As far as the whole mind-to-computer thing I totally agree.
The name of the game, for me at least, when it comes to this type of thing is continuity of consciousness. Without that you are nothing more than a copy of another person, not the person themselves. That said, if there were to be a very, very slow process where your natural neurons are replaced by artificial ones, with both types working together seamlessly, THEN I’d be first in line.
The future looks bright, except when it doesn’t. Here are 10 exceptionally regrettable developments we can expect in the coming decades.
Listed in no particular order.
1. Virtually anyone will be able to create their own pandemic
Earlier this year, Oxford’s Global Priorities Project compiled a list of catastrophes that could kill off 10 percent or more of the human population. High on the list was a deliberately engineered pandemic, and the authors warned that it could happen in as few as five years.
“Amaranth, Amaranto, love-lies-bleeding, tassel flower, Joseph’s coat, or ramdana (gods own grain) is the grain of well-being,” Shiva writes. (Photo: Elizabeth Weller/flickr/cc)
A recent report from the National Academy of Science of The United States, titled “Gene Drives on the Horizon: Advancing Science, Navigating Uncertainty, and Aligning Research with Public Values,” warns:
“One possible goal of release of a gene-drive modified organism is to cause the extinction of the target species or a drastic reduction in its abundance.”
Its painful to bear views that make many think I’m an imbicile and dislike me. So please, if anybody has a rational argument why any of this is wrong, I beg to be enlightened. I’ve set up a diagram for the purpose that will support you to add your criticism exactly where it is pertinent. https://tssciencecollaboration.com/graphtree/Are%20Vaccines%20Safe/406/4083
(1) The National Academy’s Reviews Of Vaccine Safety The Institute of Medicine of the National Academies has provided several multi-hundred page surveys studying the safety of vaccines, but rather than reassuring, these itemize some iatrogenic conditions being caused, and pronounce the scientific literature inadequate to say whether most others are. The 2011 Institute of Medicine (IOM) Review[1] looked at 146 vaccine-condition pairs for causality, reporting:
14 for which the evidence is said to convincingly support causality, the vaccine is causing the condition.
4 where the evidence is said to favor acceptance.
5 where the evidence is said to favor rejection, including MMR causing autism.
123 where the evidence is said insufficient to evaluate.
The 2003 IOM Review on multiple vaccines said[2]: “The committee was unable to address the concern that repeated exposure of a susceptible child to multiple immunizations over the developmental period may also produce atypical or non-specific immune or nervous system injury that could lead to severe disability or death (Fisher, 2001). There are no epidemiological studies that address this.” and: “the committee concludes that the epidemiological and clinical evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between multiple immunization and an increased risk of allergic disease, particularly asthma.”
None of the IOM Safety Reviews[1][2][3][4] addressed the aluminum (for example whether the aluminum is causing autism), or mentioned contaminants, or discussed animal models although they had concluded as just quoted there is generally no epidemiological or clinical data worth preferring.
(2) The Aluminum. Alum was added to vaccines back in the 1920’s, with no test of parenteral toxicity until recently[5], because it prods the immature immune system out of its normal operating range.[6] Maybe they figured aluminum is common in the environment, but injection bypasses half a dozen evolved sequential filters that normally keep it out of circulatory flow during development. Vaccines put hundreds of times as much aluminum into infants’ blood as they would otherwise get, and in an unnatural form that is hard for the body to remove.[7][8 (cfsec 4.2)][9]. The published empirical results indicate its highly toxic.
Bishop et al in NEJM 97 reported a Randomized Placebo Controlled(RPC) test on preemies.[10][11] Scaling the toxicity they measured to the 4000 mcg in the first six months projects the vaccine series’ aluminum as costing each recipient maybe 15 IQ points and bone density.[12]
Animal RPC experiments also show highly toxic[13][14][15][16]
The applicable epidemiology suggests its highly toxic.[8][18][19][20][21][22] Discussed more in point 8 below, basically every study that compares more to less finds less much better.
Numerous clinical publications, whole special issues, on ASIA (Autoimmune Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants)[23][24][25]
Any “placebo” controlled test I’ve ever found of an adjuvanted vaccine, the “placebo” contained an adjuvant.
Safety reviews ignore the issue. Search the pdfs. [1][2][3][4]
The FDA[26] cites a theory paper[27] that compares a published MRL based on dietary experiments in weaned rodents (thus completely uninformed about toxicity in early development) to a theoretical model of blood aluminum levels from the vaccines, and disdains all the above cited empirical evidence.
(3) The Safety Studies Ignore Confounding Patient Behavior Since there are no Randomized Placebo Controlled (RPC) trials supporting vaccines, virtually all studies report on the association (or lack thereof) between vaccines and some iatrogenic condition. But parents who believe vaccines made their kids sick, stop vaccinating them, which systematically moves sick or vaccine damaged kids in the studies into the “low vaccine”, “low thimerisol”, or etc. bin. This invalidates most studies supporting safety (and the few remaining ones suck for other reasons). Numerous studies report incredible preventative effects for vaccines, presumably because of this corruption, like having more thimerisol or more MMR’s is strongly preventative of autism and other mental development issues[28][29][30], or like having more vaccines was strongly preventative of atopy, apparently even years before patients got the vaccines[31]. The fact this confounding factor is overlooked demonstrates extreme confirmation bias and is the defining factor of Cargo Cult Science according to R.P. Feynman.[32]
(4) The Animal Models Animal models reliably and repeatably show in RPC tests (a) that vaccines at the wrong time in development damage the adult brain or behavior [33][34] and (b) that multiple vaccines cause autoimmune disease even in animals bred to be non-autoimmune[35][36]. The effects are said to be robust, and as we’ve already seen there isn’t good human data rebutting them.
(5) The Contaminants Studies have repeatedly found contaminants such as viruses, retroviruses, circoviruses, and human DNA in vaccines seemingly whenever tested, and I’ve found no reason to believe off the shelf vaccines are free[37][38][39][40][41]. Reported contaminants have included SV-40 in polio vaccines which were administered even though scientists knew the vaccines were contaminated and already had hunches and experiments indicating SV-40 causes cancer[41][42]. Chimpanzee Coryza Virus became known in humans as RSV and has killed many millions of infants and hospitalizes 100,000/yr in America today[43]. Contaminated polio vaccine is plausibly also the origin of HIV[44][41]. There are discovered viral contaminants in vaccines today[38][39], with unknown long term effects, as well as I expect many undiscovered contaminants.
(6) Studies Ask Whether Some One Vaccine Damages, and Thus Miss That Many Do. Virtually every study not reporting damage compares kids who got numerous vaccines to kids who got numerous vaccines. Such studies wouldn’t show statistically significant results no matter how much damage the vaccines are doing, unless one vaccine or vector by itself is doing comparable or more damage than the rest put together. The studies more or less test the hypothesis one vaccine is invisibly damaging, the rest are fine, and the studies are all obscured in the presence of multiple problems, much less the kind of timing and interaction effects observed in animal models. The one study[45] often touted as proving “The Risk of Autism is Not Increased by ‘Too Many Vaccines Too Soon’”[46] in fact compares patients based on antigens, and since DTP had more than 3000 antigens and no other vaccine common among the study patients had more than a handful, effectively compared patients who’d had DTP and dozens of vaccines to patients who did not have DTP (many had DTaP instead) and dozens of vaccines. The only counterexamples to this I’ve found are contrived in bizarre ways to avoid reality, such as the study that withheld the 2 month vaccines till 3 months from a group of kids, and asked the mothers, who were terrified enough a bunch insisted on changing back to the early vaccination group, to record symptoms with no doctor even consulted, identifying the placebo effect as vaccine prevention of diseases. The authors wrote it would have been unethical to give a placebo at 2 months to the kids getting the vaccine at 3 months, in order to do the experiment blind, but apparently consider it ethical to inject dozens of vaccines into your kids with zero placebo controlled testing.[47] [48]
(7) The Extensive Evidence Indicating Flu Vaccines Damage Immune Systems, Particularly in Children.
“So there came a time in which the ideas, although accumulated very slowly, were all accumulations not only of practical and useful things, but great accumulations of all types of prejudices, and strange and odd beliefs. Then a way of avoiding the disease was discovered. This is to doubt that what is being passed from the past is in fact true, and to try to find out ab initio again from experience what the situation is, rather than trusting the experience of the past in the form in which it is passed down. And that is what science is: the result of the discovery that it is worthwhile rechecking by new direct experience, and not necessarily trusting the [human] race[’s] experience from the past. I see it that way. That is my best definition…Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.“ –Richard P Feynman, What is Science? (1968)[1]
TruthSift.com is a platform designed to support and guide individuals or crowds to rationality, and make them smarter collectively than any unaided individual or group. (Free) Members use TruthSift to establish what can be established, refute what can’t be, and to transparently publish the demonstrations. Anyone can browse the demonstrations and learn what is actually known and how it was established. If they have a rational objection, they can post it and have it answered.
Whether in scientific fields such as climate change or medical practice, or within the corporate world or political or government debate, or on day to day factual questions, humanity hasn’t had a good method for establishing rational truth. You can see this from consequences we often fail to perceive: Peer reviewed surveys agree: A landslide majority of medical practice is *not* supported by science [2,3,4]. Scientists are often confused about the established facts in their own field [5]. Within fields like climate science and vaccines, that badly desire consensus, no true consensus can be reached because skeptics raise issues that the majority brush aside without an established answer (exactly what Le Bon warned of more than 100 years ago[6]). Widely consulted sources like Wikipedia are reported to be largely paid propaganda on many important subjects [7], or the most popular answer rather than an established one [8]. Quora shows you the most popular individual answer, generated with little or no collaboration, and often there is little documentation of why you should believe it. Existing systems for crowd sourced wisdom largely compound group think, rather than addressing it. Existing websites for fact checking give you someone’s point of view.
Corporate or government planning is no better. Within large organizations, where there is inevitably systemic motivation to not pass bad news up, leadership needs active measures to avoid becoming clueless as to the real problems [9]. Corporate or government plans are subject to group think, or takeover by employee or other interests competing with the mission. Individuals who perceive mistakes have no recourse capable of rationally pursuading the majority, and may anyway be discouraged from speaking up by various consequences[6].
TruthSift is designed to solve all these problems. TruthSift realizes in your browser the Platonic ideal of the scientific literature, but TruthSift applies it to everything, and makes it tangible and lightweight, extended to a much lower hurdle for publishing. On a public TruthSift diagram, members (or on a Private diagram, members you have invited), who believe they can prove or refute a statement, can post their proof or refutation exactly where it is relevant. TruthSift logically propagates the consequences of each contribution, graphically displaying how it impacts the establishment status of all the others, drawing statements established by the combined efforts in thick borders, and statements refuted in thin. Statements are considered established only when they have an established demonstration, one with every posted challenge refuted. Fig 1: An example topic. The topic statement n0 is currently refuted, because its only proof is refuted. The statement menu is shown open in position to add a proof to this proof. The topic statement is gold, pro statements are blue, con statements are red. Proof connectors are black, challenges red, remarks purple, assumptions (not shown) blue. Statements show the title. On the actual Topic the body can be seen by selecting the statement and “View Statement” or hovering the mouse. What is a proof? According to the first definition at Dictionary.com a proof is: “evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth.” In mathematics, a proof is equivalent to a proof tree that starts at axioms, or previously established results, which the participants agree to stipulate, and proceeds by a series of steps that are individually unchallengeable. Each such step logically combines several conclusions previously established and/or axioms. The proof tree proceeds in this way until it establishes the stated proved conclusion. Mathematicians often raise objections to steps of the proof, but if it is subsequently established that all such objections are invalid, or if a workaround is found around the problem, the proof is accepted.
The Scientific literature works very similarly. Each paper adds some novel argument or evidence that previous work is true or is not true or extends it to establish new results. When people run out of valid, novel reasons why something is proved or is not proved, what remains is an established theory, or a refutation of it or of all its offered proofs.
Fig 2: The view focused on the topic statement of a Topic diagramming the discussion in: Galileo’s: Dialogues Concerning the Two Chief World Views. The black triangle indicates other incoming edges not shown. For complex diagrams, it is often best to walk around in focused view centered on each statement in turn.
TruthSift is a platform for diagramming this process and applying it to any statements members care to propose to establish or refute. One may state a topic and add a proof tree for it, which is drawn as a diagram with every step and connection explicit. Members may state a demonstration of some conclusion they want to prove, building from some statements they assert are self-evident or that reference some authority they think trustworthy, and then building useful intermediate results that rationally follow from the assumptions, and building on until reaching the stated conclusion. If somebody thinks they find a hole in a proof at any step, or thinks one of the original assumptions need further proof, they can challenge it, explaining the problem they see. Then the writer of the proof (or others if its in collaboration mode) may edit the proof to fix the problem, or make clearer the explanation if they feel the challenger was simply mistaken, and may counter-challenge the challenge explaining that it had been resolved or mistaken. This can go on recursively, with someone pointing out a hole in the proof used by the counter-challenger that the challenge was invalid. On TruthSift the whole argument is laid out graphically and essentially block-chained, which should prevent the kind of edit-wars that happen for controversial topics on Wikipedia. Each challenge or post should state a novel reason, and when the rational arguments are exhausted, as in mathematics, what remains is either a proof of the conclusion or a refutation of it or all of its proofs.
As statements are added to a diagram, TruthSift keeps track of what is established and what refuted, drawing established statements’ borders and their outgoing connectors thick, and refuted statements’ borders and their outgoing connectors thin so viewers can instantly tell what is currently established and what refuted. TruthSift computes this by a simple algorithm that starts at statements with no incoming assumptions, challenges, or proofs, which are thus unchallenged as assertions that prove themselves, are self evident, or appeal to an authority everybody trusts. These are considered established. Then it walks up the diagram rating statements after all their parents have been rated. A statement will be established if all its assumptions are, none of its challenges are, and if it has proofs, at least one is established. (We support challenges requesting a proof be added to a statement which neither has one added nor adequately proves itself.) Otherwise, that is if a statement has an established challenge, or has refuted assumptions, or all of its proofs are refuted, it is refuted.
To understand why a statement is established or refuted, center focus on it, so that you see it and its parents in the diagram. If it is refuted, either there is an established challenge of it, or one of its assumptions is refuted, or all of its proofs are. If it is not refuted, it is established. Work your way backward up the diagram, centering on each statement in turn, and examine the reasons why it is established or refuted.
Fig 3: An example topic.
Effective contribution to TruthSift diagrams involves mental effort. This is both a hurdle and a feature. TruthSift teaches Critical Thinking. First you think about your Topic Statement. How actually should you specify Vaccine Safety or Climate Change, so it covers what you want to establish or refute, and so it is amenable to rational discussion? There is no place you could go to see that well specified now, and can you properly assure it without properly specifying it? Next you think about the arguments for your topic statement, and those against it, and those against the arguments for, and those for the arguments for, and the arguments against the arguments against, and so on until everybody runs out of arguments, when what is left is a concise rational analysis of what is established and why. The debate is settled point by point. The process naturally subdivides the field into sub-topics where different expertise’s come into play, promoting true collective wisdom and understanding.
For TruthSift to work properly, posters will have to respect the guidelines and post only proof or challenge statements that they believe rationally prove or refute their target and are novel to the diagram (or also novel additional evidence as assumptions or remarks or tests, which are alternative connector types). Posts violating the guidelines may be flagged and removed, and consistent violators as well. Posts don’t have to be correct, that’s what challenges are for, but they have to be honest attempts, not spam or ad hominem attacks. Don’t get hung up on whether a statement should be added as a proof or an assumption of another. Frequently you want to assemble arguments for a proposition stating something like “the preponderance of the evidence indicates X”, and these arguments are not individually necessary for X, nor are they individually proofs of X. It is safe to simply add them as proofs. They are not necessary assumptions, and if not enough of them are established, the target may be challenged on that basis. The goal is a diagram that transparently explains a proof and what is wrong with all the objections people have found plausible.
For cases where members disagree on underlying assumptions or basic principles, stipulation is available. If one or more statements are stipulated, statements are shown as conditionally true if established based on the stipulations and as conditionally false if refuted based on the stipulations. The challenges to the stipulation are also shown. TruthSift supports reasoning from different fundamental assumptions, but requires being explicit about it when challenged. Probability mode supports the intuitive construction of probabilistic models, and evaluates the probability of each statement in the topic marginalizing over all the parameters in the topic. With a little practice these allow folding in various connections and evidence. These could be used for collaborative, verified, risk models; to support proofs with additional confidence tests; to reason about hidden causes; or many other novel applications
Fig 4: Detail from a topic showing an established conclusion some may find surprising. Please Rebut it if you can. Dashed edges represent citation into the literature. Title is shown for each statement, on actual topic select “View Statement” to see body.
Basic Membership is free. In addition to public diagrams, debating the big public issues, private diagrams are available for personal or organizational planning or to exclude noise from your debate. Private diagrams have editing and/or viewing by invitation only. Come try it. http://TruthSift.com
TruthSift’s mission is to enable publication of a transparent exposition of human knowledge, so that anyone may readily determine what is truth and what fiction, what can be established by valid Demonstration and what can’t, and so that anyone can read and understand that Demonstration. We intend the process of creating this exposition to lead to vastly increased understanding and improved critical thinking skills amongst our members and beyond. We hope to support collaborative human intelligences greater than any intelligence previously achieved on the planet, both in the public domain and for members’ private use.
Friends have been asking me to write something on space exploration and my campaign policy on it, so here it is just out on TechCrunch:
When people think about rocket ships and space exploration, they often imagine traveling across the Milky Way, landing on mysterious planets and even meeting alien life forms.
In reality, humans’ drive to get off Planet Earth has led to tremendous technological advances in our mundane daily lives — ones we use right here at home on terra firma.
I recently walked through Boston’s Logan International Airport; a NASA display reminded me that GPS navigation, anti-icing systems, memory foam and LED lights were all originally created for space travel. Other inventions NASA science has created include the pacemaker, scratch-resistant lenses and the solar panel.
ACTON, Australia, May 16 (UPI) — Researchers in Australia recently found a collection of spherules, evidence of a massive asteroid that struck Earth as it was still forming.
Spherules are tiny glass beads formed from material vaporized in the intense heat of an asteroid impact. They were found in northwestern Australia by a team of geologists led by Andrew Glikson of the Australian National University.
The glass beads were found scattered among ancient ocean sediments dated to the middle of the Archean Eon — 3.46 billion years ago. The spread of the spherules deposit suggests the impact would have left a crater between 12 and 18 miles in diameter.
My new Vice Motherboard article on environmentalism and why going green isn’t enough. Only radical technology can restore the world to a pristine condition—and that requires politicians not afraid of the future:
I’m worried that conservatives like Cruz will try to stop new technologies that will change our battle in combating a degrading Earth
But there are people who can save the endangered species on the planet. And they will soon dramatically change the nature of animal protection. Those people may have little to do with wildlife, but their genetics work holds the answer to stable animal population levels in the wild. In as little as five years, we may begin stocking endangered wildlife in places where poachers have hunted animals to extinction. We’ll do this like we stock trout streams in America. Why spend resources in a losing battle to save endangered wildlife from being poached when you can spend the same amount to boost animal population levels ten-fold? Maye even 100-fold. This type of thinking is especially important in our oceans, which we’ve bloody well fished to near death.
As a US Presidential candidate who believes that all problems can be solved by science, I believe the best way to fix all of our environmental dilemmas is via technological innovation—not attempting to reverse our carbon footprint, recycle more, or go green.
