New York Times rehashes “we’re all in a sim” story

2007 August 19

tags: AI, Alternate reality, Augmented reality, Depopulation, Euthanasia, Internet, Journalism, Media, News, Science, Transhumanism, Virtual reality, Wearable computing

by Mark Baard

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No mention of connections to science and technology cult, Yale University

Back to the Future: Oxford University professor Nick Bostrum’s friends and Transhumanist cohorts, Natasha Vita-More and Max More, yuck it up with Star Trek star William Shatner. (Photo: Natasha Vita-More’s website.) Note: Vita-More (see her comments, below), states that I do not have her permission to use this image. I consider my use of the image “fair use” under the U.S. Copyright Act, however.

The New Times is continuing its drumbeat for Transhumanism, even where it fails to mention the science and technology cult by name.

Times science columnist John Tierney in an August 14 story (link and excerpt, below) suggests that we are already living in the Matrix.

This is exactly the same story the Times reported over four years ago.

But the Matrix idea (that we are all living in a computer simulation) may be more timely now, given the media hype surrounding virtual worlds such as Second Life.

The most striking thing about this story, however, is that Tierney fails to mention that his subject, Nick Bostrum, is the leader of the modern Transhumanist movement, which aims to replace traditional religions with a belief system based solely upon science and technology.

Bostrum, director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, founded the World Transhumanist Association in 1998. He has also worked as a consultant to the CIA and the European Commission.

Transhumanists say they want to make humans smarter, stronger–and eternal–by incorporating computer technology into our physical bodies, ala the Borg in Star Trek. Many ethicists question whether all humans will be able to share in these so-called improvements.

Bostrum’s religious cohorts include Natasha Vita-More and Max More, both promoters of the transhumanist concept being, Primo, a souped-up human with a digitally enhanced brain–one with an implanted “error correction device.” Vita-More lists the late LSD advocate and alleged CIA operative Timothy Leary amongst her supporters.

Times columnist John Tierney’s connections to Bostrum and the Transhumanists are also interesting, and they all center on Yale University.

Tierney attended Yale University with the author and Skull & Bones member Christopher Buckley. (The two have collaborated on two books since the late 1990s.) Buckley this year published a satiric novel, Boomsday, about a plan to euthanize older adults.

Before becoming the head of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, Bostrum was a lecturer at Yale, which in 2003 hosted a Transhumanism conference.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Yale connection is that the “ethicists” deciding whether humans should be brain-chipped are leading the effort to make it happen.

Bostrum’s World Transhumanist Association, based in Willington, Connecticut, about an hour’s drive from Yale, in New Haven. Its executive director is James “J.” Hughes, a member of the Working Group on Ethics and Technology at (you guessed it) Yale University.

(Via Red Ice Creations)

clipped from www.nytimes.com

Until I talked to Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, it never occurred to me that our universe might be somebody else’s hobby. I hadn’t imagined that the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the heavens and earth could be an advanced version of a guy who spends his weekends building model railroads or overseeing video-game worlds like the Sims.

But now it seems quite possible. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom’s, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation.This simulation would be similar to the one in “The Matrix,” in which most humans don’t realize that their lives and their world are just illusions created in their brains while their bodies are suspended in vats of liquid. But in Dr. Bostrom’s notion of reality, you wouldn’t even have a body made of flesh. Your brain would exist only as a network of computer circuits.

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No Responses

2007 August 19

Stephan Hartmann permalink

Hello Mark, interesting article. Did you know that Hughes has his own radio called changesurfer-radio?
I stumbled upon it, when I did listen to chrtistian-conspiracy-buff “tom horn”. There are some scary but interesting shows to listen to on changesurfer. Its worth a look.

Keep up the good work…

Best Wishes
Stephan Hartmann
2007 August 22

Drew permalink

And if we live in a matrix, then what of 9-11? Was it ‘his’ doing, in which case we could retaliate by destroying his ’sets’ in the middle east. Was 9-11 a rebellion by modern-day ‘fallen angels’? Or hackers from another part of ‘heaven’? Transhumanism doesn’t seem that far from meccanization to me. If we can pin 9-11 on them, so be it.
2007 August 25

Adalbert Vitriolos permalink

Here i sat and thought NYTimes was a serious publication and not something that wanted to attract housewifes and newage hippies.
2007 September 2

Jurgen permalink

The NYTimes is serious about NWO propaganda like this.

The goal: Anyone suggesting that elite scum manipulates reality perception for us sheeple will be auto-associated with silly “sim” concepts, and dismissed subliminally.

But also, that implants to manage your perceptions will not be very deviant since, mathematically, we could be living in a sim, theoretically, according to Oxford! Ergo, the upcoming brain chips are not all that bad.

Most propaganda works like this, on more than one level. “It’s too silly!” but always the lingering “…could it be?”

Actually in a sense we *do* live in a sim, namely, the NWO computer simulations of our behavioral responses on a mass and individual level. They run sims all the time and to get data points, shock-impulse the herd with various trigger events. You can start with “Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars.”

The NWO has other plans for implants than improving people. The manherd will be implanted with docility devices.

Now the TH thing. It really feels like a CIA front group a la UFOs. Making TH sound desirable blinds sheeple to the real goals of cyborg research. Probably most of the TH themselves are blinded that way. Delided promoters of something that will be used against them and us.

Like the CIA-massaged UFO groups prepping public mindshare on alien reality, so the phony alien invasion plot that Werner von Braun warned about comes off as planned, and people don’t say “what a fabulous Hollywood spectacular!” but rather “we’re being invaded please world government save us!”

Some TH hide under “nanotechnology” — a buzzword getting lots of funding. So they don’t apply for funding as TH projects, but NT projects.
2007 September 23

Natasha Vita-More permalink

First, you do not have permission to use this image. Second, your article has many, many erroneous statements.

One inportant fact you neglect to mention is that Max More is the “father” of modern transhumanism. He is the philosopher who wrote the philosophy of transhumanism back in the late 1980s as a philosophy which is quite different from a religion. He also developed the particular transhumanist philosophy of Extropy.

Can’t you get your kicks off of caffine rather than spreading misinformation?
2008 August 23

Septhaka permalink

Natasha Vita-More’s response here is her typical fare. She is more concerned trying to establish some sort of celebrity for herself and her husband than anything else. Max More is certainly not the “father” of modern transhumanism nor is “FM-2030″. And Natasha’s “extropic art” or whatever you want to call it is nothing more than amateurish digital painting and photo manipulation. Read the Extropy mailing lists – you’ll see her more focused on claiming this or that rather than contributing to substantive discussion. And look at her quotes and websites – full of convoluted prose trying desperately to hide the lack of real value to her endeavors. Go get some more plastic surgery.