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My new article from Vice Motherboard on liberty and privacy. This is one of my most ambitious philosophical works yet: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjx5y5/liberty-mi…th-privacy #Libertarian


If tech is surveilling us constantly, we need the ability to use it to watch the watchers.

Zoltan Istvan is a futurist, transhumanist, author of The Transhumanist Wager, and a Libertarian candidate for California Governor.

The constant onslaught of new technology is making our lives more public and trackable than ever, which understandably scares a lot of people. Part of the dilemma is how we interpret the right to privacy using centuries-old ideals handed down to us by our forbearers. I think the 21st century idea of privacy—like so many other taken-for-granted concepts—may need a revamp.

When James Madison wrote the Fourth Amendment—which helped legally establish US privacy ideals and protection from unreasonable search and seizure—he surely wasn’t imagining Elon Musk’s neural lace, artificial intelligence, the internet, or virtual reality. Madison wanted to make sure government couldn’t antagonize its citizens and overstep its governmental authority, as monarchies and the Church had done for centuries in Europe.

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Facial paralysis suffered by thousands of Britons is being treated by pioneering NHS specialists with virtual-reality computer game-style technology.

The therapy could be used to help patients who find it too traumatic to look at their own ‘changed’ reflections after the paralysis.

The virtual-reality (VR) goggles encourage sufferers to carry out the regular facial exercises needed to regain muscle function – with the wearer watching an avatar’s face doing the exercises rather than their own.

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The world’s first laser communication link … from the Moon!

A laser communications terminal on a private firm’s upcoming mission to the Moon has been announced during this week’s Paris Air Show.

Astrobotic of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and ATLAS Space Operations Inc. of Traverse City, Michigan are now linked at the laser – offering up to one gigabit per second of data to its customers.

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“The future of gamification is nearly here with virtual and augmented reality features and the addition of artificial intelligence. These elements can personalize the experience and continually increase the challenge involved to keep the audience hooked. “ https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2017/06/22/how-to-add-ga…8cd53b5b3b

My mission statement is to push the boundries of the new tech tools that we are being given in the UX/ UI and prototyping design fields. This week I have been experimenting with Augemented and Virtual Reality. During the Summer Solstice I visited the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs and tested out a few augemented reality offerings using augmented reality dinosaurs to complement the existing dinosaur scenery and built the following website to include my examples and also to showcase A-Frame and Sketchfab which will be producing VR within websites which will be used for e-commerce and online shopping soon.

https://bcgallie.wixsite.com/jurassicpalace

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Ray Kurzweil is an inventor, thinker, and futurist famous for forecasting the pace of technology and predicting the world of tomorrow.

In this video, Kurzweil predicts when he thinks we’ll get programmable matter—or the ability to manipulate everyday objects at the atomic level—and what that means not just for the things around you, but for you as a person.

According to Kurzweil, beginning with virtual reality in the digital realm and moving into the physical with programmable matter, people will make themselves into avatars of other people, or even each other.

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A new article on #transhumanism and religion that’s worth reading:


Transhumanists are a group of people who prefer using science and technology to improve the human life. According to Zoltan Istvan, a declared atheists and key leader in the transhumanists movement, “Transhumanism is not a competition. It is simply a mode of being that embraces evolving the human being with science, reason and technology.”

The recent development in the transhumanism movement has seen the colonization of a few groups of religious people, who call themselves religious transhumanists. This group advocates using science, technology and religion to improve the human being. According to Zoltan, in the 21st Century, the formal religion will soon have no choice but to evolve and blend with the advancement in science and technology. Invention of churches in virtual reality, Robot pastors saving Artificial Intelligence through Christ’s redemption and even a Jesus Singularity are all soon going to be an important pillar in the religious movement and America’s future in general.

Although some religious conservatives are now rebuking Christian transhumanists and seeing them as pretenders, and renowned conservative writers like Wesley J. Smith are making jokes about it, the truth is that even the Bible advocates for the improvement of the human being. According to Zoltan, the only thing that lacks in the biblical narrative is that although it largely foreshadows the future, this future does not anticipate the merging of humans with machines, Transhumanist technologies, telepathy, ectogenesis, robotic hearts, brain implants, post-genderism, or artificial super intelligence.

As echoed by Zoltan, most transhumanists, including him, believe in reason. Accoring to them, living on faith, like most followers of Abrahamic religions and others do, is accepting to live vulnerably without the control of one’s life. Yet the society is quickly being transformed by science and technology, and Christians and other religious humans will soon be compelled to embrace this fact.

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