“Exploring Biodigital Convergence” Policy Horizons Canada (2019)

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In autumn of 2020, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau told the UN, “This pandemic has provided an opportunity for a reset. This is our chance to accelerate our pre-pandemic efforts, to reimagine economic systems that actually address global challenges like extreme poverty, inequality, and climate change.”

Those paying attention figured he was referencing the Great Reset. As usual, anyone who didn’t like it was labeled a “conspiracy theorist.” Aside from economic systems, what other “pre-pandemic efforts” was the transracial prime minister “reimagining” for us?

Well, if Trudeau was keeping up with his policy advisors, we can gather some clues from a 2019 Policy Horizons Canada analysis entitled Exploring Biodigital Convergence: What happens when biology and digital technology merge?

Diving headlong off the deep end, the paper “reimagines” the very essence of Nature:

Digital technology can be embedded in organisms, and biological components can exist as parts of digital technologies. The physical meshing, manipulating, and merging of the biological and digital are creating new hybrid forms of life and technology, each functioning in the tangible world, often with heightened capabilities.

Robots with biological brains and biological bodies with digital brains already exist, as do human-computer and brain-machine interfaces. The medical use of digital devices in humans, as well as digitally manipulated insects such as drone dragonflies and surveillance locusts, are examples of digital technology being combined with biological entities.

By tapping into the nervous system and manipulating neurons, tech can be added to an organism to alter its function and purpose. New human bodies and new senses of identity could arise as the convergence continues.

Browsing the document’s sleek images, it’s clear the woman who edited it had an eye for graphic design. The diagrams are pretty tidy, too.

The above parameters—integration, coevolution, and convergence—cover the fusion of living things with machines, the relational development of living things and machines, and an emerging mindset that views living things as mechanical and machines as alive.

What are these wild-eyed government hacks talking about specifically? Examples include:

• Altering the human genome – our core biological attributes and characteristics

• Monitoring, altering, and manipulating human thoughts and behaviours

• Brain-machine interfaces that enable machines to be controlled through brain signals

• Prosthetics that use machine-learning algorithms to expand functionality and sensitivity

And on and on, until we arrive at Humanity 2.0. As scientists tinker around with the wider world, we’ll find ourselves at the gates of Eden 2.0:

• Creating entirely new organisms with tailored characteristics

• Changing and eradicating entire species [such as malaria-spreading mosquitoes]

• Geoengineering approaches that accurately model carbon capture or solar reflectance

• Turning organisms into biocomputers

And so on.

All of this is total madness. It’s also just over the horizon and bearing down on us fast. Meticulous citations link each of the above “capabilities” to successful projects, as seen below.

This isn’t science fiction. This is happening right now.

The authors signal their concern with the usual hand-wringing about negative outcomes, but in general, their tone brims with the optimism one needs to play God:

Based on initial signals, the characteristics of the biodigital system could include:

• democratization
• decentralization
• geographic diffusion
• scalability
• customization
• reliance on data

Sounds groovy, I suppose. But if you’re familiar with buzzwords like “equity” or “justice”—which mean stamping on undesirables in favor of useful idiots, or unleashing furious mobs to burn city centers to the ground, respectively—you might suspect that “reliance on data” and “democratization” will amount to mass surveillance and manufacturing consent.

Don’t think the authors haven’t considered that problem:

What policies could foster trust among partners and stakeholders?

Biodigital convergence relies on a wide array of biological data, which may change the way citizens relate to businesses that provide services. The relationship between firms and individuals may require higher levels of trust, as firms seek access to highly intimate data about our lives and bodies.

For example, human “digital twins” could become valuable assets beyond healthcare. Social services, the justice system, environmental services, and education providers may all need to be trusted with, manage, and act on increasingly intimate data that relate to people and the world around them.

If you can’t trust your corporate technocrats with “highly intimate data,” who can you trust?

Download PDF here

From: “BEYOND THE GREAT RESET – 10 Official Documents On Human-Machine Hybrids”

READ PART 1 - HERE

READ PART 2 - HERE

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