Category Archives: Transhumanist

David Cronenberg is that rare filmmaker who is a genre unto himself, such that his name has become an adjective. Yet, when his name is invoked, its usually as shorthand for body horror. Certainly, and in spite of his objections, this is to be expected: more than any other director, Cronenberg has examined, in detail both coldly clinical and gleefully perverse, the ways in which psychosexual desire, trauma, and societys increasing dependency on technology manifest in the gruesome evolution and/or evisceration of the human body.

Indeed, we see a fresh example of this in the promotion and reception of his latest filmhis first in eight yearsCrimes of the Future (available on VOD today), despite the fact, for as horrific as many of the images and ideas within it are, its not really a horror movie. That said, the last thing I want to do is make another tired argument over what counts as a horror movie. Rather, I want to make the case that Cronenberg deserves to be equally synonymous with a different genre, one that hes spent as much time exploring as body horror.

That genre is espionage.

***

As with his other major themesdisease and mutation, biomechanism and evolution, transgressive sexuality and the pathology of fetishismCronenbergs interest in espionage is evident from the earliest phase of his filmmaking career, with the original, 1970 Crimes of the Future. The experimental feature (his second) is set at dermatological clinic is a post-apocalyptic future where women have gone extinct. Cult-like organizations dedicated to various medical, spiritual and sexual practicesincluding, disturbingly, pedophiliacompete for political power.

Around the same time that Cronenberg was making his experimental films, he was also directing a lot of television, including a short teleplay for the Canadian anthology series Programme X, titled Secret Weapons. Like Crimes, it is set in a future dystopia (this one ravaged by North American civil war) and concerns a lone scientist (here, a chemist whos manufacture a drug that can enhance fighting skills) sought by competing political factions.

Both Crimes of the Future and Secret Weapons are dizzyingly convoluted, so much so that they prove nigh impenetrable on first watch. This is an intentional artistic choice on Cronenbergs part, one that he will continue to use throughout his career (although hell hone it as time goes on). Before he decided to embark on a career in filmmaking, Cronenberg wanted to be a novelist. Amongst his literary influences were Franz Kafka, William S. Burroughs, Vladimir Nabokov, Philip K. Dick and JG Ballard, all of whom would often load their stories with confounding political subplots so as to hold a mirror up to the widespread paranoia and anxiety spread by the often clandestine political, religious and corporate bureaucracies vying for power in the post-modern world.

Like those writers, Cronenbergs work reflects a core tenet of our increasingly dehumanized society: just because youre paranoid, it doesnt mean no ones watching you.

***

After those early films, David Cronenberg helmed two Canuxsploitation flicksShivers (1975) and Rabid (1977)that put a gnarly original spin on the zombie apocalypse by centering them around mutant venereal diseases. As soon as he stepped onto the scene, hed planted his freak flag. In 1979, the Toronto native released two more filmsthe stock car sports dramedy Fast Company and the terrifyingly personal The Broodbefore firmly establishing himself as a major director within the international horror scene with 1981s Scanners.

For all of its sci-fi trappings and iconic moments of gore, including the infamous exploding head scene, the filmabout competing factions of renegade psychics with telekinetic powersis, at heart, a corporate espionage thriller. Cronenberg keeps the action and story tightly contained, yet he still manages to tell an epic story about the military and medical industrial complexes inspired by the real-life MK Ultra experiments conducted by the CIA.

Scanners is the first in Cronenbergs thematically linked trilogy, with the following installments both released in 1983: The Dead Zone and Videodrome. The former, an adaptation of the Stephen King best seller, made for his first (and arguably only real) foray into the mainstream, while the latter proved his most shockingly unfiltered work up to that point. But despite the disparity in mass appeal, those two films both explore many of the same ideas as Scanners, such that, taken together, they comprise a loose thematic trilogy which we might call The Assassin Trilogy.

In the Dead Zone, Christopher Walkens car crash survivor awakens from a years-long coma to discover hes been gifted (or cursed) with psychic abilities. When he runs into a popular nationalist politician on the campaign trial, he is given a horrible glimpse into the near future: the would-be senator eventually becomes President of the United States and, in a moment of religious fervor, kicks off nuclear Armageddon. The last third of the film becomes a perverse spin on the 70s paranoid conspiracy thrillernamely, Alan J. Pakulas ultra-bleak masterpiece The ParallaxViewin which we find ourselves rooting for the political assassin.

In Videodrome, Max Renn (James Woods), the sleazy head of a late night cable television channel, falls down a nightmarish rabbit hole of psychosis and biochemical mutation after he discovers a series of seemingly real snuff films. Its ultimately revealed that the films are the creation of a right-wing cabal that wants to reverse what they see as the moral decay of western civilization by using violent and sexually explicit media as psychic weapons against the populace. Max is initially brainwashed into becoming their assassin, before a competing group turns the tables and recruits him to kill his would-be masters.

In its examination of brainwashing and political treachery, as well as its specific story beats, Videodrome could very well be viewed as Cronenbergs gruesome, XXX remake of Jon Frankenheimers The Manchurian Candidate, one of the greatest and most influential espionage movies ever made.

It is also his most political film; one in which he explicates the ideas he touches upon in Scanners and The Dead Zone. This explication comes by way of a line of dialog in the first half of Videodrome, when Max is warned by an associate to stay away from the title organization: It has something you dont have. It has a philosophy. And that is what makes it dangerous.

Cronenberg is amongst our least judgmental storytellers, such that even at their most shocking, its hard, if not outright impossible to read his work as cautionary tales. However, its clear from this section of his filmographyespecially The Dead Zone and Videodromethat he views zealotry, particularly in service to right wing ideology, as far greater threats to humankind than any technological or transhumanist evolution.

***

After scoring the biggest hit of his career in 1986 with The Fly, Cronenberg began moving away from the strictures of genre, into far stranger territory. And of all the films hes made, none has ever proven as strange as his unlikely 1991 adaptation of William S. Burroughss infamous Beat classic, Naked Lunch.

Long considered unadaptable, the novel has no plot to speak of, but is comprised of hallucinatory routinesequal parts comic and nightmarish in their depiction of explicit sex, violence and scatological actionwhich Cronenberg combined with scenes from other of Burroughss work, episodes from his real life (most notably the accidental murder of his wife, Joan Vollmer, during a drunken game of William Tell) and a paranoid plot that borrows heavily from film noir and exotic spy films of the Cold War era.

The film is rife with the double agents, handlers, controllers, bagmen, fronts, cutouts and honeypots you expect to find in traditional espionage stories, only here they come in the form of sentient insectoid typewriters with talking asshole-mouths, giant reptilian mutants that excrete narcotic jism from phalluses that sprout through their heads, gender-and-species-bending figures who feast on human flesh and practice dark ritual magic.

Yet, for as outrageous and absurd as Naked Lunch is, it contains the most penetrating musings on the existential nature of spy craft this side of John le Carr: Homosexuality is the best all-around cover an agent ever had; An unconscious agent is an effective agentits your instincts that make you such a good operative; All agents defect, and all resisters sell out. Thats the sad truth

Two years later, Cronenberg followed Naked Lunch with another meta-narrative adaptation: M. Butterfly. Based on David Henry Hwangs stage play (itself loosely based a true story), the film sees an French diplomat (Jeremy Irons) engage in a passionate affair with a female Beijing opera singer (John Lone) who he discovers is not only actually a man, but a spy for the Chinese government sent to seduce him into revealing classified information

One of Cronenbergs most underseen and underrated works, M. Butterfly holds up exceptionally well today, not necessarily as a trans drama (although it certainly approaches its subject matter with more sensitivity and sympathy than other, similarly-themed films from the same time) but as a damning indictment of white, Western orientalist fantasies and naivety.

Both Naked Lunch and M. Butterfly use the trope of secret identities to examine the psychic toll placed upon individuals by repressive regimes, in so doing showing that its not the so-called sexual deviants that are truly depraved, but the supposedly lawful societies which inflict their heteronormative strictures upon them in the name of power.

***

After bringing yet another seemingly unadaptable book to screen by way of JG Ballards Crash, Cronenberg returned to more traditional (on the surface, at least) science fiction in 1999 with eXistenZ (1999), which combined the (literally) visceral biotech of Videodrome with the labyrinthian political machinations of those early works to look at other potential avenues of transhumanist evolution: virtual reality and video games. As in Crimes of the Future, Secret Weapons, Scanners and Videodrome, the core plot is but a small part of a larger, more complex story, the true nature of which is reveled to us only in the closing moments.

Given how intertwined modern intelligence agencies are with the organized crime, it was only a matter of time before Cronenberg delved into mob underworld. On the other side of the new millennium, he teamed with actor Viggo Mortensen for two back-to-back gangster films: A History of Violence (2005) and Eastern Promises (2007). In the former, Mortensen plays a psychotic mobster pretending to be a decent family man; in the latter, he plays an Interpol agent pretending to be a mobster in order to infiltrate the Russian mob.

As in Naked Lunch and M. Butterfly, the conceit of secret identity is adopted to examine the way subconscious desire refuses to remain suppressed.

***

Cronenbergs entered his late-career stage after Eastern Promises with a handful of films that proved underwhelming with critics and fans (although they all have their staunch defenders) A Dangerous Method (2011), an adaptation of Christopher Hamptons play The Talking Cure about Carl Jung and Sigmund Freuds developing psychoanalysis; and Cosmopolis (2012), an adaptation of Don DeLillos novel about the collapse of a tech billionaires finances and mental state amidst a stock market crash.

Again, both films focus on small, personal stories backdropped by world-shaking political events just beyond the frame. In the former, its the growing specter of fascism in the lead-up to World War 2; in the later its an anti-capitalist uprising (although Cronenbergs film was made post-Great Recession, post-Occupy Wall St., the ever-prescient DeLillo published his novel prior to both). Neither would be considered espionage movies in the strict sense, but both of them toe around the genre, particularly Cosmopolis, which contains many of the elements found throughout Cronenbergs other work: corporate espionage, radical factions and assassins.

A Dangerous Method, meanwhile, sees Cronenberg explore his Jewish heritage via the Nazi conspiracy that sought to extinguish it, a concept he touched on a few years earlier, by way of Hezbollah, in a 2007 short film titled At the Suicide of the Last Jew in the World in the Last Cinema in the World (in which he also starred).

***

Cronenberg combined this intense engagement with the contemporary geopolitics with his overriding speculative obsessionsincluding a return to body horrorin his debut novel from 2014, Consumed, which includes, amongst its various plot threads, a sinister conspiracy carried out by North Korean spies.

Cronenberg tried to adapt Consumed but was unable to. For several years, it looked as though he was finished making movies (even as his son, Brandon Cronenberg, took up his fathers mantle, directing his own gnarly spin on The Manchurian Candidate with 2020s Possessor). However, that changed when a script hed written in the early 2000s caught the attention of producers.

Taking the same title as his sophomore feature, the excellent new Crimes of the Futureabout a couple who conduct live surgery as performance art in a near future where technology has eradicated pain, even as environmental catastrophe has rendered the world nearly uninhabitablecontains yet another intricate and often perplexing espionage plot in which various corporate, governmental and radical political interests wage a shadow war in the name of the future and where Viggo Mortensen again plays an undercover agent and informer. As in so many of his other films, his hero comes to understand that hes working for the wrong side and must betray his masters in the name of a greater cause.

Its fitting that Crimes of the Future shares its title with Cronenbergs earlier film. Although it was not conceived as any sort of career-defining capstone (and indeed, Cronenberg already has another film in development), the way it combines all of his favorite themes, ideas and story beatsincluding, and indeed especially, the way he uses espionage and conspiracy to decode the murkiest intricacies of human psychology.

More here:
All Agents Defect: Espionage in the Films of David Cronenberg - CrimeReads

Soundtracks are some of the most iconic tunes in pop culture. Think of the work of Danny Elfman or John Williams. Songs like the Star Wars theme are universally known, and all it takes is that first blasting note of the orchestra for the listener to imagine the yellow text crawling down from the top of the screen.

Impressive soundtracks like this have made a massive imprint on pop culture, becoming an integral part of how some of the most famous stories have been told. However, few would consider soundtracks as casual listening music.

Franchise fans may listen to the Jurassic Park opening, but these pieces are generally enjoyed as an accompaniment to the media for which they were created. Some films have pop music as significant parts of their soundtrack, such as Top Gun, with songs like Danger Zone and Take My Breath Away.

This has become a common trend lately, with films like the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise having their soundtracks composed mostly of licensed music -- however, unlike Top Gun, these songs werent made for the film.

Videogame music has also had its own massive influence on pop culture. Think of the instantly recognizable music from the first Super Mario Brothers, and the music from Sonic the Hedgehog's first level Green Hill Zone.

Music in videogames has come a long way since the sometimes abrasive, albeit unique, sound of chiptune melodies. With the capacity for digital storage ever expanding, games now have fully produced and professionally recorded music to accompany them. Modern games often get the same treatment films do with full orchestral scores.

This has led to some phenomenal music created specifically for games, music that really transcends its ties to videogames and stands on its own as enjoyable listening even for those who have little interest in the source material.

A recent soundtrack that comes to mind are the tracks created for the radio in CD Projekt REDs 2020 game Cyberpunk 2077. Often simplified to Cyberpunk, the game was a highly anticipated project based off of a tabletop role-playing game from 1988.

Part of the games soundtrack is composed of pop songs that have been created to be heard over the radio in game. When traveling in cars or just traversing around the world, players will hear fictional radio stations broadcasting music that was created specifically for the game.

As a means of building the world, the game features music created by a wide variety of artists. While many of the real-world artists are presented under fictional band names, some notable artists who created and or performed music for Cyberpunk are: Refused, Run The Jewels, A$AP Rocky and Grimes. Grimess music is presented under the fictional popstar Lizzy Wizzy, a character she voices in the game.

There are 31 songs, three volumes, of original radio music for Cyberpunk spanning genres, creating a wide variety of interesting songs. One standout -- Resist and Disorder by The Cartesian Duelists (real world artist: Rezodrone) -- blends electronic, hard rock and a driving industrial rhythm. The song feels heavy with an insanely catchy chorus that breaks up the sound before bringing it back down to the crunchy guitar riff that serves as the songs base.

Like most of the songs on the Cyberpunk radio, the lyrics dont feel constrained simply to the world of the game. Many of the punk and anti-corporate ideals expressed in the music seemn just as relevant to the real world, as they do the fictional sci-fi dystopia.

Someone who isnt necessarily a fan of the source material, could thoroughly enjoy, and connect with, this music. Music in Cyberpunk isnt held hostage to its medium. Most songs dont refer to videogames or make allusions to fictional slang or terminology. This doesnt stop the music from characterizing and building the game world in a believable way.

Arguably the greatest music in Cyberpunk is the music of the fictional band Samurai. Samurai is a key part of the story of Cyberpunk 2077, with one of the main characters, Johnny Silverhand (portrayed by Keanu Reeves), as a guitarist and lead singer of the group.

Samurais music is performed by real-world Swedish punk band Refused, and the songs are terrific. The Ballad of Buck Ravers is a punk song about a corporate office worker being pushed over the edge by mindless work that inevitably gets him nowhere. Never Fade Away is another song exploring the idea of love lost, but not forgotten. The song features a catchy chorus almost reminiscent of 80s classic rock, contrasting but still complementing the harder tone of the rest of the song.

Chippin in is a hard rock song that plays with the double meaning of the gambling term with the transhumanist ideas of microchips and cybernetic implants, which serve as a key theme in cyberpunk.

Cyberpunks radio music was made specifically as pop music, it was further from the traditional soundtrack in that sense; however, there are other games that emulate pop music as a part of their backing tracks and to great success.

Atlus Persona series has a long history of soundtracks, with the most recent entry into the series Persona 5 having some of the best music yet. Persona 5 has what would best be described as jazzy tunes with lyrics beautifully sung by the Japanese vocalist Lyn. Her vocals combined with the incredible combination of heavy bass lines, synth and string accents make for some tracks that are unforgettable.

The songs perfectly capture the vibe of a lounge singer in a smoky jazz bar. The silky vocals and catchy melody in a song like Last Surprise and Life Will Change are enjoyable, even for people who don't like videogames.

Being a fan of punk and hard rock myself, the soundtrack for a game like Persona 5 is hardly the kind of music I would identify with my general music tastes. However, this soundtracks quality transcends genre preferences altogether. While not every track is accessible as casual listening (it still is a soundtrack after all), there are an outstanding number of terrific tracks to choose from.

The Devil May Cry series is another franchise that blends pop elements into its backing tracks.

Devil May Cry has a heavy emphasis on hard rock -- relevant to the over-the-top action and character of its main protagonist, accented with electronic elements.

The songs that really steal the show in the Devil May Cry games are the battle tracks that play during combat encounters in the game. The fifth games battle tracks stand out as they achieve unique sounds from the songs in the rest of the franchise, as well as helping to provide insight into the characters they play for.

Devil Trigger is the battle theme for one of the games three protagonists Nero. Devil Trigger stands in stark contrast to the series norm with a sound that can almost be described as EDM. The song has an explosive, energetic attitude to it that matches the chaotic action associated with Neros fighting style.

The female vocalist gives the piece an overall pop feel; however, under the surface, a solid hard rock base accompanied with hard rock backup vocals is reminiscent of songs from earlier games in the franchise.

The best song from Devil May Cry 5 is Bury The Light, which is the battle track for longtime series antagonist Vergil, who was released as a playable character in conjunction with the special edition of the game in 2020. The song topped the Apple music soundtrack chart in september 2020 and ranked #7 of all September 2020 when it was released.

Bury the Light is an epic orchestral metal song. The song accents its heavy metal core with electronic and orchestral elements, such as its electric violin opening. The lyrics are sung by Victor Borba, and capture the character of Vergil, a man (half demon) on a quest for power that has gone too far to be stopped.

Narratives and themes aside, a lot of videogame music is all about fun. While theres an almost infinite supply of music that deserves to be recognized, that's an ambitious task for this article. However, I think the point stands that there is a lot of terrific art created around the world, much of it overlooked in the mainstream. If nothing else, I compel you to listen to something you normally wouldnt, videogame or not -- maybe youll find something new worth appreciating.

Author Bio:

Garrett Hartman is a contributing writer at Highbrow Magazine.

For Highbrow Magazine

Image Sources:

--Super Mario Bros. (Wikipedia, Creative Commons)

--Anna Hanks (Wikimedia, Creative Commons)

--Rice Digital (Wikipedia, Creative Commons)

The rest is here:
Tune In: The Art of the Videogame Soundtrack - Highbrow Magazine

It's now been five years since we had a new Alien movie, and precisely 10 years, to this day, since Prometheus teased a soft reboot of the franchise. Not a prequel by name, hence the Alien-less title to encourage newbies, it was where a film where director Ridley Scott, who returned to the franchise for the first time since the 1979 original, Scott set out to reclaim the series and dabble with the creature's beginnings.

For a while, it looked like it might be Scott's final act in the series, with District 9 creator Neill Blomkamp attached to make a new sequel (opens in new tab), but he eventually returned to the franchise and made 2017's Alien Covenant (opens in new tab), which is where the xenomorph story was left hanging. For now.

Disney's buyout of 20th Century Fox raised the question of whether we'd seen the last of the acid-blooded beastie. The answer arrived in the shape of two new Alien properties on the horizon. A movie from Don't Breathe director Fede Alvarez recently entered development along with an upcoming TV series from Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley. (opens in new tab)

With scripts for the latter currently being written, and the show set to drop next year on FX, where might this series go next? Taking inspiration from Scott's first rekindling of the epic saga, we dive into five ways Prometheus can inspire the Alien TV series, what it needs to take on board and how it can avoid death at the hands of a facehugger...

Love it or hate it, Prometheus makes it easier for newcomers to jump right into the franchise. As an Alien prequel with no explicit connections to the 1979 original film, it's simple enough to enjoy the story without having to ingest an entire Wikipedia.

The series could stand to model a little of its structure around this concept; not to get bogged down in dense mythology, but to borrow familiar visuals from the franchise. Fingers crossed this is the idea behind it, as FX chief John Landgraf has already dubbed it (opens in new tab): "an extension and reinvention of the franchise."

With Prometheus, Ridley Scott jumped to a time before Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley to tell a new story. A fresh cast of characters living within the Alien world makes sense, especially as serialized episodic storytelling requires a different kind of structure. If the show were to do this, it would enable Hawley to craft an original tale instead of feeling beholden to existing characters.

Based on what's revealed so far it sounds as though this is likely to be the case. We already know it won't include Ripley or any of her contemporaries, a decision made by locating the show "70-odd years from now" in roughly the year 2090. It's interesting to note the approximate time frame Landgraf suggests, as it is right around the time Prometheus takes place in 2089-2093.

This hints at the fact we'll likely be introduced to a new leading cast with the potential to name-drop Prometheus, Covenant or Alien characters. Fingers crossed it's Jonesy the cat.

Prometheus offered us fleeting glances at Guy Pearce's Peter Weyland and his relationships with his android offspring David and his daughter, Meredith Vickers played by a pre-flattened Charlize Theron. We learn only a little of Weyland's desire to confront his maker. For the most part, we're with the crew of the Prometheus. Like the majority of the movies in the franchise, the cast we grow to know and love are regular people.

But the show could include more of the leadership angle, the faces behind the decisions that directly impact the people sent to the frontline and how the megacorporation came to do what it does. Aliens includes a boardroom of unsympathetic suits with little interest in Ripley's story, and in Alien 3 we meet the reprehensible Michael Weyland.

This disparity between Weyland-Yutani workers and the Corporation leadership will likely be explored. In [my show], youre also going to see the people who are sending them [to space], Hawley told Vanity Fair. So you will see what happens when the inequality were struggling with now isnt resolved. If we as a society cant figure out how to prop each other up and spread the wealth, then whats going to happen to us?"

Bearing in mind the series won't take place on spaceships in the far reaches of the universe, it sounds as if the leadership might be forced to confront the beasts they've desperately wished to weaponize for the entire franchise.

The notion of yet another Alien story throwing a crew into peril in the far reaches of space feels predictable, so why not relocate somewhere else?

An Alien 3 teaser prematurely promised an Alien film on Earth, but it wasn't until Alien vs. Predator: Requiem butchered the concept that the idea fizzled out. Prometheus shows brief moments on Earth before the bulk of the movie relocates to the moon LV-223. The show should commit to a new setting as a way to freshen up the mythology.

According to Landgraf, the show plans to breathe new life into the idea: "Setting it on Earth is really interesting. We have to think forward about the future of the planet in terms of the environment, governance, technology and create and design a version of the planet in the future.

Prometheus dabbled with creation. Human creation at the hands of the Engineers and the Xenomorph's creation at the hands of Michael Fassbender's corrupt android, David. Both instances confront concepts of identity through technology. So what further steps might the Weyland-Yutani Corporation take?

It's easy to assume nefarious schemes could be in the works. Alongside their weapons division whose pursuit of the creature fueled the entire cinematic franchise, their artificial intelligence division is another area

Hawley sounds like he's planning to include this, but in a different way than previously seen: "In the movies, we have this Weyland-Yutani Corporation, which is clearly also developing artificial intelligencebut what if there are other companies trying to look at immortality in a different way, with cyborg enhancements or transhuman downloads? Which of those technologies is going to win?"

Throw in that competitive element and the world of Alien expands considerably. Weyland-Yutani's rivals could force the series in a new direction, with the race to engineer a new technology and master eternal life almost certain to include some horrific scenarios.

The parting shot of Prometheus reveals the birth of a xenomorph ancestor, dubbed the deacon. Not exactly the same creature, it shares familiar traits with the iconic beast but we see it so briefly it left die-hard Alien fans desperate for more.

Ridley Scott deliberately chose not to include the xenomorph in Prometheus but immediately did an about face when audiences responded unfavorably. "We discovered from it that [the fans] were really frustrated," he said shortly before the release of Covenant. "They wanted to see more of the original [monster] and I thought he was definitely cooked. So I thought: Wow, OK, Im wrong."

We know the TV series will include the alien apparently it's the only recognisable character we can expect to see but in what capacity? Each movie to date has pushed the creature design, added a new twist to the life cycle and mythology. In addition to the deacon, Prometheus also birthed the trilobite, the octopus-like squid which Shaw extracts from her body.

With the Earth setting, an angle on Weyland-Yutani's leadership operations, a fresh take on technology, all signs point toward a new era for the franchise and fingers crossed? An even more terrifying iteration of the alien.

Read the rest here:
It's been 10 years since Prometheus, what can the reboot teach the Alien TV show? - TechRadar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TP. Any final words?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Originally posted here:
Religious Transhumanism 11: What about the body? | cybernetic immortality - Patheos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The rest is here:
Elon Musk is promoting transhumanism as part of Agenda 2030. - Logically

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more from the original source:
PEW and transhumanism: Public has mixed concerns about arriving era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and human enhancement - Genetic Literacy Project

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More here:
David Cronenberg Gets Back to Basics in Crimes of the Future - Vanity Fair

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

Mandy Cao,My Sheer Dream

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

Mandy Cao, Time in Desolation

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

Visit link:
Painting on Another Plane: Mandy Cao - MutualArt.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read original article here

See original here:
Have Authoritarians Used 1984 as a Handbook? - Verve Times

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read original article here

Read more here:
How to Grow and Forage Without Owning Land - Verve Times