscape of folk tales, where magic and reality meet, where nothing is what it seems and everything is meaningful. These are the supernatural workings of Mandy Cao, a painter of unsettling and seductive psychological power.

Mandy Cao,My Sheer Dream

Cao was born in China and immigrated to Los Angeles, California, to join her mother who had come to America two years before. She was fourteen years old. When I first came here it was really difficult for me, she says, I enjoy how chill L.A. is, and how nice and welcoming people are, but I dont feel like I belong to anywhere. I guess I belong here I have family here, and now I have kids here. I still think Im Chinese, but when I go back to China, they think Im American. I dont hate that feeling, I take it and enjoy it. I think thats what makes me different from other artists. I definitely show it in my paintings Im living in a world as I want it to be, as I like it. After high school she attended the renowned Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, and soon learned from her professors that she must develop her own style if she was to succeed in the world of galleries and shows and deals. Feeling lost, she decided to paint her feelings of uncertainty, of wandering unsure of her direction in an unfamiliar world. She liked living in the United States, but felt like a stranger in a strange land. Her uncertainty became her style, her cheerful alienation became her message.

Mandy Cao, Time in Desolation

Although her wandering woman drifts through a strange landscape, she is unthreatened even a monstrous wolf is a protecting entity in her red riding reverie. When detached and spectral hollow hands touch her shoulders, they seem to offer reassurance rather than any haunted threat, and the mysterious fauna she finds is benignly and beautifully mutated. Its all like daydreaming, Cao muses, its the way I look at the world. I look at stuff, the things in the world and I dont think its real. I paint out what I think it should be, from the direction I look at it. I love the world. She gathers a perfect white swan into her arms, in a cold land, confined on a tiny ice-cold island of bleached white. It rests its head against her shoulder, safe and secure. Twiggy coral-orange plants grow through a white and grey ground as soft as ashes and snow. The swan is an elegant symbol for love, Cao maintains.

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Have Authoritarians Used 1984 as a Handbook? – Verve Times

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Is it just me, or does it feel like someone out there is using Orwells work, not as a warning, but as an owners manual? GBNews host Neil Oliver asked in a May 7, 2022 monologue. He summarized a scene from George Orwells book, Animal Farm, in which the farm animals discover that the pigs are taking all the apples and milk for themselves.

When their selfish behavior is revealed, the pigs defend it saying it has been scientifically proven that pigs alone require milk and apples for good health. Theres nothing self-serving about their taking all the apples and milk for themselves. Many of us dont even like apples.

This term, science has been repeatedly thrown in our faces and shoved down our throats over the past two years, while unfairly and irrationally separating the superiors from the plebs. Science has been used to strip us of medical rights and personal freedoms.

Now, science is touted as the justification for not eating real beef and getting used to insects, grubs and lab-grown protein alternatives instead. Science is also being weaponized to cajole us into accepting rolling blackouts and energy deprivation.

Energy giant E.On recently sent pairs of polyester socks to customers with the message, Energy down. CO2 down. Those literally in control of the power are telling people to wear more clothes to fend off the cold rather than have heating in their homes, Oliver said.

In Orwells dystopian novel 1984, we find both a Ministry of Plenty and a Ministry of Truth. Both names are the opposite of their true function. The Ministry of Plentys job is to maintain a consistent level of poverty while publishing fabricated production numbers for items that were never actually made, and the task of the Ministry of Truth is to memory-hole inconvenient facts and rewrite history daily to fit the political narrative.

In the U.S., the Biden administration has been telling us the economy is good, the GDP is strong1 and inflation is transitory,2 even though data clearly tell a different story. The first quarter of 2022 actually had a negative growth rate,3 consumer debt soared $52 billion in March,4 and inflation over the past year has been the fastest in four decades,5 with no end in sight.

Biden has even insisted that borrowing (read: printing) more money will reduce prices while not affecting the value of the dollar. To quote The Hill contributor Chris Talgo,6 That is called, to borrow a Biden-ism, malarkey, because when the government prints or borrows trillions of dollars, the value of the dollar declines, and prices rise. That is called inflation. Its basic economics, but even that is being redefined at whim.

As if that werent Orwellian enough, at the end of April 2022, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security created an actual ministry of truth, the Disinformation Governance Board, in blatant violation of the First Amendment (free speech).

The DHS is basically pretending as though the Constitution doesnt exist anymore, yet no one can recall it being formally abolished. It should still be there the supreme law of the land. But government is acting as though its been memory-holed, and no doubt hope youll just go along with it. Its nothing short of insane-making, and perhaps thats the intention.

Its very reminiscent of gaslighting,7 a form of emotional manipulation and abuse where the abuser creates a false narrative and step by step makes the victim question their sanity. Rewriting history is a key hallmark, as is refuting what is obvious fact. Silly examples might be commenting on your black shirt when the shirt youre wearing is white, or insist you arrived an hour late when clearly, you were right on time, judging by every clock in the house.

While the victim may wonder if theyre losing their mind, its actually the people who do the gaslighting who typically have a mental health disorder. They tend to be pathological liars with strong narcissistic tendencies.

To protect yourself, psychologists recommend you get some distance from the perpetrator, save all evidence (so you can confirm the facts when you get unsure), and set firm boundaries for what you will tolerate and what you wont. Lastly, you need to sever the relationship something to keep in mind.

In his monologue, Oliver laments the poor turnout in the local elections, noting that most people are simply worn out by the abuse. Exhausted by the lies. Fatigued beyond care by the hypocrisy. Let this be a lesson to Americans do not fall into apathy.

The answer is to replace the abusive leadership by voting in record-setting numbers. Get more involved, not less. You could volunteer as a poll worker, for example. Its true, were being hit with phenomenally powerful psychological warfare, but remaining focused on the truth and refusing to get side tracked is your best defense.

Aldous Huxley was a contemporary and mentor of Orwell. In the 1958 interview above, Huxley discussed a series of essays hed written called Enemies of Freedom. The series outlines impersonal forces that are pushing in the direction of progressively less freedom, and technological devices that can be used to accelerate the process by imposing ever greater control of the population.

With the advent of television, Huxley foresaw how an authoritarian leadership could become a source of a one-pointed drumming of a single idea, effectively brainwashing the public. Beyond that, he predicted the technological capability to bypass the rational side of man and manipulate behavior by influencing people on a subconscious level. This is precisely what were faced with today.

Huxley pointed out that as technology becomes more complex, it becomes increasingly necessary to form more elaborate hierarchal organizations to manage it all. Technology also allows for more effective propaganda machines that can be managed through those same control hierarchies.

Huxley cited the success of Hitler, noting that aside from Hitlers effective use of terror and brute force, he also used a very efficient form of propaganda. He had the radio, which he used to the fullest extent, and was able to impose his will on an immense mass of people.

Google and Facebook have both been collecting data on you for nearly two decades. They have created massive server farms that are capable of analyzing this data with deep learning and artificial intelligence software to mine information and generate incredibly precise details on just what type of propaganda and narrative is required to surreptitiously manipulate your beliefs and behavior.

Huxley argued that to create the dystopian future presented in his books, you would have to centralize wealth, power and control, which is precisely what the technocratic and transhumanist-inspired globalist cabal have been doing. Their control grid is nearly complete.

One of the final nails in our collective coffin will be the rollout of a global digital identity system, as this will give them more or less total control over every human being on the planet. The World Health Organization is working on one. The European Union just announced the rollout of digital ID, and the U.K. government is drawing up legislation to make digital ID services more secure.8

While sold as the ultimate in speed and convenience, digital ID poses one of the gravest risks to human rights of any technology that we have encountered. The Expose warns:9

Ultimately, social credit systems, such as those that are currently being developed in China, will be based on digital ID, thereby enabling or disabling our full and free participation in society.

By developing facial recognition and AI and machine learning technologies in parallel with systems for a Digital ID, we are not simply establishing an identity to access basic social services. Digital IDs will become necessary to function in a connected digital world

Digital ID systems, as they are being developed today, are ripe for exploitation and abuse, to the detriment of our freedoms and democracies. You may be thinking that this would never happen in the West and it is only unique to China. But they already enforced it here without you realizing it, through COVID-19 Vaccine Passports.

Mandatory COVID passports have almost nothing to do with public health and everything to do with social control. Why? Because the COVID-19 injections do not prevent infection or transmission Vaccine Passports make absolutely zero sense from a Public Health perspective. But they make perfect sense for enforcing a Digital ID and Social Credit system

Youll have to use your Digital ID to buy certain things, be granted access to places, and most probably to even access the mainstream internet. But, if you havent done what the Government has decided makes you a good citizen, and kept up a good social credit score, you wont be able to do any of those things.

Once Digital IDs have been normalized, they will be one of the greatest tools that Governments have ever had in their arsenal to both control and manipulate the public and remain in power, thanks to the huge amount of personal data they will generate.

If centralization is the prerequisite for Huxleys dystopia, then decentralization is the way to protect against it. Today, the wisdom of this is on full display. I believe decentralization of the internet will be required to prevent censorship and manipulation in the future.

This means that websites and platforms are not stored in one central place that can easily be controlled and manipulated but, rather, widely distributed to thousands, if not millions, of computers all over the world. Because there is no central storage it cant be removed.

Decentralized platforms allow the majority of power to reside with the individual. Technologies that can be easily misused to control the public narrative must also remain largely decentralized, so that no one person or agency ends up with too much power to manipulate and influence the public. Our modern-day social media monopolies are a perfect example of what Huxley warned us about.

The same goes for our food system and our economic institutions too. Today, we can see how the role of the central bank (in the U.S. known as the Federal Reserve) a privately-owned entity with the power to break entire countries apart for profit is forcing us toward a new global economic system that will impoverish and quite literally enslave everyone, with the exception of the cabal members themselves.

Like the ruling pigs in Animal Farm, they may insist theyre building back better and working toward a fairer and more equitable society, but if they get their way, they will be the only ones dining on apples and milk in the farmhouse, while the rest of us own nothing and subsist on rationed grubs.

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How to Grow and Forage Without Owning Land – Verve Times

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This article was previously published July 6, 2019, and has been updated with new information.

Have you ever wanted to grow your own food but didnt know where to start? Access to fresh, healthy food is a human right, and one of the best ways to exercise that right is to grow your own food. You dont have to be a farmer or have a background in agriculture. You dont even have to own your own land.

The industrialization of our chemical-dependent food system has caused problems that are nearly insurmountable, including soil degradation, water pollution, loss of biodiversity, a decline in public health and climate change. But food production doesnt have to be globalized, industrialized or even monetized.

Thats the message environmental activist and humanitarian Rob Greenfield wants to convey in a new project in which he aims to grow and forage 100% of his own food for one year. The challenge is featured in a two-part film produced by Peter Kanaris of GreenDreamsFL titled, Growing & Foraging 100% of His Food WITHOUT LAND OF HIS OWN: 1-Year Challenge w/ Rob Greenfield.

The film, set in Orlando, Florida, shows Greenfield 138 days into his yearlong project of growing and foraging all of his own food, and some of his own medicine, too. The best part? Greenfield doesnt own any land. Hes growing food in six privately owned yards and a handful of other spots that total less than 4,000 square feet of space.

Greenfield did not go to school for horticulture, either. And, he doesnt have any experience in agriculture. He does possess a certificate in permaculture, but says it never taught him how to actually plant anything. For instance, he had to learn how much sun is needed to grow carrots, how much water kale requires and what time of year is best to plant certain plants.

Despite his lack of experience, he learned how to successfully grow a variety of food and herbs including green onions, carrots, beets, celery, spinach, kale, cabbage, tomatoes, garlic, cilantro and dill. Remarkably, in less than one year (about 10 months), Greenfield was able to grow 100% of his own food.

But it gets better. Hes growing so much food that his project doubles as a community garden, where locals can sample fresh, locally grown produce, and leave feeling inspired to try and grow some of their own.

At least thats my hope, says Greenfield in the film. I took on the challenge to not just feed myself, but to inspire others to try and do the same. That could mean planting your first tomato plant, starting an herb garden on your apartment balcony or turning your front or backyard into a full-on garden. Growing your own food is something we all can do.

In an effort to conserve water, Greenfield uses a drip irrigation system that delivers water directly to the roots of plants. Drip irrigation is one of the most efficient watering systems, as it can reduce water usage by 30% to 70%. Greenfield says he could grow the food without a drip irrigation system, but with all of the different gardens hes growing, it would add up to 10 hours more per week of labor on top of the 40 to 60 hours he already spends tending to his gardens.

In addition to his gardens, Greenfield also helped plant more than 200 community fruit trees in Orlando, including cherry, peach, mulberry, avocado and loquat trees. The trees are marked with a sign that says: I am a community fruit tree. Please enjoy my fruit. The community trees act as a reminder that food can be available outside of the grocery store.

The film shows Greenfield munching on fresh mulberries from one of the community fruit trees he helped plant. Food is a gateway to getting people to rethink everything, says Greenfield, adding:

The idea is to try and get food grown freely all around us. A lot of people when they see food thats growing free, thats nutritious and delicious, for the first time, and they realize that it doesnt have to come from the grocery store, that can be a pretty revolutionary moment.

Im super passionate about growing food. But the passion is equally as much about inspiring people not just to grow their own food, but to look at the world in a different way, to start to see the world as something to work with, rather than against, in all facets of life: our food, our water, our energy, our waste and our transportation.

Just every way we deal with the Earth. I think food is one of the greatest gateways because we eat food three times a day, and some of us, more like 10 times a day. Its our connection to our community. Its our fun. Its our social life. For a lot of us, we eat to live and we live to eat. So, if you can get people really thinking about their food, I think you can get people thinking about their entire lives.

Theres no doubt that Greenfield is an inspiration to us all. Hes a force to be reckoned with when it comes to raising awareness about some of the most pressing social and environmental issues of our time, including food waste, plastic pollution, climate change, corporatism and homelessness, just to name a few.1

With more than half a million likes on Facebook and nearly 100,000 YouTube subscribers (some of his videos have views numbering in the millions), Greenfield has captured the attention of audiences worldwide.

His motto Live simple and you will live free summarizes his belief that happiness is not derived from money and possessions, but rather comes from the meaningful connections we make with others, and having a profound appreciation and respect for our planets natural resources and the life that exists within it.

Greenfield isnt just passionate about growing his own food and showing others they can do the same. Hes also dedicated to creating awareness about food waste and food insecurity.

Americans discard an estimated 34 million tons of food every year thats like tossing a quarter of your groceries into the trash. The food waste problem is not limited to Americas home kitchens, but also occurs in restaurants, grocery stores and on farms.

Through his campaign The Food Waste Fiasco,2 Greenfield created awareness around food waste by diving into thousands of dumpsters to show how nearly half of all food in the U.S. is wasted.3

In one of his videos, Dumpster Diving for Food with Rob Greenfield, he showed how he was able to fill an empty pantry and fridge with more than $1,000 worth of perfectly good food after just five hours of dumpster diving.4 Thats collecting $200 an hour worth of food, he says.

Greenfield is also a big advocate of showing that people are good. In an effort to illustrate this, he bravely traveled to Rio, Brazil, with zero dollars to his name. He was able to travel 7,000 miles to Panama, relying on nothing except for the goodness of others, who kindly offered him food, shelter and transportation.

He even used other peoples cell phones to capture the footage, some of which was used in a six-episode series called Free Ride that aired on the Discovery Channel. To learn more about Greenfield and his adventures, check out his website, RobGreenfield.TV.5

Read original article here

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Tech giants drag down the S&P 500 – The Week

Posted: at 8:38 pm

Here are three of the week's top pieces of financial insight, gathered from around the web:

Tech giants drag down the S&P 500

The handful of companies that powered the S&P 500 to new heights are now dragging the entire index down, said Karen Langley in The Wall Street Journal. "Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Tesla, Google, and Facebook swelled to be so big in recent years that they accounted for 25 percent" of the benchmark U.S. stock index, which is weighted by market value. But since the market has turned, those six firms plus Netflix and Nvidia "are responsible for 46 percent of the benchmark's total 2022 losses." Slower-growing "value" stocks in the S&P 500 that are better positioned to handle rising inflation and higher interest rates have done better. Those include Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Merck, and AbbVie.

Late-life health-care costs

The average 65-year-old couple should expect to pay $315,000 on medical costs after retirement, said Maurie Backman in The Motley Fool. A Fidelity analysis finds that the math on health care challenges the assumption "that living costs drop drastically in retirement." It says men will "spend $150,000 on health-care costs throughout retirement," while women, who tend to live longer, should anticipate spending $165,000. That's with health-care coverage from Medicare Parts A, B, and D. Fortunately, "you have options." You can put more money into your 401(k) or IRA to cover health-care costs, or dedicate funds in a health-savings account, which is triple-tax advantaged: "The money you contribute is tax-free; investment gains are tax-free; and withdrawals are tax-free, provided they're used to cover qualified expenses."

A rare private-equity happy ending

A private-equity sale handed a windfall to everybody involved, said Dan Primack in Axios including, for a change, employees. Last week, KKR agreed to sell CHI Overhead Doors, an Illinois-based garage-door maker, to steel maker Nucor for $3 billion. The deal was a massive success for KKR, which bought CHI for $600 million in 2015 and turned it around for one of its "largest returns in recent history." It's also "life-changing" for CHI's 800 employees, who gained shares through a stock-ownership program KKR put in place. With the sale, employees are getting a minimum of $20,000 and up to $800,000, depending on seniority. "The average hourly worker or driver" employed in CHI's factory or distribution centers "will receive $175,000, with some earning more than $400,000."

This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, you can try six risk-free issues of the magazine here.

Tech Giants: Snball’s Rachel Stephan on the Power of Word-of-Mouth Marketing to Fill Seats and Grow Audiences Year-Round – TSNN Trade Show News

Posted: at 8:38 pm

Having worked in advertising and marketing agencies in her native Lebanon, then for an event publishing company in Montreal, Rachel Stephan launched her own event marketing agency in 2001yet she always wanted to create a tech product that would become her legacy.

Her aha moment came in 2015 after seeing the successful results of the unique word-of-mouth campaigns her company was running.

I thought, How can we scale this? How can we better measure it? she said. One summer, we created our first pilot of the project, and my software engineer said nonchalantly, Lets call it Boule de Neige,' which literally translates to snowball, and that was exactly what our tech did: snowball event attendance. Period.

Landing on Snball, the Swedish spelling of the word for the new product, Stephan quite literally got the word out at the encouragement of her friend and industry colleague, Dahlia El Gazzar.

She encouraged me to SHIP IT, as Seth Godin would say, so I submitted Snball to the IMEX Startup Competition, the Event Technology Awards and the IBTM World Tech Watch Awards, and we were finalists in all of them, she said. The rest just simply 'snballed' from there.

We sat down with Stephan to discover how her word-of-mouth marketing and audience growth strategy excels for events and year-round engagement, challenges and trends she is seeing in event marketing and the most important lessons she has learned along the way as an event tech founder.

Snball is the most comprehensive word-of-mouth marketing tool dedicated to events. I am biased, I know, but I am repeating what clients tell us once we show them Snball. We built it to allow as much flexibility as possible and to run a diverse type of audience-based campaignspre-event to post-event. We know that people need multiple nudges and reminders to act, and Snball is the only platform that activates the audience as advocates not only at registration but with multiple reminder campaigns leading up to the event.

Since it is about empowering the voices of your own people to amplify your events, Snball is the only one able to provide a curation feature to capture speakers soundbites and teasers to promote their sessions.

In addition, with our recent partnership with CLIPr, we now can leverage past event content, amplifying it via Snball to help not only drive attendance growth but also audience growth and engagement.

These are only a few of the use cases that demonstrate how marketers can leverage the power of word of mouth and their communities to run campaigns for membership drives, awards, lead generation, etc.

[The biggest challenges include] getting butts in seats and convincing people to get on a plane and take time away from the office and from their families to go to an in-person event. Enter the marketing of persuasion. Attention and retention are also big challenges post-pandemic. People have moved around a lot, and that audience that we marketed to before is not enough to hit the registration numbers we hope for. How can marketers tap into a new audience? How can they attract the right type of audience? How can they find lookalike attendees? As they say, birds of same feather flock together. Snball helps marketers attract similar audiences to their existing ones by tapping into that audiences community and circle of influence.

People connect with people and trust people, not brands. Watch the engagement on your LinkedIn company page versus the same post shared from someone at that same company. According to Neilson, 92% of people trust recommendations from friends and family over any other type of advertising.

Some of the many challenges facing event marketers are time, resources and limited budgets. Enrolling their participants, speakers, sponsors and exhibitors as brand ambassadors with influence to attract registrants is one way to work smarter not harder. Snball helps amplify their reach, not their budget.

Event marketing-wise, what are the most important necessities for pulling off the most successful virtual, hybrid or in-person event?

Once thing Id say is that post-pandemic, we are all short on attention and can see through marketing speak. One of the positive things that came out of the pandemic is that it brought relationships back to the basic level. Were all human with shared values, and we appreciate authenticity. People became more vocal and shared more about the challenges they have and what they would like to see. So, listening to your community and marketing in the way they speak and exchange with each other will make your content (and event) more relevant and relatable, no matter what type of event you put on.

There are multiple factors that can influence a successful campaign. The most successful campaigns are when the client is open to exploring the value in leveraging all audience segments as well as their unique role in promoting the event. It's when they are not only focusing on attendees or speakers, but sponsors, exhibitors, internal teams, committees, volunteerseveryone has influence. When all your stakeholders are talking about your event, social proof is sky high, so are conversions and reach. In one instance, one exhibitor was responsible for referring 672 registrations.

With Snball, marketers can know exactly who referred who and where on social media they converted from. Knowing this allows them to incentivize their Most Valued Advocates (MVA). People are competitive in nature, and having different prizes for the different audience segments also helps boost engagement.

The untapped strategy is a post event activation, where the marketer can leverage the event content to drive signups to an on-demand library by getting their audience to be the amplifiers of that message. Not only will this help monetize existing content, this activation will also help build attendance for the next event.

There is a shift in mindset and the way we approach events and marketing. We help our clients to think big picture, long-term marketing strategy when it comes to an event. Its shifting from a one-time event to ongoing activations that nurture the relationship between the organization and its audience. Yes, clients come to us with one focus, boosting their registration numbers, which are not where they used to be prior to the pandemic. Our role is to also help them see what they can do during and after the event to keep the momentum going and provide value to their stakeholders. Now more than ever, organizers have a tremendous amount of content that can be used and reused to serve both attendee and audience growth.

During the pandemic, events proved to be the most effective marketing strategy an organization has ever had. They earned their place in the spotlight. Events as a marketing strategy can help organizers with lead generation, building relationships and community.This provides value and audience proximity to their partners in addition to a source of content that can serve as a year-round communication strategy. Now, big trends are emerging in how these events are delivered, from digital, to in-person, to blended experiences for its audience. And of course, one cannot talk about event trends without mentioning the metaverse, which is in itself another dimension to be explored. To sum it all up, I would say community, co-created content and continuous event experiences are the main trends I see emerging at the moment.

Surround yourself with people who would support you in your ups and downs. The road of a founder is bumpy, with both highs and lows occurring in the same day. Stay focused on the bigger picture and never lose sight of your why. There is a famous quote by Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, which really resonates with me: If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, youve launched too late. I am a perfectionist and that sometimes is a curse.Once I get to showcase what Snball is capable of doing, I am often reminded that what we built, and continue to build, already has immense value for marketers. If you are a tech founder reading this, take a moment and tap yourself on the shoulderyou have done amazing things.

Dont miss any event-related news: Sign up for our weekly e-newsletterHERE,listen to our latest podcastHEREand engage with us onTwitter,FacebookandLinkedIn!

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Tech Giants: Snball's Rachel Stephan on the Power of Word-of-Mouth Marketing to Fill Seats and Grow Audiences Year-Round - TSNN Trade Show News

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Daily Archives: May 28, 2022

Antisemitism on the rise in America: An explainer and research roundup – Journalist’s Resource

Religious Transhumanism 11: What about the body? | cybernetic immortality – Patheos

Elon Musk is promoting transhumanism as part of Agenda 2030. – Logically

PEW and transhumanism: Public has mixed concerns about arriving era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and human enhancement – Genetic Literacy Project

David Cronenberg Gets Back to Basics in Crimes of the Future – Vanity Fair

Painting on Another Plane: Mandy Cao – MutualArt.com

Have Authoritarians Used 1984 as a Handbook? – Verve Times

How to Grow and Forage Without Owning Land – Verve Times

Tech giants drag down the S&P 500 – The Week

Tech Giants: Snball’s Rachel Stephan on the Power of Word-of-Mouth Marketing to Fill Seats and Grow Audiences Year-Round – TSNN Trade Show News

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