MONOLOGUE WRITTEN BY CLYDE LEWIS
I must admit that last night’s show was off balance in a lot of ways – after four days of doing absolutely nothing, there was a bit of rust in my ability to convey my ideas. There was a lot of confusion to be sure but what I was trying to convey is that when I see peculiarities in the environment and science or those who claim to be scientists cover up that fact that they are playing God – I tend to wonder if with all the so-called science we are literally paving the way for our own extinction.
When I heard Bill Gates speaking on 60 Minutes and Anderson Cooper asked him if he was a Technocrat and he dodged the question saying that innovation is key. Cooper said that perhaps we need to see changes in government policy in order for these scientific breakthroughs can be funded.
What Gates want to see is innovation and geoengineering projects to reach what he calls Carbon Zero which sounds like an exercise that would lead to our extinction.
Carbon Zero would mean to eliminate things that contribute to Co2 in the atmosphere. Even though the prospect is politically proper in liberal circles – I often wonder if all of his geoengineering experiments that he has funded namely air capture and the use of Reflective Stratospheric Sulfate Aerosols to dim the sun are sane and safe scientific endeavors.
Gates said that he thought it would be a hard sell and that it already has been. However I thought he was being a little disingenuous as it appears that his prognostications with regard to a pandemic lead to what I believe is the suspension of our democracy and the coercion from technocratic bullying.
When I am watching CNN in the morning, there is a word that is pervasive now that we have elected a new president – that word is Democracy. I am constantly hearing that those who invaded the capitol last month were trying to destroy or democracy, The capitol was a temple of Democracy, we have forfeited our constitutional republic and allowed for a mob mentality that is guided not by a congress or the people – but a group of technocratic investors, vaccine makers, global warming experts and creators of synthetic foods – that tell us that “the science” should be the only guide for the new normal.
This is the new normal – a technocracy which is cleverly hidden by the doublespeak of democracy.
In a democracy we tend to think of politics as a contest between different parties for our support. We focus on the who and the what of political life: who is after our votes, what they are offering us, who stands to benefit. We see elections as the way to settle these arguments.
Now, we see that impeachments are being used as cudgels and experts form the Pentagon and Big Pharma are all there to tell you that if you don’t mask up and take care of that carbon footprint – you are not a patriot and that you are the problem.
As you have probably guessed COVID-19 has suspended politics as usual and soon, Green economy and scarcity policies will replace democracy.
In recent years, it has sometimes appeared that global politics is simply a choice between rival forms of technocracy. In China, it is a government of engineers backed up by a one-party state.
In the west, it is the rule of economists and central bankers, operating within the constraints of a democratic system. This creates the impression that the real choices are technical judgments about how to run vast, complex economic and social systems.
Now, it must be clearly stated that what we perceive as the dystopian future of The Fourth Industrial Revolution—AI, blockchain, digitalization, financialization, green capitalism and so on—can’t be separated from the invisible hand of the technocratic mob. It cannot be allowed to be defined by capitalist institutions as a “legitimate political topic” instead of what it really is.
It is all para-political. It is all beyond the scope of politics as usual because we have a government now that cares more about the opinion of scientific experts than it does the substantive processes of running a government for the people by the people.
In the last few weeks another reality has pushed through. The ultimate judgments are about how to use coercive power with the excuse that it is better for the world because scientists – or the experts who preach the science are telling us that we are doomed if we don’t listen to them – in the process political power bows to technocracy and science diminished what can be called civic faith –and eventually it will destroy all faith in family, legacy systems, and God.
I think it was Joseph Campbell who said in one of his books that the best way to kill a God is to ignore it and appears that science along with the experts in the new technocracy are becoming God’s undertaker.
Science has been notorious for taking risks that could render our civilization extinct. It is also evident that there is no governing body to decide that these scientific experiments are worth the risk of extinction.
Before the atomic bomb was detonated in New Mexico, Enrico Fermi offered wagers on “whether or not the bomb would ignite the atmosphere and cause a chain reaction, and if so, whether it would merely destroy New Mexico, destroy the world or even send a huge wave into space creating turbulence and maybe take-out other planets.
Fermi theorized that an explosion of great magnitude would signal possible alien races and that they could very well visit this planet to at least make note of the area where the bomb was first detonated.
Although many scientists would like to claim that the Fermi story is a myth, there was a definite concern that a thermonuclear reaction might trigger the fusion of nitrogen nuclei in the atmosphere causing a cascade effect.
Edward Teller quite notably the Father of the Hydrogen Bomb said that :
“In exploding a nuclear fission weapon, was there a chance that the temperature of the blast could fuse together nuclei of light elements in the atmosphere, releasing further huge amounts of atomic energy (the reaction which would be used in later, larger nuclear weapons)? If so, a run-away chain reaction might occur, through which the entire atmosphere of planet Earth could be engulfed in a nuclear fusion explosion.”
The proposition was taken seriously, even though subsequent calculations would show that the chain reaction was an ‘impossibility’. It is said that was also one of the reasons the Nazis baulked at building their own nuclear weapon.
Hitler apparently was not delighted with the possibility that the Earth under his rule might be transformed into a glowing star.
Hitler did see the macabre, surreal humor of needing to even pose the question though, sometimes joking that “the scientists in their worldly urge to lay bare all secrets under heaven might someday set the globe on fire”.
However, the bombs were detonated as planned and played an important role in the history of humanity, a turning point – a moment when our quest for knowledge reached a point where we wondered whether we now had the god-like ability to destroy the entire Earth.
It is arguable that this discovery was of great benefit to mankind.
More than 70 years later, we are now facing the grim reality that mad science again my push us to the edge of extinction.
The further advancement of science has provided more fears of humanity creating its own apocalypse: the advent of genetically engineered ‘superbug’ bioweapons; the ‘grey goo’ scenario of runaway molecular nano-bots consuming everything on Earth; the suggestion that particle colliders like what we see at CERN might destroy the Earth via the creation of black holes or strange matter; and the advent of a malevolent, super-intelligent Artificial Intelligence.
Now we have to deal with men like Bill Gates that wish to tamper with mother nature by pouring money into geoengineering projects, genetic altering vaccines, and genetically modified foods.
No one questions the moves of mad science because it is obvious that political leadership has decided that science is above scrutiny.
To question science is now the equivalency of spitting on the Pope.
Scientists want to search for a hypothetical particle that can act as a portal to a warped fifth dimension that mediates the cosmic realms of light and dark.
You would be forgiven for assuming that sentence is a science fiction synopsis, but it is actually the mind-boggling upshot of a recent study that seeks to illuminate some of the most persistent enigmas in science.
The existence of this speculative particle could “provide a natural explanation” for the abundance of dark matter, an unidentified substance that accounts for most of the universe’s mass, and resolve intractable problems about subatomic particles known as fermions, according to the new research, which was published last month in The European Physical Journal C.
The study adds that “the presence of new physics” can explain these fundamental mysteries by presenting a model of the universe with a fifth dimension that can be traversed by particles.
We all know what that entails – more powerful supercolliders and there are plans to build hyper-powered particle smashers to do these tasks.
No one questions how close this can put us to extinction.
Artificial intelligence is learning more about how to work with (and on) humans. A recent study has shown how AI can learn to identify vulnerabilities in human habits and behaviors and use them to influence human decision-making.
It may seem cliched to say AI is transforming every aspect of the way we live and work but it’s true. Various forms of AI are at work in fields as diverse as vaccine development, environmental management and office administration. And while AI does not possess human-like intelligence and emotions, its capabilities are powerful and rapidly developing.
There’s no need to worry about a machine takeover just yet, but this recent discovery highlights the power of AI and underscores the need for proper governance to prevent misuse.
A remarkable combination of artificial intelligence and biology has produced the worldundefineds first undefinedliving robotsundefined.
Last week a research team of roboticists and scientists published their recipe for making a new lifeform called xenobots from stem cells. The term undefinedxenoundefined comes from the frog cells (Xenopus laevis) used to make them.
One of the researchers described the creation as undefinedneither a traditional robot nor a known species of animalundefined, but a undefinednew class of artifact: a living, programmable organismundefined.
Xenobots are less than 1mm long and made of 500-1000 living cells. They have various simple shapes, including some with squat undefinedlegsundefined. They can propel themselves in linear or circular directions, join together to act collectively, and move small objects. Using their own cellular energy, they can live up to 10 days.
While these undefinedreconfigurable biomachinesundefined could vastly improve human, animal, and environmental health, they raise legal and ethical concerns.
Some argue artificially making living things is unnatural, hubristic, or involves undefinedplaying Godundefined. A more compelling concern is that of unintended or malicious use, as we have seen with technologies in fields including nuclear physics, chemistry, biology and AI.
For instance, xenobots might be used for hostile biological purposes prohibited under international law. More advanced future xenobots, especially ones that live longer and reproduce, could potentially undefinedmalfunctionundefined and go rogue, and out-compete other species.
The 2018 scandal over using CRISPR (which allows the introduction of genes into an organism) may provide an instructive lesson here. While the experimentundefineds goal was to reduce the susceptibility of twin baby girls to HIV-AIDS, associated risks caused ethical dismay. The scientist in question is in prison.
When CRISPR became widely available, some experts called for a moratorium on heritable genome editing. Others argued the benefits outweighed the risks.
China seems to be using this technology again for what can be seen as mad science.
U.S. intelligence shows that China has conducted human testing on members of the Peopleundefineds Liberation Army in hope of developing soldiers with biologically enhanced capabilities,”
It has been likened to the eugenics program of the Third Reich to create a undefinedmaster race.undefined
What is most disturbing about these endeavors is that China has gleaned access to CRISPR and advanced genetic and biotech research, thanks to their relationship with the United States and other advanced Western nations. American research labs, biotech investors, and scientists have all striven to do research and business in Chinaundefineds budding biotech arenaundefined because the ethical standards for researchundefined are so low.
These concerns are at the heart of a new paper posted at arXiv.org, “Agencies and Science Experiment Risk“, authored by Associate Professor of Law Eric E. Johnson:
There is a curious absence of legal constraints on U.S. government agencies undertaking potentially risky scientific research. Some of these activities may present a risk of killing millions or even destroying the planet. Current law leaves it to agencies to decide for themselves whether their activities fall within the bounds of acceptable risk. This Article explores to what extent and under what circumstances the law ought to allow private actions against such nonregulatory agency endeavors. Engaging with this issue is not only interesting in its own right, it allows us to test fundamental concepts of agency competence and the role of the courts.
Johnson notes that the Acts which govern much of this research were written in the 1940s, and thus “never comprehended today’s exotic agency hazards”. Furthermore, he says, this legal gap “might be less troubling if it were not for insights from behavioral economics, neoclassical economics, cognitive psychology, and the risk-management literature, all of which indicate that agency scientists are prone to misjudging how risky their activities really are.”
Johnson is astounded that, given “the exotic agency-science risks discussed here constitute a truly elite set of menaces”, it is “all the more remarkable that our legal structure refrains from engaging with them.”
But we are all being groomed to not question “the science.” We have been told there is no second opinion with regard to COVID-19 and we are also told that the science is settled when it comes to Climate Change.
How do you fight back against a coercive and powerful technocracy?
When it comes to low probability/high-harm scenarios who is going to be there to safeguard the people against those who wish to be cavalier with huge projects that tamper with the well-being of the planet or even the well-being and the germline or DNA.
It is great to be open minded about what the future holds but we are being told or commanded that it is not at all prudent to question science. We are told that it is anathema to be critical of it.
Perhaps we need to see the big picture of how this grooming process will lead us like lambs to the slaughter.
Allowing science to play God while we play dead should not be an option anymore.
