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Thursday, January 3, 2019

The People Who Want to Microchip People


Image Source: CBS News.

In an earlier post, I noted how the BBC is promoting human microchipping as well as larger tech-body implants. Their poster boy for this cause, colour blind guy, Neil Harbisson, merits a special 'cyborg' passport status.

Image Source: NYT.

Image Source: Munsell Color.

The subcutaneous chip was first developed by Siemens in the United States. The human microchip implant was invented by Kevin Warwick: "He is known for his studies on direct interfaces between computer systems and the human nervous system, and has also done research concerning robotics." You can read backgrounders on human microchip technology, here and here.

If this practice becomes widely accepted, it will become an automatic, mainstream practice, and children will be microchipped at birth. There are already brain chips which can affect moods and behaviour. Let this go further, and subcutaneous implants will become an organic user interface. They will also constitute an assault on the integrity of the bodies and minds of individuals both as individuals, and as members of society. Soon, it won't be necessary to talk about human rights and freedoms, because the preconditions for them will be medically removed and technically absent. For a disturbing, unconfirmed original sources on this endgame, see here.

The BBC promoting microchipping for Humans (29 January 2015). Video Source: Youtube.

The Body, Colonized

China Behavior Rating System V/S Sweden Microchip implants | Must watch technology (18 June 2018). Video Source: Youtube.

Of course, rhetoric which promotes rights and freedoms will remain. The political speeches will continue, but rights and freedoms will be erased in reality. Lip service will be paid to these archaic constructions until it is no longer necessary to do so, and people have forgotten them, or been reprogrammed. Expect whatever slavery that follows to be labeled as a new type of freedom. The Chinese have a saying about manipulation and the acquisition of power: point to a deer, and call it a horse.

Human microchipping is part of a new field called 'biointerfaced nano-engineering.' Another catch-all term is 'wearables,' created by firms like Proteus and MC10. This is not the path to convenience, progress or enlightenment. It is the path to slavery. Although it seems that the human body must become the next technological platform, it is not inevitable. Do not do it. Do not accept it.

This post is not a Luddite screed. It is a plea to save the best potentials of technology and keep them on a course that will not destroy us. We are entering a new stage in the Tech Revolution, in which we have to learn to take responsibility for progress and innovation. Thus far, citizens have been accepting actors on the receiving end of research projects released via big tech companies. These were experimental prototypes, presented as exciting consumer goods. Electronic goods were marketed with various political and socio-economic messages to make them palatable in the capitalist endeavour to build self-identity from the outside in.

Image Source: Go into the Story.

We were entranced in the first decades of the Tech Revolution by the gadgets and rapid software upgrades. Most people believed in the opening act that they acted as consumers inside the pre-existing capitalist model. They did not understand that that old system had already been effectively outdated and internally destroyed; only an illusory shell of that model persists as a form of mass behavioural control.

We can all be forgiven for assuming that consumerism was how tech was introduced into our reality. But it never was.

Although glitzy, futuristic marketing campaigns created the illusion that technology turned people into empowered, connected consumers, each new level of hardware and software between the 1980s and the 2010s blinded technophiles to the fact that they were never consumers at all. They were increasingly-conditioned lab rats, running through monitored environments, inside the biggest human behavioural study ever conducted.

Now, things must change. It is time to wake up. It is time to grow up. We can be forgiven for trusting those big corporations, helmed by intelligence agencies and Promethean research groups, as benevolent guides in the opening act of the Tech Revolution.

Image Source: Film Connection.

But we cannot be forgiven if we sleepwalk into Act Two, and deliver our children into immersive slavery. In transhumanism, the commodity is not the microchip or its successor technologies. The commodity will be a new type of interbody imperialism and colonization, developed under the banner of building safer, more efficient societies. This will be a coercive, predictable, micro-legalized system, based on live feed maps of humankind's biological processes, mass consciousness, and psychological and physical reactions as a collective of living beings.

There has to be a moment when we recognize that the integrity of our bodies and souls is worth more than a few everyday conveniences. We are not meant to become 'the Borg.' Planting a gadget in your body is not a form of self-improvement that is good for the environment. To believe this reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the body as an environment in itself, and of the body as an organism functioning within the larger natural environment.

I suspect that what will happen is that humankind will split into two camps. One group will absorb technology fully into the mind and body with erotic abandon. They will love the quasi-sexual interface, and will mistake the enhanced experience for an authentic upgrade.

Image Source: Ars Technica.

You can read chatter on how transhumanism improves the lives of implantees, here. For transhuman enthusiasts, biohacking is the ticket to becoming superhuman. After all, what's wrong with being able to connect your brain directly to the Internet and rebuilding your body so that you become immortal? From Wired:
"'I heard about finger magnets in April and by May I had an implant,' Tim Cannon, co-founder of the Pittsburgh-based DIY bodyhacking group Grindhouse Wetware tells Wired.co.uk. 'As soon as I heard that you could get this extra sense, I was blown away. Now I can feel electromagnetic fields.'"
The wearables movement's top gurus hail from the body modification scene; they present this tech as a lifestyle choice, rather than a medical and political one with long term consequences, not just for the individual who accepts the implant, but for everyone around them.


Cyborg © (2013-2019) by TaKe-bamboo. Image Source: DeviantART.

Meanwhile, technophobes may decide to draw a line in the sand and redirect the march of progress in order to safeguard sacred aspects of human life. Religiously-minded critics think that the human microchip is the 'Mark of the Beast' from the Bible's Book of Revelation 13:17. 

Coming Soon: Bosses to Microchip Workers? (13 November 2018). Video Source: Youtube.

You can watch dozens of videos debating both sides of the human microchip question, here. The discussion on transhumanism will form the groundwork for new political ideologies. A house divided with no consensus on transhumanism cannot stand, but a monolith is worse. Given that humankind may split into two paths on this issue, the primary concern is that we not reach a situation where biointerfaced nano-engineering, implants, and wearables become compulsory and enforced by state authorities. We must retain the power of choice.

Participating countries in early test cases for human microchipping are: UK, USA, Sweden, Spain, France, Germany, Japan and China. Below, see a list of the (publicly-acknowledged) people who want to microchip people.

Image Source: popsci.

BIOHAX INTERNATIONAL

Address: Helsingborg, Sweden
Key Figure: Jowan Osterlund, CEO, former professional body piercer

Biohax claims to have implanted over 4,000 workers in Sweden. The company calls their microchips, "installs." Motto: "The future is technology moving into the body." Takeaway quote:
"Biohax installs world wide with more than 1000 professionals in the financial, healthcare, government, science, and technology sectors are using their Biohax install to live a seamless experience with their connected surroundings. ... 
Biohax is a passive near field communications device inserted by certified biohackers. It does not contain a battery, tracking systems or any GPS enablements. The Biohax install enables the carrier to increase their security in the digital world, provide 100% identification clearance, and unlimited seamless experiences with their connected surroundings. ...

Biohax aggressive move towards replacing plastic cards for a sustainable future is acted upon everyday with our efforts to educate society and the connected citizen. ​

We always aim to align our actions in accordance with a sustainable future. It is in our DNA to practice a safe and secure install with minimal environmental impacts."
Reports: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.

A microchip implant kiosk in Stockholm, showing Biohax CEO Jowan Osterlund inserting a chip into a customer. Image Source: James Brooks/AP via NPR.

BIOTEQ, UK

Micro-chipping workers: UK firms consider human implants | Al Jazeera English (26 December 2018). Video Source: Youtube.

Address: The Incuhive Space / S Northam, The Incuhive Space Mayflower Close, Chandler's Ford, Eastleigh, Hampshire, United Kingdom, SO53 4AR
Key Figures: Steven John Northam, Director; Dr. Geoffrey Wilfred Watson, Director

Bioteq, a UK company, will microchip your workers for you. From The Guardian on 11 November 2018: "UK firm BioTeq ... offers the implants to businesses and individuals, [and] has already fitted 150 implants in the UK."

DANGEROUS THINGS, USA

Biohacking - the forefront of a new kind of human evolution: Amal Graafstra at TEDxSFU (17 October 2013). Video Source: Youtube.

Address: 800 5th Avenue, Seattle, Washington 98104 USA
Key Figure: Amal Graafstra, Founder and CEO

The Dangerous Things injectable RFID (radio frequency identification) chip. Image Source: Now the End Begins.

DUBAI HOLDING part of the DUBAI FUTURE FOUNDATION

Address: 5th Floor, Emirates Towers, Dubai UAE (Dubai Future Foundation)
Key Figures: Amit Kaushal, CEO, and more listed here (Dubai Holding)

Creepy ads placed on BBC International push human microchipping as part of a shiny future. Connected to the World Future Foundation and the World Government Summit. From a 2016 Gulf News report on human microchipping in Dubai: 'the idea of the superhuman is now a reality.'

GENERAL BYTES

 Address: Prague, Czech Republic / Czechia and other offices, here
Key Figures: Karel Kyovsky, Director; Martijn Wismeijer, Marketing

Prague-based General Bytes is known for developing Bitcoin ATMs and point-of-sale tech for cryptocurrencies. Great! But the marketing manager Martijn Wismeijer had microchips implanted in his hands to store the private keys of his Bitcoin wallet. This is likely a precursor to storing Bitcoin wallets on human microchips, which will work with General Bytes' crypto ATM machines. Not so great.

LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES, INC. / ALCATEL-LUCENT / NOKIA

Address: 600 Mountain Avenue, Murray Hill, New Jersey 07974 USA
Key Figures: Patricia F. Russo, former CEO; Philippe Camus, former Chairman

Lucent Technologies is a telecommunications company. It started as American Bell and became AT&T, is connected to the invention of the telephone, and has been around since 1876. Its R&D branch is Bell Labs. Other subsidiaries include Agere Systems, AC and Communication Systems Corporation. Absorbed by Nokia in 2016. Lucent makes interbody implants. There is a lot of talk among conspiracy theorists that Lucent is a Luciferian company.

Until August 2018, President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, owned 666 Fifth Avenue in New York City. There were online rumours that Lucent Technologies was headquartered there, marrying Kushner and the triple 6 address to human implant tech, but I could find no obvious confirmation of this. Image Source: EU Times.

MICROCHIPS BIOTECH, INC.

Address: 128 Spring Street, Suite 310, Lexington, Massachusetts 02421 USA
Key Figures: Dr. Cheryl R. Blanchard, CEO; for others see here

The company develops microchips as a drug delivery system:
"It engages in developing applications for the microchip-based implant in various therapeutic indications, including osteoporosis, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, women’s contraception, and pain management, as well as provides an alternative to established therapies that require long-term dosing and delivery via injections. The company’s microchip-based implant also engages in storing and releasing precise doses of drugs at scheduled intervals."
POSITIVEID SOLUTIONS, formerly APPLIED DIGITAL SOLUTIONS, USA, parent companies of VERICHIP CORPORATION

Address: Louisville, Kentucky and 1690 South Congress Avenue, Suite 201, Delray Beach, Florida 33445 USA
Key Figure: Scott R. Silverman, former Chairman and CEO of PositiveID and VeriChip Corporation also majority owner of VeriTeQ

Maker of VeriChip, approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2004. VeriChip proved hackable; the chip was infected with a virus that was transmitted through a human carrier of the chip to other computers. Privacy concerns persist, reported here. Pay attention! Partners include Boeing, NASA, DARPA, US Department of Homeland Security, United States Special Operations Command ...

PARTICIPATING COMPANIES and ORGANIZATIONS PUBLICIZED THUS FAR:

Sources are hyperlinked; in some cases, these companies and organizations are also involved in chip manufacturing.

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