tag > Comment
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Was asked by a journalist to comment on the "National Commission on Artificial Intelligence report" that was just released. Responded with the following remarks:
Nothing new under the sun, the military industrial complex is still totally out of control and war is still the name of the game. "AI weapons" and killer robots add just yet another layer of deadly bullshit on top. It's brutal insanity and everyone knows it, yet think tank staffers from DC to Beijing keep assuring us it's "progress and necessary". A real discussion around "how AI can help to promote peace globally" is what is truly required - but you certainly won't find it on the agenda of pentagon operatives or intelligence agency billionaires like the Eric Schmidt's of the world.
The article is live here: U.S. is ‘not prepared to defend or compete in the A.I. era,’ says expert group chaired by Eric Schmidt (CNBC)
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Reflections on technology for meditation
The following is a responds to an interview about using "brain computer interfaces" and "virtual reality" to "enhance" the meditation experience. Even though i am a long term dedicated practitioner of the internal arts, this is just a momentary opinion and food for thought, from a beginners mind.
For me, one of the most beautiful and empowering aspects of meditation (and related internal arts, like qigong, yoga, etc.) is that one can perform it anywhere, anytime - completely with out the need for any complicated technology. There are almost no external dependency - it's just you, a cushion and some time. And many traditions (soto zen, etc.) emphasis that there is no "place to reach" or "thing to improve" (like some weird "mindful video-game high-score") - it is simply about sitting regularly in the here and now. I would argue it is precisely this simplicity, from which much of the power of the meditative experience emanates. While some scientists, technologists and designers make the case that "the ticket to entry is very high, hence we need more tech", i believe learning mediation and establishing it as daily habit, are very achievable goals - as illustrated by the quickly growing amounts of meditators.
One of the benefit of the traditional low-tech or no-tech approach to mediation/mindfulness, is that it deliberately makes/leaves space for direct human-to-human experiences (teaching and similar social activities.) and nature-to-human experiences. By introducing technology as definitive centre piece of a meditative praxis, we run the very real risk of deteriorating these essential human experiences. For all its blessings, the negative sides of technology should not be ignored - especially when talking about "tech for well-being" (for a nuanced view on tech, see this).
Don't get me wrong, i think technology can certainly help and has an important role to play making mindfulness a universally accessible mainstream culture - i am just earnestly questioning where the line is between "this tool is truly useful and essential for my well-being - not addictive, distracting, etc." - and "I actually just want to play with cool tech-toys, but not so much just sit and do the wonderful but often very challenging inner work".
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Comedy of the week: "Jared Kushner nominated for Nobel peace prize" (Guardian) "Kushner and his deputy Avi Berkowitz join Greta Thunberg and Alexei Navalny on the nominations list."
#Comment: This headline is a great representation of the state of "western democracy" in 2021: The level of bullshit has gone far beyond the point of no return. Everything that is even remotely not bullshit has vanished - and all that is left are actors in an endless bullshit psyops. Nonstop comedy gold.
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Emotional headlines have an impact regardless of the credibility of the source (HU-Berlin)
"Neurocognitive studies by researchers at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU) show that headlines with emotional content influence our judgments about other people even when we consider the media source to be untrustworthy."
#Comment: More research by captain obvious. Sadly, this study focuses on "the influence of 'fake news' on the brain", instead of "the influence of 'news' in general (fake or true) as key driver of stress and disorder in the brain."
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How China’s digital currency will thwart US dollar trap and help the world (SCMP)
"The digital renminbi is a sovereign currency fully backed by the state, does not require a bank account and has full oversight by Chinese banking authorities. Developing countries will embrace the convenience of China’s digital payment systems, which have great poverty-relief potential for the world’s unbanked poor."
#Comment: In summary, highly centralized, total surveillance technocratic money coming east and west - aiming to quantize reality even more.
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Your Credit Score Should Be Based on Your Web History, IMF Says (gizmodo)
#Comment: A related post from a few years ago: "Asshollery of a very refined form".
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Poster of "discourses of climate delay"
#Comment: for once the total lack of diversity in the poster makes sense...
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Neural network models for DMT-induced visual hallucinations (Imperial)
#Comment: Behold, this is some next level bullshit science! My head hurts..
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"The body provides something for the spirit to look after and use." - Alan Turing
#Comment: This quote nicely illustrates the great contempt Turing - and the majority of the contemporary scientific establishment - have for the Human Body. The underlying dualistic believe system - which ultimately perceives the body as a irrelevant nuisances and the disembodied intellect ("spirit") as the true king - is truly sickening for mindbody.
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The Cost of Sequencing a Human Genome ($942 in 2020)
#Comment: This chart (and the culture that produced it) is comedic on many levels. Firstly, Moore's Law has come to an end and is deeply miss-understood: While technologists like to frame it as "number of transistors double every 2y" - they never truly inquire "WHY does it double?". Its no magic: The law is a metric of unfettered economic growth and mindless accelerationism. The same "let's reduce reality down to a singular number and optimize that like crazy" mentality seems to be a primary driver in the biotech field, with the added bonus of saying "its about your health!". Are there any adults in the room to watch Dr.Frankenstein?
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Comedy of the week: The Council for Inclusive Capitalism - The Vatican Joins With Visa, Allianz, Bank of America, MasterCard, Lynn F. de Rothschild et al in capitalism "reform" effort.
#Comment: A total bullshit dark comedy show. Can VatiCoin be far behind?
Pope Francis’s Plan to Fix the Vatican’s Finances Meets Internal Resistance (Bloomberg)
The Church bureaucracy known as the Curia is clinging to the privileges that come with controlling the purse strings.
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Colombia Is Considering Legalizing Its Massive Cocaine Industry
Colombia Is Considering Legalizing Its Massive Cocaine Industry; There are 200k coca growing farmers. The state would buy coca at market prices. The programs for coca eradication each year cost $1 billion. Buying the entire coca harvest each year would cost$680M. It costs less to buy it all.
#Comment: Makes alot of sense, given the enormous dimensions of the global Illegal drug trade.
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International lawyers draft plan to criminalise ecosystem destruction (The Guardian)
Plan to draw up legal definition of ‘ecocide’ attracts support from European countries and small island nations.
Mariana Mazzucato: We may need climate lockdowns to halt climate change
We are approaching a tipping point on climate change, when protecting the future of civilization will require dramatic interventions
#Comment: While such ideas might sounds appealing and progressive on first sight, on deeper reflection they are rather crazy and twisted: It is a play-book for eco-fascism. Large scale cooperation is obviously the key to solving the climate and biodiversity crisis - its been the driving force of humanity since the beginning. Yet even more centralisation of power is in my opinion not necessary nor helpful to foster more cooperation - on the contrary, it is what got us into these crisis in the first place. On closer introspection, massive power centralisation is precisely the defining characteristic of these"global climate regime" proposals made exclusively by WEIRD People ("Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich & Democratic"). Plus, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes and who gets to decide what is "ecologically sound"? Lawyers, economists, politicians, bankers and military leaders (the likely arbiters of this regime) certainly strike me as far from ideal.
#Regenerative #Economics #Military #ClimateChange #Cryptocracy
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"The world’s first Psiloscoby" "We can genetically engineer a kombucha SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) to produce psilocybin while it ferments. We can do this by printing genes from magic mushrooms and embedding them into the SCOBY’s DNA. Once we make a single psiloscoby, it can grow and divide and be shared among friends, to brew their own psilobucha."
#Comment: Why engineer stuff, if it grows super low tech in your room? It does not make any sense what so ever - except for techno-fetishist control-freaks who should just learn to relax.
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Narrative: Secretive energy startup backed by Bill Gates achieves solar breakthrough
Reality: Heliogen Is Bill Gates’ Latest Venture That Is Only Good For Oil & Gas - Part1 & Part 2
#Comment: This story is indicative of the mindset of global "elites" which suddenly proclaim to care about climate change et cetera: Tech-fetishist control-freaks can't seem to accept, that in reality "we have solutions already that are much easier to integrate" is true in most cases.
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KFC starts selling fried chicken in China with self-driving "5G" unmanned food trucks
#Comment: Clearly this is the perfect use-case for artificial intelligence, besides killer robots..
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Week in Review, focus on Corona
Coronavirus: China calls for global QR code system to track international travel amid pandemic (independent.co.uk)
Xi Jinping wants ‘smooth functioning’ world economy but rights expert warns of surveillance
Could this COVID-19 ‘health passport’ be the future of travel and events? (WEF)
Rising COVID-19 infection rates pose a threat to global tourism. A new app acts as a health passport for travellers who are virus-free. Using blockchain technology, it provides an encrypted record of test results. Its creators say it could allow healthy travellers to avoid quarantine. The app could also allow sports and entertainment venues to reopen safely, as well as the global conference and exhibition industry.
Ethiopia’s military chief calls WHO head Tedros a criminal supporting a rebel region (WP)
In a televised address Wednesday night, Ethiopia’s army chief of staff, Gen. Berhanu Jula, called Tedros a criminal and said he should step down from his position as director general of the WHO for seeking to procure weapons for the Tigray region, where the Ethiopian military is fighting local forces.
Vaccine Safety to Remain Unclear Until Millions Get Their Shots (Bloomberg)
Some worry federal safety monitoring isn’t well coordinated. CDC safety expert says wide amount of date to be watched.
Vaccine rumours debunked: Microchips, 'altered DNA' and more (BBC)
"Injecting RNA into a person doesn't do anything to the DNA of a human cell," said Prof Jeffrey Almond of Oxford University. Pfizer spokesperson Andrew Widger said the company's vaccine "does not alter the DNA sequence of a human body. It only presents the body with the instructions to build immunity". It is true that no mRNA vaccine has been approved before, but multiple studies of mRNA vaccines in humans have taken place over the last few years.
#Comment: 🤪 rumours🤪 debunked 🤪 no 🤪 questions 🤪 left 🤪 LOL!! 🤪
TikTokers are pretending to have horrible side-effects from COVID-19 vaccines. The posts are jokey, but medical experts say they can encourage real anti-vaxx views. (BI)
A series of videos on TikTok show creators play-acting as patients who get sinister side-effects after taking a COVID-19 vaccine. The videos are part of the "point of view" trend. Many are clearly fictional, but some dabble in widespread conspiracy theories.
Bill Gates, the Virus and the Quest to Vaccinate the World (Billionaire Propaganda - by nytimes)
New DNA-Based Tagging System Could Replace Barcodes (interestingengineering)
University of Washington researchers teamed up with Microsoft to create the new system that could even revolutionize voting.
"To earn the freedom pass, people will need to be tested regularly and, provided the results come back negative, they will be given a letter, card, or document they can show to people as they move around."
This video provides one of the most erudite and informative looks at Covid-19 and the consequences of lockdowns. As AIER notes, it was remarkable this week to watch as it appeared on YouTube and was forcibly taken down only 2 hours after posting.
Top Pathologist Claims COVID-19 Is "The Greatest Hoax Ever Perpetrated On An Unsuspecting Public" (zerohedge)
Top pathologist Dr. Roger Hodkinson told government officials in Alberta during a zoom conference call that the current coronavirus crisis is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on an unsuspecting public.”
German police arrests lockdown critic Dr. Andreas Noack in a shocking video
Reports from Germany indicate that a German doctor, Dr. Andreas Noack was arrested during a police raid while he was recording a live video.
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Minimal Phenomenal Experience - presentation by Thomas Metzinger
#Comment: Metzinger is trying very diligently to approach the meditative/psychedelic/qi/zen/dao/dada/call-it-what-you-want space from a rational scientific perspective - even proposing ideas for a computational model. It's interesting and fascinating work for sure - but it tethers on semiotic masturbation and it conveniently ignores the elephants in the room !
During the Q&A Metzinger says the following:
"I am just trying to make progress on this phenomenology because, it has be reported for centuries in different cultural traditions - but now we have a very new interesting situation: We have all these tools of neuroscience, we have modern analytical philosophy of mind, and we have millions of meditators in the west that are pretty secular - and don't have a strong belief system in which they report their experiences."
The notion that "secular western (meditators) don't have a strong belief system" is ridicules on so many levels - yet indicative of the world view that permeates the emerging "WEIRD, male scientists trying to compute consciousness" field (Karl Friston, Christof Koch, Hartmut Neven, etc.). WEIRD ("Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich & Democratic") make up only 12% of global population. Much greater diversity (gender, cognitive, etc.) would certainty make this type of discussion much more interesting and fun.
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The week in review, focus on corona
YouTube, Facebook and Twitter Align To Fight Covid Vaccine Conspiracies (BBC)
"Three of the largest social networks have said they will join forces with fact-checkers, governments and researchers to try to come up with a new way of tackling misinformation."
#Comment: The great "firewall" of the west is becoming minimally more visible. How long until all of the world's (China, India, US, EU, etc) primary databases (Biometrics, Location, Finance, Transport, etc.) are merged?
Amazon launched its Amazon Pharmacy service on Tuesday, meaning it is now selling prescription medications in the US. Amazon said Prime members would get perks including two-day delivery and big discounts on generic and brand-name drugs. Prime members can get discounts of up to 80% on generic drugs and 40% on brand-name medications when paying without insurance, the company said. This is Amazon's latest push into healthcare.
Buffett's Berkshire bets on Big Pharma, invests in four drugmakers (reuters)
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc BRKa.N said on Monday it has begun investing in the stocks of four large drugmakers, betting on an industry that could benefit when the world begins emerging from the coronavirus pandemic.
What’s Not Being Said About Pfizer Coronavirus Vaccine
The Pharma giant Pfizer has now announced what they claim were spectacular results in initial human tests. They use an experimental technology known as gene editing, specifically mRNA gene-editing, something never before used in vaccines. Before we rush to get jabbed in hopes of some immunity, we should know more about the radical experimental technology and its lack of precision.
Signal or Noise? Who knows..
- Response to the vaccine consultation
- The Biontech / Pfizer vaccine contains novel nanoparticles - another unknown risk.
- The Covid “Pandemic”: Destroying People’s Lives. Engineered Economic Depression. Global “Coup d’Etat”?
- Mike Yeadon Unlocked Why Lockdown was a mistake
- Portuguese Court Rules PCR Tests “Unreliable” & Quarantines “Unlawful”
- COVID19 – Evidence Of Global Fraud
Red Cross says the world has been hit by more than 100 climate change-related disasters since the WHO declared the pandemic.
Daily coronavirus cases in the US are starting to look exactly like a dramatic tension map in traditional storytelling
Wealth transfer during the pandemic
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'Extremely Aggressive' Internet Censorship Spreads In the World's Democracies (umich.edu)
#Comment: The Banana-republic-yfication and breakdown of nation-states continues to move forward at breathtaking speed. The increasingly extreme use of surveillance, repression and violence by governments and corporations is a clear sign of the growing desperation of the ruling elites, which completely lost the plot and are highly vulnerable. Fun times.
