IMPORTANT SKYWATCH NOTICE: This series is being offered in the leadup to THE UNVEILING—an urgent Defender Virtual Conference event (May 13) wherein experts from around the world will update the public on (among other things) swiftly developing Human Enhancement / Hybrid Age advances directly tied to ancient prophecy and a coming seven years of Great Tribulation. Are you aware governments are enacting legislation NOW to protect the rights of the coming Human-Non-Human genetically engineered entities? (Early registration discount here).

We have spent this short introductory to the series looking at what The Milieu is not as we have broken down a few of O’Donnell’s imbalanced treatments. But as we move into arguments written by actual members of The Milieu, let me state, once and for all, a dynamic aspect of what The Milieu is…and what it will always be.

We—believers and nonbelievers—need, now more than ever, to know the facts about transhumanism’s leaps in the current age: the promising aspects of improving the quality of human life on the “pros” end, as well as the concerning potential of negatively altering the quality of human life forever as the “con” that cannot be withdrawn.

Anytime the waters of scientific discovery appear too clear, too refreshing, too good to be true, we need those willing to look beneath the glittering surface to uncover what predators are lurking just beyond what we can see—or just beyond what certain men in lab coats tell us is there. (In many cases, it’s the proximate and learned man in the lab coat, himself, pressing the “red alert” button; artificial intelligence expert Hugo de Garis—celebrated researcher in the field of “evolvable hardware” and author of The Artilect War—comes to mind.)

We need “The Milieus” who approach science and technology with caution and restraint—regardless of what “conspiratist” labels those individuals or groups are handed from the opposing side. Without them and the hindsight awareness they raise, the predator is eventually guaranteed his feast, and we become the devoured.

I am as happy as a schoolboy on the playground at recess to respond to this need. My associates are ready for the challenge. The word “milieu” as a noun infers a set of surroundings, a central meeting place, or a coming together. But O’Donnell, by attaching this simple word as the corporate identification over myself and those in the same line of work, he has assisted in uniting us even further…and now we have a name. What one man might have intended to be a generic label for a minority of conspiritists flattering each other over a “now-defunct” website has become a tribute to our line of work. An accolade of honor. Individually, each of us is only one minority voice, and cry as loud as we might in the wilderness, one voice can only travel so far. Together, we form The Milieu—a collective force! And we will always challenge any modern developments that hold potential threat to this current life, our future, and our eternal souls.

Thank you, Mr. O’Donnell, for this marvelous opportunity to engage the world now as the Leaders of the Transhuman Resistance! Thank you for including each of us by name, listing the group in your paper as including: Thomas and Nita Horn, Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, Chuck Missler, Michael Bennett, Gary Stearman, Sharon and Derek Gilbert, Douglas Hamp, Cris Putnam, Stephen Quayle, Michael Lake, John McTernan, Noah Hutchings, Donna Howell, Larry Spargimino, Douglas Krieger, Douglas Woodward, Paul McGuire, Fred DeRuvo, Carl Teichrib, Gary Bates, Russ Dizdar, Michael Hoggard, Terry James, Terry Cook, and Frederick Meekins, among others, many of whom will share in the chapters of this work.

Machines of Loving Grace (FROM MILIEU MEMBER CARL TEICHRIB)

“Did you see the robot?” I asked the porter as we passed in the dimly lit hallway of New York City’s Empire Hotel.

He stopped and gave me a curious glance. “What are you talking about?”

“You passed right by a robot,” I said matter-of-factly, motioning to a waiting group of people standing five doors down. “He’s the one sitting.”

The porter turned to look, peering at an Asian man seated on a wheeled, cart-like carrier.

“That’s not a human,” I emphasized. “It’s a highly advanced robotic head on a mock body.”

The gentleman stared, and stared some more. “No…that’s a man.” He sounded less convinced of what he believed than what he was seeing. “He must be handicapped, that’s why he’s sitting in the cart.”

“Do yourself a favor. Walk up and look closely. You’ll see it’s not a person at all.”

Pointing to an individual in the group who looked identical to the one sitting, I explained that the man standing was Hiroshi Ishiguro, a Japanese robotics inventor, and the “head” was his creation—a robotic double or gemenoid running on sophisticated software, automatically reacting to its changing environment. The porter blurted, “That can’t be true!”

“Just walk by and take a look,” I assured him. “It’s not what you think.”

Retreating down the hallway, my skeptical friend sauntered past the group, guardedly examining the person in question. Soon he was stopped, standing only a few feet away, peering closely at the life-like figure. And it was staring back at him.

Just a short jaunt from where this unusual interaction took place was an extraordinary gathering. For two days in mid-June, 2013, New York City’s Lincoln Center was home to the Global Future 2045 International Congress (GF2045), a synthesis of man and machine, mind and matter, Eastern spirituality and Western secularism. Among the mix of prestigious personalities was James Martin, the tech entrepreneur and single largest benefactor to Oxford in its nine hundred-year history; Peter Diamandis, the creator of the XPRIZE and cofounder of Singularity University; Ray Kurzweil, Google’s famed director of engineering; and the developer of SiriusXM Radio, Martine Rothblatt. Celebrated pioneer in artificial intelligence, Marvin Minsky, addressed the eager crowd through a video feed. Dmitry Itskov, the Russian media mogul who inspired the 2045 Initiative—the organizing entity behind the gathering—was in the spotlight both on and off the stage. Neuroscientists and consciousnesses theorists, robotic developers, posthuman thinkers, and religious leaders had assembled to explore the bounds of future human evolution.

Unlike global events I had attended before, my entrance to the GF2045 was made possible through a media pass. Magnum Veritas Productions, a documentary film company, had brought me on board as an advisor and interviewer. Our time at the Congress was therefore split between the event itself, press conferences, and conducting face-to-face interviews in the Empire Hotel.

It was an immersive and interactive experience with some of the leading minds in the transhumanist movement.

But what is transhumanism?

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Trans-what?

An old but accurate definition can be found in the 1883 edition of The Imperial Dictionary of the English Language: “Transhuman (trans-hu’man), a. Beyond or more than human.”^[i] A contemporary description might sound like this: Transhumanism is humanity’s intentional evolution through science and technology.

Lincoln Canon, then president of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, gave this definition in 2013: “Transhumanism is the ethical use of technology to expand our abilities from the human to the posthuman.”^[ii]

Transhumanism is thus a changeover, a stepping stone, but not the final stage; it is a transition to a posthuman potential, moving beyond what we presently are. It is a future-oriented vision, one fueled by incredible scientific and technical advances and the possibilities they portend: greatly magnifying cognitive abilities, enhancing sensory input, genetic restructuring to permanently eliminate disease and weakness, finding ways to move our consciousness into a noncorruptible body, the extension of human life—to the point of immortality—and even resurrecting the dead.

A vast array of technologies and theoretical applications act like the carrot before the horse: Virtual and augmented reality, brain-computer interfacing and the anticipation of uploading one’s mind into an artificial carrier, ubiquitous connection to the global network, cybernetics and chip implants, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and self-replicating machines, nanotechnology, genetic manipulation, chemical switches for mood control and sharpened awareness, and cryonics for those who can afford to invest in a projected reawakening.^[iii]

Using these technologies and predicting their impact on individuals and civilization, the offering of perfectibility—of forging an optimal species with near infinite capacity through the works of our hands—becomes more than just a tantalizing dream. It becomes a faith.

The other option is to remain as we are, reside in our limitations, struggle for a few decades and die. This is unacceptable.

Thus, science becomes salvific with hope placed in the speculations of what technology may bring. Transhumanists, those who hold this promise of techno-futures, look to the Singularity with anticipation—that hypothetical point in time when information and technology outpace humanity, forcing us to fully integrate into manageable matter. The Singularity will break our limitations of flesh and bone: Man, machine, and information will merge into a new creation. Posthumanity is the anticipated result, our evolution beyond Man: Übermensch.

Max More, founder of Extropy Institute, an early group discussing neo-human evolution, provided this explanation during an interview at GF2045:

Transhumanism you can think of as, in some ways, an inheritor of the Enlightenment goals of fundamental progress in the human condition.… But it’s taking it a step beyond the humanist goal of generally improving the human condition through science and technology and good will, and it’s realizing that humanity itself is limited. Because of our genetic heritage, there are certain limitations to our lifespan, to our health, to our mental well being, to our cognabilities. And it’s realizing that we can take this humanist goal further and we can actually change the human condition itself.

We can use science and technology to understand the causes of aging and we can learn to eliminate those causes. It’s not an unsolvable problem; it’s basically an engineering problem, a scientific problem. There’s nothing special about the human life span. It’s just an accident; an evolutionary accident…. And why should we accept that? So really transhumanism is about taking control of our own human evolution, and deciding how long we want to live, how smart we want to be, how well modulated our emotions should be. It’s really about turning our choices over to us rather than natural selection.”^[iv]

Transhumanism is often understood as a secularist approach to unbounded progress, a humanist philosophy seeking mankind’s expansion, acceleration, and the overpowering of natural limitations.

Historically it draws from an intellectual lineage stretching through modernity, and it remains a cerebral and techno-cultural movement. However, it is important to note that not all scientists and technology experts share the posthuman vision. Not too long ago, the mainstream scientific community, with reputations on the line, spurned those who believed in life extension and augmented futures.^[v] But times have changed.

Transhumanism has stepped out from the fringes.

In terms of demographic and cultural identifiers, the movement is narrow and broad. It is narrow in that it is statistically and professionally predictable, as demonstrated by surveys within the transhumanist community. Variations exist from study to study; nevertheless, the following 2012 survey published by the Journal of Personal Cyberconsciousness presents an interesting snapshot. Regarding education and occupation, 28.8 percent and 27.6 percent hold graduate and bachelor’s degrees, and computers and mathematics (27.8 percent) make up the largest fields of occupation. Most are unmarried (64.4 percent), ethnically white (85.4 percent), male (90.1 percent), and fall within a young professional spectrum (45.8 percent aged 20–29 and 21.5 percent between 30–39). The majority resides in large urban centers (43.8 percent), and less than 5 percent identify as rural.^[vi] Broadness is found in cultural messaging. Transhuman themes have been and are prevalent in the entertainment industry: Avatar, the Star Trek series, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Matrix and X-Men franchises, Elysium, i,Robot, Gamer, Transcendence, Blade Runner, The Island, Virtuosity, Tron and Tron: Legacy, Surrogates, Lucy, District 9, Ghost in the Shell, Splice, and the Terminator series—with technology being destroyer and savior. The online gaming world is enmeshed with transhumanist identifiers, along with frequent sacralizing patterns.^[vii]

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Technology’s impact on industries—including the medical field, aerospace, ground transportation, and agriculture—powerfully contributes to the discussion. The explosive growth of information technologies, Internet-based services, the smart connection of appliances and devices, and the data streams that seamlessly link society add to the general discourse. We find ourselves in the flow of the algorithm economy, whether or not we are aware of it, and most of us have subjective identities—online profiles shaped by viewing habits and the projection of presence through virtual social platforms.

We are living in an ever-changing, increasingly integrated matrix of information and technology.

Sociopolitical interpretations within the transhumanist movement are diverse, but stronger pulls to the political left are noteworthy. The 2012 survey revealed that 32.7 percent identified as Liberal, 16.9 percent as Socialist, and 4.2 percent as Marxist. Moderates made up 15.6 percent, and the libertarian approach with its limited government and free markets made up 27.4 percent, a sizeable minority when taken against the combined percentage of left-leaning transhumanists.^[viii] Surveys in 2013 and early 2017 by the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies revealed a dominant leftist perspective.^[ix]

To the libertarian transhumanist, science will free us to explore individual tastes, sensibilities, and desires independent of centralized authority. In the Promised Land of techno-Marxism, the posthuman will operate in a perfect collectivism. Class division disappears under the revolution of evolutionary science; even gender and sex fade away in the hive existence.

Transhumanism has also been envisioned within a technocratic framework, the wiring of reality for optimal efficiency and connectedness: Algorithms and smart-energy calibration will order the course of neo-humanity.

No matter how civilization is rebooted, in this shape of things to come, “machines of loving grace” will lead us to green pastures.^[x]

Philosophically, the movement is rooted in modernity’s themes. Elements of Saint Simon’s management-by-experts can be discerned; the positivism of Auguste Comte pokes out from under the surface. Broad overlap exists with Karl Marx.^[xi] The influence of Nietzsche is visible.^[xii] Darwin’s evolutionary paradigm is magnified as holy revelation, and eugenics—the science of human betterment through genetic selection, made infamous by the Third Reich—is a contentious association that some transhumanists recognize and others spurn.^[xiii]

“I don’t see the connection between transhumanism and eugenics,” Dmitry Itskov said during an interview, explaining that his transhumanism is for everybody.^[xiv] When I queried Max More, his immediate response was, “I don’t see eugenics as having much to do with transhumanism.” He was willing, however, to acknowledge an inference, but emphasized, “Transhumanism is really about giving us the choice of who we want to be.”^[xv]

Anders Sandberg, a Research Fellow at the Oxford Martin School, was willing to situate the movement within liberal eugenics—pursuing genetic improvement without recourse to authoritative mandates. Sandberg, who has a PhD in computational neuroscience, was part of the European Union Enhance Project, “looking at the ethics of enhancing humans, extending lifespans, improving mood, improving intelligence, improving bodies.”^[xvi]

The dark history of eugenics causes many transhumanists to cringe at the suggestion of commonality. At the same time, notable figures outside of the community have suggested a neo-eugenics that dovetails with the movement. Robert Edwards, the British medical researcher who developed in vitro fertilization, frankly supported genetic intervention: “Soon it will [be] a sin for parents to have a child which carries the heavy burden of genetic disease.”^[xvii] Nobel laureate James Watson advocated a new eugenics.^[xviii] Dr. John Glad, an expert in Russian history who devoted his retirement to eugenic considerations, took an inclusive view of human change: “Eugenicists also perceive a need to be open to genetic manipulation, machine enhancement, and even contact with beings from other planets.”^[xix]

And why not seek human advancement through genetic alteration or by morphing with machines? Or if an extraterrestrial race offers us the keys to perfection, as has been suggested by some who claim alien contact—promising the mixture of genetic materials to produce an improved human hybrid—why not?^[xx] If all that exists is material, if reality is grounded in naturalism, if heaven on earth is a type of techno-modernity, then civilization’s operating system is pragmatism. Why feel squeamish about methods? The ends justify the means.

True, the pragmatic mindset is readily detected, even celebrated, but practically and philosophically, this runs counter to some of the transhumanists I know. Most I have met believe in orienting change within ethically acceptable patterns, framing their perspectives through a moral compass. The Mormon Transhumanist Association (MTA) comes to mind, as does the fledgling Christian Transhumanist Association. I have personally interacted with founders and members of both groups, and I respect their good intentions: lifespan longevity, eradication of diseases, enhancing life quality, and striving to do good works. While I disagree with their cosmological worldview, they bring an important ethos to the conversation and invite critical and opposing voices to their platform. For this I applaud them.

However, the subject is more substantive than any single group. Advanced military applications—including enhancement programs through DARPA,^[xxi] robotic assault vehicles,^[xxii] and the race for national security artificial intelligence—fits within the milieu, as does your surveillance-enabled smartphone and the Web technologies we use daily. When India’s Prime Minister Modi beamed himself as a life-sized, three-dimensional hologram into parts of his country during the 2014 election campaign, his projection of presence corresponded to transhuman models.^[xxiii] Autonomous cars and smart cities are part of the mix. Cyborgs are no longer future fantasies, as displayed in the April 2017 edition of National Geographic.^[xxiv] Cloning, biohacking, genome editing, and designer babies: Bioethics, traditionally focusing on abortion and euthanasia, now wrestles with complex neo-eugenic issues. Technical leaps increase at a rate that feels exponential. The public struggles not only to process the speed of innovation, but is morally drifting and contextually disconnected in an age when uncanny wisdom is needed.

As humanity turns to the digital cloud for direction, will our values mirror the algorithm of the masses? Crowd-gnosis? Group wisdom now dictates what is acceptable and what is not.

In his write-up for the GF2045 program, Peter Diamandis expounded on living information, an infinitely expanding algorithm. What he was describing is the desire for a hive mind:

We humans have begun to incorporate technology inside ourselves. Humans themselves are becoming information technology. Over the last decades mankind has suddenly started changing from a loose collection of seven billion individuals to a new kind of perpetually morphing non-physical social tissue woven from densely interconnected arrays of mobile person-nodes.

In this process we—humanity—are becoming a new organism: a meta-intelligence. As a species, as this new organism, we are becoming conscious on an unprecedented new level, in a new cosmic-scale realm.

As we are going through the metamorphosis of becoming this new meta-intelligence organism, we are going from evolution by natural selection—Darwinism—to evolution by intelligent direction. We are starting to direct the evolution of our biology and of our minds ourselves…. As we begin to liberate our thoughts, our memes, our consciousness from the biological constraints that we presently have, this will allow us to evolve far faster and ever faster.^[xxv]

When Diamandis speaks of futures, others listen.

His work in developing space-based enterprises has elevated him as a world leader, and his XPRIZE has been a rallying point for influencers—think Larry Page, the founding CEO of Google; Ray Kurzweil; Arianna Huffington; Ratan Tata of the Tata empire of companies; and global technology strategist, Salim Ismail. In June 2017, XPRIZE allied with the United Nations International Telecommunications Union to promote artificial intelligence as a revolutionary means for global good—AI for healthcare, education, poverty alleviation, and human rights. The UN Sustainable Development Goals are now a priority for AI applications.^[xxvi]

AI is reshaping industries and services. Amazon’s success is linked to its AI technologies. Artificial intelligence runs in the background of our online purchases and banking activities; self-driving cars are AI enabled; healthcare programs are utilizing AI applications. Your investment portfolio may already be managed by a robo-advisor. We hardly blink when artificial intelligence enters the mainstream.

Seeing the digital writing on the wall in the early years of the new century, Yale professor of computer science, David Gelernter, poetically envisioned a computer-saturated existence:

The future will be dense with computers. They will hang around everywhere in lush growths, like Spanish moss. They will swarm like locusts. But a swarm is not merely a big crowd: Individuals in the swarm lose their identities; the computers that make up this global swarm will blend together into the seamless substance of the cybersphere.^[xxvii]

Could we find ourselves in a hive-mind economy where everything is interconnected in a global smart grid, the perfect surveillance system, buying and selling through an AI managed crypto-currency? If so, then the gnosis of the algorithm could perceivably manage humanity as a resource in the transformational economy. And as the vast Internet of things takes shape where everything from wearable medical devices to appliances to vehicles to people—every conceivable object, billions and billions of them—continually transmits data through embedded sensors, we may find ourselves in a world where AI dictates what is efficient and viable, and what is superfluous and in need of terminating. Remember, global citizen, you are the product.

Admittedly, the above paragraph is a dark vision, but as futurist Gerd Leonhard writes, “If we, today, cannot even agree on what the rules and ethics should be for an Internet of people and their computing devices, how would we agree on something that is potentially a thousand times as vast?”^[xxviii]

Transhuman-oriented technologies are visible across the gamut of society, and no single organization has a handle on the full spectrum of change. Ramifications, benefits, and unintended consequences press into the fabric of civilization. Opportunities for great good, great evil, and great confusion are before us—emboldened by the capacity of our technical creations.

Can we not just trust the experts?

NEXT: Science and Society

[i] John Ogilvie, The Imperial Dictionary of the English Language: A Complete Encyclopedic Lexicon, Literary, Scientific, and Technological (Blackie & Son, 1883, edited by Charles Annandale), p. 415.

[ii] Lincoln Cannon, “The Purpose of the Mormon Transhumanist Association,” Mormon Transhumanist Association annual meeting, April 5, 2013, Salt Lake City, UT, as taken from my notes and media from the event. This speech can be viewed on MTA’s YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/iFhQf2R_IVs.

[iii] Cryonics is the technique of suspending a deceased person in a frozen state until such a time when science is able to resurrect the dead individual.

[iv] Max More, interviewed by Carl Teichrib for Magnum Veritas Productions, LLC., June 16, 2013, GF2045 Congress. Interview location: Empire Hotel, New York City.

[v] Brian Alexander, Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion (Basic Books, 2003), p. 3.

[vi] Hank Pellissier and Teresa Dal Santo, “Transhumanists: Who Are They, What Do They Want, Believe and Predict?” Journal of Personal Cyberconsciousness (Terasem Movement, Inc, 2013), Volume 8, Issue 1, p. 22–24.

[vii] Two studies of import: Robert M. Geraci, Virtually Sacred: Myth and Meaning in World of Warcraft and Second Life (Oxford University Press, 2014), and William Sims Brainbridge, eGods: Faith Versus Fantasy in Computer Games (Oxford University Press, 2013).

[viii] Pellissier and Dal Santo, “Transhumanists: Who Are They, What Do They Want, Believe and Predict?” Journal of Personal Cyberconsciousness, p. 22.

[ix] Who Are the IEET’s Audience? Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, July 16, 2013, [https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/poll20130716]; What Do Technoprogressives Believe in 2017? Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, February 18, 2017 (https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/hughes20170218).

[x] The Shape of Things to Come is the title of H. G. Wells’ 1933 technocratic novel. “Machines of Loving Grace” is part of the techno-utopian poem, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, penned by American poet, Richard Brautigan, and published in 1967.

[xi] On Marxism, see James Steinhoff, “Transhumanism and Marxism: Philosophical Connections,” Journal of Evolution and Technology, Volume 24, Issue 2, May 2014 (http:// jetpress.org/v24/steinhoff.pdf).

[xii] Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, “Nietzsche, the Overhuman, and Transhumanism,” Journal of Evolution and Technology, Volume 20, Issue 1, March 2009 (http://jetpress.org/v20/ sorgner.pdf).

[xiii] Eugenics was popularized in the early twentieth century throughout much of the Western world. The United States engaged in positive and negative eugenics, as did England, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Sweden (which continued into the 1970s), and other nations—including colonial-ruled countries. The Soviet Union worked to configure a socialist eugenics program. Nazi Germany employed eugenics within its framework as “racial hygiene,” and because of this, eugenics became tinctured by the horrors of the Third Reich. For more information on eugenics in narrow and broad applications, see Edwin Black, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race (Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003); Richard Weikart, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); Marc Hillel, Of Pure Blood (Ferni Publishers, 1979); Victoria F. Nourse, In Reckless Hands: Skinner v. Oklahoma and the Near-Triumph of American Eugenics (W. W. Norton & Company, 2008); Robert Proctor, Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis (Harvard University Press, 1988); Stefan Kuhl, The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism (Oxford University Press, 1994); David Plotz, The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank (Random House, 2005); Andrew Kimbrell, The Human Body Shop: The Cloning, Engineering, and Marketing of Life (Regnery Publishing, 1997).

[xiv] Dmitry Itskov, interviewed by Carl Teichrib for Magnum Veritas Productions, LLC., June 16, 2013, GF2045 Congress. Interview location: Empire Hotel, New York City.

[xv] Max More, interviewed by Carl Teichrib for Magnum Veritas Productions, LLC., June 16, 2013, GF2045 Congress. Interview location: Empire Hotel, New York City.

[xvi] Anders Sandberg, interviewed by Carl Teichrib for Magnum Veritas Productions, LLC., June 16, 2013, GF2045 Congress. Interview location: Empire Hotel, New York City.

[xvii] Quoted by Natalie Ball, “Eugenics through the Eyes of Nobel Laureates: Involvement in the Intentional Improvement of Man’s Inheritable Qualities from 1905–2010,” The Proceedings of the 20th Anniversary, History of Medicine Days Conference 2011: The University of Calgary, Faculty of Medicine, Alberta, Canada (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015), p. 117.

[xviii] See James D. Watson, A Passion for DNA: Genes, Genomes, and Society (Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory Press, 2000).

[xix] John Glad, Future Human Evolution: Eugenics in the Twenty-First Century (Hermitage Publishers, 2006), p. 49. Glad was controversial for his endorsement of eugenics within the Jewish community, believing it was time for Jews to strengthen their genetic traits in order to remain a viable people group. He also boldly promoted sterilization and abortion programs for low-IQ women: “Abortion should be actively promoted, since it often serves as the last and even only resort for many low-IQ mothers who fail to practice contraception. Welfare policies need to be radically reexamined. Rather than simply pay low-IQ women more for each child, financial support should be made dependent on consent to undergo sterilization.… Eugenic family planning services are the greatest gift that the advanced countries can offer the Third World” (p. 97). For his thoughts on Jewish eugenics, see his book Jewish Eugenics (Wooden Shore, 2011).

[xx] The literature on UFO phenomena is rife with references to genetic modification. Lyssa Royal and Keith Priest in Visitors from Within (Royal Priest Research Press, 1992) offers channeled promises of a coming spiritual-physical upgrade in the mixing of alien and human genetics. In his book, Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1994), John E. Mack broached the subject of biological intervention in the abduction experience, connecting this to evolutionary processes. David M. Jacobs’ troubling work, The Threat (Simon & Schuster, 1998), explores the topic of alien-human genetic exchange. Christian author Gary Bates explores similar themes in his volume, Alien Intrusion: UFOs and the Evolution Connection (Creation Book Publishers, 2004).

[xxi] The United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

[xxii] In April, 2017, the US Marine Corps conducted beach-landing tests to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of an integrated nonhuman platform: robot amphibious assault vehicles, MUTT units, V-Bat drones, unmanned aerial vehicles, and other bots and connected devices. Other nations too are building up integrated robotic combat forces.

[xxiii] Lance Price, The Modi Effect: Inside Narendra Modi’s Campaign to Transform India (Quercus, 2015), pp. 131–136.

[xxiv] D. T. Max, “Beyond Human,” National Geographic, April 2017, Vol. 231, No. 4, p. 40ff.

[xxv] Peter H. Diamandis, “Intelligent Self-Directed Evolution Guides Mankind’s Metamorphosis into an Immortal Planetary Meta-Intelligence,” Global Future 2045 International Congress (program), June 2013, p. 15.

[xxvi] The AI for Good Global Summit, hosted by ITU and XPRIZE—in partnership with a range of UN agencies—took place in Geneva, Switzerland, June 7–9, 2017.

[xxvii] David Gelernter, “The Second Coming—A Manifesto,” Science at the Edge: Conversations with the Leading Scientific Thinkers of Today (Union Square Press, 2003/2008, edited by John Brockman), p. 239.

[xxviii] Gerd Leonhard, Technology vs. Humanity: The Coming Clash Between Man and Machine (Fast Future Publishing, 2016), p. 67.

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