Our Future Will Be Controlled By “Combined Will Of The People Of Earth” — Musk’s Neuralink

 Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, seeks to merge human brains with AI. In a live YouTube presentation on Friday, he said that his brain-to-computer interface company Neuralink is on the brink of letting people achieve what he calls “AI symbiosis,” in which the human brain will merge with an artificial intelligence.

“Such that the future of the world is controlled by the combined will of the people of Earth — I think that that’s obviously gonna be the future that we want,” he envisioned. Musk sees the Neuralink brain interface as a way toward such equity.

Musk’s Neuralink is a series of thin, flexible wires which are covered in electrodes to pick up brain activity. Dr. Robert Kirsch, chairman of biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University, explains in a New York Times piece that Elon Musk’s Neuralink is probably the best brain-sensing tech in development. It requires surgery, he acknowledges, but its thin and flexible nature can adjust to the topography of the brain, possibly making it less caustic.

The hairlike filaments, each of which contains multiple sensors, sink into brain tissue, which have the potential to capture more data than flatter arrays that sit at the brain’s surface. The tiny computer chip would be sewn robotically under local anesthesia in one hour into a human brain on a network of superfine electrode-studded wires about 5 microns thick each (20 times thinner than a human hair). The chip would read and write brain activity — sensing signals in the brain, translating them into motor controls, and interfacing with deficient parts of the human body like limbs.

Theoretically, such a brain-computer interface could reveal entirely new methods for humans to communicate with different parts of the human body. It’s “like a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires,” Musk said. The device can pair with a smartphone app over Bluetooth Low Energy, he added.

His Neuralink brain insert is the latest in brain-machine interfaces that have been part of research studies since 2006. Small devices have electronically stimulated nerves and brain areas to treat hearing loss and Parkinson’s disease.

The Neuralink device hasn’t been tested in humans yet; however, the US Food and Drug Administration has designated it a breakthrough device, which allows them to obtain feedback throughout the development process.

Musk’s Neuralink Brain Insert Has Many Possibilities

Musk founded Neuralink in 2016. Then a 2019 media event announced what was titled the N1 Implant concept. This August 28, 2020 live demonstration featured the newest research, in which the brain activity of a pig exposed the results of a newly designed surgically implanted chip that transmitted data wirelessly.

“We have a healthy and happy pig, initially shy but obviously high energy and, you know, kind of loving life, and she’s had the implant for two months,” Musk said of Gertrude the pig during the live YouTube demonstration.

Rejection of the device — the brain automatically fights off foreign matter as a defense mechanism — is but one of many obstacles on the road to Neuralink implementation. Another is that healthy humans will have to agree to be subjects in the trials, which will require brain surgery to place the implant. The surgery would be relatively bloodless, according to Musk, as robots wouldn’t damage blood vessels.

The first clinical trials will be in a small number of patients with severe spinal cord injuries, to make sure it functions as anticipated and is safe for the volunteers. In the meantime, Musk announced that the company is looking to recruit robotics, electrical, and software engineers to develop the device and refine the surgical procedure for the implementation.

Musk said the device would be “quite expensive” when it first launches, but the goal is to reduce costs to about a few thousand dollars — “similar to Lasik,” he said.

Future Will Be Controlled By “Combined Will Of The People Of Earth”

Musk forecast that the Neuralink brain technology could one day cure neurological conditions and allow people with paralysis to control a computer mouse. It could alleviate memory loss, moderate strokes, or mitigate addiction. The technology could monitor a user’s health and warn them if they’re having a heart attack, enable superhuman vision, or even give people telepathy. (Well, the latter 2 aren’t really part of the near future plan…)

A new and fascinating television series on Amazon Video is called Upload. It’s a show in which a person who is dying can be uploaded to a “digital afterlife program” that has been created and is managed by a megacorporation. The Neuralink conversations did contain a bit of that feel, especially when Musk envisioned people using Neuralink to connect to their own digital AI incarnations.

But always visionary, Musk also outlined how “the future is controlled by the combined will of the people of Earth.” Continuing a community thread that he’s touched on before, Musk said, “It’s going to be important from an existential threat perspective to achieve a good AI symbiosis.” Musk has dabbled with different definitions of freedom and community in the past, always creating new spaces for innovation.

Acknowledging that the Q&A session was beginning to sound like a Black Mirror episode, he concurred that, one day, humans will be able to back up and restore memories. “The future is going to be weird,” Musk said, discussing sci-fi uses of Neuralink. “In the future you will be able to save and replay memories,” he said. “You could basically store your memories as a backup and restore the memories. You could potentially download them into a new body or into a robot body.”

Final Thoughts

Neuralink has raised more than $150 million in funding, including $100 million from Musk himself. The company employs roughly 100 people but could soon expand to 10,000, Musk said at the event.

Sure, some of the claims that Musk made about Neuralink’s future application were “outsized,” as the Guardian notes: be used to summon a Tesla, play video games, or allow a person with a severed spinal cord to walk again.

Also, Musk did not present any scientific data to support his claims about the pigs or the devices. Since the Neuralink launch event last year, Musk and Neuralink have published one scientific paper, in the Journal of Medical Internet Research in October.

“Everyone in the field would be very impressed if they actually showed data from a device implanted in a human,” Graeme Moffat, a University of Toronto neuroscience research fellow, told the Guardian.

Musk is the hands-down genius of our times. If anyone can bring this amazing idea to fruition, it’s him.

Here’s the August 28, 2020 demonstration in full, in case you’d like to see it for yourself.

https://youtu.be/iOWFXqT5MZ4

https://cleantechnica.com/2020/09/01/our-future-will-be-controlled-by-combined-will-of-the-people-of-earth-musks-neuralink/

Some WWII Photos

These are from a set of 45 photos that Reuters put up. Not sure why the seem timely, but they do. I left out the most gruesome photos.

Hitler in Paris June 1940

US troops at Normandy on D-day under heavy machine gun fire
(anti-fascists breaking up a large gathering
of white supremacists) 

Omaha Beach secured after D-Day, June 1944



Crossed rifles tribute to an American soldier
 Normandy beach, June 6, 1944

Nazis herding Jews in Warsaw Poland



German troops, Russia 1941

German soldier carrying ammo for Belgium counteroffensive
December 1944



German General Anton Dostler before execution by firing squad
Italy 1945

Japanese carrier launching attack on Pearl Harbor

Camp holding Japanese Americans captive
California 1942

Failed Japanese aircraft attack on the USS Kitkun Bay

Marines atop Mt Suribachi, Iwo Jima, 1945

US Marine finds Japanese family hiding on Saipan

Injured US Marine - Iwo Jima 1945

Sea burial, Iwo Jima USS Hansford, February 1945

Hiroshima after the bomb 1945

Japanese surrender, USS Missouri, Tokyo Bay
September 2, 1945



US overflight of USS Missouri during Japanese surrender

Trump's Failure: Federal Debt Approaches Size of US GPD

The president touts his "miracle economic recovery" in terms of lies, not exaggerations. His miracle is driven in large part by increased federal debt and the gushing up of wealth to the top 1-2% who are freed from both taxes and society and environment defending regulations. A Washington Post article, U.S. government debt will nearly equal the size of the entire economy for first time since World War II, CBO finds, reports what the title says:

“By the end of 2020, the amount of debt owed by the U.S. will amount to 98 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, the highest level since the end of World War II, the CBO said. Total government debt will surpass the U.S. economy’s size next year, CBO said.

Fueling this rise is a big jump in the government’s annual budget deficit, which is projected to widen to $3.3 trillion by the end of this fiscal year, more than tripling since 2019. The deficit was already on track to be very elevated because of recent tax cuts and spending increases, but the government’s response to the pandemic changed things markedly.”

WaPo points out that republicans routinely claim they want to reduce the deficit. But as far as I can tell, that is only when democrats are in charge. When the GOP controls government, federal debt is irrelevant as the GOP passes laws to increase the rate of wealth gushing up to the top 1-2%. That has been standard GOP practice for decades. When democrats are in charge, republican hypocrites, about 97% of the GOP in congress and ~97% of elected GOP politicians, scream bloody murder about the federal debt. They rarely give even little squeak of mild milquetoast protest when the GOP is in charge.

It is true that democrats helped to increase unfunded spending and thus the debt by passing a major COVID-19 spending bill. That spending was in the face of a pandemic and an economic collapse. By stark contrast, the president and the GOP passed a budget-busting tax relief bill that mostly benefited rich people bill in 2017 while the US was in its 7th year of economic expansion. 

What is a reasonable conception of an economically successful federal policy?

Is it fair and balanced to call economic policy that adds to federal debt in times of economic growth a failure? Or, is increased economic growth at the expense of trillions in added federal debt in a growing economy a success? Or, does it not matter? If debt expands during times of growth, what about times of no growth? Is no growth a good time to shut federal spending down? 

Glazed eyeballs

I know, many eyeballs glaze over when the concepts like federal debt and economic policy are mentioned. That is unfortunate. Those concepts "run amok", as one person here likes to say, could help kill democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law as we used to know those concepts. Public detachment from, or boredom with, those economic concerns can and just might usher in a corrupt, incompetent authoritarian kleptocrat government. When that happens, people like me will probably be shut up in due course. Maybe in a year. Maybe in two or three. But it will come if past demagogic tyrannies are reliable evidence.

Regardless of the details, a veil of darkness will fall. Then cruel, corrupt, incompetent, deeply immoral self-serving beasts will control our fates.

Dissecting the Reality of Propaganda About Dysfunctional Democratic Cities

The New York Times reports on democratic cities and the history of how they got there and why they are there. The NYT writes:

“With this refrain, Mr. Trump has sharpened his party’s long-running antipathy toward urban America into a more specific argument for the final two months of the campaign: Cities have problems, and Democrats run them. Therefore, you don’t want Democrats running the country, either.

But that logic misconstrues the nature of challenges that cities face, and the power of mayors of any party to solve them, political scientists say. And it twists a key fact of political history: If cities have become synonymous with Democratic politics today, that is true in part because Republicans have largely given up on them.

Over the course of decades, Republicans ceased competing seriously for urban voters in presidential elections and representing them in Congress. Republican big-city mayors became rare. And along the way, the Republican Party nationally has grown muted on possible solutions to violence, inequality, poverty and segregation in cities.

Mr. Trump and his surrogates have pushed that history to its seeming conclusion: Rural and suburban problems in America today are national problems — but urban problems are Democratic problems.”

Asymmetric warfare: Advantage - liars 

The NYT goes on to point out that politicians of neither party blame Republican county executives for rural opioid problems. The republican argument also gives Democratic mayors no credit for 25-year decline in urban crime since the early 1990s. The NYT also points out that mayors have limited control over crime rates. Some researchers looked for studies suggesting that a mayor's party affiliation has an effect on crime, but found none. It is true that homicides have spiked this year in big cities, but that is also true by similar amounts in some smaller cities with Republican mayors, including Tulsa, Okla., and San Bernardino, Calif. 

Also, the president harshly criticized Chicago for failing to control gun violence despite the fact that the city tried to deal with gun violence. The city outlawed handguns and gun sales, but federal judges overturned those efforts. That shows how constrained local officials including mayors are. 

The rhetorical warfare on this point is, as often the case, asymmetric. This line of propaganda will be hard for democrats to refute because it requires an explanation. In propaganda wars, whenever a person has to explain something, they usually lose the debate. That is just a potentially lethal aspect of the human condition, specifically how the human mind processes propaganda or dark free speech. 

Why we should stop chasing the happiness rainbow

 OPINION by Zoë Wundenberg

https://www.youngwitness.com.au/story/6882168/why-we-should-stop-chasing-the-happiness-rainbow/?cs=13499

Happiness, noun, the state of being happy. Aristotle identifies happiness as the main purpose of human life and as a goal to achieve in itself.

Perhaps I'm in the throes of a COVID-19 pandemic-induced existential crisis, but I can't help but wonder at the futility of such a pursuit.

As humans, we seem intent on measuring our lives. Are you successful? Are you making a difference? Are you useful? Are you happy? We measure our lives by imagined abstract yardsticks.

Why do we have to weigh and measure ourselves? Why do we have to compare the measurements of our lives to each other's?

I am finding it increasingly astonishing that the very basis of our understanding of who we are is based on a constructed idea of what we should be.

In order to be accepted, we have to conform - and yet the people we admire are the people who stand out as different. It is, perhaps, one of the greatest paradoxes of human society.

The pursuit of happiness is so ingrained in our western culture that it is written into the US Declaration of Independence as a right.

While we don't live under this constitution in Australia, our global community has led to us assuming certain parallels to (at least the good bits of) the cultures of neighbouring national communities.

Our commercial arena has certainly latched onto the idea.

Happiness is now more of a pre-packaged consumer good than an abstract goal, recognizing that "the consumer society even has the capacity to absorb and co-opt that which seeks to transform it" .

We confuse happiness, I think. We confuse it with satisfaction, with contentment, with joy, with pleasure.

The state of happiness often involves all of these abstracts, but there are important distinctions to be drawn in our understanding here.

Contentment, joy and pleasure, for example, are largely thought of as the result of our actions, the by-product, effect, of what we do.

We accept them as fleeting, temporary, enjoyable outcomes of the activities and work we undertake. However, we rarely focus on their pursuit.

In what is perhaps a cruel twist of fate, researchers have discovered that people who consciously pursue happiness are less likely to actually achieve it and the pursuit itself can undermine their wellbeing.

Happiness isn't a destination. It's not a place that you arrive at as a reward for hard work and purposeful activity. It's not "what you get" when you serve others or make a sacrifice.

Psychologists tell us there are two general categories of the concept of happiness: hedonic (the pursuit of pleasure over pain) and eudaimonic (the result of the pursuit and attainment of life purpose, meaning, challenge and personal growth).

Some psychologists believe chasing happiness is pointless, others believe it can be purposefully increased.

Ultimately, what makes us feel happy will likely change as we evolve throughout our lifespan and our ideas of contentment and joy will be sparked by different experiences as we age.

I have a rainbow theory of happiness.

People constantly trying to catch it are too busy chasing it to appreciate it when it's there. If we are constantly measuring our lives, deciding if we've "made it yet," what happens if we achieve our goals and we still don't feel that warm buzz of happiness we've been told about?

What happens if we've been working towards achieving a goal that we believe will result in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, only to discover that the rainbow has moved again and we still haven't "arrived" at destination happiness?

If Aristotle was right and happiness is the primary purpose of human life, I think living our lives pursuing a state of being that is, by its very nature temporary, is a cruel joke of the gods.

To spend one's life chasing rainbows when one could take stock at any moment and revel in the beauty of the colours that light up the sky, is to miss the point entirely. Life is a series of moments.

Whatever your goals in your life are, pursue them for the journey. Happiness tends to capture us when we aren't looking.

Zoë Wundenberg is a careers consultant and un/employment advocate at impressability.com.au.

How Some Oil and Chemical Companies Operate

A plastics-laden waste dump in Nakuru, Kenya

In a New York Times article today, the focus is on a new trade deal with Kenya that the oil industry is pushing hard to get. The oil sector is under enormous economic pressures from low profits and growing social concerns about the environment generally, including awareness of the severity of increasing plastic waste problems. Plastics are profitable and both big oil and chemical companies want to make and sell a lot more plastics than they are now.

In response to the economic pressure, the oil sector has decided to try to force Africa to open itself up as a great place to dump hundreds of millions of tons of plastic waste. The oil and chemical (plastics) sectors have formed a trade group, the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, to deal with the massive and growing plastic waste problem. The solution is to dump the waste in Africa. The companies behind that lobby power include Exxon, Chevron and Dow. The group is lobbying US trade negotiators to demand a reversal of the Kenya’s strict limits on plastics. The NYT writes:

“According to documents reviewed by The New York Times, an industry group representing the world’s largest chemical makers and fossil fuel companies is lobbying to influence United States trade negotiations with Kenya, one of Africa’s biggest economies, to reverse its strict limits on plastics — including a tough plastic-bag ban. It is also pressing for Kenya to continue importing foreign plastic garbage, a practice it has pledged to limit.

Plastics makers are looking well beyond Kenya’s borders. “We anticipate that Kenya could serve in the future as a hub for supplying U.S.-made chemicals and plastics to other markets in Africa through this trade agreement,” Ed Brzytwa, the director of international trade for the American Chemistry Council, wrote in an April 28 letter to the Office of the United States Trade Representative.

The United States and Kenya are in the midst of trade negotiations and the Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta, has made clear he is eager to strike a deal. But the behind-the-scenes lobbying by the petroleum companies has spread concern among environmental groups in Kenya and beyond that have been working to reduce both plastic use and waste.

Kenya, like many countries, has wrestled with the proliferation of plastic. It passed a stringent law against plastic bags in 2017, and last year was one of many nations around the world that signed on to a global agreement to stop importing plastic waste — a pact strongly opposed by the chemical industry.

The plastics proposal reflects an oil industry contemplating its inevitable decline as the world fights climate change. Profits are plunging amid the coronavirus pandemic, and the industry is fearful that climate change will force the world to retreat from burning fossil fuels. Producers are scrambling to find new uses for an oversupply of oil and gas. Wind and solar power are becoming increasingly affordable, and governments are weighing new policies to fight climate change by reducing the burning of fossil fuels.

Pivoting to plastics, the industry has spent more than $200 billion on chemical and manufacturing plants in the United States over the past decade. But the United States already consumes as much as 16 times more plastic than many poor nations, and a backlash against single-use plastics has made it tougher to sell more at home.”

Plastic waste clogs the Narobi River in Kenya

The NYT article goes on to note that American exporters shipped more than 1 billion pounds of plastic waste to 96 countries including Kenya in 2019. In theory the waste was to be recycled, but much of the waste is not recyclable and it ends up in rivers and oceans. China closed its ports to most plastic trash in 2018. Since then, exporters have been looking for new dumping grounds and Africa looks to be the best place.

The NYT article makes this critically important point: The plastics industry’s pro-waste dumping proposals would make it hard to regulate plastics in the United States. That is because the trade deal under negotiation applies to both sides.

Plastic waste mixed with other waste 

This is how it arrogant, corrupt government works

The NYT points out that Kenya was one of the countries that signed a global agreement to stop importing plastic waste. The chemical industry strongly opposed it. The Times reviewed emails showing that industry representatives, including former US trade officials, are worked with US trade negotiators to try to block or stall those rules. The emails show close ties between the trade representatives, administration officials and industry representatives.

In March of 2019, a recycling trade group executive wrote to federal officials including trade negotiators to show them a recent useful statement by environmental activists. The executive wrote: “Hey ladies. This gives us some good fodder to build a strategy.” The chemical industry rationale to oppose bans on plastic waste exports is that they prevent recycling of what plastic there is that is recyclable.

Of course, that rationale ignores the facts that the waste can be recycled in the US and much or most  plastic waste cannot be recycled for practical and/or economic reasons. A 2018 article by National Geographic commented: “Of the 8.3 billion metric tons that has been produced, 6.3 billion metric tons has become plastic waste. Of that, only nine percent has been recycled. The vast majority—79 percent—is accumulating in landfills or sloughing off in the natural environment as litter.” In other words, 91% of plastic waste is not recycled.

Clearly, the Alliance to End Plastic Waste is an alliance to increase plastic waste and spread it throughout the land and the oceans where it will be out of Americans’ sight and minds. It's a win-win for the oil and chemicals sectors and a lose-lose-lose for the environment, the American people and Africa.

The Alliance to End Plastic Waste hates mandatory recycling in Kenya and everywhere else --
the NYT writes: “Kenya’s efforts to restrict plastics and encourage re-use are worrisome for plastics makers, whose leaders see the country as a promising market”
-- Specifically, what is worrisome is the threat to profits that recycling constitutes
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