We visited the UCLA Architecture and Urban Design (A.UD) department to meet the architects of tomorrow.
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Somewhere, in the deepest reaches of the cosmos, far from the safe confines of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, lies a monster. Slowly, inevitably, it is pulling. Over the course of billions of years, it draws us and everything near us closer to it. The only force that acts over such immense distance scales and through cosmic periods of time is gravity, so whatever it is, it’s massive and unrelenting.
We call it the Great Attractor, and until recently, its true nature has been a complete mystery. Note that it’s still a mystery, just not a complete one.
The Great Attractor was first discovered in the 1970s when astronomers made detailed maps of the Cosmic Microwave Background (the light left over from the early universe), and noticed that it was slightly (and “slightly” here means less than one one-hundredth of a degree Fahrenheit) warmer on one side of the Milky Way than the other — implying that the galaxy was moving through space at the brisk clip of about 370 miles per second (600 km/s).
Even though astronomers could measure the rapid velocity, they couldn’t explain its origin.
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The following is a selection of points of interest to futurism and forecasts of the political future from the recent Mont Order Conference of July 2016:
The following is a selection of points of interest to futurism and forecasts of the political future from the recent STATEMENT 1: NEW SECRET WIKI CREATED
The Mont Order’s secret wiki created via PBworks holds information on the origin and literature of the Mont Order as well as our current structure, ranks and members. Members will be invited via email and will be able to contribute pages or post comments and questions on this literature. The public will not have access to it.
STATEMENT 3: FRIENDS OF THE MONT ORDER GROUP IS EFFECTIVE
The Friends of the Mont Order group created by Raincoaster at Facebook has seen a surprising growth in membership. Our hope is that it will reach a point where members can confidently post to the group and a minimal amount of admin involvement is needed. Due to the continued growth in its membership and the high amount of activity there, the group can be deemed a success so far.
STATEMENT 8: ON ANTI-ISLAM MEDIA AND POLICIES IN EUROPE AND THE US
“Integration”, humiliation of Muslims by the state, and blaming Islam for violence are non-answers to terrorist threats. These steps will only deepen tensions and extremist views on all sides in European countries, where terrorist incidents have occurred. We have noted that incidents in Europe are beginning to resemble a more American pattern of “mass shootings” but similar tragedies have curiously not been occurring in the UK. In addition, editorial policies of Western media clearly follow a pattern of only describing attacks as “terrorist” after an attacker is described to be a Muslim.
POLL ALSO TAKING PLACE
(Vote Here) From a MONT member: “All funding of religious groups by non-citizens should be banned” (expanded: “Religions should be treated the same way as political parties”). Justified by the way Saudi Arabia uses mosque financing to spread its political power and extremism particularly in Europe. Might also bring states and authorities to account for spreading extremism rather than blaming communities. Might also allow Muslim communities to take control of their own future rather than taking orders from foreign clerics. Should this be advocated as law? (NOTE: The UK already bans political parties from getting foreign funds. What is being advocated in the UK context is only that religious groups be also added to these lists of groups. In the context of other countries, they would copy the above element of UK law and then add the religious groups to the lists.)
The Mont Order, often just called Mont, is an information society of writers and networks based in different countries who collaborate to broaden their influence. To date, this has been achieved mainly through the internet.
The Mont Order has held online audio conferences since February 2015.
Shared website: lordre.net
Shared Twitter timeline: @MontOrder
Subscribe to updates from this society: feeds.feedburner.com/lordre/tajQ
Regenerative Dental Fillings
Posted in biotech/medical
My new story for The Daily Dot. Also, cool future tech to help the nonreligious get the message out:
Of the thousands of protesters at the Republican and Democratic conventions, one of the most noticeable groups were the born-again Christians. But this year—perhaps for the first time at national conventions—they were met with resistance from organized atheist and transhumanist protesters clashing against them.
With approximately a dozen atheists and transhumanists, my group of supporters engaged the Christians and campaigned in front of them. Sometimes wearing Transhumanist Party t-shirts and holding posters, we argued with them, blocked press from getting good pictures of them, and generally promoted to the public the power of reason over faith.
Other protesters, often fans of Bernie Sanders, joined our cause and helped protest against them. One of my favorites was an LGBT supporter holding up a sign with a penis drawing on it and the words “I love sinning” emblazoned just below it.
National Geographic’s scripted/unscripted hybrid series Mars gives viewers both a real and dramatized quest to colonize the planet. The combination present-day documentary and scripted look at the future is what director Everard Gout described as a process in which “one hand fits in the other in terms of the knowledge and in terms of the emotion.” “It’s electrical” he added, “because you have that level of truthfulness on the documentary side but you also have an equal amount of beauty and truthfulness on the scripted side. It’s a very visceral experience.”
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