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UK “ETHICS EXPERTS” OK GO AHEAD FOR GENETIC ALTERATION OF ...

If you've been following my bogs this week, you've noticed I've been talking about a lot of "genetic" things, not so much because I have a "theme," but because these were the primary focus of articles that people were sending me. But that doesn't mean that there was not a purpose or "argument" that I had in mind. In fact, today's blog and articles were more or less where I was headed all week, but it was necessary to talk about the other articles about CRISPR dangers, epigenetics, and retroviruses first, before tackling today's subject. In a nutshell, an "ethics body" in the UK has ok'ed the go-ahead for genetically modified babies, according to these articles shared by Ms. S.H. and Mr. V.T., respectively:

It Begins: UK Ethics Council Give Green Light On GMO Babies

Genetically modified babies given go ahead by UK ethics body

As one can imagine, I have a problem with "ethics panels", particularly of "experts". I don't believe in ethics, I believe in morals. I don't believe in values, I believe in virtues and vices, and given what I've seen coming out of "big science" lately, I'm beginning to reevaulate my stance toward "scientific progress."

But my personal convictions aside, for a moment, I want to focus on the second of these articles, the UK's The Guardian presentation of all of this:

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics said that changing the DNA of a human embryo could be “morally permissible” if it was in the future child’s interests and did not add to the kinds of inequalities that already divide society.

The report does not call for a change in UK law to permit genetically altered babies, but instead urges research into the safety and effectiveness of the approach, its societal impact, and a widespread debate of its implications.

“It is our view that genome editing is not morally unacceptable in itself,” said Karen Yeung, chair of the Nuffield working group and professor of law, ethics and informatics at the University of Birmingham. “There is no reason to rule it out in principle.”

Recent advances in genetic technology have given scientists the tools to rewrite the DNA bound up in living cells, letter by letter. With the procedures in hand, scientists can in principle tweak the genetic code in sperm, eggs and embryos, and change dramatically how future children develop.

While laws in the UK and some other countries currently ban the creation of genetically altered babies, a handful of experiments around the world have shown that DNA editing could, in principle, prevent children from inheriting serious diseases caused by faulty genes.

...

Another consideration is that any changes made to an embryo’s DNA would affect all of its cells, including the sperm or eggs, meaning that genetic modifications would be passed down to all future generations. Also, in the vast majority of cases alternative procedures, such as preimplantation genetic testing, can be used to screen embryos for harmful DNA.

DNA editing also raises the possibility of “designer babies”, where the genetic code of embryos created through standard IVF is rewritten so that children have traits the parents find desirable. The Nuffield report does not rule out any specific uses of genome editing, but says that to be ethical, any applications must follow the principles of being in the child’s interests, and have no ill-effects for society.

This, as one can tell, is pretty much the standard "boiler plate" for such articles: the virtue signaling of "social concern" and the usual "concern for the child" which, coming from certain quarters these days, I'm inherently skeptical of to begin with. Then this is followed by the elaboration of the "social concern" part of the virtue signaling, that we must guard against the genetic haves and have nots sowing the usual social discord. Reading between the lines a bit, that means we must "level the genetic modification access playing field," and that of course means more socialist programs to make sure everyone has a fair crack at all that wonderful CRISPR gene-editting technology; step right up, get your state approved modified baby here. Then this is followed by more boiler plate about "designer babies" and a very brief bow to what may be a huge lurking scientific problem, that modifications may be passed down through that "modified baby's" offspring.

It's that "brief bow" that concerns me, beyond my inherent disgust at those willing to play God and tinker with the very stuff of life itself, be it vaccines, genetic therapies, GMOs, or what have you. In the blogs earlier this week, in the past two days, I've pointed out the fundamental flaw in western science has always been its analytical hubris, and corresponding inattention to how systems interact. While this gap has been closing, it certainly is not completely closed. After all, the "analysts" have had about a 500 year head start on the "integreationists" or "synthesists", i.e., those who think the whole interactive system itself is more than the sum of its parts, and contributes to the overall efficiency of a system or organism. In genetics this basic idea - to oversimplify - is epigenetics, but whatever one calls it, the synthesists are pointing out that modifications to a part can effect the whole, and those modifications can result in unpredictable adjustments by the system, including (as we saw yesterday), the creation of transgenic chimerical viruses, entirely unintentionally (or so they say), simply from a system that itself is poorly designed and not understood very well.

And those effects could potentially be inherited.

So now a committee of "ethics experts" has determined it's ok to go ahead an genetically modify a human being, if it's in that individual's best interest (doubtless to be determined by panels of ethics experts in the National Health system, think of Charlie Gard, folks). One can think of all sorts of nightmarish scenarios: a panel of "experts" deciding that you'd be better off being the opposite sex, or better off being a host for growing various organs or body parts, and so on. I suspect we're all familiar with "the political and cultural nightmarish scenarios", so I feel no need to rehearse them further. They're definitely there, and I trust panels of ethics experts just about as much as I trust non-aggression pacts signed by Adolf Hitler.

What concerns me is that no one is raising those epigenetic potentialities of unintended damage to the whole "ecosystem" of human genetics, by intended "good meddling" in an infant's DNA, that may, like the recent CRISPR studies, show to have some potentially very bad consequences.

But it's ok... the panels of experts and scientists have waved their magic wands and said everything's ok, because they've all imbibed their daily dose of bubbling potions of "concern."

See you on the flip side...

CRISPR-CANCER LINK SUSPECTED

Yesterday, you'll recall, I blogged about an article by our friend and colleague Jon Rappoport, who has raised the alarm about the latest vaccine gimick coming down the pike, the "universal flu vaccine" whose potency relies upon reprogramming a recipient's DNA as a means of fighting all types of flu. As Rappoport indicated, this technology is being touted without any sort of long-term inter-generational science which could indicate potential problems with the technology.

Well, look no further than this story shared by Ms. M.W. and Mr. H.B. and Mr. B.G.:

CRISPR Crashes After Study Highlights Potential Cancer Risk From Gene-Editing

There Could Be a Dangerous Problem With Using CRISPR on Humans, New Research Shows

Ponder the opening two paragraphs from this article again, and in the context of yesterday's blog about gene-therapy drugs:

Crispr Therapeutics led gene-editing stocks lower after new studies published by Nature Medicine found that cells whose genomes are edited with the CRISPR-Cas9 technology have the potential to cause cancer, Stat News reports.

Editing cells’ genomes with CRISPR-Cas9 might increase the risk that the altered cells, intended to treat disease, will trigger cancer, two studies published on Monday warn — a potential game-changer for the companies developing CRISPR-based therapies.

Could we be looking at a wider phenomenon, namely, that genetic modification itself increases the risks of cancer? While it's probably too early to tell, let us recall once again that independent studies of GMOs  - largely done in France and the rest of Europe - have indicated beyond any doubt increased risks of cancers from regular consumption of GMOs. If one is in the presence of a general phenomenon, then the dangers of which Mr. Rappoport wrote yesterday take on a specific potentiality: a "universal vaccine" intended to inoculate against one thing might end up increasing the risks of another.

But now ponder the last paragraphs of the story:

Given the massive interest in this company and its gene-editing applications, Stat News asks an obvious question - if successfully CRISPR’d cells can seed cancers, why hasn’t this been seen before, and why haven’t the many CRISPR’d mice developed tumors?

Karolinska’s Haapaniemi said the effect shows up in large-scale experiments like hers and Novartis’ “but can be missed in small-scale studies where people only focus on editing one gene in one cell type.” In speaking to other scientists, she said, “it seems that other teams have noticed the effect of p53 on editing,” but have not highlighted it.

Now here comes the high octane speculation, for what is being alleged is that the safety evaluations of CRISPR technology were tested on a small group, and a narrow cellular tissue sample, whereas their study suggesting increased cancer risk from CRISPR editing were done on a larger group and presumably different types of tissue samples. The question is, were those initial studies on a narrow base done deliberately? Was something already known and covered-up? I don't know, but given the malfeasance of big agriculture and big pharma on GMOs and their endless vaccines, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

And there's another high octane speculation, but this time, it's not mine, but Mr. B.G.'s: could we be looking at some sort in in-built defense mechanism in the human genome against such editing. And perhaps (here's my contribution to Mr. B.G.'s speculation) we will discover that these types of mechanisms might be epigenetic. If that latter speculation about epigenetics should prove to be the case, then it should be a warning to the over-confidence placed in "universal gene therapy vaccines," for until such epigenetic influences on the genome development of any species is adequately understood, then tinkering with genes would seem a sure bet to invite disaster.

See you on the flip side...

 

THE LATEST VACCINE GIMICK: “UNIVERSAL FLU VACCINES”

Our colleague and friend Jon Rappoport has recently written an important article about the latest vaccine plan to come down the pike, namely, a "universal flu" vaccine, that will permanently inoculate an individual against all forms of flu (our thanks to Mr. K.L. for spotting and sharing this one):

Altering Human Genetics Through Vaccination

It all sounds so wonderful and helpful, until one reads the genetic fine print. Here's the way Rappoport puts it:

Here is the punchline: “The viruses invade human cells with their DNA payloads, and the synthetic gene is incorporated into the recipient’s own DNA. If all goes well, the new genes instruct the cells to begin manufacturing powerful antibodies.”

Read that again: “the synthetic gene is incorporated into the recipient’s own DNA.”

Alteration of the human genetic makeup.

Not just a “visit.” Permanent residence. And once a person’s DNA is changed, he will live with that change—and all the ripple effects in his genetic makeup—for the rest of his life.

The Times article taps Dr. David Baltimore for an opinion:

“Still, Dr. Baltimore says that he envisions that some people might be leery of a vaccination strategy that means altering their own DNA, even if it prevents a potentially fatal disease.”

Yes, some people might be leery. If they have two or three working brain cells.

This is genetic roulette with a loaded gun. Anyone and everyone on Earth injected with a DNA vaccine will undergo permanent and unknown genetic changes…

And the further implications are clear. Vaccines can be used as a cover for the injections of any and all genes, whose actual purpose is re-engineering humans in far-reaching ways.

The emergence of this Frankenstein technology is paralleled by a shrill push to mandate vaccines, across the board, for both children and adults. The pressure and propaganda are planet-wide.

Lest one think Mr. Rappoport is over-stating things here, let us recall that his unstated concerns - long-term intergenerational testing of health and environment risks - were not performed with respect for the other great genetic engineering project of recent years, GMOs. Now extrapolate that to vaccines, and that's what we see here, only in this case, it's a simple matter, as Rappoport indicates, to mandate vaccines for a whole population, and then track the results. And Rappoport is correct on another matter: it could be possible to introduce other gene-modifying agents into a vaccine to accomplish any sort of covert purpose, from further dumbing down, to rendering a certain population more susceptible to certain diseases, or needing a permanent supply of drugs (and guess who is going to supply those?)

And lest one think Mr. Rappoport is over-stating this covert possibility, let us also recall the fact that such covert trials have already been taking place both in India and in Africa, and that those tests were pressed and pushed by certain billionaire busybodies who want to tell everyone else what they must eat, what vaccines they must take, and what type of education they are to receive via their own computer products and software.

What to do? Raise the alarm, and share his article, and above all, make it clear to the billionaire busybodies that "as for me and my house" we will say no, and when we say no, we mean it. Enough is enough.

See you on the flip side...

DARPA’S TRANSHUMANIST PLANS

This story is such an odd one, and so pregnant with implications, and was sent by so many people, that I have to blog about it. The problem is, I don't know where to start. So I'm including Zero Hedge's summary of the article as well, since it outlines some of the implications:

Dialing Up the Body’s Defenses Against Public Health and National Security Threats

Resident Evil? DARPA Unveils Genetic "Tuning" To Fight Chemical, Radiation Attacks

First in the list of things that piqued my interest in this story was the back-handed admission that GMOs might not be as safe as the GMO "agribusiness" industry would like to convince us. I've blogged endlessly about this issue on this site, so there is no need to rehearse once again what those concerns are. The USA's version of Nazi Germany's Kammlerstab, the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency - or as we like to call it here, following a suggestion of Mr. J.B., the Diabolically Apocalyptic Research Projects Agency - now wants to "genetically tune" humanity to withstand a host of ills, including, it seems, GMOs. Got your microchip implant? Good, then line up for your anti-GMO vaccine.

In other words, DARPA's approach is not to fix the problem, but rather, to buttress the defenses of the ultimate target, humanity itself.

The approach is illustrative of the out-of-the-box thinking that is a requirement at the agency (and incidentally, which was also a requirement of the Kammlerstab). Rather than indulge in high octane speculation today (after all, DARPA is already doing that at taxpayer expense), I want to propose a Gedankenexperiment, a thought experiment, for the purposes of illustrating the implications of what they're "up to." Imagine a situation in which the world is confronted with a whole plethora of thermonuclear powers, and not just the "superpowers" of the Cold War, the USSR and the USA. Back then, of course, we were told that the doctrine of MAD, or "Mutually Assured Destruction" was what kept the world from blowing itself up in an orgy of hydrogen bomb bombardments. Using the weapons would guarantee their use by the opposing power, and if the gigantic explosions didn't get you, the radioactive fallout would. Major wars were unthinkable because they were unwinnable, and movies like War Games with Dabney Coleman and Matthew Broderick drove home the point.

The nuclear club has expanded rather dramatically since then, with new thermonuclear powers, Great Britain, France, and China, joining the very exclusive club of nations that could with the push of a button destroy the world. Since then, other nuclear nations - Pakistan, India, and yes, North Korea - have joined the club, and they each have the capability of going for the "big bomb", the hydrogen bomb. Add to this list the list of "turnkey" nuclear and thermonuclear powers, i.e., nations with the capability to become nuclear or thermonuclear powers almost overnight if they wanted to - nations such as Germany, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, even Canada and South Africa and Sweden and Israel and Iran - and you get the idea: in spite of the best intentions of the Cold War superpowers and great powers, the nuclear genie is out of the bottle and everyone wants "the Bomb." One recalls, in this respect, the satirical song of 1960s and 1970s political satirist Tom Lehrer, who complained of Alabama even getting the bomb at the height of the civil rights struggle. (And for reasons I've articulated elsewhere, I believe Israel, South Africa, and Germany have already joined that nuclear club and are not simply "turnkey" nuclear powers; and there's suggestive evidence that Japan has as well.)

This began the search for ways to do an end run around the MADness: for new weapons that could render nuclear bombs and ICBMs and bombers obsolete: Reagan's "Star Wars" was born, and the search for directed energy defensive (and offensive) weapons, for kinetic bombardment weapons or "rods of God", began. (and again, in the USA's case, that search actually began under Eisenhower. Reagan merely made it "public". Similarly, the Soviet search for an end run around the MADness began under Stalin.) Those efforts, I suspect, were much more successful than we've been told. After all, scientists working on elements of those projects back then had a disconcerting habit of dying under mysterious circumstances. Everyone then, as now, blamed the Russians for this, and viewed it as a last ditch effort to forestall Star Wars and save the Soviet Union from economic collapse. No one wanted to consider the Kammlerstab alternative that the scientists were murdered by their project overlords to "keep their mouths shut."

But there was another way around the MADness, and it appears, with this press release, that DARPA has finally admitted to pursuing it, though I don't believe for a moment that it is just beginning the effort. Indeed, if one follows the procedures of the Kammlerstab, after which I believe DARPA was modeled, or the procedures of Nazi Germany in general, such authorizations or announcements do not begin the process, the merely herald or acknowledge a process long under way. The V-2 rockets, for example, which rained down on London in 1944 and 1945, were under development before the war even broke out, so when Hitler authorized the program in 1942 by decree, he merely was recognizing something already underway, and prioritizing its development as the "proof of concept" had already been amply demonstrated.

So what is that "other way" around the MADness? In typical military fashion, it's to "harden the target," i.e., humanity itself, by making it impervious to the effects of a general nuclear war, to make it impervious to what are now lethal doses of radiation. The utility for application to manned space travel is thus also apparent. Indeed, there is suggestive evidence both from Israel and from the former Soviet Union that those countries were engaged in similar research, and may have found ways to reverse the organic effects of radiation, if not to reverse radiation itself, so to speak. The goal? To ensure that humanity itself survives amid the radioactive rubble, howsoever that rubble may have come about: hydrogen bombs, or "rods of God."

Put the two approaches together, and an even bigger picture emerges, because such an "impervious humanity" could conceivably or potentially survive directed energy weapon attacks by particle beams and so on through the simple expedient of medical nano-bots repairing cells at the cellular level.

The implication? Wars are "fightable" and winnable again, and that means, in my opinion, that "they" are preparing for "something."

See you on the flip side...

LIFE-EXTENSION STUDIES AND CRONY CRAPITALISM

Mr. L.B. sent this article, and I want to speculate about it in terms of yesterday's article about DNA-backed crypto-currencies:

The startup that wants you to 'live to 130 in the body of a 22-year-old' - and has already begun experimenting on DOGS

Why view this article from the standpoint of yesterday's blog about DNA-backed crypto-currencies?

Bear with me here as I try to outline briefly the context for today's high octane speculation.

In 2008 the world watched as the bailout hearings were under way. Bankster after bankster, crony crapitalist after crony crapitalist, paraded across the television screens. Then came the stunner: we were informed that, though we'd be bailing out these criminals, they insisted there be no congressional oversight of how they used the money they were being given. At the time, I thought this was a very unusual request. It reminded me of kidnapping victims: "We need x amount of dollars; but we can't have any oversight from the police or other authorities." In other words, it struck me that not only was criminality involved, but that these people were under some sort of threat or duress. A few countries like Iceland had the chutzpah to throw them in jail. But for the most part, the kleptocracy paid a few fines, and got away with it. A few gave themselves huge bonuses, coincidentally enough after the bailout money was made available.

Over the years I have not modified that basic view that some sort of duress or threat was in evidence, though I have entertained various modifications of the details of what sort of duress or threat it may have been. For example, missing trillions of dollars has been much in the news lately, and I have to wonder if we're looking at an undisclosed component - a covert component, in whole or in part - of that bailout.

Over time, it emerged that various large banks had engaged in "robo-signing" documents - literally committing fraud and forgery - to pump and dump the housing market.SOme banks even established accounts for various clients without their knowledge or consent. At the same time, it also emerged that these same "financial institutions" had become exposed to derivatives to the tune of quadrillions of dollars: more than the entire GDP of the planet, several times over.

Do the calculation: divide the quadrillions of dollars in derivatives by the population of the planet. At the time the number of 14 quadrillion dollars was being oft-cited, though I suspect that that number was very conservative. That's 14,000,000,000,000,000. Divide that by the approximate current population of the Earth, seven billion, or 7,000,000,000. Under that calculation, every single human being is exposed to the derivatives bubbles to the tune of 2,000,000 dollars. And remember, that's the conservative estimate.

This means, in effect, that the labor of every last man, woman, and child on the planet - from the banksters' point of view, this is, after all, crony crapitalism - is under indenture beyond the typical human lifespan. From their "we want to restore slavery and own slaves" perspective, life-extension is not - as is usually supposed in the alternative research community - a privilege of the wealthy, it's a sentence on the poor. How to harvest an individual's labor and productivity (and hence, wealth)? Extend their lives, even make clones. Erase the bad paper and bad ledger entries that way.

In short, harvest their DNA. Collateralize it.

And isn't it interesting that they're starting with dogs, man's best friend, to keep us all company while we toil away on some asteroid mine.

Granted, it's high octane speculation, but like most regular readers here, I put nothing past our "elites".

See you on the flip side...

 

 

FEDOROV AND OTHER RUSSIAN COSMISTS A STEP CLOSER TO REALITY?

"Who the heck is Fedorov and who are the 'Russian cosmists'?", I'll bet you're saying.

Well, to be woefully succinct and therefore inaccurate about it, the "Russian cosmists" were intellectuals that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century, who viewed technology as being a means to "live out" and achieve in culture and society certain doctrines of Russian Orthodoxy. One of them, Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov, a widely-read man usually regarded as being the "founder" of the movement, believed that technology would supply the means to resurrect one's ancestors, and more importantly, that it was a moral imperative to use such means to do so.  It was, if you will, the ultimate in "realized eschatologies," the fusion of technology and not just "faith," but central conceptual tenets of Russian Orthodox doctrine.

If that sounds silly and wildly impossible even in our inhuman "transhumanist" age, think again, for this article - which was shared this past week by many regular readers here - indicates that part of the Fedorovian vision may be coming to fruition:

DNA of Man Who Died in 1827 Recreated Without His Remains

The essence of the achievement is here:

Recreating a deceased person or animal’s DNA has required that DNA be extracted from the remains of the individual, but a new study has shown that may not be the only way. The DNA of a man who died nearly 200 years ago has been recreated from his living descendants rather than his physical remains — something that has never been done before.

deCODE Genetics a biopharmaceutical company in Iceland, achieved this feat by taking DNA samples from 182 Icelandic descendants of Hans Jonatan, a man who is quite an icon in Iceland, most well known for having freed himself from slavery in a heroic series of seemingly impossible events.

It was the unique circumstances of Hans Jonatan’s life that made it possible for his DNA to be recreated after his death. For one, Jonatan was the first Icelandic inhabitant with African heritage. Iceland also boasts an extensive and highly detailed collection of genealogical records. The combination of Jonatan’s unique heritage and the country’s record-keeping for inhabitants’ family trees made this remarkable recreation possible.

Any way one slices it, this "reverse engineering" of someone's genome from their existing descendants is quite an achievement, even if, as in this case, Mr. Jonatan's unique heritage and the context of his descendants in Iceland made it relatively easy to do. One can indulge in some high octane speculation here, and envision this as but a "first step" in the ability to recreate almost anyone's DNA, from almost any set of circumstances, say - for example - in the case of someone who left no descendants but who had lots of family. With enough computing power and knowledge of a few other parameters, one might envision the development of such "genomic reconstitution technologies" (as I'm going to call both the technology and the field) from things like pictures or paintings, and so on. All of this in aid of answering the question "what type of genome would produce this look or that individual"?

There was, of course, a flaw in Fedorov's reasoning, and I'm sure you see it: the reconstitution of an individual's specific genome does not itself argue that that individual person has been reconstituted. If I may so put it, the matrix for the epiphany or manifestation of that person has been reconstituted, but not the person himself. The question of whether the person would or could do so remains open from a philosophical point of view. But it's an important one. Ira Levin, in his classic science fiction novel The Boys from Brazil - made into the famous movie with Gregory Peck playing a very brilliant but very deranged Dr. Mengele - had Mengele not only preserving Hitler's DNA and eventually reproducing lots of little cloned "Adolfs," but taking extreme care to recreate the social and family context that led to the creation of the personality: drunken and abusive father, doting and protective mother, and so on. Even then, let it be noted, one "cloned Adolf" is confronted by Mengele (and a very fictionalized Simon Wiesenthal played by Sir Lawrence Olivier), and the "cloned Adolf" turns on his creator, and ends up shaking hands with Wiesenthal.

Of course, all this raises the question of why would anyone want to do this at all?

Permit me to crawl way out on to the end of the twig of speculation today in attempting to answer that question: I suspect - strongly - that such enterprises are for the people engaging in them a kind of spiritual goal, one might perhaps qualify it as even a kind of spiritual lust. There are those for whom the accomplishment would be to prove that science can do what religion can't (or at least, does in a different way). These types of people don't bother me so much, for in the end, scientism of this sort is rather childish and silly, even though all too prevalent. But I suspect there are also those with deeper agendas, like Levin's Dr. Mengele, for whom the technology is a means to an end, the end being the invocation and "resurrection" of revered "hero figures," the "ancient and mighty men of renown". It will all be sold in the usual, deceitfully innocent and charming way, as a means, for example, of "real education" with personal encounters. Add in the "psychological experts" to "recreate the personality," mix, stir, bake for 90 minutes, and voila, one has "resurrected" an individual.

See you on the flip side...

 

 

THE TRANSHUMANIST SCRAPBOOK: ARTIFICIAL BODIES WAITING FOR ...

Just when you thought the transhumanist craze had died down and was a "passing" fad of science fiction prognostication, this article from the U.K.'s Daily Mail comes along to dispel all the calm (shared by Mr. V.T.):

Bodies kept alive in plastic bags and lifeless 'blank' humans ready for a new consciousness to be uploaded: Controversial booth at CES claims to offer IMMORTALITY - but is all as it seems?

Now, the article is clear: this is all just a "marketing gimick" to promote a "new television show":

Murmurs of ‘I don’t like this,’ and ‘no, this is too much for me,’ could be heard as CES attendees crowded around the Psychasec setup, greeted by what appeared to be lifeless human forms on display in large glass cases.

During a brief tour through the booth, exhibitors dressed in all white sold the idea of immortality, through a plan to upload human consciousness to ‘human sleeves’ of whatever design you desire – before concluding around the display of ‘Joel,’ a fresh ‘sleeve' in a vacuum sealed bag, breathing and eating through a tube.

All is well, however, since the whole exhibit and booth was nothing but a marketing scheme for a new series on Netflix:

It may be one of the most bizarre Netflix marketing schemes yet, going as far as plastering posters with ‘Boycott #Psychasec’ and ‘Immortality is Immoral’ along the outside of the booth (though an exhibitor insisted to Dailymail.com that this had been done by anti-Psychasec protestors).

The dystopian sci-fi Altered Carbon is set to premier on Netflix February 2.

But I have to wonder, is it really the case that all is well? Frankly, I find the idea of such a "marketing scheme" to be almost as abhorrent as the reality.

Why?

Because notice what is being done: downloading and uploading of "consciousness" is now being promoted as a service to be performed: it is being made a commodity which, to be downloaded and uploaded, means ultimately that it can be bought and sold. Similarly with the "sleeves," the "genetically engineered bodies", are reduced to so much material to be bought and sold - perhaps organ-by-organ.  And with these possibilities comes another: that one enters into contractual arrangements with a mega-corporation encompassing all physical and non-physical (or spiritual if you will) aspects of human existence itself.

In other words, the meme is being planted, and given the nature of such television shows, a platform is being created not only to explore all these implications and speculations but more importantly to drive the conversations in a certain way toward the goal of making humanity itself, in all its parts, a commodity to be bought and sold and "serviced" by the corporate world.

So in other words, folks, transhumanism is no longer a rarefied academic or hypothetical discussion. It is now going to be promoted and driven into the public consciousness. I've pointed out several times, beginning with my very first book in this strange world of "alternative research," The Giza Death Star, that virtual immortality, or even a drastic improvement of human longevity to, say, hundreds of years, has a moral implication, for long ago, the Christian Church Father, St. John Chrysostom, pointed out that death, really, is an antidote to endless progress in evil. His point was, as I observed in that book, and as I have observed in prior blogs about this and related subjects, is that one can imagine an Albert Schweitzer or a Mother Teresa, having not decades, but perhaps centuries, to do their good works. But similarly, one can imagine a Chairman Mao or Joseph Stalin, or other genocidal mass murders having a similar opportunity to "perfect" their particular "inclinations."

See you on the flip side...

 

HELPING ALONG THAT VACCINE… ELECTRONICALLY

If you're like me you probably suspect there's a whole lot more going on with the push to get everyone vaccinated against...well, just about everything. They still haven't come up with a vaccine for autism, but if the data is to be objectively believed, they've certainly been working on it. THey've at least figured out how to induce it.

And if you're like me, you have probably suspected that there's some strange connection between this vaccine agenda and all the spraying. Victims of the "non-existent" but very real phenomenon of Morgellon's know this all to well, as some research conducted By Dr. Hildegard Stavenger and others suggests that the Morgellons' lesions are full of particulate and very non-organic material that is nonetheless "growing" inside the victims' bodies. And that suggests to some people. some sort of strange connection with the chemtrail phenomenon. Then there's the GMO-vaccine phenomenon which I've blogged about: why not simply put the crud you want to put into people into their food supply, and "vaccinate" them without their consent.  It wouldn't be the first time the goobernment or corporations have resorted to foul play to experiment on humans.

In short, what we might be looking at, as some have argued, is a pattern of seemingly discrete phenomena that are being increasingly linked together.

Well, in that vein, consider this article that was spotted and shared by Ms. J.D.F.:

First human trial of DNA-based Zika vaccine shows promise

There's much here that disturbs, but let's start with this:

GLS-5700 contains synthetic DNA, which mounts an immune response against specific Zika virus antigens. Pablo Tebas, MD, the lead study author and a researcher at Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, said the results of the trial are promising.

"We saw neutralizing antibodies mount in participants after 14 weeks," Tebas said in an interview. "And with DNA-based vaccines, it only took 7 months to develop and manufacture this vaccine for the trial. So we could have a Zika vaccine very quickly with this method."

Yes, you read that correctly, the vaccine contains "synthetic" DNA designed to target the Zika virus specifically. And here we're chin to chin with the whole GMO issue, in a different guise: What are  the long term inter-generational effects - if any - to the steady ingestion of synthetic DNA? We don't know; such studies simply have not been done, particularly in this instance. We're simply "assured" that it's safe.

But then comes what - for me - is a whopper doozie of a statement and admission. Indeed, it is this statement that caused Ms. J.D.F. to pass along the article:

To conduct the study, Tebas and colleagues recruited 40 adults in the summer of 2016 to receive either 1- or 2-milligram (mg) doses of the vaccine intradermally at 0, 4, and 12 weeks. Accompanying each shot was treatment with Cellectra, a device that uses pulsed electric fields to introduce the DNA sequence into cells. (Emphasis added)

So electrical pulses are being used to assist the vaccine to introduce the synthetic DNA into human cells to produce the antigens and Zika immune-response. So here's the high octane speculation: This means it might be possible to stimulate other specific immuno-responses - or perhaps even a lack thereof - by a combination of genetic alteration technologies, "vaccines", and "electrical pulses." One might even speculate further and suggest that a particular device need not be locally present to generate the necessary "electrical pulses" to create the phenomenon. Crawling out a little farther onto the twig of high octane speculation, it might be possible to use such combined technologies to alter the genome itself.

Put it all together, and what do we have? We have this: (1) the possibility of introducing vaccines into populations without their knowledge of consent (but they'd never do that, right?) via the engineered food supply, environmental spraying, and so on, and (2) an "assisting" technology in the form of electrical pulses which conceivably might also be used covertly to "assist" the process.

But don't worry, there's a veritable army of technocrats to assure us that it's all perfectly safe, and that our concerns are unfounded...

See you on the flip side...

THE NANOCHIP IMPLICATIONS

Why bother asking if you can chip someone? Just make it small enough to be invisible, and sneak it into them via their food supply, those oh-so-helpful yearly "flu vaccines", your drink, and so on. That, anyway, is the implication of the following article that was shared this week by Mr. V.T.:

Nanochips and Smart Dust: The Dangerous New Face of the Human Microchipping Agenda

What caught my eye in this article were two things, firstly, the absolutely noodle-baking smallness that engineers have now been able to make an actual, functioning, chip:

The word “nano” is 3 orders of magnitude smaller than “micro”. Nano means “one billionth” while micro means “one millionth”. While microchips are about the size of a grain of rice and measured in millimeters, nanochips are completely invisible to the human eye. Some of the nanochips are far smaller than human hair (e.g. the μ-chip that is 0.4 x 0.4 mm). In 2015, IBM announced that they had developed functional nanochips measuring just 7 nm or nanometers (7 billionths of 1 meter). In comparison, a strand of human DNA is about 2.5 nm and the diameter of a single red blood cell is about 7500 nm! These nanochips power themselves from their environment (they don’t need batteries) and have a 100 year life span. They are slated to be rolled out first on products (so the corporatocracy can have total knowledge of consumer behavior in real time) before they can be used inside people’s bodies. Did you know that nerve cells grow onto/meld with the chip?

...7 billionths of a meter, and nerve cells can, according to this article, "meld" with the chip. Now, I have no doubt whatsoever that the corporations will have as their goal to more or less taint the food supply - heck, why stop at food? why not taint everything? - with their nanochips, all with the goal of greater data mining and control. They will, of course, spend millions buying off this or that Demoratic or Republithug Congressman or Senatrix, who will rush the bills through, and the the FDA will insure us that there's nothing unhealthy about nanochips and besides they might help that unruly child/boss/spouse/in-laws of yours. General Mills will market breakfast cereal... maybe something like "Coco-bots", which you can douse with your non-organic milk and drink down more chips along with a little glyphosate. Indeed, the author of the article asserts that this whole tainted food supply game is "the plan." I don't know whether it is or isn't. But one thing is certain: it is in line with their behavior, their corruption, and their unbounded lust for power, and their "Google is God" delusions. In other words, it fits their inhuman, and anti-human spirit and character.

In short, the tech companies will join I.G. Farbensanto in the big business of tainting the food supply, and they'll use the same underhanded, one-sided mercantilist policies to do so. One side poisons you, and the other controls you, and makes you "like" it.

There was, however, a second thing that caught my eye in this article, and as one might imagine, put me into my high octane speculation mode of thinking. It was this:

So what can you do about this? Firstly, get informed and make sure you understand the true nature and danger of nanochip and smart technology. Secondly, make sure you never acquiesce to getting chipped, no matter what reason you’re given. Doing so is tantamount to opening yourself to being remotely controlled without your knowledge. Thirdly, if you do discover a chip inside your body, get it removed. There are various ways to do. Some people crudely cut the chips out if they are large enough (i.e. a microchip instead of a nanochip). Other people claim you can used magnets such as neodymium magnets to render the nanochips useless. Hopefully, there will be intelligent inventors to step forward with new technologies that we can use to deactivate, disable and remove nanochips inside of our bodies.
(Emphasis added)

What caught my eye here was the reference to the development of anti-chip technology and the whole cottage industry that might grow from it. This provoked an entirely different line of speculation: with the export of food tainted with such technologies, one can imagine two consequences, and both are high with geopolitical and economic implications. Firstly: no cyber-system is absolutely secure; with all the hacking stories in the past few years, a nano-chipped population might be a "controllable" population, but it could also be a "hackable" population, and overnight it might be transformed into a wildly out of control population ala the Kingsmen scenario from the movie of that name. And no - message to big Pharma here - Ritalin won't stop it. Secondly, tainting the food supply in this fashion will provoke an inevitable backlash against agricultural exports. If you think the opposition to GMOs is spreading add "Coco-bots" to the mix and the revolt is all but certain. Will Russia, China, Japan, India want to buy such products and expose their populations to the potential of outside manipulation?

Probably not.

It only adds yet another layer of mistrust to any dealings with the good ole USSA...

See you on the flip side...

THE 3D PRINTING SCRAPBOOK: RESPONSIVE MATERIALS, AI, AND THOUGHT ...

It's been a while since I've posted anything in the 3D Printing Scrapbook, but here's one that was found by Mr. B.H., and it really made me think of some new scenarios and speculations for the phenomenon of 3D Printing, or additive manufacturing as it is also sometimes referred to (copy and paste into your browser):

New Brunswick researcher investigating 3D-printing powered by thought

You'll note here that this particular Canadian company is seeking to expand the scope of capabilities being integrated into and with additive manufacturing:

FREDERICTON—New Brunswick researchers are plotting what they call the “factories of the future” by developing 3D-printing technologies they said could pave the way for the next industrial revolution.

Mechanical engineer Ed Cyr is studying the applications of artificial intelligence in manufacturing 3D-printed materials as part of a $1.25-million innovation program from the McCain Foundation announced at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton Sept. 5.

Cyr will spend his UNB fellowship, valued at $50,000, working to understand the behaviour of 3D-printed materials with the goal of harnessing their special properties to improve conventional methods of manufacturing.

...

Cyr intends to take the advantages of this technology to the next level by developing 3D-printing methods capable of introducing new behaviours that cannot be found in conventional materials.

For example, he said he is studying a printed aluminum alloy that, when put under certain types of stress, increases in strength far more than a typical sheet metal.

“That would be would be useful for something like armour, perhaps, or maybe even building the wall of a ship,” he said. “For impacts happening at higher speed, like an icebreaker, it would become stronger instead of more brittle.”

Let that sink in for a moment, for what is being suggested is that additive manufacturing, combined with other advances in materials engineering such as nanotechnology, might be used to design entirely new types of materials and then deploy them for specific purposes via the additive manufacturing process. Indeed, a few years ago, when I first became fascinated by this technology, I purchased a rather sophisticated computer-aided-design program just to see if, indeed, all the hype was merited. Needless to say, I have been amazed at what one can design, once one learns all the ins-and-outs of the program. But now imagine such programs expanded to be able to design things all the way down to the molecular level all the way up to various parts and so on, and one gets an idea of how rapidly this field is expanding. We've already seen programs being sold for "do-it-yourself-in-your-garage" genetic engineering; couple this to additive manufacturing and this sort of materials engineering, and one gets the idea of the promise both of good (and ill) of the new technologies.

But there's more in this article, and it's this statement that really caught my eye:

Later in his research, Cyr said he wants to “push the boundaries” of manufacturing by investigating the possibility of 3D-printing powered by thought.

“For a human to sit down and come up with the optimal design, we would have to come up with thousands, and thousands, and that would be incredibly time consuming,” said Cyr.

“The beauty of a computer is it has the ability to go through those thousands and thousands of designs. It can actually model a total design space and tell us which one is the best, and it can even come up with things we might not even think of.” (Emphasis added)

Most readers of this website have probably seen those videos of monkeys, and in some cases, humans, with a "neural net" on their heads, making computer cursors, or even mechanical arms, move merely by their thought. Now imagine a similar apparatus, connected to a computer-aided-design program, and a 3D printer, and voila! a design unfolds on the screen and is printed in the computer, a step that would take prototyping to an entirely new level, one that, conceivably, would greatly diminish "lag" time from design to first model output. Think,  for example, of those newsreels and films of design team draftsmen at their tables, manipulating their slide rules and carefully drawing and designing things, from the 1940s and 1950s, and you get the idea: months are compacted into days, or perhaps even a few hours and minutes. My father was an engineer and an architect, and I well remember those long hours he would spend on occasion, spreading blueprints out on the dining room table and going over calculations with his slide rule and later, calculator, making corrections in designs that would often take several hours and nights of after-work devotion. Now, I - an amateur - can do this on a computer-aided-design program and print out designs in much less time.

All of this, of course, implies that mind-mapping-and-reading technologies will proceed at a similar pace, and this recalls former President Obama's "brain project" to map the human brain and its processes in minute detail. Of course, the thing that immediately springs to mind is that such mapping would be of extreme benefit to improving mind-manipulation technologies...

... but if Mr. Cyr and others have their way, it will also transform manufacturing in ways that would have seemed like magic just a few decades ago. And with that compaction of idea-to-prototype time, costs go down.

See you on the flip side...

EWEN CAMERON’S DREAM COME TRUE: MEMORY WIPE ENZYME

Just in case you read the title of this blog, and don't know who Ewen Cameron was, a little history is in order: Cameron was a psychologist/psychiatrist involved in the CIA's infamous mind-control program, MK-Ultra. Cameron had his "laboratory" in a  psychiatric hospital in Canada, where he subjected his victims (I won't use the word "patients" here, because what Cameron did is in my opinion unspeakable) to a regime of drug cocktails, continual sleep (nor for hours, but for days at a time), and repeated endless bombardment of tape recorders playing back, for hours on end, recorded messages. He called all this "psychic driving," and his goal was to eliminate "bad personality habits" (or even the personality itself) and to replace it with "something else", that something else being the recorded endlessly repeated messages. If his "procedures" (and we've only very briefly summarized them) sound a little like the Nazi doctors in World War Two, then you understand the measure of the torture he was inflicting.

But imagine a magic drug that could do the same thing, without the endless weeks of sleep, tape-recorded looped messages, and cocktails. Indeed, if one digs a little bit into the history of the CIA's various mind-control programs - Projects Bluebird, Artichoke, or MK-Ultra - one of the things being investigated was precisely the use of drugs for memory and behavior alteration.

Which brings us to this rather frightening article that was shared by Mr. C.S. this week:

MEMORY HOLE: U.S. scientists have developed a “memory wipe” enzyme that can erase memories forever

Assuming the article to be true, then the implications of the following would fulfill Dr. Cameron's wildest fantasies of "psychic driving" and memory wipes:

Scientists have long known that creating new memories and storing old ones involve the creation of proteins in the synapse, where two brain cells meet. For this process to be successful, genes must be expressed in the nucleus of the cell, and this is where a key enzyme can turn genes on or off as new memories are formed. It’s also believed that this enzyme, which is known as ACSS2, plays a role in the memory impairment that is seen in neurodegenerative disorders.

In the study, the researchers found that lowering ACSS2 levels in mice reduced the expression of memory genes, thereby stopping the formation of long-term memories. Mice who had reduced enzyme levels showed no interest in a ball they saw the previous day, whereas those with normal levels of the enzyme were interested in the ball.

Now the researchers are hoping to use this knowledge to stop traumatic memories from forming in people with PTSD simply by blocking the brain’s ACSS2. This might sound like a good idea to those of us who are haunted by some sort of trauma, but there’s also the potential for this to be used for more sinister reasons.

As the article goes on to point out, what's to prevent the "intelligence" agencies of the modern police state from using the capability to erase memories in individuals (or for that matter, whole populations), it finds "inconvenient", or from planting completely false memories. In these, Cameron's goal of completely wiping one personality and replacing it with another come close to reality, without the corresponding torture he inflicted.

Which brings us to the high octane speculation of the day: why investigate such things at all? As the article avers, some beneficial uses could be had, but I strongly suspect that all those assurances we were given decades ago from our intelligence agencies during the Church Committee were just that: assurances, nothing more, and that the covert funding and investigation of mind control techniques and technologies continued. With its track record of having given LSD to unsuspecting victims to study their responses - all under the aegis of its mind control programs - one can see where this is going, for in a world where chemicals are sprayed over whole populations without their knowledge (in many cases) and without their consent (in most), it takes little imagination to see that a study of "whole population effects" could be had with the appropriate spraying, or slipping a little "mind wipe enzyme" into a town's water supply, and watching and studying the results. Indeed, in 1984(note the year) American actor Tim Matheson starred with co-star Hume Cronyn in the movie Impulse, which was about precisely such a scenario. Add a false news story or two and one has a frightening scenario where whole populations might be induced to "remember" something that didn't actually happen, or to forget something that did.

I am reminded of the late 1960s and 1970s, when various gurus of the "drug culture" actually viewed psychedelics are a means of accessing "alternate worlds," and in a universe where one has quantum physicists emphasizing the role of the observer in the creation of reality, and where they are talking about "multiple worlds" hypotheses, such an experiment might even have cosmological implications.

I don't know about you, but I for one put nothing past them.

See you on the flip side...

IMMORTALITY & RESURRECTION, INC.

Just when you thought the aspirations and plans of modern science couldn't possibly become more diabolical (or, if one prefer, sacrilegious), an article comes along to renew your hope that the world continues on its path of normalcy, and that many scientists are, indeed, just as wild-eyed-nuts as you always thought them to be. And this week, apparently many people were relieved and reassured that the mad scientist is not a thing of the past or a species that died out, but a real, living creature deserving of our awe and respect. Ms. M.W. and many others found this, and shared it, doubtless because they were concerned that I was losing hope that there were no more mad scientists:

Could we soon REVERSE death? US company to start trials 'reawakening the dead' in Latin America 'in a few months' - and this is how they'll do it

Way back when I first started writing about these strange topics in The Giza Death Star, I made the observation that physical immortality might not be such a good thing, without a commensurate and corresponding improvement in human spirituality and morality. In this, I took my cue from an ancient Greek Church Father named St. John Chrysostom, who warned about the same thing, and who stated that it was death, in fact, that formed the crucial condition for the possibility of human repentance and a change of mind, for it cut off further progress in evil. Taking this as my cue, in the final pages of that book, I asked people to imagine if such immortality were possible, or even a dramatically extended life span were possible - both of which are now being openly discussed and touted in serious and not-so-serious literature - what it might mean for the resulting civilization? One thing that would result, I pointed out, was a vastly expanded and accelerated scientific and technological development. One individual would, in such a condition, be able to learn and to master several academic disciplines, not just one.The explosion of technology and science would dwarf anything we have seen thus far. But the other consequence would be for moral progress. Imagine, I said back then, an Albert Schweitzer having not a century, but centuries or even millennia to do good things, or, conversely, a Mao Tse-Tung, a Josif Stalin, a Pol Pot or an Adolf Hitler, having that long to "perfect their progress in evil," and one gets a clear picture of the sharp moral contradictions such a society would be in. And please note: this problem is not a problem that, to my knowledge, is receiving anything close to the attention it needs in the transhumanism-virtual immortality community. The sole focus is on the science; if we can do it, we should do it.

Now we have this:

Bioquark, a Philadelphia-based company, announced in late 2016 that they believe brain death is not 'irreversible'.

And now, CEO Ira Pastor has revealed they will soon be testing an unprecedented stem cell method on patients in an unidentified country in Latin America, confirming the details in the next few months.

To be declared officially dead in the majority of countries, you have to experience complete and irreversible loss of brain function, or 'brain death'.

According to Pastor, Bioquark has developed a series of injections that can reboot the brain - and they plan to try it out on humans this year.

They have no plans to test on animals first.

...

The first stage, named 'First In Human Neuro-Regeneration & Neuro-Reanimation' was slated to be a non-randomized, single group 'proof of concept' study.

The team said they planned to examine individuals aged 15-65 declared brain dead from a traumatic brain injury using MRI scans, in order to look for possible signs of brain death reversal.

Specifically, they planned to break it down into three stages.

First, they would harvest stem cells from the patient's own blood, and inject this back into their body.

Next, the patient would receive a dose of peptides injected into their spinal cord.

Finally, they would undergo a 15-day course of nerve stimulation involving lasers and median nerve stimulation to try and bring about the reversal of brain death, whilst monitoring the patients using MRI scans.

Light, chemistry, and stem cells and DNA. If one didn't know any better, one would swear one was looking at the broad chronological progression of Genesis 1.

But I digress.

The problem here is, one notices, the almost complete avoidance of the moral question. Let's assume the technology works and that one can, literally, resurrect the dead scientifically. And let us assume the project reaches the stage of perfection envisioned by the Russian Cosmists, like Nikolai Fedorov. The cosmists, recall, want to extend the resurrection-by-science principle to the entire history of one's ancestors. But should this occur, then what about resurrecting people like Stalin, Mao, or Hitler? The sad truth is, some people still "revere" those twisted and murderous people as heroes. The sad truth is, some people would attempt to do it, if given the means to do so.

But there's an even bigger problem. The entire project is predicated on the materialist assumption that "brain function equals the person." Regular readers here know that I have never subscribed to such a view, nor have I subscribed to the view, conversely, that there is no relationship between a person's "personhood" and the functions of their soul, which would include, of course, the functions of their will, intellect, emotions, and brain. It is, I suspect, a very complex phenomenon not neatly divided into tidy Cartesian dualisms, with numerous feedback loops between the two. This said, however, the problem arises then that the brain is not the creator of individuality, but rather, its transducer (and, if I may employ a more ancient version of the term, its traducer). Thus, the possibility arises that one might "revive" a brain, and traduce or transduce a different individual than one "recalls" being present prior to brain death. Already some psychologists have written - and published - papers suggesting that certain mental disorders such as bipolarity and schizophrenia might not be disorders in any standard sense, but rather a phenomenon where an individual is inhabiting two very different and parallel universes at the same time. In this they draw upon the many worlds hypotheses of qauntum mechanics.

In short, for my money, I have no doubt that ultimately, some sort of "scientific" resurrection technique might be possible. But I suspect it will be a Pandora's box of spiritual phenomena which, once opened, will be difficult if not impossible to close again, and that before we open it, we should give lengthy, and due consideration to all the moral problems it will engender.

See you on the flip side...