By Carey Wedler

On Monday, President Trump tweeted birthday wishes to the Air Force and the CIA. Both became official organizations 70 years ago on September 18, 1947, with the implementation of the National Security Act of 1947.

After spending years as a wartime intelligence agency called the Office of Strategic Services, the agency was solidified as a key player in the federal government’s operations with then-President Harry Truman’s authorization.

In the seventy years since, the CIA has committed a wide variety of misdeeds, crimes, coups, and violence. Here are seven of the worst programs they’ve carried out (that are known to the public):

1 – Toppling governments around the world — The CIA is best known for its first coup, Operation Ajax, in 1953, in which it ousted the democratically elected leader of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, reinstating the autocratic Shah, who favored western oil interests. That operation, which the CIA now admits to waging with British intelligence, ultimately resulted in the 1979 revolution and subsequent U.S. hostage crisis. Relations between the U.S. and Iran remain strained to this day, aptly described by the CIA-coined term “blowback.”

But the CIA has had a hand in toppling a number of other democratically elected governments, from Guatemala (1954) and the Congo (1960) to the Dominican Republic (1961), South Vietnam (1963), Brazil (1964), and Chile (1973). The CIA has aimed to install leaders who appease American interests, often empowering oppressive, violent dictators. This is only a partial list of countries where the CIA covertly attempted to exploit and manipulate sovereign nations’ governments.

2 – Operation Paperclip — In one of the more bizarre CIA plots, the agency and other government departments employed Nazi scientists both within and outside the United States to gain an advantage over the Soviets. As summarized by NPR:

The aim [of Operation Paperclip] was to find and preserve German weapons, including biological and chemical agents, but American scientific intelligence officers quickly realized the weapons themselves were not enough.

They decided the United States needed to bring the Nazi scientists themselves to the U.S. Thus began a mission to recruit top Nazi doctors, physicists and chemists — including Wernher von Braun, who went on to design the rockets that took man to the moon.

They kept this plot secret, though they admitted to it upon the release of Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists To America by Annie Jacobsen. In a book review, the CIA wrote that “Henry Wallace, former vice president and secretary of commerce, believed the scientists’ ideas could launch new civilian industries and produce jobs.”

They praised the book’s historical accuracy, noting “that the Launch Operations Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, was headed by Kurt Debus, an ardent Nazi.” They acknowledged that “General Reinhard Gehlen, former head of Nazi intelligence operations against the Soviets, was hired by the US Army and later by the CIA to operate 600 ex-Nazi agents in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany.”

Remarkably, they noted that Jacobsen “understandably questions the morality of the decision to hire Nazi SS scientists,” but praise her for pointing out that it was done to fight Soviets. They also made sure to add that the Soviets hired Nazis, too, apparently justifying their own questionable actions by citing their most loathed enemy.

3 – Operation CHAOS — The FBI is widely known for its COINTELPRO schemes to undermine communist movements in the 1950s and anti-war, civil rights, and black power movements in the 1960s, but the CIA has not been implicated nearly as deeply because, technically, the CIA cannot legally engage in domestic spying. But that was of little concern to President Lyndon B. Johnson as opposition to the Vietnam war grew. According to former New York Times journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winner Tim Weiner, as documented in his extensive CIA history, Legacy of Ashes, Johnson instructed then-CIA Director Richard Helms to break the law:

Helms obeyed. Weiner wrote:

In a blatant violation of his powers under the law, the director of central intelligence became a part-time secret police chief. The CIA undertook a domestic surveillance operation, code-named Chaos. It went on for almost seven years… Eleven CIA officers grew long hair, learned the jargon of the New Left, and went off to infiltrate peace groups in the United States and Europe.

4 – Infiltrating the media — Over the years, the CIA has successfully gained influence in the news media, as well as popular media like film and television. Its influence over the news began almost immediately after the agency was formed. As Weiner explained, CIA Director Allen Dulles established firm ties with newspapers:

He continued:

The CIA’s influence had not waned by 1977 when journalist Carl Bernstein reported on publications with CIA agents in their employ, as well as “more than 400 American journalists who in the past twenty‑five years have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency.”

The CIA has also successfully advised on and influenced numerous television shows, such as Homeland and 24 and films like Zero Dark Thirty and Argo, which push narratives that ultimately favor the agency. According to Tricia Jenkins, author of The CIA in Hollywood: How the Agency Shapes Film & Television, a concerted agency effort began in the 1990s to counteract negative public perceptions of the CIA, but their influence reaches back decades. In the 1950s, filmmakers produced films for the CIA, including the 1954 film adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Researchers Tom Secker and Matthew Alford, whose work has been published in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, say their recent Freedom of Information Act requests have shown that the CIA — along with the military — have influenced over 1,800 films and television shows, many of which have nothing to do with CIA or military themes.

5 – Drug-induced Mind control – In the 1950s, the CIA began experimenting with drugs to determine whether they might be useful in extracting information. As Smithsonian Magazine has noted of the MKUltra project:

The project, which continued for more than a decade, was originally intended to make sure the United States government kept up with presumed Soviet advances in mind-control technology. It ballooned in scope and its ultimate result, among other things, was illegal drug testing on thousands of Americans.

Further:

The intent of the project was to study ‘the use of biological and chemical materials in altering human behavior,’ according to the official testimony of CIA director Stansfield Turner in 1977. The project was conducted in extreme secrecy, Turner said, because of ethical and legal questions surrounding the program and the negative public response that the CIA anticipated if MKUltra should become public.

Under MKUltra, the CIA gave itself the authority to research how drugs could:’ ‘promote the intoxicating effects of alcohol;’ ‘render the induction of hypnosis easier;’ ‘enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture and coercion;’ produce amnesia, shock and confusion; and much more. Many of these questions were investigated using unwitting test subjects, like drug-addicted prisoners, marginalized sex workers and terminal cancer patients– ‘people who could not fight back,’ in the words of Sidney Gottlieb, the chemist who introduced LSD to the CIA.

Further, as Weiner noted:

Under its auspices, seven prisoners at a federal penitentiary in Kentucky were kept high on LSD for seventy-seven consecutive days. When the CIA slipped the same drug to an army civilian employee, Frank Olson, he leaped out of the window of a New York Hotel.

Weiner added that senior CIA officers destroyed “almost all of the records” of the programs, but that while the “evidence that remains is fragmentary…it strongly suggests that use of secret prisons for the forcible drug-induced questioning of suspect agents went on throughout the 1950s.”

Years later, the CIA would be accused of distributing crack-cocaine into poor black communities, though this is currently less substantiated and supported mostly by accounts of those who claim to have been involved.

6 – Brutal torture tactics — More recently, the CIA was exposed for sponsoring abusive, disturbing terror tactics against detainees at prisons housing terror suspects. An extensive 2014 Senate report documented agents committing sexual abuse, forcing detainees to stand on broken legs, waterboarding them so severely it sometimes led to convulsions, and imposing forced rectal feeding, to name a few examples. Ultimately, the agency had very little actionable intelligence to show for their torture tactics but lied to suggest they did, according to the torture report. Their torture tactics led the International Criminal Court to suggest the CIA, along with the U.S. armed forces, could be guilty of war crimes for their abuses.

7 – Arming radicals — The CIA has a long habit of arming radical, extremist groups that view the United States as enemies. In 1979, the CIA set out to support Afghan rebels in their bid to defeat the Soviet occupation of the Middle Eastern country. As Weiner wrote, in 1979, “Prompted by Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter signed a covert-action order for the CIA to provide the Afghan rebels with medical aid, money, and propaganda.”

As Weiner detailed later in his book:

The Pakistani intelligence chiefs who doled out the CIA’s guns and money favored the Afghan factions who proved themselves most capable in battle. Those factions also happened to be the most committed Islamists. No one dreamed that the holy warriors could ever turn their jihad against the United States.

Though some speculate the CIA directly armed Osama bin Laden, that is yet to be fully proven or admitted. What is clear is that western media revered him as a valuable fighter against the Soviets, that he arrived to fight in Afghanistan in1980, and that al-Qaeda emerged from the mujahideen, who were beneficiaries of the CIA’s program. Stanford University has noted that Bin Laden and Abdullah Azzam, a prominent Palestinian cleric, “established Al Qaeda from the fighters, financial resources, and training and recruiting structures left over from the anti-Soviet war.” Much of those “structures” were provided by the agency. Intentionally or not, the CIA helped fuel the rise of the terror group.

Weiner noted that as the CIA failed in other countries like Libya, by the late 1980s “Only the mujahideen, the Afghan holy warriors, were drawing blood and scenting victory. The CIA’s Afghan operation was now a $700-million-dollar-a-year-program” and represented 80% of the overseas budget of the clandestine services. “The CIA’s briefing books never answered the question of what would happen when a militant Islamic army defeated the godless invaders of Afghanistan,” though Tom Twetten, “the number two man in the clandestine service in the summer of 1988,” was tasked with figuring out what would happen with the Afghan rebels. “We don’t have any plan,” he concluded.

Apparently failing to learn their lesson, the CIA adopted nearly the exact same policy in Syria decades later, arming what they called “moderate rebels” against the Assad regime. Those groups ultimately aligned with al-Qaeda groups. One CIA-backed faction made headlines last year for beheading a child (though President Trump cut off the CIA program in June, the military continues to align with “moderate” groups).

Unsurprisingly, this list is far from complete. The CIA has engaged in a wide variety of extrajudicial practice, and there are likely countless transgressions we have yet to learn about.

As Donald Trump cheers the birthday of an agency he himself once criticized, it should be abundantly clear that the nation’s covert spy agency deserves scrutiny and skepticism — not celebration.

Creative Commons / Anti-Media

(activistpost.com)

By Peter A. Kirby

In the course of exposing chemtrails, your author has already found and presented quite a bit of evidence linking the theory of man-made global warming to weather modification and thus the New Manhattan Project. Lately, he has stumbled upon what appears to be the earliest published mention of the modern theory of man-made global warming. In addition, this same reference is undoubtedly the earliest significant mention of the Solar Radiation Management (SRM) geoengineering thesis. The article in question is a 1955 Fortune magazine piece written by the famous Manhattan Project scientist John von Neumann (1903-1957) titled “Can We Survive Technology?” (PDF) This is the most potent evidence yet in support of the assertion that the theory of man-made global warming is a cover story for the biggest scientific effort in history.

If all this stuff about a New Manhattan Project and SRM geoengineering makes zero sense to you, then please review the author’s previous work “Chemtrails Exposed: A History of the New Manhattan Project.” There’s a whole subculture going on down here.

For background on von Neumann and his connections to the New Manhattan Project, one may review the author’s other previous article “Chemtrails Exposed: Truly a New Manhattan Project.”

“Can We Survive Technology?”

Ten years after the detonations of the world’s first atomic bombs and the subsequent Japanese surrender, and two years before his death, Fortune magazine published Johnny von Neuman’s “Can We Survive Technology?” It is undoubtedly the first significant mention of the SRM geoengineering thesis and arguably the first mention of the modern theory of man-made global warming.

It is interesting to note that the first words written at the top of the first page read, “The New Goals – VI.” If one glances at this phrase, one might read ‘The New Gods’ as the eye will have a tendency to amalgamate the ‘a’ and the ‘l’ in the word ‘Goals,’ turning these two letters into a ‘d’ and therefore forming the word ‘Gods.’ Maybe this is a subliminal message meant to deify von Neumann. And make no mistake, at the time, the world was standing in awe. After Manhattan Project scientists such as von Neumann had unleashed the terrible destructive power of the atom bomb and developed so many other technologies which enabled the Allied powers to win the war, top American scientists were drastically reshaping world power and were understandably respected. In fact, von Neumann in particular was a most highly revered scientist. Indeed, a strong argument can be made for von Neumann being the most revered American scientist of all time.

The opening sentence rings the alarm; stating, “‘The great globe itself’ is in a rapidly maturing crisis.” He then goes over how man’s technological capabilities are stretching the Earth’s resources and how this, if unchecked, might lead to global catastrophe. In this way, “Can We Survive Technology?” predates the later global warming fear mongering of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in their 1974 document “A Study of Climatological Research as it Pertains to Intelligence Problems.” This document expounds upon the notion that minor fluctuations in Earth’s average global temperature can lead to Humanity’s extinction. Never mind that Earth’s average temperature has been fluctuating for as long as Humanity has existed on Earth and Humanity has been doing just fine. They are smarter than you and they know. Just pay your taxes, take the medications and vaccinations, drink your fluoride, recognize the theory of man-made global warming as gospel truth, and die. This is what the establishment requires of us.

For more about the CIA’s “A Study of Climatological Research as it Pertains to Intelligence Problems,” please refer to the author’s previous article “Forging Reality: The New Manhattan Chemtrail Project Information War.”

It’s only fitting as in 1952 von Neumann became a CIA advisor.

In his piece, von Neumann rolls out the theory of man-made global warming and the SRM geoengineering thesis. Here these two theses were fused together to form a giant, flaming sword of evil to be used against domestic populations worldwide. He begins these sections with quite a bit about weather modification. It reads:

Controlled climate

Let us now consider a thoroughly ‘abnormal’ industry and its potentialities – that is, an industry as yet without a place in any list of major activities: the control of weather or, to use a more ambitious but justified term, climate. One phase of this activity that has received a good deal of public attention is ‘rain making.’ The present technique assumes extensive rain clouds, and forces precipitation by applying small amounts of chemical agents. While it is not easy to evaluate the significance of the efforts made thus far, the evidence seems to indicate that the aim is an attainable one.

But weather control and climate control are really much broader than rain making. All major weather phenomena, as well as climate as such, are ultimately controlled by the solar energy that falls on the earth. To modify the amount of solar energy, is, of course, beyond human power. But what really matters is not the amount that hits the earth, but the fraction retained by the earth, since that reflected back into space is no more useful than if it had never arrived. Now, the amount absorbed by the solid earth, the sea, or the atmosphere seems to be subject to delicate influences. True, none of these has so far been substantially controlled by human will, but there are strong indications of control possibilities.

His reference to reflecting sunlight back into space here is the first ever significant mention of the SRM geoengineering thesis; probably the first of any kind. The SRM geoengineering thesis was probably conceived by John von Neumann. Also note that von Neumann writes of a wholly different type of weather modification program; not the conventional cloud seeding industry. The New Manhattan Project is a wholly different kind of weather modification program. He makes two later mentions of such a program. He follows with the theory of man-made global warming. It continues:

The carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by industry’s burning of coal and oil – more than half of it during the last generation – may have changed the atmosphere’s composition sufficiently to account for a general warming of the world by about one degree Fahrenheit. The volcano Krakatao[sic] erupted in 1883 and released an amount of energy by no means exorbitant. Had the dust of the eruption stayed in the stratosphere for fifteen years, reflecting sunlight away from the earth, it might have sufficed to lower the world’s temperature by six degrees (in fact, it stayed for about three years, and five such eruptions would probably have achieved the result mentioned). This would have been a substantial cooling; the last Ice Age, when half of North America and all of northern and western Europe were under an ice cap like that of Greenland or Antarctica, was only fifteen degrees colder than the present age. On the other hand, another fifteen degrees of warming would probably melt the ice of Greenland and Antarctica and produce worldwide tropical to semi-tropical climate.

Notice how in this passage von Neumann asserts the idea that ash spewing from an erupting volcano (in this case Krakatoa) will reflect sunlight back into space and therefore cool the earth. Today’s geoengineers make this point ad nauseum. We can stop wondering where they are getting this idea from. Von Neumann’s assertion of the volcanic ash global cooling thesis here may be the first ever.

Among many other assertions, he then goes on to suggest that, “Probably intervention in atmospheric and climatic matters will come in a few decades, and will unfold on a scale difficult to imagine at present.” and “The most constructive schemes for climate control would have to be based on insights and techniques that would also lend themselves to forms of climatic warfare as yet unimagined.” Von Neumann’s imagination has become reality.

Demarcation between old and new

It is important to note here the use of the word ‘modern’ when describing von Neumann’s assertion of the theory of man-made global warming. The term ‘modern’ is used here to describe a version of the theory of man-made global warming which has entered into popular culture and is connected to the SRM geoengineering thesis. The historical or ‘old’ version of the theory of man-made global warming was relegated to academia and not connected to the SRM geoengineering thesis. Yes, your author is making these grand assertions here and now all by himself.

The introduction of the SRM geoengineering thesis, in Johnny von Neumann’s 1955 Fortune piece is the demarcation point between the ‘old’ and ‘modern’ versions of the theory of man-made global warming. It is reasonable to consider the period before von Neuman’s paper as the era of the ‘old’ theory of man-made global warming and the period after von Neumann’s paper as the era of the ‘new’ or ‘modern’ theory of man-made global warming. This assertion is being made for two reasons: “Can We Survive Technology?” was the first insertion of the theory of man-made global warming into the popular culture and “Can We Survive Technology?” was the first major publication of the SRM geoengineering thesis.

“Can We Survive Technology?” was designed to insert the theory of man-made global warming into the popular culture. Before “Can We Survive Technology?,” the theory of man-made global warming was relegated to scientific journals and obscure books. Much of the material was in German. Articles and books relegated to scientific journals and/or foreign languages don’t tend to get a lot of attention from the American public. This article, published in a popular American magazine, opened the theory of man-made global warming up to many millions of minds … and we have seen how far they have ran with it since! Corrupt politicians and bureaucrats across the globe have artificially shoved this lie into the center of the Overton window. That process had to start somewhere and “Can We Survive Technology?” was the beginning of that process.

The other factor determining von Neumann’s piece as the demarcation between old and new is the introduction of the SRM geoengineering thesis. The SRM geoengineering thesis effectively weaponized the theory of man-made global warming. Weaponization in this case requires a huge expansion of the military-industrial-academic-intelligence complex. This meant a big, fat gravy train and all parties involved were all for it.

Beyond von Neumann

Johnny was not alone. Von Neumann and pretty much all of the other top Manhattan Project scientists were proponents of what they called ‘planetary engineering;’ analogous, of course, to today’s geoengineering. In essence, pretty much all of the other top Manhattan Project scientists were proponents of weather control.

Following von Neumann’s lead, other prominent scientists later came forward with the SRM geoengineering thesis and/or the theory of man-made global warming. The first three examples of the SRM geoengineering thesis are all written in the context of weather modification. Two out of the first three examples of the SRM geoengineering thesis also mention the theory of man-made global warming.

In the early months of 1958, Manhattan Project scientist Bernard Vonnegut alluded to the SRM geoengineering theory in the article he co-authored as part of the most cited weather modification report ever. He and his co-authors wrote, “The radiation properties of the atmosphere can be altered by the introduction of gases or aerosols and by cloud seeding.”

In June of 1958, weather modifier and science adviser to the president Howard T. Orville wrote an article for Popular Science magazine titled “Weather as a Weapon” which asserted the theory of man-made global warming in addition to the SRM geoengineering thesis.

The next major incursion in their information war waged against the American public came with the release of a 1965 document emanating from the LBJ White House in 1965 called “Restoring the Quality of Our Environment.” This Orwellianly (Is that a word?) titled document asserts both the theory of man-made global warming and the SRM geoengineering thesis. This document is particularly significant because it was issued by the Executive Branch of the United States Federal Government. When documents are issued by the Executive Branch of the United States Federal Government, all government offices must review it and be in general compliance.

Conclusions

The modern theory of man-made global warming and the SRM geoengineering thesis have a symbiotic relationship. The SRM geoengineering thesis supercharged the old theory of man-made global warming. At the same time, the SRM geoengineering thesis barely exists without the theory of man-made global warming. It only makes sense that both would be introduced and/or upgraded at the same time.

It also makes dollars and sense that von Neumann’s piece was published in Fortune magazine. The evidence shows plenty of financial motives behind today’s New Manhattan Project. To review these motives, one may review the author’s previous article “Cui Bono? New Manhattan Project Motives.”

“Can We Survive Technology?” was a weaponization of the theory of man-made global warming and therefore a green light to the military-industrial-academic-intelligence complex. Up until the publication of “Can We Survive Technology?” the theory of man-made global warming was only something that existed as just that; a theory. When the theory of man-made global warming was linked to the SRM geoengineering thesis, the military-industrial-academic-intelligence complex had a new enemy to fight; the climate. A new enemy to fight means more basic science, new weapons systems, and intelligence agency cover. In other words, it means a mountain of power and cash raining down upon them. In 1955 von Neumann handed the military-industrial-academic-intelligence complex an argument for tremendous expansion and they have taken him up on it ever since; spending vast sums on weather modification and the atmospheric sciences. In fact, it wasn’t long after von Neumann’s 1955 Fortunepiece that the American military-industrial-academic-intelligence complex was the beneficiary of tremendous across-the-board spending increases catalyzed by Russia’s Sputnik launch of 1957.

Yes, due to advancing technology and population growth, Earth’s resources are currently being depleted at an unsustainable rate. And yes, we have lots of big environmental problems. But man-made global warming is not one of them and the solutions offered by the establishment are wholly inadequate and counterproductive. For crying out loud, their solutions to these problems are spraying the Earth with toxic chemicals and death. Their so-called solutions are worse than the problems. Their solutions are massively destructive, cruel, and unsustainable.

For more about the establishment’s predilection for mass murder, please refer to the author’s previous article “Other New Manhattan Chemtrail Project Agendas.”

Mom taught me that there is always a better solution and I taught me that the solution will not come from the top down as have these non-solutions offered by the establishment. All real solutions come from the bottom up. The solutions are free energy, better governments and the colonization of other planets. But those solutions are too empowering for Humanity. Those solutions embody far too much common sense. Our rulers do not operate on common sense or empowering Humanity. They operate on greed, selfishness, and fear and that is why this modern theory of man-made global warming and the SRM geoengineering thesis are chosen and promulgated. That’s why their ‘solution’ wrecks our environment.

I challenge the audience to find an earlier published mention of the SRM geoengineering thesis. These early mentions are almost all made in combination with the theory of man-made global warming. Delingpole, I’m ready for my close-up! Morano, are you up to the challenge? Monckton, I’ll give you a civil debate. Steyn, I’ll take em’ all on! Seriously, if somebody out there knows any of these leading climate heretics: James Delingpole, Marc Morano, Christopher Monckton, Mark Steyn and/or others; please pass this article on to them, I want to know what they think. Separately I’ll be sending this article to them via their respective websites.

WE ARE IN A WAR, PEOPLE!!! THEY ARE TRYING TO MAKE YOU BELIEVE THAT AN APPLE IS AN ORANGE SO THAT THEY MAY KILL YOU AND EVERYTHING ELSE ON THE PLANET! I SUGGEST THAT WE REFUTE THEIR ASSERTIONS! Please share this link. Thank you.

Notes

“Can We Survive Technology?” an article by John von Neumann, published in Fortune magazine, June, 1955

“John von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered the Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence, and Much More” a book by Norman Macrae, published by the American Mathematical Society, 1999

“A Study of Climatological Research as it Pertains to Intelligence Problems” a report by the Central Intelligence Agency, 1974

The World as a Mathematical Game: John von Neumann and 20th century science a book by Giorgio Israel and Ana Millán Gasca, published by Birkhäuser, 2009

“The Future” a paper by V. Schaefer, B. Vonnegut, J.S. Barrows, and P.B. MacCready, Jr. as it appeared in the “Final Report of the Advisory Committee on Weather Control” a report by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government, 1958

“Weather as a Weapon” an article by Howard T. Orville, published in Popular Science, June, 1958

“Restoring the Quality of Our Environment” a report by the President’s Science Advisory Committee, published by the United States Government Printing Office, 1965

Links

PeterAKirby.com

Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Peter-A.-Kirby/e/B01HVMJ546/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1

YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiYiGNUiEMcphl3-Z7OCTtA

Twitter
https://twitter.com/PeterAKirby

Minds
https://www.minds.com/PeterAKirby

Websites

ClimateViewer.com

AirCrap.org

GeoengineeringWatch.org

StopSprayingUs.com

GlobalSkyWatch.com

ChemtrailsProject.com

ChemtrailsProjectUK.com

ChemtrailsPlanet.net

Peter A. Kirby is a San Rafael, CA researcher, writer, and activist. Subscribe to his email list at his website peterakirby.com.

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(activistpost.com)

By Jake Anderson

Have you ever thought about whether future humans will live out aspects of their lives online in simulated environments, or even extend their natural lifespans by uploading their minds to a secure cloud ecosystem? It’s been a familiar idea in science fiction for decades. With news that Elon Musk was attempting to build a “neural lace,” the concept of a brain-machine interface (BMI) entered the public lexicon. Now, researchers at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa, claim to have linked a human mind to the Internet in real time — a biomedical first.

The project, dubbed the “Brainternet,” required the researchers to gather EEG brainwave signals using only an Emotiv EEG device and a simple Raspberry Pi computer. The experiment allowed the human brain to become an information node in the Internet of Things (IoT).

The experiment’s supervisor, Adam Pantanowitz, described it this way:

Brainternet is a new frontier in brain-computer interface systems. There is a lack of easily understood data about how a human brain works and processes information. Brainternet seeks to simplify a person’s understanding of their own brain and the brains of others. It does this through continuous monitoring of brain activity as well as enabling some interactivity.

Researchers say the project could provide valuable information for future deep learning algorithms and could even assist Musk’s endeavors in creating true BMI. Many futurists believe that as the impact and everyday importance of the Internet grows, it is inevitable that humans will merge the physical world with online virtual environments, ushering in a generation of enhanced augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and a synthesis of the two that some call Mixed Reality.

While the concept of “living” on the Internet may seem remote, we are in many ways already cyborgs dependent on the Web and artificial intelligence. Linking our brains to an online “hive mind” may ultimately prove to be the most efficient way humans can both receive and transmit information, though concerns over surveillance and privacy will likely follow us all the way through the century.

Creative Commons / Anti-Media

(activistpost.com)