January 2, 2013
Economy
Obama rolled the Republican party and the political damage inflicted may be irreversible. In his nationwide speech on New Year’s Eve, Obama called for a “fair and balanced” approach to solve the fiscal cliff, using that exact phrase several times. The press was subsequently fed the “fair and balanced” talking points as the singular characteristic of the Obama Administration.
The final bill, which included only tax increases and no cuts in spending, actually added $330 billion in spending over the next 10 years, and ensures an increase of $4 trillion to the federal deficit.
After hearing of the bill’s passage, Obama stated,
“Today’s agreement enshrines, I think, a principle into law that will remain in place as long as I am President: The deficit needs to be reduced in a way that’s balanced. Everyone pays their fair share. Everyone does their part. That’s how our economy works best. That’s how we grow.”
Welcome to Obama’s “balanced approach”: Doublethink at its best.
For every dollar spent by government, an offsetting dollar is crowded out of the productive economy. While Obama steadfastly refuses to cut government spending, his new mantra of “we can’t cut our way to prosperity” is the polar opposite of what needs to happen, namely, shrink the government so that the economy can expand. As long as government grows, the economy will shrink.
In short, nothing has been solved. Obama and his spend-crazy Administration are not restrained in the least and the dividing lines between Democrats, Republicans and conservatives are more vitriolic than ever.
This writer expects that the credit rating agencies will be inclined to further downgrade U.S. debt, based on a) expanding debt to GDP ratio, b) congressional gridlock and inability to achieve a reasonable consensus and c) increasing budget deficits.
Transhumanism and Immortality
As discussed before in these pages, Technocracy and Transhumanism are Siamese twins joined at a scientific/metaphysical nexus to determine the future of mankind. Practitioners of these philosophies shroud their metaphysical belief systems with traditional science in order to a) avoid intellectual scrutiny and b) give legitimacy to otherwise purely mystic concepts.
While Technocracy addresses evolving economic and political systems required for the control of the humans on our planet, transhumanism is concerned with human enhancement up to and including achieving immortality. In this realm, science and fantasy are often indistinguishable.
For what follows below, I strongly recommend viewing this informative BBC documentary on the Russian space program: Knocking on Heaven’s Door.
The father of the Russian space program was Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857 – 1935), a brilliant scientist who was driven by the philosophies of another Russian, Nikolai Fedorov (1828 – 1903).
According to transhumanist Guilio Prisco*,
“Fedorov suggested that science was a tool given to us by God to enable us to resurrect the dead and, as promised, enjoy immortal life. He added that because the Earth could not sustain a population that never died, we must first learn to conquer space. His ideas about human evolution, and in particular the idea that humans should take control of the process and direct it towards their own goals, inspired generations of Russian scientists and led directly to contemporary transhumanism.“ [emphasis added]
Federov believed that the only evil in the world was death, and therefore it must be conquered. However, he had not only current and future inhabitants of the world in mind, but also all humans who have ever lived. If science could pull it off, having all those humans walking the earth would necessitate the colonization of the universe — to spread us out, so to speak.
The Russian space program, with its successes and failures, sparked the USSR/U.S. space race that gave legitimacy to the creation and expansion of NASA in the U.S. The outward concern over the space race was military in nature: Who would rain down nuclear missiles on whom? The evidence is to the contrary however – the race was to be first to colonize the universe and to discover other life forms who had already achieved god status (immortality).
Some have suggested that the space “race” aspect was fabricated by scientists to stimulate massive funding into their metaphysical/scientific schemes. There is more than a little evidence to support this theory, including NASA’s vocal search for extraterrestrial life on other planets in the universe.
For instance, The New York Times reported in its Science section in 2002,
“The pursuit of that ancient heavenly connection has lately moved near center stage at NASA, which assembled some 100 astronomers, physicists, chemists, geologists and even a few biologists at the Space Telescope Science Institute on the Johns Hopkins University campus recently to talk about extraterrestrial life.
“In discussions on topics like the vagaries of interstellar weather and the reflective properties of vegetation, they debated the nature and history of life on Earth, which parts of the galaxy were suitable for life and laid plans for a generation of spacecraft that will prospect the cosmos for planets, sifting pinpoints of light for the signatures of life as humans know or can imagine it.” [emphasis added]
Philosophically speaking, this is a direct takeoff on Tsiolkovsky’s and Federov’s quest from 70 years earlier.
Transhumans today continue their march toward immortality through so-called “convergence” of technologies such as NBIC (Nano-Bio-Info-Congnitive) initiatives at major universities all around the world. In the Internet universe, inventor and outspoken transhuman Ray Kurzweil has teamed up with Google.com to create new technologies that will usher in Kurzweil’s predicted Singularity in 2045 or thereabouts, which may coincide with the achievement of immortality. (Incidentally, Kurzweil’s main goal in life is to resurrect his father!)
To the average person, what I have written above may seem too surreal to comprehend, but I strongly suggest that you slog through it anyway. Science and religion (mystic/metaphysical) are converging to create the most powerful hegemony over man that the earth has ever seen. Furthermore, it is being funded almost exclusively by unsuspecting taxpayers around the world.
[* Giulio Prisco is a physicist and computer scientist, and former senior manager in the European space administration. Giulio works as a consultant and contributes to several science and technology magazines. In 2002 – 2008 he served on the Board of Directors of Humanity Plus, of which he was Executive Director, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Italian Transhumanist Association.]
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