Facebook teams up with shady DARPA exec to scan your brain and augment your reality

In light of the recent Cambridge Analytica data scandal, Facebook is quickly becoming one of the world’s least trusted companies. A survey from the Ponemon Institute, a research group focused on data privacy and information security, shows that trust in Facebook has fallen 66 percent to where now only 28 percent of users believe the company is “committed to privacy.”

Although many people are unaware of what goes on behind the scenes at Facebook, social media is not their only business. As part of an ongoing research and development venture, a project called Building 8 was created to develop technology “in the style of DARPA.”

Former DARPA executive Regina Dugan was recruited to head the project as her experience with augmented reality and mental and nervous system manipulation has given her the perfect skill set to make this project a technological success.

DARPA however, has come under scrutiny in the past for developing dangerous weaponized technologies like HELLADS, or High-Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System, commonly known as the “death ray.” Dugan was also accused of ethics violations by the Department of Defense for offering government contracts to a company she founded called RedXDefense.

Building 8 was created with four projects in mind, all centering around augmented reality and brain-scanning technology. Zuckerberg believes that within the next ten years we will begin to see a stronger link between Facebook and the mind.

“You’re going to just be able to capture a thought, what you’re thinking or feeling in kind of its ideal and perfect form in your head, and be able to share that with the world” – Mark Zuckerberg

Ultimately, Facebook intends on creating an entire augmented reality to overlay our day-to-day lives. He believes that with this new technology, common household equipment like TV’s will become obsolete.

“In the future, you’ll be able to snap your fingers and pull out a photo and make it as big as you want, and with your AR glasses you’ll be able to show it to people and they’ll be able to see it. As a matter of fact, when we get to this world, a lot of things that we think about as physical objects today, like a TV for displaying an image, will actually just be $1 apps in an AR app store. So it’s going to take a long time to make this work. But this is the vision, and this is what we’re trying to get to over the next 10 years.” – Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook users need to ask themselves whether or not they want to live in this world of augmented reality. It’s uncertain at this point just how many of our current abilities and freedoms we could lose if this kind of technology took over our lives.

Would it be possible to have a private moment? With Facebook technology becoming ever-more invasive into our lives and their protection of privacy becoming increasingly moot, it’s possible that at some point in time we may not even remember what life was like before Facebook took control over our perceptions and intimate data.

However, alternative technology companies are gaining more and more popularity in light of Facebook censorship and privacy concerns. Websites like Minds.com and Diaspora are gaining new users each day and are emerging as serious competitors to current social media giants. It’s possible that new technology could emerge from alternative, decentralized sources to combat the intrusion of companies like Facebook.

In an increasingly troubled world, it’s important that we think about which direction we want to go as a society and who we choose to give power. Otherwise, we might end up losing sight of what it means to be human altogether.

This article (Facebook Teams Up with Shady DARPA Executive to Scan Your Brain and Augment Your Reality) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Phillip Schneider and WakingTimes.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this copyright statement.

Via Waking Times

Featured Image: John Voo/Flickr

The post Facebook teams up with shady DARPA exec to scan your brain and augment your reality appeared first on Intellihub.

US Govt Accidentally Releases File Detailing Electromagnetic Weapon for ‘Remote Mind Control’

Recently released documents from a U.S. government counterterrorism center detailed research into weapons that can be used for remote mind control.

The post US Govt Accidentally Releases File Detailing Electromagnetic Weapon for ‘Remote Mind Control’ appeared first on The Free Thought Project.

Welcome To The Age Of The Information-Industrial Complex

Authored by James Cobett via The Corbett Report,

When WWII ended and the American deep state welded the national security establishment into place with the National Security Act, the world entered into a new era: the era of the military-industrial complex.

But when the Cold War ended and the “Clash of Civilizations” became the new existential threat, the deep state found an opening for another paradigm shift. As the all-pervasive threat of terrorism became the carte blanche for total surveillance, the powers-that-shouldn’t-be found the organizing principal of our age would not be military hardware, but data itself. Welcome to the age of the information-industrial complex.

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

It is not difficult to see why these words passed so quickly into the political lexicon. Think of their explanatory power.

Why did the US use inflated estimates of Russian missile capabilities to justify stockpiling a nuclear arsenal that was more than sufficient to destroy the planet several times over?

The military-industrial complex.

Why did America send 50,000 of its own to fight and die in the jungles of Vietnam, killing untold millions of Vietnamese (not to mention Cambodians)?

The military-industrial complex.

Why did the US use the public’s fear and anger over 9/11 and a phony panic over non-existent weapons of mass destruction to justify the illegal invasion and trillion-dollar occupation of Iraq?

The military-industrial complex.

Why did Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama expand the fictitious “war on terror” into Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia, refuse to close Guantanamo despite his earlier promises to the contrary, commit US forces to “kinetic military action” in Libya without so much as seeking Congressional approval, and launch a new era of covert drone warfare?

The military-industrial complex.

Why has Trump not only continued but further expanded the US military presence in Africa, increased US aid to Israel and Saudi Arabia, actively enabled the war crimes in Yemen that have led to the largest cholera outbreak in human history, and killed more civilians in his first six months in office than former drone-king Obama killed in his entire eight-year presidency?

The military-industrial complex.

When you think about it, it’s rather remarkable that such a phrase was ever uttered by a President of the United States, much less a former five-star general. Could you imagine any modern-day President talking about something like the “military-industrial complex” and its attempted “acquisition of unwarranted influence” without immediately dismissing the idea as a conspiracy theory? Over the decades there has been much speculation about Eisenhower’s use of the phrase, and what precisely he was warning against. Some have argued that the phrase was prompted by Eisenhower’s discovery that the Rand Corporation was grossly misrepresenting the Soviet’s military capabilities to John F. Kennedy, who ended up using the Rand invented (and completely fictitious) “missile gap” threat as a cornerstone of his 1960 presidential election campaign.

Whatever the case, it is perhaps time to revisit Eisenhower’s most famous speech. What Eisenhower is ultimately describing is the rise of American fascism; the merger of government and corporate power. What term can better capture the nature of early 21st century American political life? Is there any longer any doubt that the military-industrial complex has reached its ultimate expression in firms like Blackwater (aka “Xe” aka “Academi”) and its military contractor brethren? Is there any other word but “fascism” to describe a state of affairs when a Secretary of Defense can commission a study from a private contractor to examine whether the US military should be using more private contractors, only for that same Secretary of Defense to leave office and become president of the company that conducted the study, only to leave that company to become Vice President of the US and begin waging a war that relies heavily on no-bid contracts awarded to that same company based on the recommendation that it made in its original study? Yet this is precisely the case of Dick Cheney and Halliburton. It would be difficult to think of a more blatant example of the military-industrial complex fascism that Eisenhower was warning of.

But as it turns out, there was another warning about fascism embedded in that farewell address that has received far less attention than the “military-industrial complex” formulation, perhaps because there is no catchphrase hook to describe it:

“Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.”

Given that this warning came in 1961, before the age of communications satellites or personal computers or the internet, it was a remarkably prescient observation. If scientific research half a century ago was dominated by federal grants and expensive computer equipment, how much more true is that for us today, half a century later?

So what is the problem with this? As Ike explained:

“Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

Here, again, the warning is of fascism. But instead of the military-industrial fascism that dominated so much of the 20th century, he was describing here a new fascistic paradigm that was but barely visible at the time that he gave his address: a scientific-technological one. Once again, the threat is that the industry that grows up around this government-sponsored activity will, just like the military-industrial complex, begin to take over and shape the actions of that same government. In this case, the warning is not one of bombs and bullets but bits and bytes, not tanks and fighter jets but hard drives and routers. Today we know this new fascism by its innocuous sounding title “Big Data,” but in keeping with the spirit of Eisenhower’s remarks, perhaps it would be more fitting to call it the “information-industrial complex.”

The concept of an information-industrial complex holds equally explanatory power for our current day and age as the military-industrial complex hypothesis held in Eisenhower’s time.

Why is a company like Google going to such lengths to capture, track and database all information on the planet?

The information-industrial complex.

Why were all major telecom providers and internet service providers mandated by federal law to hardwire in back door access to American intelligence agencies for the purpose of spying on all electronic communications?

The information-industrial complex.

Why would government after government around the world target encryption as a key threat to their national security, and why would banker after banker call for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to be banned even as they plan to set up their own, central bank-administered digital currencies?

The information-industrial complex.

The effects of this synthesis are more and more felt in our everyday lives. Every single day hundreds of millions of people around the world are interfacing with Microsoft software or Apple hardware or Amazon cloud services running on chips and processors supplied by Intel or other Silicon Valley stalwarts. Google has become so ubiquitous that its very name has become a verb meaning “to search for something on the internet.” The 21st century version of the American dream is encapsulated in the story of Mark Zuckerberg, a typical Harvard whizkid whose atypical rise to the status of multi-billionaire was enabled by a social networking tool by the name of “Facebook” that he developed.

But how many people know the flip side of this coin, the one that demonstrates the pervasive government influence in shaping and directing these companies’ rise to success, and the companies’ efforts to aid the government in collecting data on its own citizens? How many know, for instance, that Google has a publicly acknowledged relationship with the NSA? Or that a federal judge has ruled that the public does not have the right to know the details of that relationship? Or that Google Earth was originally the brainchild of Keyhole Inc., a company that was set up by the CIA’s own venture capital firm, In-Q-Tel, using satellite data harvested from government Keyhole-class reconnaissance satellites? Or that the former CEO of In-Q-Tel, Gilman Louie, sat on the board of the National Venture Capital Association with Jim Breyer, head of Accel Partners, who provided $12 million of seed money for Facebook? Or that, in 1999, a back door for NSA access was discovered in Microsoft’s Windows operating system source code? Or that Apple founder Steve Jobs was granted security clearance by the Department of Defense for still-undisclosed reasons while heading Pixar in 1988, as was the former head of AT&T and numerous others in the tech industry?

The connections between the IT world and the government’s military and intelligence apparatus run deep. In fact, the development of the IT industry is intimately intertwined with the US Air Force, the Department of Defense and its various branches (including, famously, DARPA), and, of course, the CIA. A cursory glance at the history of the rise of companies like Mitre Corporation, Oracle, and other household electronics and software firms should suffice to expose the extent of these relations and the existence of what we might dub an “information-industrial complex.”

But what does this mean? What are the ramifications of such a relationship?

Although the signs have been there for decades, perhaps the most startling example of what lies at the heart of this relationship has been revealed by the whistleblowers at the heart of the National Security Agency, one of the most secretive arms of the American intelligence apparatus. While Edward Snowden has received the most attention with his “revelation” of the PRISM program, much of the information about the NSA’s ability to surveil all electronic communications has been revealed over the past decade by NSA whistleblowers like Russ Tice, William Binney, Thomas Drake and J. Kirk Wiebe, third-party contractors like Snowden and AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein, and independent journalists like James Bamford. Together, the story they tell is of a truly Orwellian society in which all communications are being captured and analyzed by the NSA, and, with the advent of facilities like the new data center in Utah, presumably stored indefinitely for use at any future time in any future investigation for any pretense by anyone with authorization to access that data. According to Snowden, this includes lowly third-party contractors like himself operating at NSA subcontractors like Booz Allen Hamilton in the vast (and expanding) private intelligence industry that has grown up around the information-industrial complex in the exact same way as private military contractors like Blackwater formed around the military-industrial complex.

In some ways, this information-industrial complex is even more insidious than its military-industrial counterpart. For all of the ills caused by the military-industrial complex (and there are many), at the very least it required some sort of excuse to drain the American people’s resources, and its failures (like the Vietnam quagmire or the debacle in Iraq) happened in the clear light of day. In the information-industrial complex, where vast spying programs happen in the shadows and under the cover of “national security,” it takes whistleblowers and insiders willing to risk it all even to find out what is being done by these shadowy agencies and their private-sector contractors. Even worse, the entire Orwellian spy grid is being run on the flimsiest of pretenses (the “war on terror”) that has no defined end point, and “justifies” turning that spy grid inward, on the American people themselves.

Surely Eisenhower never envisaged the monstrosity that this information-industrial complex has become, but the foresight he had in identifying its early stages over half a century ago is remarkable. The problem is that we are even further away from heeding the warning that he delivered in that 1961 address than we were at that time:

“It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system—ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.”

If only this were the rhetoric that was shaping today’s debate on the issue, instead of the well-worn canard that we must “strike a balance” between freedom and security. Sadly, until such time as the National Security Act of 1947 is repealed and the cover of national security is lifted from the dark actors that populate this sector, the information-industrial complex is unlikely to be quashed—or even hampered—anytime soon.

Boeing Unveils New Drone Which Will "Change The Future Of Air Power"

Boeing’s IR team had been working around the clock for today’s unveiling of the ‘Batmobile’ style unmanned refueling tanker drone. For days, the internet had been in suspense, trying to guess what Boeing’s big surprise would  be. To boost the suspense, the company"s twitter account released a statement last week saying the new aircraft is set to "change the future of air power."

Revealed and ready! #BoeingMQ25 #UAS future @USNavy tanker will extend the range of combat aircraft from the flight deck to the fight!
RELEASE: https://t.co/tkDt0R84zB #MQ25 #PhantomWorks pic.twitter.com/gSgS8xmIRR

— Boeing Defense (@BoeingDefense) December 19, 2017

And judging by the hype generated by Boeing, the marketing campaign paid off. Boeing’s MQ-25 unmanned aircraft is currently in engine trials before heading to the flight deck of an aircraft carrier in 2018.  The MQ-25 was specifically made for the Navy to extend the combat range of deployed Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet, Boeing EA-18G Growler, and Lockheed Martin F-35C fighters.

Don ‘BD’ Gaddis, a retired admiral who leads the refueling system program for Boeing’s MQ-25 said, “Boeing has been delivering carrier aircraft to the Navy for almost 90 years. Our expertise gives us confidence in our approach. We will be ready for flight testing when the engineering and manufacturing development contract is awarded.”

Boeing unveils the U.S. Navy"s MQ-25 unmanned tanker.

In the first half of 2017, Boeing was selected by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to complete the design work for the agency’s new Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1). And so far, Boeing has released one photo of the aircraft facing head-on to the camera, proving that the company has fabricated a prototype and that — as expected — it has moved away from the flying wing design it considered putting forward to the precursor of the MQ-25 program, when the Navy prioritized strike and ISR capabilities for its first carrier-based drone.

“It’s an aircraft with the mission in mind, and we felt confident that the wing-body-tail design was the best for the refueling mission,” said Boeing spokeswoman Didi VanNierop, who added that the company incorporated lessons from its Phantom Ray unmanned demonstrator and other Boeing unmanned aerial systems.

Jess Sponable, DARPA program manager said, “the XS-1 would be neither a traditional airplane nor a conventional launch vehicle but rather a combination of the two, with the goal of lowering launch costs by a factor of ten and replacing today’s frustratingly long wait time with launch on demand.”

Boeing’s MQ-25 is slated to conduct engine runs by the end of the year at its St. Louis, Missouri, facility before moving on to deck handling demos early next year, the company said in a news release.

During the deck handling demonstrations, the company will take the aircraft to the ramp, which will be marked to the measurements of an aircraft carrier’s flight deck, VanNierop said. There, operators will taxi the aircraft via remote control and move it within the confines of the deck. They will also validate that the aircraft will engage the launch bar of a catapult.

 

However, the aircraft will not fly during those demonstrations, and Boeing has not set a date for first flight, she noted.

“Boeing has been delivering carrier aircraft to the Navy for almost 90 years,” Don Gaddis, who leads the refueling system program for Boeing’s Phantom Works, said in a statement. “Our expertise gives us confidence in our approach. We will be ready for flight testing when the engineering and manufacturing development contract is awarded.”

“We’re very pleased with Boeing’s progress on the XS-1 through Phase 1 of the program and look forward to continuing our close collaboration in this newly funded progression to Phases 2 and 3—fabrication and flight.”

Boeing has stoked conversation about its “mystery aircraft” for about a week. On Dec. 14, the company posted a short video of a stationary aircraft draped in a drop cloth on its Twitter account.

“Robust? Check. Ready? Check. Changing future air power? Check it out!” read the caption, which then implored viewers to come back on Dec. 19 to see the plane’s reveal.

Robust? Check
Ready? Check
Changing future air power? Check it out!

See the reveal 12/19! #PhantomWorks pic.twitter.com/92PZCtIQP5

— Boeing Defense (@BoeingDefense) December 14, 2017

As a result, the internet had speculated these additional prototypes from Boeing could have been released.

Some aviation enthusiasts correctly guessed that Boeing would debut its MQ-25 offering, but others speculated that the new Phantom Works aircraft could be a new version of the Bird of Prey subsonic stealth aircraft, its Phantom Ray unmanned combat drone or even a new collaboration with Aurora Flight Sciences, which the company acquired this year. The XV-24A LightningStrike VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) plane was acquired last year by Boeing from Aurora Flight Sciences. Applications for the plane include commercial and military purposes.

Aurora Flight Sciences successfully tested the Subscale X-Plane Aircraft for vertical take-off and landing.

The Phantom Swift, a Boeing prototype initially built in less than 30-days, has been accepted into the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) X-plane program. The aircraft has two large fans in the fuselage and two wingtip fans for stabilization.

“Proving these capabilities in a single aircraft has been the holy grail for tactical military aviation,” said Dan Newman, Boeing Phantom Works Advanced Vertical Lift capture team lead. “We’re confident that Phantom Swift could be the solution.”

And while much the internet guessed wrong about today’s MQ-25 unmanned refueling drone release by Boeing, it signals that the military-industrial complex shows no signs of slowing, as President Trump will soon be able to attack even more targets, at an even further dustance by extending the combat range of some of the Navy’s aircraft. There is one final question: how dangerous is it to fly an unmanned gas tank over hostile territory?

Is the Coming DHS Biowarfare test on U.S. Citizens a False-Flag Warning?

The town of Newkirk, Oklahoma is about to receive a series of “gifts” from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)…in the form of exposing the town to chemical agents. The purpose is to see how much protection is offered by houses and apartments against a bioweapon. It is also to see how first responders will be able to evacuate people and treat those in affected areas.

An article written on 12/16/17 by Jay Syrmopoulos for Activist Post entitled Residents Outraged as DHS Spraying Town With Chemicals – Using Them as Human Guinea Pigs, covers all of the details. Let’s be clear: these are not weapons of biowarfare being tested, but substances that will mimic the spread and “adhesion” to buildings and materials; however, they are used specifically to assess biowarfare capabilities of an actual agent released or delivered. One of the chemicals is a pesticide named Dipel, among other “niceties” such as titanium dioxide, fluorescent brightener, and urea. Here’s an excerpt to illustrate the government mindset on this testing, scheduled to commence in January:

“I’m really sorry that everyone is so afraid in Newkirk because these are very benign products,” Kitty Cardwell, a professor at Oklahoma State University and director of the National Institute of Microbial Forensics for Food and Agricultural Biosecurity, who has been involved in other Homeland Security projects, told Newsweek.

Cardwell believes the chemicals are non-toxic at that minuscule amount and likely wouldn’t reach populated areas.

Interestingly, while Cardwell and the U.S. government claim the chemicals used in the testing won’t adversely impact human health or the environment, the EU has proposed to classify titanium dioxide as a carcinogen—meaning that it is suspected of causing cancer – specifically when inhaled.”

As you can see, Professor Kitty Cardwell is “sorry” that residents of Newkirk are afraid…although she is on the project…declaring all the chemicals safe. Where have we heard that line before?

Perhaps Kitty Cardwell would like it if the DHS would spray down her neighborhood with those chemicals, or better yet: when the tests are done, perhaps she can take a “ground zero” front-row seat in the town…without any protective gear.

The truly insidious thing about this has not been mentioned. There is a level 4 bioweapons facility in Kansas that was built there as a “shift” of resources from Plum Island. In that influenza outbreak we had in the winter of 2012-2013, the first reported case of an infected patient was outside of Lawrence, Kansas. The flu spread outward from there and infected the entire continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii within 52 days. Quite a “natural test” that was!

The insidious part? The fact that the media has been interjecting news articles every other day about the increasing bioweapons capabilities of the North Koreans…how they’re gearing up to deliver smallpox, Anthrax, and other bio-warfare agents to the U.S. via missiles.

Crafting the narrative once again, the Mainstream Media (MSM) “creates” and builds upon the potential for a threat, setting the stage for the government to run with the ball and deliver a false flag in that very form.

Well, North Korea will have to stand in line. North Korea can very well be the “whipping boy” for the false flag in several different scenarios, such as an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) attack or a nuclear strike. Keep this article in mind that was released 12/4/17 from The Guardian, entitled U.S. Military agency invests $100m in genetic extinction technologies, by Arthur Neslen. The article goes on to explain how DARPA (The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has received more than $800 million already between 2008 and 2014 for such genetic experimentation.

Keep in mind that DARPA develops technology for use by the DoD (Department of Defense) and the military. It stands to reason they are not spending almost a billion dollars to fight mosquitoes.

What they are doing is pooling genetic information on people, creating a database, and weaponizing the information in the form of bioweapons specifically targeting ethnic genotypes.

Myriad Genetics (the firm that tried to patent genes in its tests to determine cancer in patients according to family history and DNA) lost its court case back in 2013-2014, but they have an immense repository of genetic material completely accessible by the government. You may recall a few months ago one of the “gimmicks” of the NFL…sponsored by Orig3n, a genetics firm, was to hand out 55,000 genetic testing kits to Baltimore Ravens fans at the home game opener vs the Cleveland Browns on 9/17/17.  At the last minute it was negated over “certification concerns,” but polls taken showed that most of the “Eloi” would have been more than willing to take a DNA sample for “free” and send it in for results.

The best cages, in the eyes of the government, are the ones We the People construct for and around ourselves.

These repositories, along with the ones garnered by the military on servicemembers will guarantee that DARPA will have a substantial “pool” to use to tailor-make their weapons…peculiar to different concentrations of ethnic groups…such as Americans of Scandinavian or German extraction in Minnesota and the Great Lakes States, or Hispanic-Americans in the Southwest. These bioweapons could be used quickly and efficiently, leaving the natural resources, property, and other assets intact for gathering by the government…after the “reductions” are made.

We have a long history of such “testing” on our citizens: the “Nuclear” Soldiers exposed to atomic bombs after World War II in the deserts of the Southwestern U.S., the “vaccinations on Desert Storm Veterans, all the way up to recent years where they’ve been releasing pathogens (Bacillus subtilis and the like) on subways and train stations to “learn about the spread.” We have an administration that is holding more than 60% public disapproval, and the demographics of the Congress appear ready to “shift Left” once again soon. The Military Industrial Complex (MIC) and the powers that be behind the Oval Office…more powerful than the President…want war, and a reduction of the population.

We are close to a war with North Korea, and taking aggressive stances with other nations. The False Flag potential is running high, and we may be seeing the groundwork for such a thing being prepared right now.  9/11 proved that war and “sudden” attack or tragedy is a powerful force to galvanize public support and shift attentions…while shifting the paradigm in the direction willed by the powers that be. The EMP can be the diversion, while the government takes advantage of the confusion to release genetically-modified bioweapons against its enemy: the American people.

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Jeremiah Johnson is the Nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces (Airborne).  Mr. Johnson is also a Gunsmith, a Certified Master Herbalist, a Montana Master Food Preserver, and a graduate of the U.S. Army’s SERE school (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape).  He lives in a cabin in the mountains of Western Montana with his wife and three cats. You can follow Jeremiah’s regular writings at SHTFplan.com or contact him here.

This article may be republished or excerpted with proper attribution to the author and a link to www.SHTFplan.com.

DARPA Can Exterminate Humanity: ‘You Could Feasibly WIPE OUT The Human Race’

One of the most dangerous experiments that mankind has ever embarked upon is DARPA’s desire for gene drive technology. Scientists now have the knowledge and the tools they need to create and deliver “Doomsday genes” which can selectively target and exterminate an entire species.

According to Sputnik News, and as previously reported by SHTFPlan,  the United States highly-secretive and advanced military research body DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) announced that it will invest tens of millions of dollars into genetic extinction research. While the official aim of this research is said to be fighting harmful insects, like mosquitos which carry Malaria, there are significantly darker implications and speculations surrounding the possible use of such a tool.

Joe Joseph of The Daily Sheeple said a quick Google search would give you enough information to let you know how horrific this kind of technology can be. “…and you’ll find it fascinating just at how unbelievable a weapon this could be, how unintentionally mistakes can be made that can cause irreversible damage…irreparable damage…to the human race. And I mean, FAST!” Joseph said. “A gene drive…if let’s just say there’s a mistake, you could feasibly wipe out the human race in a very very short period of time. It’s an unbelievable tool at the disposal of madmen.”

Emails released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), suggest that the U.S.’s uber-secretive military body, DARPA, has become the world’s largest funder of this “gene drive” research.

Silvia Ribeiro, Latin America director of the ETC Group, an international organization dedicated to the conservation and sustainable advancement of cultural and ecological diversity and human rights, said:  “When it is developed under an umbrella of a military research, you get a clear notion that there can be a dual purpose of this research.”

Jim Thomas, a co-director of the ETC group which obtained the emails, said the US military’s influence in furthering this technology would strengthen the case for a moratorium. “The dual-use nature of altering and eradicating entire populations is as much a threat to peace and food security as it is a threat to ecosystems,” he said. “Militarization of gene drive funding may even contravene the Enmod convention against hostile uses of environmental modification technologies.”

But while we are on the subject of UN bans, the sanctions they placed on North Korea are being willfully ignored by the rogue regime.  It stands to reason that should a military seek the use of this technology, they will also defy the UN’s “authority.” –SHTFPlan

Humanity is known for making mistakes, but we can’t come back from an extinction of our own making. “You can call it a ‘tool’ all day, [but] it’s a weapon,” says Joseph.

Brandon Smith Warns "The Virtual Economy" Is The End Of Freedom

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

There is one simple rule to follow when understanding the tragic history of economies: Never put blind faith in a system built on an establishment-created foundation. You would think this would not be a difficult concept to grasp being that we have so many examples of controlled economies and collapse to reference over the centuries, but in our era more than ever the allure of a virtual world with promises of endless wealth and ease is overwhelming.

Yes, I am referring primarily to cyptocurrency "tulip-mania" (sorry bitcoiners, the description is too fitting, it isn"t going away), but not this issue alone. I am also referring to a far-reaching problem of which cryptocurrencies are a mere reflection.

Namely, the fact that humanity is swiftly losing sight of what a true economy is and what it is supposed to accomplish. It is because of this reality that crypto is thriving.

First, let"s be clear, fiat currencies are one of the first machinations of the virtual economy. Once paper currencies printed from thin air by central bankers were separated from tangible backing and accepted by the masses as "valuable" and worth trading labor for, the seed of financial cancer was planted. Today, there is one final step needed for the establishment to accomplish complete tyranny in global trade and that is to disconnect the masses fully from private transactions. In other words, we must be tricked into going digital, where privacy is an absurd memory.

Virtual economics is appealing for several reasons, most of them bad.

Americans and much of the west in particular are increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of real production. The latest generation coming into political and social influence, the millenials, is a perfect example. Surveys show American millenials more than any other generation lack basic workplace competency skills, including scoring low on arithmetic and reading comprehension. Often portrayed as "tech savvy" in popular culture and the media, millenials are quite inept when it comes to core skills that fuel strong business and trade, which is part of the reason why the U.S. is falling into the shadow of foreign workforces.

Millenials in the West also exhibit abysmal technical skills in international testing and lag far behind foreign peers. This has come as a surprise to many mainstream economists and social analysts, primarily because millenials are also considered the "most educated" generation ever. But, of course, we have not only been given a virtual economy in recent decades, but also a virtual educational system. A majority of millenials are lacking when it comes to key production skills and entrepreneurship methods because they have been trained to dismiss such skills as negligible. In other words, millenials have been conditioned to be academic idiots.

Why go through the struggle and hardship required to become an effective producer of tangible necessities when it is far easier to join a collectivist drive for socialism and a structure in which little to no work is required to obtain such necessities? Why not steal from a productive minority and spread it thinly enough to keep the unskilled majority fed? It is only within this kind of culture that virtual production, a virtual society and virtual "money" is seen as an ideal solution.

The notion is becoming more and more prevalent in our popular media, and I believe this is rather symbolic (or ironic) of our conundrum.

For example, consider the book Ready Player One, a pop-culture craze and archetypal zeitgeist for millenials soon to be released as an intended Hollywood blockbuster directed by Steven Spielberg. The novel depicts the world of 2045, a world in which fossil fuel depletion and "global warming" have triggered economic and social decline (Remember in the 1980s when they used to tell us that global warming was going to melt the polar icecaps and we would be under water by the year 2000?). A totalitarian governing body controlled by corporate behemoths rules over the dystopian sprawl.

In response to an ever painful existence in the real world, the masses have sought to escape to a virtual world called "the Oasis," created by a programming genius. The Oasis becomes a nexus for the global economy and a virtual society.

This sounds like a rousing background for a story of rebellion, and it is about that... sort of. Unfortunately, here is where the disturbing ties between our world and the fictional world of Ready Player One meet. The "rebellion" is for all intents and purposes also virtual, and for millenial audiences in particular, this is supposed to be inspiring.

Perhaps this is why cryptocurrencies are so appealing to the millenial crowd in particular. Think about it — the dismal economic doldrums of Ready Player One exist NOW; we don"t have to wait until 2045. Millenials are already feeling disaffected, indebted and disenfranchised, and most of them are also skill-less. Self reliance to them is an idea so alien it rarely if ever crosses their minds. So, how do they fight back? Or, how are they tricked into thinking they can fight back against a virtual system that has left them in the gutter? Why, with a virtual community and a virtual currency, of course.

Millenials and others think that they are going to rebel and "take down the banking oligarchs" with nothing more than digital markers representing "coins" tracked on a digital ledger created by an anonymous genius programmer/programmers. Delusional? Yes. But like I said earlier, it is an appealing notion.

Here is the issue, though; true money requires intrinsic value. Cryptocurrencies have no intrinsic value. They are conjured from nothing by programmers, they are "mined" in a virtual mine created from nothing, and they have no unique aspects that make them rare or tangibly useful. They are an easily replicated digital product. Anyone can create a cryptocurrency. And for those that argue that "math gives crypto intrinsic value," I"m sorry to break it to them, but the math is free.

In fact, for those that are not already aware, Bitcoin uses the SHA-256 hash function, created by none other than the National Security Agency (NSA) and published by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST).

Yes, that"s right, Bitcoin would not exist without the foundation built by the NSA. Not only this, but the entire concept for a system remarkably similar to bitcoin was published by the NSA way back in 1996 in a paper called "How To Make A Mint: The Cryptography Of Anonymous Electronic Cash."

The origins of bitcoin and thus the origins of crytpocurrencies and the blockchain ledger suggest anything other than a legitimate rebellion against the establishment framework and international financiers. I often cite this same problem when people come to me with arguments that the internet has set the stage for the collapse of the globalist information filter and the mainstream media. The truth is, the internet is also an establishment creation developed by DARPA, and as Edward Snowden exposed in his data dumps, the NSA has total information awareness and backdoor control over every aspect of web data.

Many people believe the free flow of information on the internet is a weapon in favor of the liberty movement, but it is also a weapon in favor of the establishment. With a macro overview of data flows, entities like Google can even predict future social trends and instabilities, not to mention peek into every personal detail of an individual"s life and past.

To summarize, cryptocurrencies are built upon an establishment designed framework, and they are entirely dependent on an establishment created and controlled vehicle (the internet) in order to function and perpetuate trade.  How exactly is this "decentralization", again?

TOTAL information awareness is the goal here; and blockchain technology helps the powers-that-be remove one of the last obstacles: private personal trade transactions. Years ago, a common argument presented in favor of bitcoin was that it was "completely anonymous."  Today, this is being proven more and more a lie. Even now, in the wake of open admissions by major bitcoin proponents that the system is NOTanonymous, people still claim anonymity is possible through various measures, but this has not proven to sway the FBI or IRS which have for years now been using resources such as Chainanalysis to track bitcoin users when they feel like doing so, including those users that have taken stringent measures to hide themselves.

Bitcoin proponents will argue that "new developments" and even new cryptocurrencies are solving this problem. Yet, this was the mantra back when bitcoin was first hitting the alternative media. It wasn"t a trustworthy assumption back then, so why would it be a trustworthy assumption now? The only proper assumption to make is that nothing digital is anonymous. Period.

With the ludicrous spike in bitcoin prices, champions of the virtual economy are unlikely to listen to any questions or criticisms. I have never argued one way or the other in terms of bitcoin"s potential "market value," because it does not really matter. I have only ever argued that cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are in no way a solution to combating the international and central banks.  In fact, cyrptocurrencies only seem to be expediting their plan for full spectrum digitization and the issuance of a global currency system.

Bitcoin could easily hit $100,000, but its "value" is truly irrelevant and consistently hyped as if it makes bitcoin self evident as a solution to globalism. The higher the bitcoin price goes, the more the bitcoin cult claims victory, yet the lack of intrinsic value never seems to cross their minds. They have Scrooge McDuck-like visions of swimming in a vault of virtual millions. They"ll only accuse you of being an "old fogey" that "does not understanding what the blockchain is."

The fact is, they are the one"s that do not really understand what the blockchain is — a framework for a completely cashless society in which trade anonymity is dead and economic freedom is destroyed.

Ask yourself this: Why is it that central banks around the world (including the BIS and IMF) are investing in Bitcoin and other crytpocurrencies while developing their own crypto systems based on a similar framework? Could it be that THIS infusion of capital and infrastructure from major banks is the most likely explanation for the incredible spike in the bitcoin market?  Why is it that globalist banking conglomerates like Goldman Sachs lavish blockchain technology with praise in their white papers? And, why are central bankers like Ben Bernanke speaking in favor of crypto at major cryptocurrency conferences if crypto is such a threat to central bank control?

Answer — because it is not a threat. 

They benefit from a cashless system, and liberty champions are helping to give it to them.

Above all else, the virtual economy breeds weakness in society. It encourages a lack of tangible production. Instead of true producers, entrepreneurs and inventors, we have people scrambling to sell real world property in order to buy computing rigs capable of "mining" coins that do not really exist. That is to say, we may one day soon be faced with millions of citizens expending their labor and energy in order to obtain digital nothings programmed into existence and given artificial scarcity (for now).

It also encourages false rebellion. Real change requires actions in the real world. Removing banking elitists and their structures by force if necessary (and this will probably be necessary). Instead, freedom activists are being convinced that they will never have to lift a finger to beat the bankers. All they have to do is buy and mine crypto. The day will come in the near future when the folks that embrace this nonsense will wake up and realize they have wasted their energies chasing a unicorn and are ill prepared to weather the economic reset that continues to evolve.

To maintain a real economy in which people are self reliant and safe from fiscal shock, you need three things: tangible localized and decentralized production, independent and decentralized trade networks that are not structured around an establishment controlled system (like the internet is controlled), and the will to apply force to protect and preserve that production and those networks. If you cannot manufacture a useful thing, repair a useful thing or teach a useful skill, then you are essentially useless in a real economy. If you do not have localized trade, you have nothing.  If you do not have the mindset and the community of independent people required to protect your local production, then you will not be able to keep the economy you have built.

This is the cold hard truth that crypto proponents do not want to discuss, and will dismiss outright as "archaic" or "not obtainable." The virtual economy is so much easier, so much more enticing, so much more comfortable. Why risk anything or everything in a real world effort to build a concrete trade network in your own neighborhood or town? Why risk everything by promoting true decentralization through localized commodity-backed money and barter systems? Why risk everything by defending those systems when the establishment seeks to crush them? Why do this, when you can pretend you are a virtual hero wielding virtual weapons in a no risk rebellion in a world of electronic ones and zeros?

In truth, the virtual economy is not legitimate decentralization, it is a weapon of mass distraction engineered to kill legitimate decentralization.

FOIA Docs Reveal US Military Developing Genetic Extinction Weapon to Eradicate Entire Species

A FOIA request has revealed that DARPA is funding a "gene extinction" project that could wipe out entire races, just as the military admits to harvesting Russian biosamples.

US Military Invests In ‘Doomsday Genetics’ Technology: ‘My Main Worry Is That We Do Something Irreversible’

Amid United Nations fears that genetic extinction technology could be used by militaries, a United States military agency has invested $100 million in the doomsday biological technology that can wipe out an entire species.

Scientists now have the knowledge and the tools they need to create and deliver Doomsday genes which can selectively target and exterminate an entire species. And to make matters worse, emails released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), suggest that the United States’s uber-secretive Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has become the world’s largest funder of this “gene drive” research and will heighten international tensions further ahead of a UN expert committee meeting in Montreal beginning on Tuesday.

The UN is debating a ban on this technology as several southern countries fear the application of using extinction technology. The use of genetic extinction technologies in bioweapons is the stuff of nightmares, but so far, known research is focused entirely on pest control and the elimination of diseases.  The key word there being “known.”

UN diplomats confirmed that the new email release would worsen the “bad name” of gene drives in some circles. “Many countries [will] have concerns when this technology comes from DARPA, a US military science agency,” one said.  “You may be able to remove viruses or the entire mosquito population, but that may also have downstream ecological effects on species that depend on them. My main worry,” he added, “is that we do something irreversible to the environment, despite our good intentions, before we fully appreciate the way that this technology will work.”  

Jim Thomas, a co-director of the ETC group which obtained the emails, said the US military’s influence in furthering this technology would strengthen the case for a moratorium. “The dual-use nature of altering and eradicating entire populations is as much a threat to peace and food security as it is a threat to ecosystems,” he said. “Militarization of gene drive funding may even contravene the Enmod convention against hostile uses of environmental modification technologies.”

But while we are on the subject of UN bans, the sanctions they placed on North Korea are being willfully ignored by the rogue regime.  It stands to reason that should a military seek the use of this technology, they will also defy the UN’s “authority.”

Todd Kuiken, who has worked with the GBIRd (genetic biocontrol) program, which receives $6.4 million from DARPA, said that the US military’s centrality to genetic technology funding meant that “researchers who depend on grants for their research may reorient their projects to fit the narrow aims of these military agencies,” which could include doomsday genetic weapons.  Between 2008 and 2014, the US government spent about $820 million on synthetic biology. Since 2012, most of this has come from DARPA and other military agencies, Kuiken says.

DARPA believes that a sharp decrease in the costs of gene-editing toolkits has created a greater opportunity for hostile or rogue actors to experiment with the technology. “This convergence of low cost and high availability means that applications for gene editing – both positive and negative – could arise from people or states operating outside of the traditional scientific community and international norms,” the official said. “It is incumbent on DARPA to perform this research and develop technologies that can protect against accidental and intentional misuse.”

Interest in the technology among US army bureaus has shot up since a secret report by the elite Jason group of military scientists last year “received considerable attention among various agencies of the US government,” according to an email by Gerald Joyce, who co-chaired a Jason study group in June. A second Jason report was commissioned in 2017 assessing “potential threats this technology might pose in the hands of an adversary, technical obstacles that must be overcome to develop gene drive technology and employ it ‘in the wild’,” Joyce wrote.

The paper would not be publicly disclosed but “widely circulated within the US intelligence and broader national security community”, his email said.

The US Government Plans to Genetically Engineer Plants to Spy on People

(ANTIMEDIA) — The government’s newest surveillance program will use plants as instruments of data collection, according to a new report from the military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The program is specifically intended to assist operatives on the battlefield. The project, named Advanced Plant Technologies (APT), seeks to turn plants into next-generation surveillance technology.

In a statement, the agency said:

“The program will pursue technologies to engineer robust, plant-based sensors that are self-sustaining in their environment and can be remotely monitored using existing hardware…detect[ing] the presence of certain chemicals, pathogens, radiation, and even electromagnetic signals.”

DARPA will use gene-editing techniques to reconfigure plants to make them capable of reacting to certain types of stimuli in the environment. These plant-based sensors are self-sustaining and will be remotely monitored by the government agency. While the program will affect the plants’ genomes, it will not alter their ability to thrive in their natural environments.

“Plants are highly attuned to their environments and naturally manifest physiological responses to basic stimuli such as light and temperature, but also in some cases to touch, chemicals, pests, and pathogens,” said APT program manager Blake Bextine in the agency’s press release.

“Emerging molecular and modeling techniques may make it possible to reprogram these detection and reporting capabilities for a wide range of stimuli, which would not only open up new intelligence streams, but also reduce the personnel risks and costs associated with traditional sensors.”

DARPA, sometimes called the Pentagon’s Brain, has long been known for developing innovative but arguably dangerous technologies, including weaponized Agent Orange, covert data mining, anti-protesting weapons, and specially trained war mercenaries. With regard specifically to surveillance and data collection, DARPA has collaborated with the NSA to monitor video game players, developed biosurveillance tools, produced the notorious Total Information Awareness system. That system was responsible for the NSA’s PRISM program, which violated the civil liberties of millions of Americans.

These programs all started under the auspices of benevolent innovation. Once again, we see the complex dynamic between facilitating national security and preserving civil liberties, as one can easily question whether these plant censors could be used for domestic data collection or if they could be modified for other means.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which has acted as a sort of de facto technological watchdog over government and corporate programs, has previously issued critical statements regarding DARPA and other government agencies like the NSA. In one instance, they listed several questions for researchers exploring new and potentially dangerous technologies, including considerations about their security and whether or not they can be exploited. They concluded:

“To be clear, we’re not saying that researchers should stop innovating in cases where the answers to those questions are more pessimistic. Rather, we’re saying that they may want to take precautions proportional to the risk.”

They have urged experts in the field “to fully think through the ramifications of new research as it’s conducted.”

When it comes to developing new forms of surveillance, if we can be certain of anything, it’s that the government will not voluntarily relinquish its self-appointed power to monitor its citizens — so vigilance on everyone’s behalf is necessary.

(RELATED: If You Don’t Know What DARPA Is, You Should Probably Read This)

Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo

"Sweet Dreams" - Elon Musk"s Periodic Reminder Of The Coming AI Apocalypse

Elon Musk just gave people a powerful and eerie visual related to his belief that Artificial Intelligence (AI) could usher in a SkyNet style apocalypse where the machines take over and kill us all. In a talk given last July, Musk said, “I keep sounding the alarm bell but until people see robots going down the street killing people, they don’t know how to react because it seems so ethereal."

On Sunday Musk took to twitter to vividly illustrate his point, retweeting a creepy viral video which showcases the DARPA-funded Boston Dynamics "Atlas" military robot"s astounding ability to do a back flip - something which researchers have called "bonkers" for the shocking and unexpected compounding leaps in development of humanoid robot technology that Atlas represents. 

Musk commented on the original "we dead" tweet with the ominous warning: "This is nothing. In a few years, that bot will move so fast you"ll need a strobe light to see it. Sweet dreams..." 

And he followed with another tweet accompanied by the 90"s hip-hop song "Regulate" emphasizing his oft-repeated message that AI is a "public risk" that must be regulated: "Got to regulate AI/robotics like we do food, drugs, aircraft & cars. Public risks require public oversight. Getting rid of the FAA wouldn’t make flying safer. They’re there for good reason."

This is nothing. In a few years, that bot will move so fast you’ll need a strobe light to see it. Sweet dreams… https://t.co/0MYNixQXMw

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 26, 2017

we dead pic.twitter.com/lUys7DptdZ

— alex medina (@mrmedina) November 16, 2017

Got to regulate AI/robotics like we do food, drugs, aircraft & cars. Public risks require public oversight. Getting rid of the FAA wdn’t make flying safer. They’re there for good reason.https://t.co/6OXZC3UdMW

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 26, 2017

In a recent Rolling Stone interview Musk told Neuralink staff after showing them a documentary on AI, “Maybe there"s a five to 10 percent chance of success [of making AI safe].” He"s long emphasized that governments need to "proactively" regulate and monitor advances in artificial intelligence before it"s too late, as the technology poses "a fundamental existential risk for human civilization."

Rolling Stone"s summation of Musk"s words to the Neuralink crew points out that, "the problem with building something that"s smarter than you is ... that it"s smarter than you. Add to that the fact that AI has no remorse, no morality, no emotions – and humanity may be in deep shit. This is the good son"s second chance against the remorseless father he couldn"t change."

He further admitted to the group that he invested in DeepMind - the British AI research company acquired by Google in 2014 - with the aim of keeping an eye on Google’s development of AI. "There"s a lot of risk in concentration of power. So if AGI [artificial general intelligence] represents an extreme level of power, should that be controlled by a few people at Google with no oversight?" Musk told Rolling Stone. 

And Musk"s instincts appear to be correct, as DeepMind itself proudly defines its purpose on its website as follows: "We’re on a scientific mission to push the boundaries of AI." Such personal monitoring of the industry is what Musk referenced in a previous talk in July when he said, "I have exposure to the most cutting-edge AI and I think people should be really concerned about it." 

Meanwhile, it appears that Musk"s "sweet dreams" tweet regarding DARPA/Boston Dynamics" back flipping humanoid military robot hints at the future possibility that such a mind-numbingly advanced and capable machine is a prime example of just the type of robot, when equipped with AI, that will do us all in. As one researcher, commenting on the significance of the pre-back flip/post-back flip threshold, characterizes:

But I think we"re in a new robotic age now. There was a time before Atlas could do backflips, back when robots were for factories, bomb disposal, vacuuming, and the occasional gimmick, and none of the useful ones were humanoids. Now we"re living in an era where humanoid robots are apparently as agile as we are. So what will they be used for? It’s time to get out the popcorn.

Or ask Musk might point out, it will be too late to get out the popcorn as it will already be "lights out/sweet dreams" on the end of humanity from the moment such a super bot comes online and goes conscious.

Automation Nation: America"s Largest Employer "Secretly" Tests Self-Driving Floor-Scrubbers

Dark and difficult times lie ahead. Soon, America’s middle class must come to the realization that the country’s largest employer–Walmart is quietly testing an army of robots that soon will replace their jobs. The latest installment is an autonomous floor scrubber being tested at five store locations near the company’s headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas.

The autonomous cleaning robot dubbed Emma, an A.I. navigated system capable of operating floor care equipment on nightshifts, is able to clean the entire store front without human interaction. San Diego-based startup Brain Corp., works with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop novel machine learning algorithms that focus on taking jobs from middle class Americans. BrainOS is the company’s flagship product that enables robots to “perceive their environments, control motion, and navigate using visual cues and landmarks, while seeing and avoiding people and obstacles”.

A Walmart spokesperson, Kory Lundberg, confirmed to Chip Cutter, Managing editor at LinkedIn, that Walmart was indeed testing the robotic scrubbers, but said it is still in a “proof of concept” phase.

“We’re always testing new ideas and new technology,” Lundberg said. “We still have a lot more to learn about how this technology will work best for our different retail locations.”

According to LinkedIn, here are more details documenting the ‘secret tests’ of robotic scrubbers at various Supercenters..

Multiple employees who work at the retailer’s 24-hour Supercenter in Pineville, Mo., about 20 minutes north of Walmart’s home office, confirmed the use of the device to me this week, saying it had been tested in their store for about a month this fall.

 

In a private Facebook group earlier this month, someone who claims to be a worker at the Pineville store shared a photo of the greyish vehicle making a turn near a display for $78 deer feeders. No one is seated in the driver’s seat, and two “caution, cleaning in progress” banners are shown on both sides of the device. An ICE logo is also affixed; Holland, Mich.-based International Cleaning Equipment, a Brain Corp. partner, manufactures the scrubbing equipment itself.  

In October, Walmart said it’s rolling out self-scanning robots in more than 50 U.S. stores to replenish inventory on shelves. The company is determined to automate the daily tasks of its workers, but said the bots would not lead to a drop in headcount.

With the retail apocalypse in full-swing, “retailers are looking for opportunities to automate processes and stop paying people,” said Richard A. Feinberg, a professor of consumer sciences and retailing at Purdue University, who forecasts automation could save retailers such as Walmart.

He also noted, “it changes the nature of the jobs; it may not mean fewer jobs, it may mean they can retrain the people to do things that are more useful for them, business wise,” he said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if it reduces headcount, but I don’t know.”

More importantly, a Walmart spokesperson said “the maintenance team is actually quite ‘excited’ to work with new technology.” What they don’t know is that their jobs will be obsolete in a few years after the 50 state rollout commences. All fun in games today until someone gets a pink slip.

As Fox News reports, Walmart is not the only company testing this technology..

According to Phil Duffy, VP of Innovation & Marketing for Brain Corporation, the company is currently working with approximately 50 malls and big box retailers across the U.S.

 

“We are also in airports, educational campuses, corporate campuses and industrial sites. In addition, we will be launching in Japan, through our partner, SoftBank Robotics, by summer 2018,” Duffy said.  

In a preview of what’s to come, Brain Corp., funded by DARPA is leading the charge through Walmart, America’s largest employer to automate low skill jobs. The middle class or what is left of them have many dark and difficult days ahead, as we expect this trend to gain momentum in the coming years.

Can You Do A Backflip? Because This Robot Can

Since being founded in 1992 with funding from DARPA, robotics company Boston Dynamics has unveiled one nightmarish robotic creation after another. But the company outdid itself this week when it introduced the latest iteration of its ‘Atlas’ robot.

The company caused a stir after publishing a video on YouTube showing the hulking humanoid robot jumping across platforms of varying heights and even perform backflips on command - some of the most advanced capabilities demonstrated by any bipedal robot.

If you’re wondering how this seemingly trivial ability portends imminent warfare between mankind and the machines, then you need to ask yourself: When was the last time you did a standing backflip?

Unless you’re a gymnast, the answer is probably never.

Unsurprisingly, the video inspired a cascade of commentary about humanity’s impending obsolescence:

 

we dead pic.twitter.com/lUys7DptdZ

— alex medina (@mrmedina) November 16, 2017

 

 

The robots are evolving into crossfit bros https://t.co/SOO9bvuoHU

— Turkducklephant (@despoondent) November 17, 2017

 

Though apparently there are still some mundane tasks that Atlas has not yet mastered...

 

Don"t worry too much about your jobs if you saw that robot doing a backflip - this is the same lad trying to stack a shelf pic.twitter.com/L8vkn91UBD

— Mike Bird (@Birdyword) November 17, 2017

 

Boston Dynamics also made headlines earlier this week by introducing a polished dog-like robot that sits somewhere along the slope of Freud’s "Valley of the Uncanny"...

The robot is called the SpotMini. The company has released few details about it other than a promotional video showing it trotting across a grassy field and the teaser text “Coming Soon”.

Meanwhile, an international group of scientists have seemingly taken a cue from Elon Musk and are demanding that governments take steps to regulate automated lethal weapons systems before the technology comes into its own, purportedly to prevent the plot of the Terminator series from unfolding in real life.

It’s been a big week for the robots, sure. However, while humanoid robots like Atlas are becoming more adept at completing tasks in the physical world, their cousins on Wall Street still can’t quite figure out how to buy the fucking dip.