Category Archives: Transhuman

The milestone anniversary at SCAD Museum of Art highlights international artists and themes spanning a wealth of geographies, backgrounds, and generations.

Immersive installations have dominated the art scene for decades, across myriad disciplines. Think: Olafur Eliassons The Weather Project, The Rain Room by Hannes Koch and Florian Ortkrass, and Yayoi Kusamas Infinity Mirror Rooms.

True, installations have also been made into utterly mundane mass-market attractions, thanks to those themed experiential rooms found in major cities, which have turned them into pop-culture punchlines.

The SCAD Museum of Art, in Savannah, Georgia, now celebrating its 10th anniversary, has reinterpreted the immersive trend while staying faithful to its own curriculum as an eminent institution of art, design, and fashion. The word immersive elicits an immediate relation to the body, the way one inhabits and navigates a space, and the capacity to blur the division between self and place, says Kari Herrin, executive director of SCAD Museums and Exhibitions. It resonates with todays audiences, who seek visceral experiences in a digital age. Many of our exhibitions have a natural immersive quality, due to our emphasis on the environments in which works are displayed and [on] the experiences they facilitate.

Some of the exhibitions are uncanny and surreal, fully resonating with the current zeitgeist. Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist Hein Koh, for example, creates transhumanist works. In her Hope and Sorrow, shes fashioned a surreal garden of crying flowers made of spandex, velvet, and satin, resting on Astroturf and illuminated by a cartoonish sun with a gazing eye painted on the backdrop. Hein Kohs surrealism humanizes natural elements to communicate complex narratives and emotions, says Herrin. A site-specific installation, as well as Heins first museum show, the exhibition is installed in the museums Jewel Boxes, spaces that mediate the interior and exterior of the museum with an explicitly public function.

Similarly, painter Izumi Katos large-scale paintings feature spectral figures with bulbous heads and thin bodies reminiscent of primeval beings, embryos, or aliens. Kato paints directly with his hands, and at times even frees his creatures from the constraints of rectangular canvas wall hangings, suspending them from the ceiling and attaching to them canvas cutouts of elongated torsos and limbs.

Artists also focus on the natural world and the environment. With El lecho del Bosque, Colombian artist Nohem Perz reflects on the social and political components of environmental issues by painting large-scale, detail-rich charcoal drawings of endangered species of trees alongside minuscule figures of birds, dogs, and humans. Patrick Dougherty combines fine art and design as well, weaving tree saplings and sticks to create imposing sculptures that celebrate both natures beauty and its ephemerality. His stickwork also has an interactive on-site component, as hell collaborate for three weeks with SCADs staff and student body to create site-specific works. And in experimental theater director Robert Wilsons immersive installation A Boy from Texas, cast, truncated pyramids are interspersed among deer made of handblown glass, evoking the time he spent hunting with his fatherwhile not a hunter himself, Wilson relishes natures stillness and spectral silence.

Of course, the beauty of nature often stands in stark contrast to the brick, glass, and steel of city spaces. In Urban Visions, Mexican photographer and SCAD alum Arturo Soto explores the themes of site, theory, and image in photos taken in Savannah and London, as well as in Oxford, England, where he delves into how the city is dealing with the aftereffects of Brexit.

Because our current environments extend beyond the physical world into the digital realm, SCAD has included a meditation on the way the digital component interacts with contemporary visual culture. An experiential sculpture by Spanish visual artist Ira Lombardawho defines herself as a visual ecologist who is moved by the desire to understand the theoretical and practical implications of digital visual cultureprompts the observer to reflect on the ephemerality and dematerialization of the object. In her show, the viewer can physically recreate Yves Kleins Leap into the Void by literally jumping from a custom-built structure.

A fashion exhibition adds a purely joyful dimension to this lineup of solo shows. Fashion designer Christian Siriano, who rose to fame after winning the fourth season of the TV competition series Project Runway and is known for his bold, high-octane eveningwear, is at SCAD with his first solo exhibition. Titled People Are People, the show features some of his most flamboyant creations while also celebrating his inclusive take on couture.

Two group projects have a more diachronic focus. SCAD MOAs Evans Center for African American Studies presents Elizabeth Catlett: Points of Contact, juxtaposing Catletts prints and sculptureswhich reflected on the Black American experience by combining abstract and figurative influences, and also drew from African and Mexican traditionswith pieces by contemporary Black American and Mexican artists whose creations reveal strong connections, and often direct references, to Catletts work. This exhibition makes an argument for examining Catletts dual U.S. and Mexican citizenship, which has been overlooked by previous exhibition projects, says Herrin. And in its inclusion of contemporary artists from both countries, it reveals lineages between Black Americans and indigenous Mexican peoples. Catletts impact as a bridge between two nations extends beyond art, and the exhibition unfolds the complexity of her identity, [which] she very much wanted to be acknowledged.

By contrast, the other group exhibition, Ring Redux: The Susan Grant Lewin Collection, examines the tradition of ring making by showcasing 100 avant-gardestyle rings, demonstrating how the art of jewelry reflects aesthetic developments in art, design, technology, and craftsmanship while also conveying the complexity of human relationships, from the highly personal to the universal.

At the intersection of these two modes, solo/contemporary and group/historical, is Mehryl Levisses White Wig, an artistic-cum-curatorial project juxtaposing Rococo-era portraitureinstalled, salon-style, on a warm-pink wallwith brightly colored wigs created by contemporary Parisian drag entertainers. Levisse examines the use of hairstyle and dress as markers of status and identity that have historically been separated into the strict binary of man and woman.

Beyond the sheer artistry of the project, what emerges in this 10th-anniversary celebration is SCADs intention to showcase an international roster of artists whose work will broaden viewers horizons beyond the United States. From the very beginning, the SCAD Museum of Art was conceived as an international cultural center with the intention to enrich the lives of SCAD students and to engage with different communities both near and far, says Herrin. This is representative not only of our international body of students, who come from all parts of the world, but also of the need in this region for a contemporary art museum that catalyzes dialogue and shared experiences through art and design.

The Fall 2021 season is now on view at the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia.

Follow SCAD on Instagram at instagram.com/scadmoa.

See original here:
The SCAD Museum of Art Celebrates 10 Years with Diverse and Immersive Exhibitions - ARTnews

An innocent viewer of the new Apple TV+ series Foundationa lavish production complete with clone emperors, a haunted starship, and a killer android who tears off her own facemight be surprised to learn that the novels its based on inspired Paul Krugman to become an economist. Isaac Asimovs classic saga revolves around the dismal science of psychohistory, a hybrid of math and psychology that can predict the future. Its inventor, Hari Seldon, lives in a twelve-thousand-year-old galactic empire, which, his equations reveal, is about to collapse. Interstellar wars will be endless, he warns. The storm-blast whistles through the branches of the Empire even now.

His followers establish a Foundation on the frontier world of Terminusa colony tasked with conserving all human knowledgewhere they spend the next millennium fulfilling Seldons plan to reunite the galaxy. Left ignorant of its details (such knowledge would play havoc with prediction), each generation must solve its own crises. The Foundation confronts barbarian kingdoms, imperial revanchists, and shadowy telepaths who elude psychohistorys grasp.

The novels conspicuously lack aliens, mysticism, and other space-opera standbys, not least battle scenes. (I was so sorry afterward I had not counted the number of spaceships that had exploded, Asimov wrote in a withering review of the 1978 movie Battlestar Galactica.) Their appeal is subtler, relying on the tension between Seldons plan and the individuals caught in its weave. They are ordinary scholars, traders, politicians, and scientists: the tale spans light-years and millennia, but never forgets its human proportions.

This is no invitation to cinematic extravagance. Asimovs saga has been enormously popular since the publication of its first trilogyFoundation (1951), Foundation and Empire (1952), and Second Foundation (1953)which sold millions of copies. (Asimov kept writing prequels and sequels until his death, in 1992.) Yet the series onscreen presence has been restricted to its influence on other science-fiction sagas, especially Star Wars. Zealously noting these homages, Asimov fans have waited decades for their own epic.

Now DavidS. Goyerwhos best known for co-writing The Dark Knight with Christopher Nolanhas not only adapted Asimovs saga but overhauled it. Planned for eight seasons, and just renewed for a second, Foundation gathers the originals far-flung strands into an action-packed morality play about agency and legacy, freedom and fate. The series attempts to rescue the novels from their atomic-age limitations but largely squanders its material on a clone of every other blockbuster fantasy quest. Though sprinkled with timely allusions, its hero-centered narrative obscures Asimovs most pressing question for an era of political and ecological precarity: What does it mean to engage in a survival struggle that lasts far longer than any individual life?

The TV series has three arcs, each dramatizing an orientation toward the future. The first centers on Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey), the Warden of Terminus, who defends its fledgling settlement from invasion. Shes agnostic about the plan (Seldons gone. When are you all going to start thinking for yourselves?). But her uncanny visionslinked to a portentous diamond-shaped vaultunwittingly advance its trajectory. A few decades earlier: Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) enlists Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell), a math prodigy from a backwater world, to work on psychohistory, and then, by a cunning stratagem, arranges for their exile to Terminus. The gambit opens Asimovs novel, but in the series it sparks a season-long argument. Gaal lambastes Seldons deterministic saviorism, shouting, You didnt care what we wanted, as long as your plan was safe!

A third narrative unfolds at the imperial palace on the city-world of Trantor, a galactic capital where a genetic dynasty of clones has reigned for nearly four centuries. If Gaal, Hari, and Salvor enact an uneasy dance between progress and freedom, the emperors, all named Cleon, stand for unyielding continuity. They are a royal family of three, each at a different stage of life: Brother Dawn, a boy, who learns; Brother Day, an adult, who rules; and Brother Dusk, a retiree, who, naturally, paints, documenting the dynastys exploits by adding them to a vast mural. (Its grainy, ever-shifting surface exemplifies the shows distinctively particulate aesthetican Ozymandias of nanobots.) Even at the dinner table, the clones mirror one another, synchronizing their every gesture with neurotic precision.

Lee Pace, with a dulcet voice and a conspicuous chest, gives a mesmerizing performance as Brother Day, whose faltering serenity suggests a man beginning to lose his erection as he bestrides worlds. Day spends his time berating Dusk, molding Dawn in his image, and tyrannizing Eto Demerzel, his robot adviser-mother-wife-slave. Played with cunning and world-weariness by Laura Birn, Demerzel has tended Cleon egos for centuries. But her ministrations arent quite enough to salve the imperial insecurities, as unrest threatens to unravel man and state.

Trantor suffers its 9/11 moment when terrorists attack the Star Bridge, a colossal spire that serves as its umbilical connection to the larger galaxy; its fall destroys a swath of the densely populated planet. Brother Day retaliates by publicly executing dignitaries from the suspects home worlds; in a mashup of Caesars thumbs-down in Gladiator and the Death Stars annihilation of Alderaan in Star Wars, a crowd jeers at the blubbering emissaries as he nukes their planets with a two-finger flick of the wrist.

Asimovs saga has no such clone-emperor theatrics. The empires death agonies are dispersed among more oblique episodesa loss of contact with the inner worlds; a superstitious tech-man guarding an ancient nuclear plantwhich gather momentum over chapters and centuries. Still, the Brothers Cleon are among Goyers more effective innovations, giving the original theme of imperial inertia three all too human avatars. In what may be the seasons most compelling episode, Brother Day endures a trial by ordeal to refute a charismatic priestess, Zephyr Halima (TNia Miller), who preaches that the emperors have no soul.

Foundation is much clumsier, alas, when it comes to the Foundation; Goyer dilutes psychohistory from a detective story about the future to a cottony utopian ideal. Jared Harriss Seldon is a bland thought leader who delivers speeches that wouldnt feel out of place at a political convention. In one scene, he shows up to praise starstruck laundry workers on the colony ship. Your names will be memorialized, he says, as believers who threw their lot in with an eccentric, that pinned the fate of the galaxy on the back of a theorem so abstract, well, it might as well have been a prayer. You can almost see the yard signs on Terminus: In this house, we believe that psychohistory is real.

Gaal and Salvor, who are men in the Asimov saga, are both portrayed by Black women actorsa welcome revision of the originals first installment, in which exclusively male principals smoke long cigars of Vegan tobacco. Yet Gaal, portrayed by Lou Llobell with precocious gravity, is burdened with a strangely racialized origin story: Synnax, her home world, seems to be populated by dark-skinned people who reject the empire and science with neo-primitivist ardor. (The planets Atlantean vistas combine a reference to our climate crisis with an opportunistic seasoning of off-brand Afrofuturism.) She defies tradition for psychohistory and Seldon, as if she were born to claim the mantle and correct the blind spots of a problematic white male genius. Its a winking allusion to the shows own self-consciously diverse update of Asimovand exactly the kind of earthbound pigeonholing that limits Black actors in imaginary realms.

A more martial update is foisted on Salvor, played by Harvey with a striking flattop, a black jumpsuit, and an unremitting attitude of frowning concentration. Shes an anxious loner who emerges as a sort of gunslinging sheriff. In Asimovs novel, by contrast, Salvor is a savvy mayor, who overthrows the Foundations pedantic director and forestalls an invasion through shrewd demagoguery. The original Salvors motto is that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent; the TV show gives the line to her father, and has Salvor march into the Terminus armory to see what violence we can muster. Its a characteristic revision for the series, which strategically bundles amped-up diversity with amped-up action. But why not cast a Black woman in the original role of a crafty pol, instead of as another wide-eyed underdog who grows into an action figure?

The larger problem is that Goyers Foundation seems bored with its source material. The plot is carefully tailored to Joseph Campbells The Heros Journey, with many of its fantasy embellishments cribbed from better-known sagas. There are transhuman starship pilots la Dune. Math plays a feeble cousin of the Force; Jared Harriss Seldon looks like Alec Guinnesss Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Gaal, the young outworlder evading her destiny, is an updated Luke Skywalker. Everyone seems to have a special ability, and, where Asimovs protagonists drew urgency from the brevity of their lives, Goyers cheat their way across the centuries with clones, cryogenic capsules, and uploaded consciousness. They are supersized heroes gallivanting through a diminished galaxy.

Whats lost is Asimovs talent for conveying our fragility in the cosmos. His first novel, Pebble in the Sky, takes place on a colonized, irradiated Earth, where imperial soldiers mock the local belief that the planet is humanitys world of origin. Nightfall, his most celebrated story, is set on a world with multiple suns, where an eclipse makes the stars visible for the first time in millennia, and creates a planet-wide existential crisis. The Foundation saga achieves a yet larger sense of scale through its episodic structure: Trantor, a sprawling city-planet that dazzles Gaal in the opening volume, returns in the next as a world of farmers who sell scrap metal from the endless ruins.

The Apple TV+ series could have tried to craft a new template to encompass these constellations. Instead, it falls back on a sturdily familiar one: a ragtag band facing down a mighty empire, with the fate of the universe pivoting on the actions of a gifted few. Its an approach that would have appealed to Asimovs Lord Dorwin, a dilettantish dignitary obsessed with identifying humanitys original solar system. Rather than search for it himself, though, Dorwin relies on the findings of long-dead archeologists. When Salvor suggests that he do his own field work, Dorwin is incredulous: Why blunder about in far-flung solar systems when the old masters have covered the ground so much better than we could ever hope to?

Read more:
When Foundation Gets the Blockbuster Treatment, Isaac Asimovs Vision Gets Lost - The New Yorker

On the heels of therecent whistleblower accusationsagainst Facebook, the social media company has decided to change its primary organizational name and logo.

Founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted the irony of the name-change timing during the launch of Meta, Facebooks new parent company brand. With all the scrutiny and public debate, some of you might be wondering why were doing this right now, he acknowledged. The answer is that I believe that were put on this earth to create. I believe that technology can make our lives better. We live for what were building, and while we make mistakes, we keep learning and building and moving forward.

Late-night comedians have had a field day with the name change.Jimmy Fallon joked, This feels like when theres an E. Coli outbreak at a pizza place, and they just change the name from Sal & Tonys to Tony & Sals.Stephen Colbert added: So, weve reached the part of the movie where the corporation creates their own virtual world. What do you say we skip the whole robot uprising to harvest our organs and just jump straight into the Thunderdome?

Allison Morrow wrotefor CNN: No amount of corporate re-branding should let Zuck or anyone else off the hook for the real, tangible harms their product has manifested and continues to propagate without consequence.

But whatever one feels about Zuckerberg, Facebook or the role social media has played in our lives over the past decade, the vision Zuckerberg laid out for Meta goes far beyond a simple face-saving rebrand. His vision ultimately is about controlling evolution itself.

The evolution of connection

In his introductoryaddress, Zuckerberg explained: Our mission remains the same. Its still about bringing people together. We are still the company that designs technology around people, adding the most important experience of all is connecting with people.

But while the mission and the company remain the same, the way these connections happen is evolving.

The new Meta websiteopens with the statement: Connection is evolving and so are we. The metaverse is the next evolution of social connection. Our companys vision is to help bring the metaverse to life, so we are changing our name to reflect our commitment to this future.

Whatever the metaverse might be or become, Metas repetition of the word evolving and evolution should be noted. On its community page, Meta says it is about coming together to connect and create change. People are using Meta to connect and strengthen their communities. We change the game when we find each other. And people connecting lift up their communities.

Whatever the metaverse might be or become, Metas repetition of the word evolving and evolution should be noted.

These statements are not simply platitudes meant to target a younger, socially conscious audience. They tap into the story of the cosmos as an evolution of transcending wholeness.

The evolution of the cosmos

In the history of cosmic evolution, particles began to come together and connect. In their convergence, they created change by including and transcending each individual particle to create a greater whole called an atom. Then atoms repeated this process of connection with one another, which strengthened their community and changed again to transcend and to create a greater whole called a molecule.

This is the story of how our universe evolved to create stars, planets and galaxies. This is the story we carried within our bodies as we evolved to include and transcend into the complex relational network of mind and body we are today. This is exactly the story Meta is telling us it taps into, helping us come together to connect, strengthen our communities, and then lift up and transcend our communities together to create change in human consciousness.

The evolution of consciousness

Each stage in the evolution of human consciousness has been triggered by technology. As the first primates began making tools, humans evolved using technology to explore and expand our worlds. From about 64,000 B.C. to 800 B.C., our ancestors primarily lived as ritualistic tribes whose consciousness evolved toward a mythical relationship to the cosmos.

During the first millennium B.C., human consciousness shifted to a new level due to a complexity of factors including technology, socialization, urbanization, politicization and economics, reflecting a new sense of self in relation to the cosmos, notes Ilia Delio, a Catholic theologian with doctoral degrees in both theology and science.

During this time, the worlds major religions began to take form and people began to emerge from their tribes with a new sense of autonomy and individuality. Hierarchies also developed, which led to 3,000 years of violent, male-dominated power dynamics.

As individuals pursued rationality, they began to idealize a future of perfection that reminded them of their mythic past.

As individuals pursued rationality, they began to idealize a future of perfection that reminded them of their mythic past. Ernst Benz, a 20th century Eastern Orthodox historian, said, The founders of modern technology felt that justification of the most far-reaching aims of their technological efforts could be found in the destiny of man as image of God and his vocation as a fellow worker of God, to cooperate with God in the establishment of the kingdom and to share Gods power over nature. Zuckerberg seems to echo Benz as he casts his co-creating vision, in which people have been put on this earth to create.

However, as Christianity dealt with the insecurities of realizing the cosmos wasnt centered on Earth, many Christians began to disconnect from science and technology, choosing instead to deny science and to create other-worldly visions of ultimate hope.

But in the everyday world, technology began to replace religion. Now, ancient religious myths are replaced by techno myths and techno rituals the myth of super-intelligence, the myth of betterment, the myth of longevity, and the rituals of purchasing the technological means of enacting these myths, Delio observed.

The Jesuit priest and scientist Teilhard de Chardin recognized the invention of the computer would lead to a new evolution of consciousness toward a global, collective networked mind.

Teilhard recognized the evolving consciousness decades before social media developed. Today, scholars such as Delio believe a new type of person is evolving within an unprecedented grid of networked consciousness. InRe-Enchanting the Earth: Why AI Needs Religion, she writes, AI arose as natures cry for connectedness and wholeness, an effort to transcend our crippled individualism.

We stand at the precipice of an emerging consciousness unlike anything seen in human history.

The evolution of choice

As we evolve, we must choose how the virtual world will integrate with the real world. Zuckerberg explained: Youre going to be able to bring things from the physical world into the metaverse. Almost any type of media that can be represented digitally photos, videos, art, music, movies, books, games you name it. Lots of things that are physical today, like screens, will just be able to be holograms in the future.

Our choices will extend even to the people we allow into our lives. Youll get to decide when you want to be with other people, when you want to block someone from appearing in your space, or when you want to take a break and teleport to a private bubble to be alone, he said.

The more we become integrated with artificial intelligence, the faster our evolution will develop. And we will have to choose the direction of our evolution.

The more we become integrated with artificial intelligence, the faster our evolution will develop. And we will have to choose the direction of our evolution.Transhumanismarose in the 1950s as a vision to evolve thehomo sapieninto atechno sapien. By utilizing artificial intelligence, the transhumanist envisions a future where the human mind can be extracted from the body and exist forever in a virtual metaverse. However, while this vision may seem attractive to some, it becomes completely cut off from the natural world.

In contrast, Teilhard de Chardin envisionedultrahumanismas a new evolution of humanity, in which people embody the global, complex, computer networked mind and think in terms of the collective unity while remaining embodied in the world. Delio says the human body will extend to the whole electronically connected planet and the ego will embrace the All a oneness with all life in the cosmos.

As the individual ego expands to include the All, hierarchies will fall.

The evolution of control

In our previous stages of human consciousness, hierarchies based on gender, race, age, wealth and sexual orientation dominated the planet. In Zuckerbergs metaverse, all of these hierarchies, with their discriminating ethics, will begin to disappear.

The transition to a globalized, posthuman consciousness like the metaverse will utilize blockchain so that the control goes from a centralized, hierarchical power dynamic to a more widely spread access across traditional boundaries.

Were already beginning to see the playing field leveled through cryptocurrency, asAfrican crypto-artistsare able to build generational wealth and maintain control of their art in ways unavailable to them in our existing traditional hierarchies.

The evolution of Christianity

With all the talk about virtual reality and augmented reality, many people are concerned we will lose touch with reality, and with good reason. But many Christians have not accepted our current reality to begin with, because we still are stuck in the hierarchies of the past. Many of us are too busy pretending we live in a young, fallen, static, hierarchical universe rather than an ancient, converging, becoming universe. Evolution is speeding up, and religion is stuck in (an earlier) consciousness, Delio observes.

If church communities decline to engage the next stage in human evolution, they will be left behind.

If church communities decline to engage the next stage in human evolution, they will be left behind. However, if they participate in the convergence of an emerging, globalized person, many of their power dynamics will fall. How will a complementarian church determine only men are in charge in the metaverse, when peoples physical gender may not even be revealed? How would people tithe, when many of their assets are holograms? How would pastors hold people accountable to their expectations, when people can just block the church and join a new one with the swipe of a hand?

A centralized, hierarchical Christian institution will be incompatible with a decentralized, converging consciousness. However, Christianity could evolve to enhance the next stage of evolution if Christians are willing to adapt theology that already exists into this next phase.

Through the incarnation of Jesus, Christianity teaches God becomes embodied. So, biological roots possess divine value. Through the passion of Jesus, Christianity teaches suffering must be faced and entered into. Zuckerbergs vision suppresses suffering by allowing people to mask surroundings with an incredibly inspiring view of whatever you find most beautiful, and to simply block out of the universe anyone who is bothersome. And Christianity teaches the future is about the uniting of all things, the making of all things new. So, with Christianitys emphasis on incarnation, suffering, converging unity and renewal, it possesses the potential to participate in and enhance the next stage of human consciousness.

With Christianitys emphasis on incarnation, suffering, converging unity and renewal, it possesses the potential to participate in and enhance the next stage of human consciousness.

Christianitys liberation theologies can recognize and dismantle hierarchies. Its many centuries of mystics can walk with us toward converging unity with the All. If we can get over ourfear of empathy, we can enter into these new worlds to connect with people we would never meet otherwise, hear their stories and converge with them in empathy.

If Christian leaders can be bold enough to embrace our reality of a converging, evolving humanity and forsake all power dynamics of superiority and hierarchy, then Christian communities can play a vital role in our future.

As Ilia Delio says: Technology and religion must find each other for the good of the whole earth. To do this, institutional religion will have to let go of everything that prevents engagement in the dynamic flow of evolution, and technocrats must rethink their dystopia, disembodied ideals in view of whole-earth posthuman life.

Rick Pidcock is a freelance writer based in South Carolina. He is a former Clemons Fellow with BNG and recently completed a master of arts degree in worship from Northern Seminary. He is a stay-at-home father of five children and produces music under the artist name Provoke Wonder. Follow his blog at http://www.rickpidcock.com

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As Facebook evolves to Meta, what is the future of consciousness and control? - Baptist News Global

Issued on: 22/10/2021 - 15:15

Has the Covid-19 vaccine led to a new breed of "pandemic babies"being born across the world? Thats what some anti-vaxxers would have you believe. A viral TikTok video shows what some people claim is one of these genetically mutated babies. The Truth or Fake team got to the bottom of a popular online theory worthy of science fiction.

In a video that went viral on TikTok, a newborn baby sits on a bed in what looks like a hospital, with someone next to her supporting her upright. Her big black eyes look around, blinking slowly. Overlaid on the video is a womans commentary, telling us, These pandemic babies are built differently.

Images of this baby have spread on Facebook, Twitter and TikTok, with captions describing her as having hybrid genetics or claiming that an American court has categorised her and babies like her as transhuman. And the cause of the babys genetic mutation? The Covid-19 vaccine.

Anti-vaxxers are claiming that women who received the Covid-19 vaccine when pregnant unintentionally damaged the genetics of their unborn babies, creating a new breed of pandemic babies.

The Truth or Fake team contacted the mother of the child to ask her about the viral video and some of the online claims people have madeabout her daughter. She told us that her daughter has perfectly normal genetics and eyes, and that she was born prematurely, which could explain her slightly underdeveloped appearance. Whats more, her mother hadnt even received the Covid-19 jab when she was pregnant and only receivedit months after giving birth.

More here:
Truth or Fake - No, the Covid-19 vaccine did not make this baby transhuman - The France 24 Observers

WISeKey to introduce The Code to the Metaverse - Programming Our Future For Good at the forthcoming Vatican Collegio Teutonico meeting

Programming Our Future For Good

Saturday, October 23, 2021 | Collegio Teutonico, Vatican City2:00 :00 pm CET / 8:00 11:00pm CST / 8:00 11:00am EST

Authors of The transHuman Code and Artificial Humanity to host the introduction of The Code to the Metaverse - Programming Our Future For Good at The Vatican, Rome

Geneva, Zug, Switzerland October 20, 2021 - WISeKey International Holding Ltd ("WISeKey", SIX: WIHN), a leading cybersecurity, IoT and AI company, today announced that David Fergusson, Executive MD of Generational Equity and Carlos Moreira, CEO and Founder of WISeKey, authors of The transHuman Code and Artificial Humanity will host the introduction of The Code to the Metaverse - Programming Our Future For Good at a meeting scheduled to be held on October 23, 2021 at Collegio Teutonico, Vatican City.

In the best-selling 2019 book, The transHuman Code, business leaders David Fergusson and Carlos Moreira offered the world a carefully curated outlook on the essential conversations that will determine whether we use technology to upgrade or undermine our humanity. Addressing critical topics like water, finance, government, jobs, and health, the book ignited a global dialogue about how to ensure that humanity and technology exist in harmony during this digital revolution.

In collaboration with the Pontifical Lateran University at the Vatican and Humanity 2.0, the authors were invited to bring the conversation to the Vaticans Collegio Teutonico shortly after the books launch. The event assembled technology, corporate, finance, government, academic, ecclesiastic and media leaders in an interactive forum to catalyze awareness and establish the best path forward.

On October 23, Fergusson and Moreira, together with Father Philip Larrey, Chairman of Humanity 2.0; Chair of Logic Epistemology and Dean of Philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University in the Vatican; and author of Artificial Humanity, will return to Collegio Teutonico to introduce The Code to the Metaverse - Programming Our Future For Good, a forthcoming twelve-part multi-media series that convenes the brightest minds and most important resources to one end: ensuring the highest human values are embedded into todays most important technological advancements.

This exclusive, invitation only event, a feature of the Elite Global Leaders Conference, brings financial, philanthropic, spiritual and business leaders together to discuss The Code and the steps we must collectively take to create the future we most desire.

Programming Our Future For Good

Saturday, October 23, 2021 | Collegio Teutonico, Vatican City

Agenda

2:00 2:15 p.m.

2:15 2:20 p.m.

2:20 - 2:30 p.m.

Arrival

WelcomeNeil A. Greene, CEO, Jaboy Productions

IntroductionDavid Fergusson, Co-Creator, The Code to the Metaverse; Executive MD, Generational EquityFather Philip Larrey, Chair and Dean, Pontifical Lateran University in the Vatican; Chairman, Humanity 2.0; Author, Artificial Humanity

4:30 5:00 p.m.

Reception

Praise for The transHuman Code

''The principles of The transHuman Code remind us that we have an obligation to ensure that our society is programmed for the betterment of all. This is the handbook for the future we all deserve!''- Risto Siilasmaa, Chairman, Nokia

Human society is being transformed by new technologies. David and Carlos have assembled a tremendous resource for understanding what this transHuman world will look like. A must read!''- Professor Alex ''Sandy'' Pentland, co-creator, MIT Media Lab, Director MIT Connection Science

''In a time when climate change is making catastrophic weather events more frequent and scarcity of water more dramatic we need to think how technology can be re-focused to the human needs. Everyone should read this book and contribute to finding the transHuman way.''- Dr. Enrico Fucile, Chief of Data Representation, World Meteorlogical Organization

''It is essential that as we navigate our way towards an uncertain future, that the best of humanity is strengthened and protected, and not irrevocably compromised. Strong, thoughtful leadership and creative ideas are needed. This incredibly important book provides just that.''- Julia Christensen Hughes, Dean of the College of Business and Economics, University of Guelph

''Leaders must realize it's their people, and not technology, that is the biggest competitive advantage for their organizations to succeed in this new world. I highly recommend this great book by David and Carlos. The transHuman Code should be on everyone's required reading list!''- Leena Nair, Chief Human Resources Officer, Unilever

''The new digital age promises us the opportunity to live richer, fuller and rewarding lives while marginalizing some sectors of the population and creating anxiety about the relevance of humanity. This book handles these questions deftly!''- Mohit Joshi, President, Infosys

''Only David and Carlos have the foresight and network to bring together a stellar group of experts on the socio-political impact of techno-economical transformations. This is a great platform to engage us in conversation that is so critical to our future!''- Danil Kerimi, Head, Technology Industries for the World Economic Forum

''With the transHuman Code we can establish the most important basic principle of technological innovation - Ethics of use. We have been waiting too long for this book!''- Kavita Gupta, Founding Managing Partner, ConsenSys Ventures

''Every user of technology-which is pretty much everybody-should read this book. It's filled with profound questions we should all be asking ourselves about what our relationship with technology. Before you pick up your phone again, read The transHuman Code.''- Jon Rettinger, President, TechnoBuffalo

''The TransHuman Code is the MUST-READ book of the year! As technology continues to disrupt every aspect our lives, David and Carlos discuss the imminent need for a bold conversation on what makes us human and what values we need to preserve and strengthen - before it's too late.''- Megan Alexander, Host, ''Inside Edition'', CBS

About WISeKey

WISeKey (NASDAQ: WKEY; SIX Swiss Exchange: WIHN) is a leading global cybersecurity company currently deploying large-scale digital identity ecosystems for people and objects using Blockchain, AI, and IoT respecting the Human as the Fulcrum of the Internet. WISeKey microprocessors secure the pervasive computing shaping todays Internet of Everything. WISeKey IoT has an installed base of over 1.6 billion microchips in virtually all IoT sectors (connected cars, smart cities, drones, agricultural sensors, anti-counterfeiting, smart lighting, servers, computers, mobile phones, crypto tokens, etc.). WISeKey is uniquely positioned to be at the leading edge of IoT as our semiconductors produce a huge amount of Big Data that, when analyzed with Artificial Intelligence (AI), can help industrial applications predict the failure of their equipment before it happens.

Our technology is Trusted by the OISTE/WISeKeys Swiss-based cryptographic Root of Trust (RoT) provides secure authentication and identification, in both physical and virtual environments, for the Internet of Things, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence. The WISeKey RoT serves as a common trust anchor to ensure the integrity of online transactions among objects and between objects and people. For more information, visit http://www.wisekey.com.

Press and investor contacts:WISeKey International Holding LtdCompany Contact: Carlos MoreiraChairman & CEOTel: +41 22 594 3000info@wisekey.com

WISeKey Investor Relations (US)Contact: Lena CatiThe Equity Group Inc.Tel: +1 212 836-9611lcati@equityny.com

Disclaimer:This communication expressly or implicitly contains certain forward-looking statements concerning WISeKey International Holding Ltd and its business. Such statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance, or achievements of WISeKey International Holding Ltd to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. WISeKey International Holding Ltd is providing this communication as of this date and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities, and it does not constitute an offering prospectus within the meaning of article 652a or article 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations or a listing prospectus within the meaning of the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange. Investors must rely on their own evaluation of WISeKey and its securities, including the merits and risks involved. Nothing contained herein is, or shall be relied on as, a promise or representation as to the future performance of WISeKey

Visit link:
WISeKey to introduce The Code to the Metaverse - Programming - GlobeNewswire

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WISeKey to introduce The Code to the Metaverse - Programming Our Future For Good at the forthcoming Vatican Collegio Teutonico meeting

Programming Our Future For Good

Saturday, October 23, 2021 | Collegio Teutonico, Vatican City2:00 :00 pm CET / 8:00 11:00pm CST / 8:00 11:00am EST

Authors of The transHuman Code and Artificial Humanity to host the introduction of The Code to the Metaverse - Programming Our Future For Good at The Vatican, Rome

Geneva, Zug, Switzerland October 20, 2021 - WISeKey International Holding Ltd ("WISeKey", SIX: WIHN), a leading cybersecurity, IoT and AI company, today announced that David Fergusson, Executive MD of Generational Equity and Carlos Moreira, CEO and Founder of WISeKey, authors of The transHuman Code and Artificial Humanity will host the introduction of The Code to the Metaverse - Programming Our Future For Good at a meeting scheduled to be held on October 23, 2021 at Collegio Teutonico, Vatican City.

In the best-selling 2019 book, The transHuman Code, business leaders David Fergusson and Carlos Moreira offered the world a carefully curated outlook on the essential conversations that will determine whether we use technology to upgrade or undermine our humanity. Addressing critical topics like water, finance, government, jobs, and health, the book ignited a global dialogue about how to ensure that humanity and technology exist in harmony during this digital revolution.

In collaboration with the Pontifical Lateran University at the Vatican and Humanity 2.0, the authors were invited to bring the conversation to the Vaticans Collegio Teutonico shortly after the books launch. The event assembled technology, corporate, finance, government, academic, ecclesiastic and media leaders in an interactive forum to catalyze awareness and establish the best path forward.

On October 23, Fergusson and Moreira, together with Father Philip Larrey, Chairman of Humanity 2.0; Chair of Logic Epistemology and Dean of Philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University in the Vatican; and author of Artificial Humanity, will return to Collegio Teutonico to introduce The Code to the Metaverse - Programming Our Future For Good, a forthcoming twelve-part multi-media series that convenes the brightest minds and most important resources to one end: ensuring the highest human values are embedded into todays most important technological advancements.

This exclusive, invitation only event, a feature of the Elite Global Leaders Conference, brings financial, philanthropic, spiritual and business leaders together to discuss The Code and the steps we must collectively take to create the future we most desire.

Programming Our Future For Good

Saturday, October 23, 2021 | Collegio Teutonico, Vatican City

Agenda

2:00 2:15 p.m.

2:15 2:20 p.m.

2:20 - 2:30 p.m.

Arrival

WelcomeNeil A. Greene, CEO, Jaboy Productions

IntroductionDavid Fergusson, Co-Creator, The Code to the Metaverse; Executive MD, Generational EquityFather Philip Larrey, Chair and Dean, Pontifical Lateran University in the Vatican; Chairman, Humanity 2.0; Author, Artificial Humanity

4:30 5:00 p.m.

Reception

Praise for The transHuman Code

''The principles of The transHuman Code remind us that we have an obligation to ensure that our society is programmed for the betterment of all. This is the handbook for the future we all deserve!''- Risto Siilasmaa, Chairman, Nokia

Human society is being transformed by new technologies. David and Carlos have assembled a tremendous resource for understanding what this transHuman world will look like. A must read!''- Professor Alex ''Sandy'' Pentland, co-creator, MIT Media Lab, Director MIT Connection Science

''In a time when climate change is making catastrophic weather events more frequent and scarcity of water more dramatic we need to think how technology can be re-focused to the human needs. Everyone should read this book and contribute to finding the transHuman way.''- Dr. Enrico Fucile, Chief of Data Representation, World Meteorlogical Organization

''It is essential that as we navigate our way towards an uncertain future, that the best of humanity is strengthened and protected, and not irrevocably compromised. Strong, thoughtful leadership and creative ideas are needed. This incredibly important book provides just that.''- Julia Christensen Hughes, Dean of the College of Business and Economics, University of Guelph

''Leaders must realize it's their people, and not technology, that is the biggest competitive advantage for their organizations to succeed in this new world. I highly recommend this great book by David and Carlos. The transHuman Code should be on everyone's required reading list!''- Leena Nair, Chief Human Resources Officer, Unilever

''The new digital age promises us the opportunity to live richer, fuller and rewarding lives while marginalizing some sectors of the population and creating anxiety about the relevance of humanity. This book handles these questions deftly!''- Mohit Joshi, President, Infosys

''Only David and Carlos have the foresight and network to bring together a stellar group of experts on the socio-political impact of techno-economical transformations. This is a great platform to engage us in conversation that is so critical to our future!''- Danil Kerimi, Head, Technology Industries for the World Economic Forum

''With the transHuman Code we can establish the most important basic principle of technological innovation - Ethics of use. We have been waiting too long for this book!''- Kavita Gupta, Founding Managing Partner, ConsenSys Ventures

''Every user of technology-which is pretty much everybody-should read this book. It's filled with profound questions we should all be asking ourselves about what our relationship with technology. Before you pick up your phone again, read The transHuman Code.''- Jon Rettinger, President, TechnoBuffalo

''The TransHuman Code is the MUST-READ book of the year! As technology continues to disrupt every aspect our lives, David and Carlos discuss the imminent need for a bold conversation on what makes us human and what values we need to preserve and strengthen - before it's too late.''- Megan Alexander, Host, ''Inside Edition'', CBS

About WISeKey

WISeKey (NASDAQ: WKEY; SIX Swiss Exchange: WIHN) is a leading global cybersecurity company currently deploying large-scale digital identity ecosystems for people and objects using Blockchain, AI, and IoT respecting the Human as the Fulcrum of the Internet. WISeKey microprocessors secure the pervasive computing shaping todays Internet of Everything. WISeKey IoT has an installed base of over 1.6 billion microchips in virtually all IoT sectors (connected cars, smart cities, drones, agricultural sensors, anti-counterfeiting, smart lighting, servers, computers, mobile phones, crypto tokens, etc.). WISeKey is uniquely positioned to be at the leading edge of IoT as our semiconductors produce a huge amount of Big Data that, when analyzed with Artificial Intelligence (AI), can help industrial applications predict the failure of their equipment before it happens.

Our technology is Trusted by the OISTE/WISeKeys Swiss-based cryptographic Root of Trust (RoT) provides secure authentication and identification, in both physical and virtual environments, for the Internet of Things, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence. The WISeKey RoT serves as a common trust anchor to ensure the integrity of online transactions among objects and between objects and people. For more information, visit http://www.wisekey.com.

Press and investor contacts:WISeKey International Holding LtdCompany Contact: Carlos MoreiraChairman & CEOTel: +41 22 594 3000info@wisekey.com

WISeKey Investor Relations (US)Contact: Lena CatiThe Equity Group Inc.Tel: +1 212 836-9611lcati@equityny.com

Disclaimer:This communication expressly or implicitly contains certain forward-looking statements concerning WISeKey International Holding Ltd and its business. Such statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance, or achievements of WISeKey International Holding Ltd to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. WISeKey International Holding Ltd is providing this communication as of this date and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities, and it does not constitute an offering prospectus within the meaning of article 652a or article 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations or a listing prospectus within the meaning of the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange. Investors must rely on their own evaluation of WISeKey and its securities, including the merits and risks involved. Nothing contained herein is, or shall be relied on as, a promise or representation as to the future performance of WISeKey

Continued here:
WISeKey to introduce The Code to the Metaverse - Programming Our Future For Good at the forthcoming Vatican Collegio Teutonico meeting -...

WISeKey to introduce The Code to the Metaverse - Programming Our Future For Good at the forthcoming Vatican Collegio Teutonico meeting

Programming Our Future For Good

Saturday, October 23, 2021 | Collegio Teutonico, Vatican City2:00 :00 pm CET / 8:00 11:00pm CST / 8:00 11:00am EST

Authors of The transHuman Code and Artificial Humanity to host the introduction of The Code to the Metaverse - Programming Our Future For Good at The Vatican, Rome

Geneva, Zug, Switzerland October 20, 2021 - WISeKey International Holding Ltd ("WISeKey", SIX: WIHN), a leading cybersecurity, IoT and AI company, today announced that David Fergusson, Executive MD of Generational Equity and Carlos Moreira, CEO and Founder of WISeKey, authors of The transHuman Code and Artificial Humanity will host the introduction of The Code to the Metaverse - Programming Our Future For Good at a meeting scheduled to be held on October 23, 2021 at Collegio Teutonico, Vatican City.

In the best-selling 2019 book, The transHuman Code, business leaders David Fergusson and Carlos Moreira offered the world a carefully curated outlook on the essential conversations that will determine whether we use technology to upgrade or undermine our humanity. Addressing critical topics like water, finance, government, jobs, and health, the book ignited a global dialogue about how to ensure that humanity and technology exist in harmony during this digital revolution.

In collaboration with the Pontifical Lateran University at the Vatican and Humanity 2.0, the authors were invited to bring the conversation to the Vaticans Collegio Teutonico shortly after the books launch. The event assembled technology, corporate, finance, government, academic, ecclesiastic and media leaders in an interactive forum to catalyze awareness and establish the best path forward.

On October 23, Fergusson and Moreira, together with Father Philip Larrey, Chairman of Humanity 2.0; Chair of Logic Epistemology and Dean of Philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University in the Vatican; and author of Artificial Humanity, will return to Collegio Teutonico to introduce The Code to the Metaverse - Programming Our Future For Good, a forthcoming twelve-part multi-media series that convenes the brightest minds and most important resources to one end: ensuring the highest human values are embedded into todays most important technological advancements.

Story continues

This exclusive, invitation only event, a feature of the Elite Global Leaders Conference, brings financial, philanthropic, spiritual and business leaders together to discuss The Code and the steps we must collectively take to create the future we most desire.

Programming Our Future For Good

Saturday, October 23, 2021 | Collegio Teutonico, Vatican City

Agenda

2:00 2:15 p.m.

2:15 2:20 p.m.

2:20 - 2:30 p.m.

Arrival

WelcomeNeil A. Greene, CEO, Jaboy Productions

IntroductionDavid Fergusson, Co-Creator, The Code to the Metaverse; Executive MD, Generational EquityFather Philip Larrey, Chair and Dean, Pontifical Lateran University in the Vatican; Chairman, Humanity 2.0; Author, Artificial Humanity

2:30 3:15 p.m.

The Code to the Metaverse - Programming Our Future For GoodCarlos Moreira, Co-Creator, The Code to the Metaverse; CEO, WISeYey InternationalDr Wang Wei, Chairman, Chinese Museum of Finance; Metaverse Advisor

3:15 4:15 p.m.

Practicing The Code Leaders in ActionPrincess Jahnavi Kumari Mewar, Executive Director, JPM CapitalGil Amelio, Chairman, Safe Dynamics (Former CEO, Apple)David Fergusson, Co-Creator, The Code to the Metaverse; Executive MD, Generational EquityFather Philip Larrey, Chair and Dean, Pontifical Lateran University in the Vatican; Chairman, Humanity 2.0; Author, Artificial Humanity

4:20 4:30 p.m.

4:30 5:00 p.m.

ClosingMonsignor Hans-Peter Fischer, Rector, Collegio Teutonico (invited)

Reception

Praise for The transHuman Code

''The principles of The transHuman Code remind us that we have an obligation to ensure that our society is programmed for the betterment of all. This is the handbook for the future we all deserve!''- Risto Siilasmaa, Chairman, Nokia

Human society is being transformed by new technologies. David and Carlos have assembled a tremendous resource for understanding what this transHuman world will look like. A must read!''- Professor Alex ''Sandy'' Pentland, co-creator, MIT Media Lab, Director MIT Connection Science

''In a time when climate change is making catastrophic weather events more frequent and scarcity of water more dramatic we need to think how technology can be re-focused to the human needs. Everyone should read this book and contribute to finding the transHuman way.''- Dr. Enrico Fucile, Chief of Data Representation, World Meteorlogical Organization

''It is essential that as we navigate our way towards an uncertain future, that the best of humanity is strengthened and protected, and not irrevocably compromised. Strong, thoughtful leadership and creative ideas are needed. This incredibly important book provides just that.''- Julia Christensen Hughes, Dean of the College of Business and Economics, University of Guelph

''Leaders must realize it's their people, and not technology, that is the biggest competitive advantage for their organizations to succeed in this new world. I highly recommend this great book by David and Carlos. The transHuman Code should be on everyone's required reading list!''- Leena Nair, Chief Human Resources Officer, Unilever

''The new digital age promises us the opportunity to live richer, fuller and rewarding lives while marginalizing some sectors of the population and creating anxiety about the relevance of humanity. This book handles these questions deftly!''- Mohit Joshi, President, Infosys

''Only David and Carlos have the foresight and network to bring together a stellar group of experts on the socio-political impact of techno-economical transformations. This is a great platform to engage us in conversation that is so critical to our future!''- Danil Kerimi, Head, Technology Industries for the World Economic Forum

''With the transHuman Code we can establish the most important basic principle of technological innovation - Ethics of use. We have been waiting too long for this book!''- Kavita Gupta, Founding Managing Partner, ConsenSys Ventures

''Every user of technology-which is pretty much everybody-should read this book. It's filled with profound questions we should all be asking ourselves about what our relationship with technology. Before you pick up your phone again, read The transHuman Code.''- Jon Rettinger, President, TechnoBuffalo

''The TransHuman Code is the MUST-READ book of the year! As technology continues to disrupt every aspect our lives, David and Carlos discuss the imminent need for a bold conversation on what makes us human and what values we need to preserve and strengthen - before it's too late.''- Megan Alexander, Host, ''Inside Edition'', CBS

About WISeKey

WISeKey (NASDAQ: WKEY; SIX Swiss Exchange: WIHN) is a leading global cybersecurity company currently deploying large-scale digital identity ecosystems for people and objects using Blockchain, AI, and IoT respecting the Human as the Fulcrum of the Internet. WISeKey microprocessors secure the pervasive computing shaping todays Internet of Everything. WISeKey IoT has an installed base of over 1.6 billion microchips in virtually all IoT sectors (connected cars, smart cities, drones, agricultural sensors, anti-counterfeiting, smart lighting, servers, computers, mobile phones, crypto tokens, etc.). WISeKey is uniquely positioned to be at the leading edge of IoT as our semiconductors produce a huge amount of Big Data that, when analyzed with Artificial Intelligence (AI), can help industrial applications predict the failure of their equipment before it happens.

Our technology is Trusted by the OISTE/WISeKeys Swiss-based cryptographic Root of Trust (RoT) provides secure authentication and identification, in both physical and virtual environments, for the Internet of Things, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence. The WISeKey RoT serves as a common trust anchor to ensure the integrity of online transactions among objects and between objects and people. For more information, visit http://www.wisekey.com.

Press and investor contacts:WISeKey International Holding LtdCompany Contact: Carlos MoreiraChairman & CEOTel: +41 22 594 3000info@wisekey.com

WISeKey Investor Relations (US)Contact: Lena CatiThe Equity Group Inc.Tel: +1 212 836-9611lcati@equityny.com

Disclaimer:This communication expressly or implicitly contains certain forward-looking statements concerning WISeKey International Holding Ltd and its business. Such statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance, or achievements of WISeKey International Holding Ltd to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. WISeKey International Holding Ltd is providing this communication as of this date and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities, and it does not constitute an offering prospectus within the meaning of article 652a or article 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations or a listing prospectus within the meaning of the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange. Investors must rely on their own evaluation of WISeKey and its securities, including the merits and risks involved. Nothing contained herein is, or shall be relied on as, a promise or representation as to the future performance of WISeKey

Link:
WISeKey to introduce The Code to the Metaverse - Programming Our Future For Good at the forthcoming Vatican Collegio Teutonico meeting - Yahoo Finance

Dont tell Frank Herbert (or the people at Thinx), but he actually came up with a pretty genius pair of menstrual underwear. Back in 1965. Only, well, his was outerwearand it did a lot more than collect blood and endometrial lining.

Herberts invention is, of course, the stillsuit. One of the iconic pieces of tech in his novel Duneand an iconic piece of sci-fi tech, periodits an invention born of necessity. Arrakis, where most of the novel takes place, is a desert; to survive, the planets native Fremen construct form-fitting suits that collect all of their moist excretionssweat, urine, feces, droplets from exhaled breathand recycle them into potable water. The idea is actually kind of brilliant and would, if you think about it, be hugely beneficial for a few days a month to anyone menstruating. The stillsuits would just wick away any discharge and recycle it with everything else!

To be clear, Herbert never mentions this specific purpose in the book. (No, thats a very, very good point, says Jacqueline West, Dunes costume designer, when I ask her about my maxi pad notion. Maybe Frank Herbert back in those days didnt think that far, but he thought of everything else.) The author describes the stillsuits in great detail in the bookthe tubes that collect air from the nose, the way body motion powers the pumps, the micro-sandwich that works as a filter and heat-exchange systembut he didnt seem to consider that some bodies have different functions than others. (Though, let the record show that there is an entry on Fremen menstruation [Fremenstruation?] in the Dune Encyclopedia.) Herbert also got the science wrong. Theres no way any suit could properly recycle the bodys fluids the way he describes without violating basic thermodynamics. Still, what he came up with back in the 1960s wouldve provided a great way to deal with period blood without spending hundreds of dollars a year on tampons, underwear liners, or menstrual cups.

Of course, Herberts not alone here. Spacefaring sci-fi stories rarely consider periods. Ripley, as I recall, never went around the Nostromo looking for a tampon. Rey didnt search the Millennium Falcon, either, though you can imagine her wrap garment could be put to some creative uses. Its hard to imagine what wouldve happened if The Martians Mark Watney had a uterus. Even the current adaptation of Y: The Last Man, which features a cast almost entirely composed of period-havers, doesn't talk about menses much. It just isnt a topic often covered in science fiction, unless its speculative fiction like Handmaids Tale that primarily deals with reproduction.

And, lets be real, its not like sci-fi never deals with matters of the body. For decades the genre has been littered with cyborgs, transhumanism, and even virtual worldsall of which challenge modern ideas of what bodies, and their functions, are. There is ample room for discussion of periods, but rarely do those discussions happen. (Perhaps technology has rendered them obsolete.) Even though stillsuits act like a second skin, they in no way make desert-dwellers cyborgs, and in Herbert's world such a thing likely wouldve been nixed anyway considering the forbiddance of thinking machines. Instead, his genius analog piece of equipment doesnt perform what could be one of its key functions.

Its hard not to imagine what could've happened if more writers broached the topic. Sci-fi tends to dream up the things humanity ultimately seeks to put into the worldartificial intelligence, robots, smartphonesand perhaps if Herbert had planted the idea in his groundbreaking bestselling novel, someone at Procter & Gamble wouldve thought it was cool to invest in developing something beyond dry-weave and pads with wings. (Though, TBH, those wings are clutch.) Instead, period technology has been the same for decadesand NASA once suggested Sally Ride take 100 tampons on a one-week trip to space.

Look, maybe nobody wants to read about any bathroom activity in a sci-fi booksuch mundanities are for life, not the page (or screen). But considering Herbert did explain moisture recapture from urine and feces and not menstruation, it does seem like an oversightone indicative of his novel's blind spots when it comes to the roles of its women-identified characters. (There are no trans characters in the Dune novel.) The Bene Gesserit are some of the most politically and spiritually powerful women in the Dune universe, yet theyre also spoken of as threatening space witches. Paul Atreides mother, Jessica, a powerful member of the Bene Gesserit herself, is a strong central figure, but her narrative is mostly there to serve Pauls. Same with Chani, the Fremen who becomes his concubine. (A lot of these characterizations led to Denis Villeneuve amplifying the roles of women in his film adaptation of Herberts book.) Perhaps their bodily needs werent considered because their actual lives werent considered.

Luckily, though, there are now people finally doing what Dune didnt. DivaCup and others are out to disrupt the menstrual cup market; GladRags is bringing back reusable pads; Knix, Modibodi, and others have all kinds of absorbent period underwearpretty much hyperlocal stillsuits without all the water reclamation functionality. Period products are now a $20-billion-plus industry. Just imagine if Frank Herbert had foreseen that.

More Great WIRED Stories

Read more:
With 'Dune,' Frank Herbert Designed the Maxi Pad of the Future - WIRED

Monday, Oct. 11, 2021 | 2 a.m.

New Hampshire state Rep. Ken Weyler was so convinced about the accuracy of a new report on the COVID-19 vaccine that the 79-year-old Republican felt compelled to circulate it among his colleagues recently.

Imagine his fellow legislators surprise in learning the findings of the report, including that the vaccine contains a living organism with tentacles and is causing the babies of vaccinated parents to be born transhuman with pitch-black eyes.

Amazing. And, of course, completely insane.

This report was as loony as your Fox News-obsessed uncle on a handful of MDMA. It was chock-full of insane and thoroughly debunked theories, complete with a side dish of unhinged ranting against the pope and the Roman Catholic Church for being satanists and luciferians for supporting public health measures.

The report was so cuckoo that it embarrassed even Republicans New Hampshires GOP governor said Weyler should be removed from his position as the Houses top budget writer.

But it was really just another day for a party that has clearly decided theres no such thing as a theory too implausible or patently untrue for its voters to buy up to and including the Big Lie.

Lets look at some of the GOPs greatest hits in recent years:

5G technology has been inserted into the vaccine, which will allow the government to control the minds of people who have received their shots.

5G technology is being used to spread COVID-19.

The vaccine makes people magnetic.

(Fill in the blank) is an effective treatment for COVID-19. Options include bleach, horse dewormer, toothpaste and mouthwash containing colloidal silver, hydroxychloroquine, swallowing an ultraviolet light, and many more.

The growing number of severe weather events isnt a product of climate change but is occurring because the U.S. government is weaponizing the weather, including being able to create and steer tornadoes, generate torrential rainstorms and more.

The government is putting chemicals in the water that turn frogs gay. People too.

(Fill in the blank) has created snow that burns instead of melting, and is blanketing parts of the country with it during the winter. Options include Bill Gates, the government, George Soros, the Illuminati, or some combination of all of these and more.

Mass shootings are being carried out by individuals who have been brainwashed by the government as part of a plot to stir support for gun control and ultimately disarm Americans.

Antifa was responsible for the Jan. 6 insurrection.

COVID-19 is no worse than the flu.

COVID-19 does not exist.

The coronavirus was created by China as a biological weapon.

The coronavirus was created by the United States as a biological weapon.

The coronavirus was created by Anthony Fauci.

The purpose of vaccine mandates for the U.S. military is to remove Christians, free thinkers, opponents of Joe Biden and men with high testosterone from the ranks.

These are just some of the theories that have been promoted by GOP leaders in politics, traditional media and social media.

We could go on. We havent even delved into Israeli-controlled space lasers, small towns that have been forced to submit to Sharia law, or anything involving pizza restaurants, cannabalist pedophiles, the Clintons, etc.

QAnon could eat up an entire issue of our publication itself.

After years of rolling out these theories one after another, like a conveyor belt of crazy, its no wonder that the Big Lie took hold among so many Republicans. The parade of theories worked like artillery barrages before an invasion, softening up the beaches so the fable of massive voter fraud could gain a strong foothold. The results can be seen in polls like a national survey conducted last month by CNN, showing that 59% of Republicans believed former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election.

He didnt, of course. Any number of Republican witch hunts for massive voter fraud have come up empty, including a presidential task force that Trump assembled himself.

But amid the drumbeat of GOP conspiracy theories over the years, the Big Lie is really just part of a bigger story of the party manipulating a gullible and scared base of its supporters and twisting reality into a balloon animal.

This is todays Republican Party. How much further will it go beyond claiming octopus-like creatures are swimming around in the vaccines? Time will tell, but you can bet it will find a way.

View post:
Conspiracy theories have conditioned GOP to believe anything - Las Vegas Sun

As Logan musters his defense, he leans on the shows fictional American president, an unseen Republican he derisively calls the raisin. In the end, raisins are grapes, and grapes are meant to be stomped. Or cultivated, when the old ones stop giving juice.

With an election looming, Logan who owns a Fox-like cable news network with conservative king-making power begins auditioning candidates, including a slick quasi-fascist played by Justin Kirk. To Logan, the leader of the free world is, as he puts it in Season 1, basically an intern. This may explain his contempt for the presidential ambitions of his oldest son, Connor (Alan Ruck): Connors dream isnt just absurd, its slumming.

Is there anyone good in all of this? Shiv, once a political consultant of modest principle, has ideals shell cling to a touch longer than the other Roys, before discarding them like a champagne flute onto a waiters tray. Roman is an irresistible imp, but his eternal joking-not-joking mode makes him all the more sneakily dangerous, like a circa-2016 internet meme-lord.

Beyond the family core, you get to the characters who are merely morally weak in the way you or I might be if thrown into this world. Shivs husband, Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), is an arriviste with a tormenting awareness of his dispensability. Greg (Nicholas Braun), a cousin from a poorer branch of the family, is delightfully squirmy, a worm constantly twisting to avoid the hook and maybe wriggle a few inches higher up the fishing line.

Gregs haplessness makes him sympathetic, but is he honorable? His grandfather Ewan (James Cromwell), Logans embittered brother, tells him in the new season that he is in the service of a monstrous enterprise. Ewan may be a sanctimonious scold he is the most principled and least likable character on the show but he is not wrong.

Thats Succession for you. The best lack all charisma, while the worst are full of panache and intensity.

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Succession Returns, With No Real People Involved - The New York Times