Category Archives: Transhuman News

A former independent presidential hopeful is vexed at the COVID-19 vaccine at the moment, and for multiple reasons. That would be Zoltan Istvan, a self-described transhumanist candidate who was billed as the cyborg who is running against President Trump in press reports throughout 2020. The California hopeful who ran in the Republican primary based his campaign on a futuristic message of fusing radical technology with daily life under the motto Upgrade America.

Mr. Istvan recently looked into how long it would be before he got a COVID-19 vaccine.

I took the New York Times Find your Place in the vaccine line report, and I was near the bottom 15% of the timeline for getting the vaccine meaning Ill be nearly last, Mr. Istvan wrote in an email to Inside the Beltway.

He refers to an online tool that the aforementioned news organization offered in early December that has users enter personal particulars to receive a calculation suggesting when they will be eligible to get the vaccine.

Being almost last that upsets me since, as a successful business person, I pay a lot of taxes, and frankly, the creation and distribution of the vaccine rests mostly on high taxpayers such as myself not the homeless or prison population which is way, way ahead of me in line, Mr. Istvan continued.

I think this is atrocious of our government. My solution: I think there should simultaneously be a private market for the vaccine along with giving it out freely to everyone else, and I posted this on social media and lots of people were upset. Even if just 3% of the vaccine was made to go on the open market, Id be happy. But none of it is, Mr. Istvan continued.

Its not that I dont want to freely give the vaccine to people. That people who actually create the wealth in this country are being relegated to the back of line is unbelievable and upsetting. I feel like shouting Who is John Galt? Im really astonished by how stupid our government is and how it is treating people like me, he concluded.

John Galt, incidentally, is a fictional character in Ayn Rands iconic 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged.

MONICA LEWINSKY, PRODUCER

The former White House intern who once dallied with President Clinton is getting cordial reviews for her work on Impeachment: American Crime Story, set to air on FX in the near future. Monica Lewinsky served as producer for the series, named one of the 21 most-anticipated new scripted TV series coming in 2021 by the Hollywood Reporter.

Originally intended to air before the 2020 presidential election, the third season of the Emmy-winning FX anthology from Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk turns its lens on the Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton scandal, the industry publication noted.

Lewinsky produces the season, which is based on Jeffrey Toobins best-seller A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President. Sarah Paulson stars as Linda Tripp; Beanie Feldstein plays Lewinsky; and Annaleigh Ashford is set as Paula Jones, the publication noted.

ILLINOIS TOPS IN GUN SALES

Gun sales have soared in the past year. They have reached 35,758,249 through November. That is more than the 28,369,750 for all of last year. Growing civil unrest may have prompted people to buy guns for personal and family protection, says a new analysis of FBI data by 24/7Wallstreet.com, a news organization which noted that in 1999, the number of guns sold stood at 9,138,123.

Among all states, Illinois has posted the highest sales so far this year, by far, at 6,625,082. That is almost 18% of U.S. gun sales in 2020, although the state has less than 4% of the nations population, writes Douglas A. McIntyre, editor-in-chief of the news organization.

Kentucky is in second place with 2.9 million sales, followed by Texas (2.1 million), Florida (1.7 million), Indiana (1.6 million), California (1.5 million); Pennsylvania (1.3 million), Utah (1.1 million), Alabama (984,548) and Michigan (974,072). These figures cover January through November.

Hawaii had the least number of gun sales, with 18,096 so far this year.

GET READY

The end of the year looms in about 48 hours or so. So now what? Many Americans are happy that 2020 is over and theyre jittery about the near future. They also could be surprised by their personal, potential role in it all.

Our hopes for 2021 wont be fulfilled by a politician, but by us, writes by Salena Zito, a columnist and political reporters for the Washington Examiner.Americans need something to aspire to a purpose or someone who will take us to a better place. If 2020 taught us anything, it taught us that journey upward will not come from a politician, nor will it come from the loudest voices, which means it will likely come from within us as a people. That might be the best news for 2021, Ms. Zito advises.

AN UNEASY YEAR

Reporters, anchors, photographers, camera operators, producers and technicians who brought 2020s biggest stories to the public often risked their own physical safety and psychological well-being and found themselves the subjects of increased digital abuse, advises the Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent nonprofit that says it assisted 750 journalists this year through emergency grants and safety consultations.

Wildfires, social unrest and the coronavirus posed the biggest threats to journalists along with one other activity.

The U.S. presidential election brought its own set of reporting risks< the organization said, citing its own U.S. elections safety kit, which highlighted the risks of protests, rallies, and online and digital attacks against journalists who were covering the vote.

POLL DU JOUR

43% of U.S. adults plan to be vaccinated against COVID-19 when the vaccine becomes available; 35% of Republicans, 34% of independents and 60% of Democrats agree.

30% overall do not plan to be vaccinated; 37% of Republicans, 34% of independents and 10% of Democrats agree.

26% are not sure what they will do; 28% of Republicans, 29% of independents and 21% of Democrats agree.

2% have already been vaccinated; 1% of Republicans, 3% of independents and 1% of Democrats agree.

Source: An Economist/YouGov poll of 1,500 U.S. adults conducted Dec. 19-22.

Kindly follow Jennifer Harper on Twitter @HarperBulletin.

See the article here:
Inside the Beltway: Transhumanist Zoltan Istvan is vexed by the COVID-19 vaccine - Washington Times

If you act fast, you can pick up the Altered Carbon tabletop adventure for 50% off.

Tabletop roleplaying game publisher Hunters Entertainment recently announced its dystopian cyberpunk neo-noir Altered Carbon: The Roleplaying Game Core Rules is finally available on DriveThruRPG. The PDF is currently carrying a 50% discount to $24.99 for an unknown amount of time, so grab it now while the sale lasts.

The Altered Carbon Core Rules PDF is 328 pages, and there doesnt seem to be a print-on-demand option available for it, yet. Hopefully, that option will be added with the release of the physical version, which is still currently scheduled to happen in January 2021. If thats the version you want, you can submit your preorder via the sourcebooks page on the Renegade Game Studios webstore. The Standard Edition is $50, and the Deluxe Edition is $90.

Related:Cyberpunk 2077: 5 Things We Love About Johnny Silverhand (& 5 Things We Can't Stand)

ICYMI, the Altered Carbon RPG Kickstarter ran in February of this year, smashing past a $20,000 goal in less than two hours, and finally ending with over $372,000. It is of course based on the hit and criminally-shortened Netflix series that starred Joel Kinnaman (season one) and Anthony Mackie (season two) in the lead role. As with the show, the RPG deals with a transhumanist vision of the future, where the human mind is nothing more than digital code Digital Human Freight saved and stored in a Cortical Stack, advanced technology that allows you to re-sleeve your entire consciousness into a new body.

In the RPG, this mechanic allows you to roleplay as a possibly immortal character; when your sleeve (body) dies, as long as your Cortical Stack remains intact, your consciousness can be re-sleeved into a new body. A body that you can afford, that is. Additionally, you can apply augmentations to your sleeve that upgrade any number of your physical traits. These options make the prospects of long-term play unique in that you can play through a campaign with a single consciousness, but with multiple physical characteristics.

For a closer look at the sourcebook before making your buying decision, check out the free-to-download Rules Summary and GM Screen Panel from the Hunters Entertainment website. You can also watch the How To Play video on the studios YouTube channel and have the wonderful Becca Scott explain the RPG to you in less than five minutes. And theres a near four-hour early playtest video over on the Hyper RPG YouTube channel.

View post:
It's Time To Slip Into Your New Sleeve Now That Altered Carbon Is On DriveThruRPG - TheGamer

It's been a year for glumly refreshing live blogs and breaking news websites. But we have managed to get some reading done too. Here, our writers and editors have picked out our favourite books released in 2020 across the broad range of areas that WIRED covers.

In this memoir, New Yorker tech correspondent Anna Wiener recounts her experiences as a millennial diving into San Franciscos tech startup scene. Disillusioned with her job in publishing, Wiener moves from New York to Silicon Valley, with its promises of building a better future for all and a more exciting present for those in its club. The book follows her experiences working for multiple startups, with skewering descriptions of a sector that, while ahead technologically, seems in other ways to be wildly out of touch. Covering issues such as sexism, surveillance and San Franciscos homeless crisis, it reveals a world that hides a pit of moral quandaries beneath its shiny facade. Victoria Turk

Price: 16.99 | Amazon | Waterstones | Foyles | Bookshop

The Covid-19 pandemic may have made armchair epidemiologists of us all, but it has also underscored how important statistics are in our everyday lives; what numbers can tell us about how the world is changing, and what happens when we don't have access to the data we need. Financial Times journalist and host of the BBC's More or Less Tim Harford explains how to decipher the numbers that surround and befuddle us by applying ten simple rules. Rather than simply rebuffing statistical trickery, Harford's book implores us to look past the bluster and our own biases to really figure out what data can tell us, and where the limits of its usefulness might be. This is required reading before hitting send on any tweet mentioning R numbers or false positives. Matt Reynolds

Price: 10 | Amazon | Waterstones | Foyles | Bookshop

Maria Konnikova pressed pause on her work as a journalist for The New Yorker and The New York Times and gave herself a year to make it as a poker pro. Armed with the mentorship of American poker champion Erik Seidel and a cast of other professionals, Konnikova set her sights on the biggest stage the game has to offer: the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. The Biggest Bluff is a poker book thats not really about poker. Its about getting to grips with uncertainty and learning to take control of your own decision-making processes in order to handle the game of life with a little more confidence. MR

Price: 13.60 | Amazon | Waterstones | Foyles | Bookshop

In this timely book, economist Hertz explores the loneliness epidemic that was sweeping the world even before the coronavirus took hold. She looks at the ways tech thats meant to bring us together is driving us apart, the impact isolation is having on our health, and the bizarre loneliness economy thats springing up to fulfil the needs of people desperate for human contact, from lifelike sex dolls to a service offering cuddles for cash. The book is a fascinating look at a key societal question: in an age where technology means were more connected than ever, why do we feel so alone? Amit Katwala

Price: 10 | Amazon | Waterstones | Foyles | Bookshop

Netflix may dominate our television consumption today, but its future was never certain: the ubiquitous online video giant could have never survived the rise of streaming. This story takes us back to its more humble beginnings, when Netflix decided to take on bricks and mortar video rental king Blockbuster in the 90s, with an ambitious mail rental video service. In a tale with more twists and turns than a bowl of spaghetti, WIREDs very own Matt Burgess dissects the life and choices of famously elusive Netflix founder Reed Hastings, the man behind the successful media empire. Natasha Bernal

Price: 10.65 | Amazon | Waterstones | Foyles | Bookshop

Unconscious bias has become a buzzword in the modern office, but what does it actually mean? How does it work, what are the effects, and can we do anything about it? Behavioural scientist Pragya Agarwal digs into the research, taking us through the many ways bias can manifest, from stereotyped assumptions to confirmation bias and status quo bias, and how these can all result in prejudice and inequality. She highlights in particular the intersectional nature of our biases, and how this can compound privilege or disadvantage for different groups. There are no easy solutions on offer here, but Agarwal urges that only when we become more attuned to our own unconscious biases can we begin to make conscious changes to our behaviour. VT

Price: 12.99 | Amazon | Waterstones | Foyles | Bookshop

Where do concepts like disruption content and dropping out come from? And beyond the unthinking way they are thrown around in Silicon Valley, what do they really mean? Daub tries to historically anchor the most common concepts used in Silicon Valley in their philosophical origins. A professor of comparative literature and German studies at Stanford, Daub is an elegant and clear writer, good at breaking down the jargon of the philosophers he says have so profoundly influenced the industry WIRED covers. Will Bedingfield

Price: 10 | Amazon | Waterstones | Wordery

Were it not for SARS-CoV-2, The Precipice would likely have remained a book read only by the far-sighted futurists, the rationalists, and the transhumanists (plus, Id wager, blogger and former government aide Dominic Cummings). But as things turned out, this clinical, no-holds-barred dissection of existential risks i.e. all the ways humankind could perish or self-destruct has acquired an urgent and vaguely prophetic character. Ord, a philosopher at Oxfords Future of Humanity Institute, lists all risks, assesses their likelihood and potential to kill us all off, and suggests strategies to mitigate each of them. Asteroids, nukes, and climate change all get honourable mentions. So do pandemics, even if Ord is mostly worried about artificially engineered ones. The big bugaboo, however, is unaligned artificial intelligence machines or algorithms that go rogue, or simply embrace an idea of the good that does not entail our survival. In a year in which our everyday lives were upended by the unexpected (or rather the expected yet neglected), The Precipice is a good way to put everything in perspective: much worse things could easily happen and they likely will. Gian Volpicelli

Price: 17 | Amazon | Waterstones | Foyles | Bookshop

At last, one of the greatest secrets of the London fintech scene is out. The reason behind the major fallout between the founders of Starling Bank and Monzo, two of the UK's major neobanks, has for years been the cause of much speculation. In her bombshell book, Starling Bank founder Anne Boden breaks ranks to rip into her major rival and former partner Tom Blomfield, with a portrait of biblical-level betrayal, break-ins and sabotage. Though it packs in loads of drama, Boden also exposes exactly what it's like to be an older, female entrepreneur in an industry where the odds were stacked against her and how she succeeded. NB

Price: 14 | Amazon | Waterstones | Bookshop

This essay collection is an excellent window into the four years running up to the pandemic. Britain, Davies says, is suffering from the abandoning of liberal economic rationality, the declining authority of empirical facts, the mainstreaming of nationalism, the hatred of liberal elites, the effects of big data and real-time media on our politics, the new mould of celebrity leaders, the crisis of democratic representation. Its a depressing state of affairs that Davies documents smartly. Pick up his magnum opus Nervous States at the same time. WB

Price: 12 | Amazon | Waterstones | Foyles | Bookshop

The devastating human cost of a mental health data breach

Russias vaccine has attracted criticised. Heres what is really happening with the Sputnik V vaccine

The Netflix Christmas Cinematic Universe is being torn apart

Listen to The WIRED Podcast, the week in science, technology and culture, delivered every Friday

Follow WIRED on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn

Here is the original post:
The best science and tech books of 2020 - Wired.co.uk

When it comes to skincare, Croatian-born, London-based skin health specialist Jasmina Vico insists on taking a holistic approach. Using skin as an indicator for whats happening inside the body and vice versa, when treating someone Vico looks at gut health, sleeping patterns, stress levels, micronutrient intake, overall diet, and stress levels, which she combines with her bespoke laser treatments, needling, LED facials, and gentle acid peels. There are no quick fixes only continuous care and the investment should be long term, she warns. Its an approach that has earnt her a cult following, including make-up artist Isamaya Ffrench, actors Killing Eves Jodie Comer and The Crowns Claire Foy, and model Shanina Shaik.

With a belief in the power of prevention and a keen interest in biohacking, Vico imagines a future where we will be able to hack our own bodies with the help of science and advanced technologies in order to prolong our lifespan tracking our sleep patterns, monitoring our gut health and even printing our own skin. Here, she shares her predictions for the future of skincare, debunks some of the myths and misconceptions underpinning the industry, and outlines the best ways to protect your skin.

Over-using products that are not suitable for your skin type or condition is something Im correcting and educating my clients about daily. More importantly, spending your hard-earned money on skincare can be a folly if you are not protecting your skin every day from the sun and HEV blue light. Protection is key. There is a misunderstanding that the skin is a surface.

Follow the science is a phrase weve all heard a lot of recently, but when it comes to skincare you cant hear it enough. Many products and procedures promise results that the science if it exists at all does not back up. I also think there has been a lack of industry-led focus on education around the impact that lifestyle choices have on our skin.

My own skincare approach is focused on prevention inside and outside. Im interested in gut health, micronutrient intake, overall diet, regular sleep patterns, and stress levels. Staying out of the sun is obviously the big one. Reducing inflammation is my mission. Inflammation ages the skin, weakening its structure, and degrading the collagen and elastin. Our diet sugar being the worst offender our stress levels and our environment [chemicals/pollution] all profoundly impact and exacerbate inflammation.

Many of us are living at such speed and all of us experience stress. Its necessary to unplug. The Japanese practice shinrin-yoku which translates as forest bathing: a walk in the forest, phone-free, using your senses we could all take a leaf out of that book. A walk in nature, meditation, breathwork, slowing down and being present: these practises have skin benefits too.

Flawlessness is an unrealistic goal. That doesnt mean we cant dramatically improve our skin and make it be the best version of itself. I am a problem solver and one of the things I do is identify issues even when they arent visible and find solutions.

I think the future will focus more on prevention than it has done and at a cellular level. Well be tracking our sleep patterns and sleep depth with monitors on our beds and using grounding mats to help reduce inflammation. Well use our own personal 3D skin printers to deposit sheets of skin, which sounds wild but a handheld printer has already been developed to deposit bio-ink on large burns to help with wound recovery.

Skin bio-printing will use self-assembling peptides and amino acids that create almost a scaffolding-like structure that grows within the skin. There are going to be more devices and bio-electrics, bio-tech and nanorobots to track our sleep because sleep is one of the most important things for skin.

I am naturally a curious person I want to know how the body works, to understand how we age, increasing our life-span. I have always been interested in science and developments in technology. Self-tracking our health will help us understand how our body works and responds to internal and external factors, which will be different for each of us and will be the key to understanding what triggers inflammation in us.

Transhumanism is already with us whether were ready for it or not or even want it. We are already cyborgs in a way Im certainly smarter just by having my phone next to me.

I think it will offer us some control and autonomy over our own health as well have greater access to information but also through our own experimentation. But just as Im interested in the impact on individuals, Im interested in societal patterns and greater understanding. We are all connected, physically, cognitively, mentally and socially.

Im also fascinated by the developments in [the study of] sleep and the effects it has on our overall health not just for the skin. I have been using my Oura ring for about two years to track my sleep. Its essential for mental and physical health to have proper, restful sleep. The developments in grounding mats are helping us reduce inflammation and promoting a good nights sleep.

Socio-economics will play a big part. We understand so much more about ageing because of the research invested into science and biotech. Its going to be about tracking your health. Skincare brands that manage to customise and tailor-make products for the individual with bio-tech will do well. But only if they are transparent and dont make misleading claims.

We will also be looking more into the pillars of health, which has been my approach for many years, to ensure they are working in synergy and functioning at their optimum. Self-discipline will play a big part in this.

Id like to think it is about being unique, and happy in your own skin. When Im with my clients, I want to release their essence, their innocence which is associated with youthfulness and happiness.

Having things wed like to improve on is one thing but acceptance is also important: bottled youth doesnt exist Yet. But who knows in the future with bioprinting, 3D matrix skin, AI, etc.

I am fortunate enough that I have a twin I can compare myself to. In the future we will all have a digital twin that we look at each day in the mirror, on our phone, or as a hologram. The twin will be your double and will help you track your health. For example, it will allow you to see your UVC [ultraviolet] face, your gut face, your hangover face. It will also allow you to see your biological age and therefore help you to experiment and find preventative solutions.

More from British Vogue:

Read more:
Is Biohacking The Future Of Skincare? - British Vogue