The Singularity Movement, Immortality, and Removing the Ghost in the Machine

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post 

For those who may regard movies such as The Matrix and Ghost in the Shell as mere science fiction, picking up the latest issue of TIME just might shake up these assumptions a bit. Entitled 2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal,  the cover illustration for the February 21 edition portrays a human with a shaved head plugged into the Internet – literally.  On the back of this person’s head is an embedded terminal plug for the purpose of connecting with the Internet; the same as Neo in The Matrix or any one of the “cyberized” characters in Ghost in the Shell.

Enter the “Singularity” movement. As defined by TIME, singularity means, “The moment when technological change becomes so rapid and profound, it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history.”  This definition will no doubt be an accurate one if Singularitarians (as they are deemed by TIME) have their way.

Although Lev Grossman’s article is mostly a regurgitatingly obnoxious form of worship of one of the more active frontmen for Transhumanism, Raymond Kurzweil, the article does reveal some extraordinary information. Namely, that there are very powerful and wealthy individuals whose goal it is to see the merging of man and machine, and the complete transformation of humanity into something much different than it currently is.

Of course this, in and of itself, is not major news. What’s news is that they are becoming so open about it. Indeed, many researchers such as Alan Watt, Alex Jones , and David Icke (and many others) have been pointing this out for years. However, while they have been derided as crazy conspiracy theorists, it’s not likely that TIME will receive the same treatment. TIME has functioned as a mouthpiece for the eugenics elite for well over seventy years. Thus, it appears the magazine is once again assuming its role in the introduction of the “new man” to the old one. It is now time for the unwashed masses to accept brainchips, cyberization, and the biological reconstruction envisioned by the elite since at least as far back as the time of Plato.

The subject of TIME’s admiration this time around, Raymond Kurzweil, does not deny that humans, as we currently know ourselves, will cease to exist with the introduction of his Singularity technology. On the contrary, Grossman writes:

When that (the introduction of superintelligent computers) happens, humanity – our bodies, our minds, our civilization – will be completely and irreversibly transformed. He (Kurzweil) believes that this moment is not only inevitable but imminent. According to his calculations, the end of human civilization as we know it is about 35 years away.

Grossman continues:

Maybe we’ll merge with them to become superintelligent cyborgs, using computers to extend our intellectual abilities the same way that cars and planes extend our physical abilities. Maybe the artificial intelligences will help us treat the effects of old age and prolong our life indefinitely. Maybe we’ll scan our consciousnesses into computers and live inside them as software, forever, virtually. Maybe the computers will turn on humanity and annihilate us. The one thing all these theories have in common is the transformation of our species into something that is no longer recognizable as such to humanity circa 2011. This transformation has a name: Singularity.

There is little doubt that a great many of those children raised on television, video games, and the Internet will embrace such technology with open arms as adults. Already, online communities, various apps, and social networking sites have begun to supplant the real world in the minds of many. It would not likely take much prodding to convince at least the first few pioneers to, as Grossman puts it, “take the iPhones out of our hands and put them into our skulls.”

With the recent introduction of Cloud technology, the creation of an ethereal Internet reality that operates and exists completely as a world of its own is not hard to imagine. Coupled with the introduction and increased promotion of various forms of brainchips, all that really might be necessary is an effective computer program and a willing population. The program no doubt already exists. Unfortunately, it seems only a matter before the population follows suit.

It is interesting to note a report by Richard Norton-Taylor entitled Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future, published in the Guardian in 2007. In this article, Norton-Taylor relays the findings of a 90-page report released by a British Ministry of Defence team tasked with future “strategic context” that the British military might face in the future. This is, at least, is the cover story for the report.

Regardless of the reason for the report, Norton-Taylor writes:

By 2035, an implantable “information chip” could be wired directly to the brain. A growing pervasiveness of information communications technology will enable states, terrorists or criminals, to mobilize “flashmobs,” challenging security forces to match this potential agility coupled with an ability to concentrate forces quickly in a small area.

Yet, if the idea of merging with the Internet is not frightening enough, consider the distinct possibility that maybe, just maybe, this technology is not meant to merely make your life easier and advance scientific discovery. Consider also that it might be more than a voluntary distraction on the level of television and video games. At least not in the long run.

As researcher and radio show host Alan Watt remarks:

It has many purposes but one of them was never to free the people, it would be used as an incredible tool of data-collection and using, like television and repetition of different topics, or the same topics or phrases again, it would be used to condition the public into their opinions, until, really, they’d be addicted to it, they could never do without it. That’s the intent, because you will go cashless eventually and it will be used as a form of social approval and disapproval, if they cut you off from the net: you won’t be able to do your banking, get money to pay your rent etc. Bertrand Russell talked about this sort of technique to be used in the future and it’s coming now. ‘Cloud’ will come in and that will take over and be THE one for the planet and everyone will rush into it thinking ‘my God I don’t have to worry about spy ware or viruses or upgrades, it’s all done for me, out there somewhere in the big “cloud.” And the Cloud, eventually, will be censoring your emails and actually popping up windows to tell you “are you sure you want to use this word, this politically incorrect word in this email?” Then it might give you a little list of fines or punishments etc. etc. This is all planned folks, that’s how you do it. Source

There is no doubt that this technology has been planned for quite a long time. Indeed, the Singularity movement has some very interesting backers. The Singularity University, a three-year-old institution that offers inter-disciplinary courses for both executives and graduate students, is hosted by NASA , a notorious front for secretive projects conducted by the government and the military-industrial complex. Not only that, but Google, which is yet another corporate front for intelligence agencies, was a founding sponsor of the University as well.

Besides the Singularity University, there is also the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence co-founded by Raymond Kurzweil, which is located in San Francisco and hosts the Singularity Summit every year. The Institute also counts among one of its “advisers” Peter Thiel, a former CEO of Paypal as well as an early investor in Facebook, a corporation whose links to the CIA are almost as plentiful as Google.

Even Bill Gates, another notorious elitist with intelligence ties, (plus a member of the lucky genes club ) has publicly praised Kurzweil as being “the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence.”

Gates’ admiration and support of Kurzweil and his projects is quite significant. And it should also raise serious questions as to why individuals such as Bill Gates would champion technologies that extend life when he, of all people, is so concerned with “overpopulation.” Would life extension technology not itself contribute to a larger population? Gates’ support makes absolutely no sense unless one understands that this technology has not been invented to extend life, at least not for the vast majority of people.

Such connections between the Singularity movement and the military-industrial complex/intelligence agencies, etc. should immediately raise concerns among the general public. Odds are, however, that they won’t.

But cashless societies and government spying are only the tip of the iceberg when one discusses the Singularity movement. The real reason for the introduction of brainchips and the merging of man with machine has more to do with eugenics than anything else.

Grossman writes as much in his article for TIME when he refers to the sessions of the Singularity Summit. Here, he mentions that these sessions “also cover the galloping progress of, among other fields, genetics and nanotechnology.” But this should come as no surprise.

It is inevitable that “Brain-Machine Interfaces” ultimately lead back to both the Transhumanist and Eugenics movements. Putting aside the moral issues of these movements and even, for a moment, the question of whether or not choice is involved on the part of the public, the fact is that there is no desire to truly “improve” humanity. The ultimate goal of eugenicists is to create a population just smart enough to do the jobs they are assigned, but dumb enough not to question the authorities that force them to do these jobs.

The goal of the eugenicist is summed up quite well by Frederick T. Gates in The Country School of Tomorrow,where he writes:

In our dream, we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our moulding hand. The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or of science. We are not to raise up from among them authors, orators, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians. Nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from them lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply.

Also, as a London School of Economics evolution proponent Oliver Curry stated, “The human race will one day split into two separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures.”

It is high time that those who watch the developments such as “Brain-Machine Interfacing,” “Singularity Movements,” and “Cloud Technology” with open mouths and excitement realize that this technology is not meant to enhance their quality of life or increase their fun, it is meant to control and distort them.

As the RAND Corporation itself wrote in its 2001 report, The Global Technology Revolution: Bio/Nano/Materials Trends and Their Synergies with Information Technology by 2015:

The results could astonishing. Effects may include significant improvements in human quality of life and life span . . .  continued globalization, reshuffling of wealth, cultural amalgamation or invasion with potential for increased tension and conflict, shifts in power from nation states to non-governmental organizations and individuals . . . and the possibility of human eugenics and cloning. [emphasis added]