Month: January 2022

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

Every sick child, and probably every adult at some point, asks that existential question: why am I suffering? 

No answer is satisfying. To be sick is to feel vulnerable, weak, not in control, not in the game. Life is chugging along outside of your room. You can hear laughter, cars going here and there, people out and about. But you are stuck, shivering under blankets, appetite disrupted and struggling to remember what it was like to feel healthy. 

With fever, all of this is worse because the capacity for one’s brain to process information with full rationality is deprecated. High fever can induce a form of brief insanity, even involving hallucinations. You imagine things that are not true. You know that but can’t shake it off. The fever breaks and you find yourself in a pool of sweat, and your hope is that somewhere in this mess the bug has left you. 

For children, it is a scary experience. For adults too, when it lasts long enough. 

From the depths of the suffering, people naturally look for a source of hope. When is recovery? And what can I expect once that happens? Where is the meaning and the purpose behind the ordeal? 

For a conventional respiratory virus, and for many other pathogens, generations have known that there is a silver lining to the suffering. Your immune system has undergone a training exercise. It is encoding new information. That is information your body can use to be healthier in the future. It is now prepared to fight off a similar pathogen in the future. 

From the depths of suffering, this realization provides that much-needed source of hope. You can look forward to a better, healthier life on the other side. You will now confront the world with a shield. That dangerous dance with pathogens has been won for at least this particular virus. You can enjoy a stronger and healthier you in the future. 

For generations, people understood this. Particularly in the 20th century, when knowledge of natural immunity became more sophisticated, along with the documentation of herd immunity, this became culturally entrenched. 

Speaking from personal experience, my own parents were constantly explaining this to me when I was young. When I was sick, it became my essential source of hope. This was crucial for me, as I was an unusually sickly child. To know that I could become stronger and live more normally was a blessing. 

Nothing made the point more prescient than my bout with chicken pox. To wake with itchy red spots all over me threw me into panic at the age of 6 or 7. But when I saw the smiles on my parents’ faces, I relaxed. They explained that this is a normal sickness that I absolutely needed to get as a young person. I could then get a lifetime of immunity. 

It is far less dangerous to get it when you are young, they explained. Don’t scratch the sores. Just endure it and it will be over soon. I will have done my duty to myself. 

That was a striking education for me. It was my introduction to the reality of natural immunity. I learned not only about this one sickness but all kinds of viruses. I learned that there is a plus side, a silver lining, to my suffering. It created the conditions that led to a better life. 

Culturally, this was considered to be a modern way to think, a mental awareness that enabled generations not to give up hope but rather to look to the future with confidence. 

From the beginning of the current pathogenic crisis, this piece has been missing. Covid has been treated as a pathogen to avoid at all costs – personal and social. No price was too high to pay to purchase avoidance. The worst possible fate would be to confront the virus. We must not live life normally, we were told. We must reorganize everything around slogans: slow the spread, flatten the curve, socially distance, mask up, regard everyone and everything as a carrier. 

After two years, this is still the case in many parts of the country. Public health authorities have not recognized, must less explained natural immunity. Instead our source of hope has been the vaccine, which the authorities said would turn you into a dead end for the virus. That seemed like hope for many. Then it turned out not to be true. Hopes have been dashed and we were plunged right back where we were before. 

Covid’s coverage of the country is so broad now that everyone knows one or many people who have had it. They share stories. Some are short bouts. Others last a week or longer. Nearly everyone shakes it off. Some people die from it, particularly the elderly and infirm. And this universal tactile experience has also given rise not so much to another round of panic – that is certainly there – but exhaustion and the great question: when will all this end?

It ends, as the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration said, with the arrival of population immunity. In this sense, it is like every pandemic that has come before. They swept through the population and those who recover have lasting immunity to the pathogen and probably others in the same family. This happens with or without a vaccine. It is this upgrade of the immune system that provides the way out. 

And yet even now, millions of people have not been made aware of the payoff to confronting the virus. They have been denied hope that it ever will end. They simply do not know. The authorities have not told them. Yes, you can find out if you are curious and read competent opinion on the topic. Maybe your doctor has shared that view. 

But when you have the leading voices in public health seeming to go out of their way to pretend that natural immunity does not exist, you are going to throttle that knowledge in the general population. The immunity passports do not recognize it. The people who are fired despite having demonstrated robust immunities know this all-too-well. 

Of all the scandals and outrages of the last two years – the incredible failings of public officials and the silence of so many people who should have known better – the strange silence on acquired immunity is among the worst. It has a medical cost but also a huge cultural and psychological one. 

This is not just an arcane matter of science. It is a main means by which the population can see the other side of the pandemic. For all the fear, suffering, and death, there is still hope on the other side, and we can know this because of our awareness of how the immune system works. 

Take that away and you take away the possibility of the human mind to imagine a bright future. You promote despair. You create a permanent state of fear. You rob people of optimism. You create dependency and promote sadness. 

No one can live this way. And we do not have to. If we know for sure that all this suffering was not for naught, the universe and its functioning seem a bit less chaotic and appears to make a greater degree of sense. We cannot live in a pathogen-free world but we can confront this world with intelligence, courage, and conviction that we can get to the other side and live even better than we did before. We do not need to give up freedom. 

The people who denied us this knowledge, this confidence, have engaged in a cruel game with human psychology. What makes it worse is that they knew better. Fauci, Walensky, Birx, and all the rest, have the training and the knowledge. They are not unaware.

Perhaps Gates’s ignorance is understandable but the rest of these people have actual medical training.

They have always known the truth. 

Why have they done this to us? To sell vaccines? To elicit compliance? To reduce us all to fearful subjects who are easier to control?

I’m not sure we know the answers. It’s possible that natural immunity came to be seen by these technocrats as too primitive, too rudimentary, insufficiently technocratic, to be allowed as part of the conversation. 

Regardless, it is a scandal and a tragedy with an enormous human cost. It will be generations before we see a full recovery. 

That recovery can begin at least with awareness. You can examine all the studies and see for yourself how this goes. We are now up to 141 studies that demonstrate robust immunities after recovery, a much better form of immunity than can be induced from these vaccines. We should be happy for the studies but they should not have been necessary. We should have known based on prevailing science for these sorts of pathogens. 

We currently confront a tragic morass. Cases are at an all-time high. There is a growing realization that nothing has worked. The loss of trust is palpable. More people now know that everyone will get this thing. There is no more hiding, no more success in “being careful,” no option but to get out there and take a risk with this thing. But what bolsters one’s confidence that doing so is worth it? The realization that you will be stronger as a result. 

Take away the knowledge of natural immunity, and thus the realization that there can be a better life on the other side of sickness, and you leave people with existential emptiness and a lasting sense of despair. No one can live that way. No one should have to. 

Authored by Brian Cloughley via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Nobody in their right mind would advocate what is called ‘first use’ of nuclear weapons.

‘Nuclear winter’ is defined in Britannica as “the environmental devastation that certain scientists contend would probably result from the hundreds of nuclear explosions in a nuclear war.” One immediately direct effect of such a conflict would be to block out the sun’s rays, which would lead to “a massive death toll from starvation, exposure, and disease. A nuclear war could thus reduce the Earth’s human population to a fraction of its previous numbers.” There have been innumerable portrayals of what would happen in a nuclear-devastated world of which the most evocative are the film Threads, made in 1984, depicting the ghastly aftermath in the United Kingdom, and the U.S. ABC television movie The Day After, of the previous year, which was even more horrifying, even though there was a lot of censorship before it was permitted to be shown.

It is only too apparent that a nuclear war would be catastrophic — and also that a nuclear exchange would be encouraged, indeed initiated, by the country that first fired or otherwise despatched one of these systems. No nuclear-armed country could accept nuclear devastation in its own lands without retaliating in force. The conclusion is that nobody in their right mind would advocate what is called ‘first use’ of nuclear weapons.

So step forward U.S. legislator, Senator Roger Wicker, who was reported as declaring that if there were conflict between Russia and Ukraine then the U.S. would have to be involved to the extent that this “could mean American troops on the ground.” And taking a massive leap backwards for mankind the senator declared on Fox News on December 8 that in the event of engagement against Russia “we don’t rule out first use nuclear action.”

The U.S. mainstream media, including The New York Times and the Washington Post did not publish the senator’s remarks, or make the slightest reference to them, which was unfortunate because his “no first use” statement is of enormous importance, especially because he used the word “we” in his public declaration of national policy. The senator is a member of the Armed Services Committee which according to its website has jurisdiction over “Aeronautical and space activities peculiar to or primarily associated with the development of weapons systems or military operations… Common Defence… Department of Defence, the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, and the Department of the Air Force, generally.” These are most important responsibilities, and it is therefore assumed that his proclamation has basis in policy to which he is privy.

The only (fairly) prominent American political figure to criticise the senator was former member of Congress Tulsi Gabbard who declared that Wicker’s statement “exposes exactly how dumb, insane, and sadistic he and other like-minded warmongers are,” which, while undeniably apposite, received no wide cover. And while it is realised that President Biden has many problems with which to deal at the moment, it is reprehensible that he has not said a word in refutation of Wicker’s insane proclamation concerning national nuclear policy.

It seems that Senator Wicker has not read what his President has said about the undesirability of nuclear war, as recorded in the “U.S.-Russia Presidential Statement on Strategic Stability” of June 16 which included the agreement that “Today, we reaffirm the principle that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. Consistent with these goals, the United States and Russia will embark together on an integrated bilateral Strategic Stability Dialogue in the near future that will be deliberate and robust. Through this Dialogue, we seek to lay the groundwork for future arms control and risk reduction measures.”

Direct contradiction of the U.S. President by a U.S. senator concerning national policy on nuclear war is beyond disconcerting : it is alarming to the point that clarification is urgently required. The Congressional Research Service recorded that “In his press briefing following the summit, President Biden noted that this dialogue would allow diplomats “to work on a mechanism that can lead to control of new and dangerous and sophisticated weapons that are coming on the scene now that reduce the times of response, that raise the prospects of accidental war.” Presumably following Presidential guidance, the 2021 ‘Nuclear Posture Review’ commissioned by the Pentagon makes it clear that there will be examination of “how the United States can take steps to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in its national security strategy while ensuring the strategic deterrent remains safe, secure and effective and that the extended deterrence commitments to its allies remain strong and credible.”

This might have been taken as a small step towards the beginning of another approach to arms reduction, had it not been that Colin H. Kahl, the undersecretary of defence for policy, fenced off the route when he stated that “We also see that the role that nuclear weapons play in Russia’s doctrine is quite elevated in the sense that, I think, Russia sees much higher utility for nuclear weapons than any other state.” Which is a strange pronouncement from a nation that, as noted on December 9, is “developing a totally new $100 billion missile, known as the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent.”

Kahl did not equivocate about the Pentagon’s approach to U.S. nuclear policy when he explained that “especially important to the FY 2023 budget” will be “decisions the department makes about modernizing and replacing the aging systems of the nuclear triad, which includes ground-launched, submarine-launched and air-launched nuclear weapons. Modernization also involves new submarines, such as the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines; new intercontinental ballistic missiles as part of the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent program; and new bomber aircraft, such as the B-21 Raider.”

In spite of President Biden and President Putin agreeing in June that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought” it is apparent that the Pentagon is at best paying lip-service to their joint declaration. And this prompted the observation by President Putin on December 23 that “The United States is standing with missiles on our doorstep. Is it an excessive requirement not to install shock systems at our house? How would the Americans react if missiles were placed at the border with Canada or Mexico?”

We can imagine what Senator Wicker would advocate in such circumstances, but it is reassuring to know that there are some adult voices in the political games arena of the U.S. legislature, with Senator Ed Markey, for example, bringing a note of sanity by saying in a speech that “The United States has a moral responsibility to make the world safe from nuclear weapons. As Congress debates Defence Department spending, our budgets must reflect our values. It’s time to bolster climate funding, not our nuclear arsenal. President Biden should stick to his own instincts in reducing nuclear weapons risks, not follow the recklessness of the military industrial complex that was a cheerleader of the Cold War arms race and endless wars in the Middle East . . .”

The first things that President Biden should do is remove U.S.-Nato nuclear weapons and their support infrastructure from the bases on Russia’s doorstep, while concurrently indicating publicly to Senator Wicker that such action is consistent with national defence policy. The Pentagon must be made to understand that its desired upgrading of the nuclear triad is an indicator of intent to expand the existing U.S. nuclear threat to Russia and China and that this is massively counter-productive. Remove the missiles and the threat of nuclear winter will be eliminated. That would be a good New Year present to mankind.

How do you represent yourself on social media? For most people it’s a selfie, a photo with their friends, or a picture of their pet—but what about a digitally-created character?

As Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu details below, profile picture NFTs are pieces of digital artwork that people use to express themselves online. Each item is a depiction of a character’s face, and has a unique mix of attributes that gives it a sense of collectability.

Like other NFTs, they’re secured on a blockchain and can be bought and sold for cryptocurrency. And while there’s nothing to stop you from screenshotting an NFT and using it for your own profile, the market for these items continues to grow.

To learn more, this infographic explains how three well-known profile picture NFT collections were created.

CryptoPunks

CryptoPunks are commonly regarded as one of the first examples of NFTs. The collection consists of 10,000 unique “punks” and was released in 2017 by Larva Labs.

One interesting fact is that these NFTs were originally given out for free—today, they are worth thousands or millions of dollars each. According to OpenSea, one of the largest NFT marketplaces, CryptoPunk #3100 was sold for 4,200 Ethereum (roughly $7.6 million) in March 2021.

A large component of #3100’s perceived value is its blue alien skin, which only eight other punks have. In other words, it’s incredibly rare. The following table shows the species distribution of the CryptoPunks collection.

In addition to species, each punk features a unique mix of facial accessories or “attributes”. Examples include a big beard (found in only 146 punks), and a VR headset (found in 332 punks).

Bored Ape Yacht Club

Next is the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), another collection of 10,000 unique profile picture NFTs. Unlike CryptoPunks, BAYC NFTs show both the head and torso of a character (in this case, an ape).

This opens up many combinations of clothing items, facial features, and accessories. Altogether, there are seven categories of attributes: Background color, Clothes, Earring, Eyes, Fur, Hat, and Mouth.

The following table lists some examples of BAYC attributes, and their % rarity. To explore further, visit the BAYC gallery.

 

BAYC NFTs also grant access to members-only benefits. This includes access to a collaborative graffiti board, as well as other NFTs from spin-off collections like the Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC). As its name suggests, the BAKC is a collection of dogs, rather than apes.

 

Cool Cats NFT

The last collection is Cool Cats NFT, which again amounts to 10,000 images. Cool Cats were minted at a cost of 0.06 Ethereum each, or roughly $200. The act of “minting” an NFT is similar to when metal coins are entered into circulation.

Each Cool Cat NFT is a depiction of a cartoon cat with a varying number of facial features, hats, and shirts. Altogether, there are over 300,000 possible options that could be included.

This collection also features nine “hidden” cats which boast one-off features. #500 is an upside down cat floating in a blue sky background, while #2288 is simply a skeleton.

Building Your Identity in the Metaverse

A criticism of today’s social media is that there’s little room to express yourself.

Think back, for a moment, to the days of MySpace. Users could spend hours customizing their profile page, adding music, art, and whatever else they felt was an expression of themselves. As the platform’s name implied, it was a space that belonged to you.

The metaverse offers something similar. To take part in a virtual universe, you need an avatar—a digital manifestation of yourself. Avatars will be highly customizable and far less constrained by the limitations of the real world.

If you’re having trouble imagining this, check out VR Chat, a virtual reality game where players socialize as aliens, monsters, and other “interesting” beings.

This may help to explain the recent craze around profile picture NFTs. When the metaverse arrives, these NFTs could become a user’s avatar. After all, who wouldn’t want to have blue alien skin?

Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times,

Launching assaults on the battlefield with a mere thought. Enhancing the human brain to create “super warriors.” Disrupting the minds of enemies to make them submit to the controller’s command.

Once believed to only exist in sci-fi movies, the weaponization of the brain has been discussed by Chinese military officials for years. And Beijing is spending billions each year on neuroscience that could draw these scenarios ever closer to reality.

“The study into brain science was born out of a vision for how the future warfare would evolve,” Li Peng, a medical researcher at a subsidiary of China’s state-run Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS), wrote in an article in 2017.

Such research, he added, has “an extremely strong military characteristic” and is crucial to securing a “strategic high ground” for every country.

Li was not alone in stressing the urgency in militarizing brain science.

In March, a Chinese military-run newspaper described cloud-powered artificial intelligence (AI) “integrating human and machine” as the key to winning wars. With the accelerating “intelligentization” of the military, it warned, China needs to quickly get a firm footing in this technology, and any delay “could lead to unimaginable consequences.”

‘Qualitative’ Advantage

According to research papers and articles in military newspapers, Chinese military officials see four areas where innovations in brain science could be weaponized.

“Brain emulation” refers to the development of high-intelligence robots that function like humans. “Brain control” is the integration of humans with machines into one, allowing soldiers to perform tasks ordinarily impossible to them. “Superbrain” involves the use of electromagnetic radiation, such as infrasonic waves or ultrasound, to stimulate human brains and activate the brain’s latent potential. The fourth, termed “controlling the brain,” is about applying advanced technology to interfere with—and manipulate—how people think.

Two faculty members with the military-affiliated Army Medical University in a 2018 paper discussed their state-funded project researching a piece of biotechnology dubbed “psycho-virus.” Applied in the military, such psychological weapon could help develop “super warriors” who are “loyal, brave, and strategic;” in wars, the psycho-virus could “manipulate the consciousness of the enemies, crush their will, and interfere with their emotions to make them submit to the will of our side,” the authors said.

Brain scientists may also aid the recovery of handicapped soldiers and systematically elevate the health protection of military personnel, according to a 2019 article on PLA Daily, the official newspaper for the Chinese military, known as the People’s Liberation Army.

While the Chinese Communist Party has been dedicated for years to “getting ahead of the biotechnology arms race,” the evolution of frontier technologies has brought added urgency, according to Sam Kessler, geopolitical adviser at North Star Support Group, a multinational risk management company.

The “improbable futuristic technology that had been dreamed up in the past has now become more realistic in real-time,” he wrote in a note to The Epoch Times. “This creates little room for error as a potential loss of dominance of such technology could potentially lead to the weakening of strategic barriers if left unchecked.”

A University of Florida student uses a brain-controlled interface headset to fly a drone during a mind-controlled drone race in Gainesville, Fla., on April 16, 2016. (Jason Dearen/AP Photo)

Concerned about Chinese activities in biotechnology, the United States in December blacklisted China’s AMMS—the country’s top medical research institute run by the Chinese military—and its 11 affiliated biotechnology research institutes, accusing them of developing “purported brain-control weaponry” to further the Chinese military.

The Chinese regime did not comment on this aspect of the U.S. blacklisting.

Weeks before the move, the Commerce Department’s Industry and Security Bureau solicited public comments about a proposed rule to ban the export of brain-computer interface (BCI) technology, an emerging field that seeks to enable humans to directly communicate with an external device with just their thoughts.

Such technology would provide a “qualitative military or intelligence advantage” for U.S. adversaries, such as by “enhancing the capabilities of human soldiers, including collaboration for improved decision making, assisted-human operations, and advanced manned and unmanned military operations,” the Commerce Department said.

‘A Matter of China’s Future’

The United States has been at the forefront in the field of brain technology, with the world’s largest number of research papers published on the subject.

In April, Elon Musk’s neurotechnology startup Neuralink released a video showing a monkey playing computer games through a chip inserted in its brain. Synchron, a Silicon Valley developer of implantable neural interface technology, last week released seven tweets it said were sent wirelessly by an immobilized Australian patient who had received the company’s chip implant, known as Stentrode. The National Institutes of Health granted Synchron $10 million last July to help launch its first U.S. human trial.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA, has also researched BCI for military applications, such as an “Avatar” project that aimed to create a semi-autonomous machine to act as the soldier’s surrogate.

A young woman watches a man, wearing an EEG brain scanning apparatus on his head, play a pinball game solely through willing the paddles to react with his brain at the Berlin Brain Computer Interface research consortium stand at the CeBIT Technology Fair in Hannover, Germany, on March 2, 2010. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Beijing, closely tracking the developments in America, has demonstrated itself unwilling to stay behind. In January 2020, three months before Synchron began its first trial, eastern China’s Zhejiang University had completed testing of a brain implant on a 72-year-old paralyzed patient. Using his brainwaves, the patient could direct a robotic arm to perform handshakes, fetch drinks, and play a classic Chinese board game: Mahjong.

Over the past six years, Beijing has come to see progress on brain-related research as “a matter of China’s future,” according to Chinese media reports.

The country’s leading national scientific institution, the state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), has poured around 60 billion yuan ($9.4 billion) annually into efforts to map out brain functions, its website shows. In September, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology opened up applications for research into the field, with an additional 3 billion yuan (about $471 million) allocated for 59 research streams.

The role of brain science has been significant enough that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has named it as a priority field of emerging technology significant for the country’s national security, and for making China a central hub for world’s cutting-edge scientific innovations.

“China is closer than in any time of history to the goal of rejuvenating the Chinese nation, and we need more than any time in history to build a world science and technology superpower,” he told CAS scholars in a 2018 speech.

Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers line up during military training at Pamir Mountains in Kashgar, China, on Jan. 4, 2021. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Military ‘High Ground’

The Chinese regime is racing to close the gap with the United States in harnessing the power from this emerging technology.

In terms of the volume of published papers on brain technology, China is second only to America, Zhou Jie, a senior engineer with state-run scientific research institute China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, said at a recent forum on BCI. That number grew at a pace of 41 percent over the period of 2016 to 2020, more than double the global average of 19 percent, according to a May report co-written by a Beijing-based AI robot manufacturer and a think tank advising Beijing on big data and AI.

The stack of Chinese innovations on BCI has appeared to keep pace with the growing enthusiasm.

AMMS, the Chinese military academy under U.S. sanctions, has been at the forefront of neuroscience research. Inventions from the AMMS and its affiliates since 2018 include various nerve signals collection devices, miniature skull implants, a remote monitoring system for restoring damaged nerves, and wearable augmented reality glasses designed for enhancing robot control, according to open depository of patent applications.

In 2019, the Institute of Military Medicine under AMMS created a brain-controlled unmanned aerial vehicle. To move the vehicle forward, an operator puts on an electrode cap and imagines moving their right hand. Thinking about feet movement would instruct the machine to descend.

The AMMS’ National Defence Science and Technology Innovation Research Institute in 2021 acquired a patent for using virtual reality for spacecraft docking. The device interprets the astronaut’s brain and limb activities and converts them into orders to adjust the aircraft’s position in real-time.

Cho Yu NG of Hong Kong competes during the wheelchair race in Kloten, Zurich at the Cybathlon Championship, the first edition of an international competition organized by ETH Zurich for physically impaired athletes using bionic assistive technology, such as robotic prostheses, brain-computer interfaces and powered exoskeletons, on Oct. 8, 2016. (Michael Buholzer/AFP via Getty Images)

While a sizable portion of innovations in BCI and other fields of brain technology has potential medical use, some may also be leveraged for military purposes.

One Chinese university previously touted unmanned combat via thought-controlled robots as a “high ground” in AI that China “must race to control.”

“Witness more miracles with Chinese characteristics in strengthening the army,” proclaimed the National University of Defense Technology, a military academy that supplies talent for China’s armed forces, as it showed off a list of brain-controlled devices produced by the university, including a wheelchair and a car that could travel roughly 9.3 miles per hour “on any road.”

“Together, let’s change the world with our ‘minds,’” the school declared in a post on its website last November.

Calls for Self Reliance

The Commerce Department’s blocking rules may hinder or delay Beijing in its path of advancing biotech and brain-related technologies but are unlikely to slow it down, according to Grant Newsham, a senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy and a retired U.S. Marine Colonel.

“[T]he Chinese will simply maneuver a bit, change some names, and keep going full-speed ahead on these efforts to weaponize biotech,” he told The Epoch Times.

But the sanctions serve a useful purpose at home: “making it impossible for Americans (and others) who want to invest in and partner with the Chinese organizations to claim they ‘didn’t know’ what the Chinese were doing—or to argue that ‘it isn’t prohibited,’” he added.

Meanwhile, Chinese researchers have been focused on achieving self-sufficiency in this area.

In 2019, a research team at Tianjin University in northern China unveiled a “Brain Talker” chip, which linked to the brain through an electrode cap, that could decode a user’s mind intent and translate it into computer commands in under two seconds.

The 21st century is called the century of information technology. (The Epoch Times illustration)

Fudan University, an elite public institution in Shanghai, in January presented a remote BCI chip that can be recharged wirelessly from outside the body, avoiding potential damage to the brain. The chip consumes only a tenth of the power of its Western counterparts and costs half as much, Chinese state media reported at the time.

The term “self-developed” was prominently featured in both team’s announcements and media reports.

Tao Hu, associate director at CAS’ Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, said China has the potential to lead the world in the field of BCI.

“China is not lagging behind foreign countries in terms of the design aspects for core BCI gear,” he wrote in a June article published on Chinese state media. He called on the country to step up resource allocation to accelerate BCI development, given the risk that the United States might block BCI exports to China.

Ethical Risks

China has a unique advantage to help it gain a leg up in the race: its vast bank of non-human primates, according to Poo Mu-ming, a key figure spearheading China’s brain research at CAS.

China has been the world’s top supplier for test monkeys but stopped shipping them once the pandemic began. Poo, who in 2008 switched from mice to monkeys as the test animal at his neuroscience institute at CAS, had long wanted to utilize the country’s test animal resources to boost China’s brain research standing, according to state media reports.

His team in 2017 cloned the world’s first pair of monkeys using the same method that produced Dolly the Sheep—a crucial step forward for China’s brain-related research. With the same cloning technology, Chinese scientists could mass produce, and experiment on, identical monkeys, eliminating interferences to experiments resulting from individual differences in test animals, Poo told Science Times, a newspaper under CAS last October.

Five cloned macaques at a research institution in Shanghai are shown in a picture taken on Nov. 27, 2018 and released on January 24, 2019 by the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Neuroscience. Chinese scientists said the five monkeys were cloned from a single animal that was genetically engineered to have a sleep disorder, saying it could aid research into human psychological problems. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

The AMMS has also proposed studies into building a database for an “aggressive consciousness control weapon” that targets specific spiritual or ethnic groups.

Such a project was first mentioned as early as 2012 by the Institute of Radiation Medicine under AMMS. The database aimed to establish a collection of images and videos that could trigger aggressive behavior. Its proposed targets include “spiritual leaders, organizations and extreme religious groups who share the common belief, and ethnic groups who share similar traits in locations and lifestyle habits.”

China’s more lenient ethical bar compared to the West has provided it with more leeway to gain a foothold with their BCI-related experiments that would “greatly empower them and streamline their innovations,” according to Kessler.

​​In China, such experiments have “less red tape preventing them from using questionable testing practices,” he told The Epoch Times. “That makes all the difference in a world where one’s edge in technology and intelligence can depend greatly on how they manage their ability to stay ahead of the curve.”

Asked by a journal he oversaw if BCI technologies may one day “enslave” humans, Poo appeared undisturbed.

“If we have the confidence that our society will be able to develop mechanisms to control the use of technologies for our benefits, then we need not worry about AI,” he told the National Science Review, a peer-reviewed journal under the auspices of CAS, in 2017.

“Since the 1950s, many people have been worrying about the build-up of nuclear bombs and thought that we will soon be destroyed by a nuclear holocaust. But we still live quite well now, aren’t we?” he added.

Arabica coffee futures are about to register their largest annual gain in a quarter-century due to a global deficit. 

Arabica coffee futures jumped 78% to about $2.30 per pound in New York this year, putting it on track for the best year since 1994. 

“Severe weather in Brazil, the world’s largest arabica supplier, decimated coffee plantations, contributing to a global shortage just as demand for the high-end variety of beans expanded. That coincided with supply chain bottlenecks including container shortages and longer shipping times,” Bloomberg explained. 

We first documented the tightening of global supplies on Mar. 25 in a commodity note titled “”Nightmare” Of Factors Pushing World Into Coffee Deficit.” Since then, the situation has become even more severe.  

So what does this mean for the wallets of US consumers?

According to a recent Barclays note, US importers like Starbucks are hedged out for more than a year to deal with price fluctuations. Though JM. Smucker, which owns the Folgers and Dunkin’ coffee brands, recently warned that supply chain disruptions are rising costs that will impact its business.

It’s only a matter of time before coffee inflation strikes consumers in 2022. 

Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“Tyranny does not flourish because perpetuators are helpless and ignorant of their actions. It flourishes because they actively identify with those who promote vicious acts as virtuous.”

– An academic study into pathocracy

Disgruntled mobs. Martial law. A populace under house arrest. A techno-corporate state wielding its power to immobilize huge swaths of the country. A Constitution in tatters.

Between the riots, lockdowns, political theater, and COVID-19 mandates, 2021 was one for the history books.

In our ongoing pursuit of life, liberty and happiness, here were some of the stumbling blocks that kept us fettered:

Riots, martial law and the Deep State’s coup. A simmering pot of political tensions boiled over on January 6, 2021, when protesters stormed the Capitol because the jailer of their choice didn’t get chosen to knock heads for another four years. It took no time at all for the nation’s capital to be placed under a military lockdown, online speech forums restricted, and individuals with subversive or controversial viewpoints ferreted out, investigated, shamed and/or shunned. The subsequent military occupation of the nation’s capital by 25,000 troops as part of the so-called “peaceful” transfer of power from one administration to the next was little more than martial law disguised as national security. The January 6 attempt to storm the Capitol by so-called insurrectionists created the perfect crisis for the Deep State—a.k.a. the Police State a.k.a. the Military Industrial Complex a.k.a. the Techno-Corporate State a.k.a. the Surveillance State—to swoop in and take control.

The imperial president. All of the imperial powers amassed by Donald Trump, Barack Obama and George W. Bush—to kill American citizens without due process, to detain suspects indefinitely, to strip Americans of their citizenship rights, to carry out mass surveillance on Americans without probable cause, to suspend laws during wartime, to disregard laws with which he might disagree, to conduct secret wars and convene secret courts, to sanction torture, to sidestep the legislatures and courts with executive orders and signing statements, to direct the military to operate beyond the reach of the law, to act as a dictator and a tyrant, above the law and beyond any real accountability—were inherited by Joe Biden, the nation’s 46th president.

The Surveillance State. On any given day, the average American going about his daily business was monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears. In such a surveillance ecosystem, we’re all suspects and databits to be tracked, catalogued and targeted. Consider that it took days, if not hours or minutes, for the FBI to begin the process of identifying, tracking and rounding up those suspected of being part of the Capitol riots. Imagine how quickly government agents could target and round up any segment of society they wanted to based on the digital trails and digital footprints we leave behind.

Digital tyranny. In response to the events of Jan. 6, the tech giants meted out their own version of social justice by way of digital tyranny and corporate censorship. Suddenly, individuals, including those who had no ties to the Capitol riots, began to experience lock outs, suspensions and even deletions of their social media accounts. It signaled a turning point in the battle for control over digital speech, one that leaves “we the people” on the losing end of the bargain.

A new war on terror. “Domestic terrorism,” used interchangeably with “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist,” to describe anyone who might fall somewhere on a very broad spectrum of viewpoints that could be considered “dangerous,” became the new poster child for expanding the government’s powers at the expense of civil liberties. As part of his inaugural address, President Biden pledged to wage war on so-called political extremism, ushering in what investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald described as “a wave of new domestic police powers and rhetoric in the name of fighting ‘terrorism’ that are carbon copies of many of the worst excesses of the first War on Terror that began nearly twenty years ago.” The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American an extremist in word, deed, thought or by association.

Government violence. The death penalty may have been abolished in Virginia in 2021, but government-sanctioned murder and mayhem continued unabated, with the U.S. government acting as judge, jury and executioner over a populace that had already been pre-judged and found guilty, stripped of their rights, and left to suffer at the hands of government agents trained to respond with the utmost degree of violence. Police particularly posed a risk to anyone undergoing a mental health crisis or with special needs whose disabilities may not be immediately apparent.

Culture wars. Political correctness gave way to a more insidious form of group think and mob rule which, coupled with government and corporate censors and a cancel culture determined not to offend “certain” viewpoints, was all too willing to eradicate views that do not conform. Critical race theory also moved to the forefront of the culture wars.

Home invasions. Government agents routinely violated the Fourth Amendment at will under the pretext of public health and safety. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the many ways the government and its corporate partners-in-crime used surveillance technology to invade homes: with wiretaps, thermal imaging, surveillance cameras, and other monitoring devices. However, in a rare move, the Supreme Court put its foot down in two cases—Caniglia v. Strom and Lange v. California—to prevent police from carrying out warrantless home invasions in order to seize lawfully-owned guns under the pretext of their so-called “community caretaking” duties and from entering homes without warrants under the guise of being in “hot pursuit” of someone they suspect may have committed a crime.

Bodily integrity. Caught in the crosshairs of a showdown between the rights of the individual and the so-called “emergency” state, concerns about COVID-19 mandates and bodily integrity remained part of a much larger debate over the ongoing power struggle between the citizenry and the government over our property “interest” in our bodies. This debate over bodily integrity covered broad territory, ranging from abortion and forced vaccinations to biometric surveillance and basic healthcare. Forced vaccinations, forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws, forced breath-alcohol tests, forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, forced inclusion in biometric databases: these were just a few ways in which Americans continued to be reminded that we have no control over what happens to our bodies during an encounter with government officials.

COVID-19. What started out as an apparent effort to prevent a novel coronavirus from sickening the nation (and the world) became yet another means by which world governments (including our own) expanded their powers, abused their authority, and further oppressed their constituents. Now that the government has gotten a taste for flexing its police state powers by way of a bevy of lockdowns, mandates, restrictions, contact tracing programs, heightened surveillance, censorship, overcriminalization, etc., it remains to be seen how the rights of the individual will hold up in the face of long-term COVID-19 authoritarianism.

Financial tyranny. The national debt (the amount the federal government has borrowed over the years and must pay back) exceeded $29 trillion and is growing. That translates to almost $230,000 per taxpayer. The amount this country owes is now greater than its gross domestic product (all the products and services produced in one year by labor and property supplied by the citizens). That debt is also growing exponentially: it is expected to be twice the size of the U.S. economy by 2051. Meanwhile, the government continued to spend taxpayer money it didn’t have on programs it couldn’t afford; businesses shuttered for lack of customers, resources and employees; and consumers continued to encounter global supply chain shortages (and skyrocketing prices) on everything from computer chips and cars to construction materials.

Global Deep State. Owing in large part to the U.S. government’s deep-seated and, in many cases, top-secret alliances with foreign nations and global corporations, it became increasingly obvious that we had entered into a new world order—a global world order—made up of international government agencies and corporations. We’ve been inching closer to this global world order for the past several decades, but COVID-19, which saw governmental and corporate interests become even more closely intertwined, shifted this transformation into high gear. Fascism became a global menace.

20 years of crises. Every crisis—manufactured or otherwise—since the nation’s early beginnings has become a make-work opportunity for the government to expand its reach and its power at taxpayer expense while limiting our freedoms at every turn: The Great Depression. The World Wars. The 9/11 terror attacks. The COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, the government’s (mis)management of various states of emergency in the past 20 years from 9/11 to COVID-19 has spawned a massive security-industrial complex the likes of which have never been seen before.

The state of our nation. There may have been a new guy in charge this year, but for the most part, nothing changed. The nation remained politically polarized, controlled by forces beyond the purview of the average American, and rapidly moving the nation away from its freedom foundation. Over the past year, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans found themselves repeatedly subjected to egregious civil liberties violations, invasive surveillance, martial law, lockdowns, political correctness, erosions of free speech, strip searches, police shootings of unarmed citizens, government spying, the criminalization of lawful activities, warmongering, etc.

In other words, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the more things changed, the more they stayed the same.