Sunday, January 29, 2023

Pay to Play on Pharmed Humans

 

This idea that humans are being reduced to basic biological material that is bought and sold circulates across media forms.

"Pay to play on pharmed human animals" is a meme that resonates with the contemporary Zeitgeist and has been given force with Project Veritas' undercover interview with a pharma executive caught on tape revealing disturbing business practices and ethics. 

The pharma company's crisis communication team decided against "denial" and "apologia" and is instead pursuing "re-definition of the situation." But it is too late for that. 

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Thank you Orwell, Huxley, Foucault, Agamben, and Mbembe, for explaining the dystopia that we now find ourselves imprisoned within.

My reading of human history is that our current moment rhymes with historical precedents in the excesses of power.

The difference now is that institutions and powerful individuals have unprecedented technologies of surveillance and control. And we have lost many of our rights to self-possession hard won in the early and mid-Twentieth century.

Many experts and influencers have adopted a transhumanist ethos, believing as they do that we can now engineer our future, including and especially our somatic (bodily) self. And they want to engineer yours whether you want it or not. Read about gene drives and the new US executive order that represents predictive programming of vital cells below.

Renn (2008)describes 3 general "Levels of Risk Debate" that are applicable here to the new battle over the genetic engineering of human life:

•Factual evidence and probabilities
•Institutional performance, expertise, and experience
•Conflicts about worldviews and value systems

Yet, debate has been silenced. The Twitter Files coverage by M. Taibbi demonstrates unprecedented censorship and gatekeeping over a wide array of impactful and pressing issues. Public opinion is being shepherded in ways Edward Bernays could only dream about.

People who disagree with the ethos/pathos/logos of (eugenic) transhumanism are silenced and/or stigmatized as reactionary. 

This silencing is wrong, as the growing authoritarianism of what Aaron Kheriaty has been described as the BioMedical Security State. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_New_Abnormal/LD9uEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover

A New Deal of Human Rights, elevating the dignity and autonomy of the individual, is needed to combat the dystopian possibility that our biological beings are reduced to pharmed merchandise.

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Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure American Bioeconomy. September 9, 2022.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2022/09/12/executive-order-on-advancing-biotechnology-and-biomanufacturing-innovation-for-a-sustainable-safe-and-secure-american-bioeconomy/

Section 1. Policy. It is the policy of my Administration to coordinate a whole-of-government approach to advance biotechnology and biomanufacturing towards innovative solutions in health, climate change, energy, food security, agriculture, supply chain resilience, and national and economic security. Central to this policy and its outcomes are principles of equity, ethics, safety, and security that enable access to technologies, processes, and products in a manner that benefits all Americans and the global community and that maintains United States technological leadership and economic competitiveness.

Biotechnology harnesses the power of biology to create new services and products, which provide opportunities to grow the United States economy and workforce and improve the quality of our lives and the environment. The economic activity derived from biotechnology and biomanufacturing is referred to as “the bioeconomy.” 

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the vital role of biotechnology and biomanufacturing in developing and producing life-saving diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines that protect Americans and the world. Although the power of these technologies is most vivid at the moment in the context of human health, biotechnology and biomanufacturing can also be used to achieve our climate and energy goals, improve food security and sustainability, secure our supply chains, and grow the economy across all of America.

For biotechnology and biomanufacturing to help us achieve our societal goals, the United States needs to invest in foundational scientific capabilities. 

We need to develop genetic engineering technologies and techniques to be able to write circuitry for cells and predictably program biology in the same way in which we write software and program computers; unlock the power of biological data, including through computing tools and artificial intelligence; and advance the science of scale‑up production while reducing the obstacles for commercialization so that innovative technologies and products can reach markets faster.

Simultaneously, we must take concrete steps to reduce biological risks associated with advances in biotechnology. We need to invest in and promote biosafety and biosecurity to ensure that biotechnology is developed and deployed in ways that align with United States principles and values and international best practices, and not in ways that lead to accidental or deliberate harm to people, animals, or the environment. 

In addition, we must safeguard the United States bioeconomy, as foreign adversaries and strategic competitors alike use legal and illegal means to acquire United States technologies and data, including biological data, and proprietary or precompetitive information, which threatens United States economic competitiveness and national security.

cont. at link above.