Rockefeller – Controlling the Game (35 page)

Birth Strike

Even more drastic measures are proposed by the philosopher Travis Rieder at the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University:

In order to help avert a 2°C increase in global average temperatures this century, we must reduce population growth faster than choice-enhancing policies are capable of doing on their own.
⁷⁰⁷

Now voluntary or “soft" methods are off the table. The end justifies the means. Rieder proposes a Global Population Engineering Program to make women have fewer children with a variety of propaganda techniques, so-called “nudging”, in order to save the world from the looming climate catastrophe outlined in Schellnhuber’s World Bank Report. Reider believes that fertility needs to be lowered to 0.5 children per woman to avoid the “catastrophic tipping points” of Schellnhuber and Wasdell.

…we need to investigate the defensibility of additional fertility-reducing population engineering interventions.
⁷⁰⁸

This should be done, e.g., with moral arguments about what a burden each new individual will have on the planet. Having many children should not be rewarded. Rieder believes that it is easier to reduce the population than to change people's living habits.

…even if we are able to make the kind of radical cuts to our emissions hoped for by the IPCC, the total CO
₂
emissions saved by refraining from having one additional child is larger than the summed lifetime savings from six common ‘green’ activities (such as lowering one’s transportation related GHG emissions, increasing the energy efficiency of one’s home, etc.)

Since the beginning of 2019, the British organization BirthStrike, with predominately young fertile women as members, has begun advocating these ideas.
⁷⁰⁹

TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSHUMANISM

The most far-reaching change is planned for man himself, who is to be modified at a fundamental level. After centuries of scientific and technological development, transhumanists finally see real opportunities for realising the old Hermetic dream of creating an upgraded superhuman with the help of technology. Now using the threat of climate change as an excuse.

Klaus Schwab and World Economic Forum’s expert panel describe man as an object that can be altered and improved to perfection, applying both bio- and neurotechnological methods. It is stated matter-of-factly that the future will “challenge our perception of what it means to be human." When technology moves into our body, the question arises of the boundary between machine and human, recognising that the new technology can be used “to manipulate our worldview and influence our behavior.”

Humanity+ and Future of Humanity Institute

In 1998, Nick Bostrom founded the World Transhumanist Association (from 2004 renamed Humanity+) to make transhumanism more respectable and scientific. H+ is currently represented in 120 countries and very active in promoting the transhumanist agenda. In 2005, Nick Bostrom also founded the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) under the Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford Martin School. Bostrom is Director of the Institute and the team includes Anders Sandberg, among others. Together with the Global Challenges Foundation, they are also policy advisors to the World Economic Forum. The institute analyses risks and opportunities with future “human enhancement" technologies such as gene therapy, life extension, brain implants and brain–computer interfaces, and population control.

In 2015, Global Challenges Foundation and Future of Humanity Institute issued the report, 12 risks that threaten human civilization, which analysed catastrophic threats such as extreme climate change, nuclear war, pandemics, ecological disasters, global system collapse, asteroids, super-volcanoes, synthetic biology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, unknown consequences, and a substandard global governance. The hope was that a powerful AI would be able to solve all problems – while at the same time posing a danger in itself by potentially coming to view humanity as redundant.
⁷¹⁰
A Terminator scenario echoing he warnings from ATCA and others.

In a speech to the Swiss Civil Society Association on November 11, 2017, German Professor of Literature at Stanford University, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, declared an ambition to create a God-like being with superhuman knowledge to guide mankind – and deliver us from our sins. There was, however, no guarantee that this entity would turn out to be benevolent.
⁷¹¹

This potential danger was also pointed out by Stephen Hawkings, Elon Musk (Tesla Motors), and Bill Gates
⁷¹²
– for which they received the 2015 Luddist Award by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation” for being “AI alarmists.
⁷¹³
This is even more astonishing considering the fact that they all supported Bostrom's work and that Musk have invested heavily in creating a brain–computer interface, Neuralink.

Human Engineering

In 2012, Anders Sandberg and Rebecca Roache and (Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford Martin School), with Matthew Liao (Center for Bioethics, New York University), proposed biomedical modifications of humans, “so that they can mitigate and/or adapt to climate change (presented as less risky option, than for example, geoengineering).” The team of transhumanists offered several of outlandish examples of human engineering fantasies:

1. “Pharmacological meat intolerance” by creating a bovine protein intolerance-inducing meat patch (akin to a nicotine patch) and encouraging people to use such patches.
   

1. “Making humans smaller” (reducing birth weight and hight) by using hormone therapy or genetic diagnosis and modification before implantation (in this science fiction-like vision it is taken for granted that you visit a fertility clinic to procreate) where you will be given the “liberty-enhancing” choice of having a greater number of smaller children or a smaller number of larger children to meet your allocated greenhouse gas emissions quota, instead of the strict limit of maximum of two children per family suggested by Guillebaud and Hayes.
   

1. “Lowering birth-rates through cognitive enhancement” by education and cognition enhancement for women, which can lead to them choosing to have fewer children.
   

1. “Pharmacological enhancement of altruism and empathy” through hormone treatment, in order to make them care more about the environment increase people’s willingness to assist victims of climate change.
   

1. Other bioengineering possibilities mentioned include “increasing our resistance to heat and tropical diseases”, and “reducing our need for food and water.”
   ⁷¹⁴
   

Humanity 2.0

The ideas of a human–machine fusion were starting to spread a few years before Schwab declared that the dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In 2014, James Lovelock stated that instead of trying to save the planet, humanity should live in cities with regulated temperature and focus on evolving from biological creatures to merging with technology.
⁷¹⁵

If we can somehow merge with our electronic creations in a larger scale endosymbiosis, it may provide a better next step in the evolution of humanity and Gaia. (James Lovelock)
⁷¹⁶

This solution, however, is not something he would prefer for himself.

I must admit an empathetic dread for some unfortunately future person whose body becomes connected to one of more of the ubiquitous social networks. I can imagine no punishment more severe than having my still comparatively clear mind overtaken by the spam of hucksters and the never-ceasing gossip of the Internet.

Elon Musk promotes this vision with another motive. In order to avoid an evil and autocratic AI, humans should be merged with technology through a neural link between the cerebral cortex and the digital world, forming a symbiosis between man and machine. According to Musk and Global Challenges Foundation, by merging with AI, we don’t have to worry about a malicious AI because then we will collectively constitute the AI ourselves. The long-term goal is full integration with the technology and becoming one with the Internet through brain–computer interface (BCI). We will all be a part of the Internet of Us.

The Trilateral elite network ATCA / Philanthropia has also embraced the ideas that humans should increasingly be merged technology:

What’s the Q-BRAIN Singularity about? Simply put, Quantum-Blockchain-Recursion-Artificial-Intelligence-Nano (Q-BRAIN) smart technologies coming together in our global civilisation to synthesise man and machine as one in a hybrid formulation where man becomes part machine and machine becomes part man.

In March 2016, ATCA predicted that this Brave New World would be implemented by 2020.

Everything that you see happening today between man and machines will change and metamorphose beyond recognition, in the coming 4–5 years. Expect total disruption via new Q-BRAIN enabled products and applications in terms of challenging legacy technology solutions; societal behaviours, habits and norms; global trading, finance and economics; and absolutely everything including the way we live, work and play!
⁷¹⁷

This neurotechnological revolution entails influencing our brains with micro-electrodes, which proponents claims will expand our abilities, and change our behaviours and our interaction with the external world. The boundaries between the real world and virtual reality will become blurred through augmented reality where virtual objects, information and data are merged with the physical world.

Influencing the brain in more precise ways could change our sense of self, redefine what it means to have experiences and fundamentally alter what constitutes reality. By affecting how we govern ourselves, the system management of human existence, brain science encourages a huge step for humans beyond natural evolution.
⁷¹⁸

As positive benefits, proponents hope the technology will be able to cure neurological disorders and motor disabilities. At the same time there are warnings that this development can lead to employers starting to use the technology to vet job applicants and monitor employees.

Following controversies around the use of RFID identification and workplace tracking, according to the World Economic Forum, the monitoring of employee brains is expected to be the next ethical dilemma. This also includes the risk of judicial systems starting to use the technology in order to analyse the likelihood of criminal activity, assess guilt, and extract memories directly from human brains and that security risks can be identified at border controls through brain X-ray.

The European Commissions HIVE Project, which ran between 2008–2012 with the aim to develop a non-invasive Brain–Computer Interface (BCI), warned of the ethical implications of the new technology.

The project can open the door to breakthrough technologies that could be used in negative ways, such as (conceivably) mind control and BCI-related military applications.
⁷¹⁹

Oxford Martin School’s Programme on Mind and Machine expresses similar concerns.

Advances in understanding how the brain works are rapidly leading to new possibilities for intervention in brain function. The ability of brains and machines to talk to each other directly is fast becoming a very real possibility. This raises profound ethical issues related to understanding behaviour and potentially manipulating it, so called ‘mind control’.
⁷²⁰

The perfect society risks developing into an electronic prison where our perception of reality is manipulated and our behaviour controlled.

Transhumanism goes mainstream

The old dreams of superhuman abilities and immortality have now moved out from the occult secret societies and small futurist groups to being launched to a wider audience, not just as science fiction but as a real option, through a growing stream of articles, panel discussions, conferences with leading transhumanists, philosophical radio programs, and science TV shows. What began in 1998 with Professor Kevin Warwick's tests on himself with implanted chips has now evolved into a growing biohacker movement.

In 2014, Swedish Biohax International began hosting the so-called “chipster party" where “bionics" could be upgraded with chips to “become digital super humans.” The spectacle received a lot of media attention in Sweden and internationally. Biohax claims that their technology contributes to a more sustainable future through the reduced need for plastic cards, in accordance with EU's circular economy and the UN Sustainable Development Goals
.
⁷²¹
Meanwhile, biohacking conferences have been organised by enthusiastic pioneers in Finland, Sweden, and Estonia. The Scandinavian countries have been pioneers
and countless seminars and lectures on transhumanist subjects have been held, influencing both pop culture and intellectual debate.
⁷²²

Transhumanism in Media

During the last decades, there has been constantly growing flood of science fiction books and magazines, Japanese manga and anime, TV-series and films with transhumanist themes and dystopian visions of our near and far future.

Two of the more astonishing examples are the sci-fi series
Black Mirror
and National Geography's futuristic docu-drama series Year Million
(based on Damien Brodericks book
Year Million: Science at the Far Edge of Knowledge
(2008).
⁷²³
The Year Million TV series features a mix of live action sequences, high quality 3D renditions, and interviews with leading futurologists and transhumanists. With overtly religious references, the series promises that by using genetic engineering, nano-robots, implants, and robotics, we will become genetically “perfect” and super-intelligent; merge with AI; connect with others in a swarm consciousness and become telepathic; rebuild the Tower of Babel, conquer the galaxy; and finally be uploaded to the Internet and live forever in a “digital Nirvana.” How National Geographic's respectable TV channel could be transformed into a simple propaganda channel for futurism and transhumanism, with specific focus on projects which happen to be under development by Elon Musk (SpaceX space program,
⁷²⁴
Starlink satellite system,
⁷²⁵
Neuralink brain implants,
⁷²⁶
and Tesla Motors electric cars) may perhaps be explained by National Geographic in September 2015 partnering with 21st Century Fox, whose CEO, James Murdoch (son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, 20th Century Fox and Fox News), was elected to Tesla's Board of Directors in 2017.