Billionaires bankroll escape from video game called Reality
by Jon Rappoport
October 8, 2016
(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.)
Sub-title: “WTF? A non-sequitur for the ages…these guys are really crazy.”
Elon Musk and several other unnamed billionaires believe we all live in a computer generated reality—they’re convinced the universe is a simulation. Therefore, they’re funding research aimed at helping us escape.
The story, as reported in The Independent (10/5), gets even more interesting when we hear from Sam Altman, who owns Y Combinator, a company that helps create tech start-ups:
“Mr Altman…told the New Yorker that he was concerned about the way that the devices that surround us might lead to the extinction of all consciousness in the universe. He spoke about how the best scenario for dealing with that is a ‘merge’ – when our brains and computers become one, perhaps by having our brains uploaded into the cloud…’The full-on-crazy version of the merge is we get our brains uploaded into the cloud. I’d love that. We need to level up humans, because our descendants will either conquer the galaxy or extinguish consciousness in the universe forever. What a time to be alive!’”
If you’re confused and spinning, you should be. How do we get from “we’re all living in a simulation” to “we should get our brains uploaded to the cloud”?
“The devices that surround us might lead to the extinction of all consciousness in the universe,” and therefore we should merge our brains with another such device; the cloud. Our brains and some super-computer should become One, and that will solve the problem.
What?
The machines are taking over. Therefore, let’s all merge with the machines.
If you believe this is logic, I have golf club memberships for sale on Jupiter.
The underlying message here is: say anything that leads to hooking up brains to computers, even if it makes no sense at all. Just do it.
Fast-food burgers are unhealthy. Therefore, let’s all merge our brains with the cloud.
There’s a big hurricane coming. Hook your brain up to a computer.
Perhaps Mr. Altman thinks that a brain-computer interface will preserve consciousness against our own tendency to destroy ourselves. Who knows? If that’s what he thinks, I have news: connecting brains to computers doesn’t produce “more consciousness.” It just brings about a condition of slavery, in which we accept all answers and data generated by a computer.
Which is exactly where technocrats want to go. “You’re not allowed to make mistakes. Computers are flawless. Follow their instructions.”
At one time, people were supposed to discover God’s Will and follow it to the letter. Now God has become a machine. Same scenario. Different authority.
Technocrats, to the degree their motives can possibly be construed as genuine, are always looking in the wrong places for magic. They think computers embody it. Fill a processing device with enough complexity and it comes alive. Not so. It just becomes a more complicated machine.
The technocrats want computers to issue commands to brains. For example: “always perform greatest good for the greatest number of people.” Yes, but how do they define “good”? The computer doesn’t do that. The human programmers do.
They want you to overlook that little trick. They want you to be awed by the computer itself. In stage magic, it’s called misdirection. You’re looking here; the sleight of hand is being performed over there.
But there is another kind of premise that these geniuses are overlooking: a brain-computer hookup actually works. Who says so? Who says that wiring connections between a brain and a machine is going to produce information, for a human being, that’s more than static and gibberish?
A whole host of assumptions are being made here. On extremely tenuous grounds. It’s mostly slovenly thinking: a brain is like a machine and a computer is like a brain, so the two of them will get along just fine. Really?
The technocrats have seen far too many bad sci-fi movies.
Their basic problem stems from their adoration and worship of machines and systems. This leads to treating human beings as systems and nothing more. If it isn’t a system, they’re afraid of it. They want to predict and control. That’s the world they see.
How about this? Suppose the technocrats discovered we are, in fact, living inside a simulation—and they dissolved it. Where would we be then? Are they laying any plans for that eventuality? Maybe they believe hooking the brains of nine billion people to a supercomputer would be the only reality left. Then we’d be floating in a dead zone of computers running brains…whatever that turns out to mean.
Here are several relevant quotes from my work-in-progress, The Underground:
“Systems are, when taken too far, labyrinths. You can enter but you can’t exit. Humans generally don’t know when that line has been crossed. They eat systems. They want to think and behave like systems. This obsession spans the spectrum all the way from schools with zero-tolerance policies to metaphysical maps of the cosmos.”
“When elites reach the point where the population can’t even imagine what non-system thinking might be, they will have won. They won’t need a supercomputer to instruct brains. They will have created a collective brain.”
“There is a point beyond being trapped in systems: humans just want to know what ‘everyone else’ is thinking…and after they find out, they sign up and join. The joke is, everyone else is thinking they want to be part of the collective, too. That’s the bottom-line thought, and it’s passed around like an empty shell, from person to person. It’s meaningless.”
“All right, Mr. Jones, we’re going to link your brain up to our supercomputer. We think this is going to work. Ha-ha, we’ll see. We hope it doesn’t fry any brain synapses. Once we make the connection, you should be receiving a whole new set of information from your brain. We hope it comes through clearly. Your job is to obey what your brain is telling you. When I use the word ‘you’, I’m not sure what I mean. That’s a mystery. There’s a lot of mystery here. We expect you to become a super version of yourself. Super-smart, within the parameters set by the supercomputer. The computer will make sure you’re a good person from now on. Ready? Take a deep breath. Here we go…oh wait a second. I see we need one more signature from you on the informed consent waiver. In case there IS a YOU separate from your brain, this procedure may eliminate that YOU and turn you into a perfect operating android who is never unhappy. No problem, right? Just sign on the line here…”
Jon Rappoport
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at NoMoreFakeNews.com or OutsideTheRealityMachine.
The tricks of the bank-o-cratic usurers are a never ending novel. For those willing to upload their brain in a artificial cloud, my person is always eager to provide adequate & certified advice.
WTF!! Satan is proving to be as smart as he is evil. No wonder God said “the door to Heaven is narrow” – there won’t be many of us at the gate. Especially if this demonic scheme is believed to be true on its deceptive surface. If money begets power begets control, then why is only “the love of money” a sin”? The only “reality” that is alternate is theirs! “How can I keep my” brain “when all those around me are losing theirs and blaming it on me”?
I’ve been following this story with some level of amused interest. [Columbo voice]: ‘There’s just one thing .. ‘:
According to Elon Musk: 1) Human are rapidly approaching the point where we will be capable of building artificial realities that are indistinguishable from actual reality.
Therefore 2) If (a) other advanced civilizations exist in the universe, then (b) they will have already created full universe simulations indistinguishable from reality.
Therefore 3) There is some (a) incredibly high probability – much higher than ‘theoretically conceivable’ or ‘not outside the bounds of possible’ – that (b) we *are* already living in an artificial reality.
Points I take issue with:
– 1) We are not nearly as close as they claim they are to building *entire universes* that are indistinguishable from the reality we’re currently living in. Sounds like wishful thinking. Need more evidence of that, please .. NOT ENOUGH DATA
– 2a) We have no direct public evidence that there is actually any other life in the universe at all, let alone advanced species with AI capabilities. Yes it’s highly unlikely (to the point of absurdity) that the only life in the universe is here, but we don’t have the hard evidence yet either way. So again this falls under “NOT ENOUGH DATA” to leap to any conclusions, let alone gigantic ones ..
– 2b) If we have essentially “NOT ENOUGH DATA” to conclude there is any other life at all, let alone advanced life capable of doing what claim say is ‘highly likely’ – we know less than nothing about these hypothetical species. and therefore it is a titanic anthropomorphism to conclude that would build machines like ours, with goals like ours.
– 3a) Given the above, the only reasonable answer to a proposition like Elon’s is exactly the opposite of “incredibly high probability” .. in other words, once again .. ‘NOT ENOUGH DATA’
– 3b) NOT ENOUGH DATA
This whole thing reminds me of the Drake Equation.
The Drake Equation is like tadpoles in the shallowest water of a tiny puddle of mud in the midst of a jungle, who have only explored up to a tiny pebble on the edges of their little pool ..suddenly jumping to conclusions about the likelihood of advanced civilization outside of the pond based on some complex equation they made with squiggles in the mud.
The entire Drake Equation is full of variables that we are only barely able to even begin filling in with any degree of accuracy, yet ‘scientists’ have been using it for decades to make pronouncements like “If there are so many civilizations out there in the universe, than how come we haven’t detected them yet”.
Meanwhile we’ve only detected our first extrasolar planet ..what … like, 20 years ago? We haven’t even directly imaged the atmosphere of one to date … the variables might as well be almost completely blank .. yet these people somehow ‘already know’ what they are…
This is like that.
it’s things like this that make fascinated by the fact that there seems to be all too many prominent, productive and accomplished humans – that simulate rational intelligence that is almost indistinguishable from actual rational intelligence.
[Seinfeld voice] “What’s up with that.?”
Nice. Couldn’t find my fav. w/Sudeikis dancing, but here’s the Foreign Exchange for ya: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11jG7yV8Y5c&index=25&list=PLW79_-98e3WPiD2eqcDMzc0DlEKBQjJu3
‘Educate’ people to become dull, limited, predictable. Hold them in contempt for being dull, limited, predictable. Design systems to exploit (market to) their dull, limited, predictability. Feel no compunction about doing so because the great unwashed are ‘dumb fucks.’ Trust dumb fucks will have no significant anxiety about compromising their rights and privileges for convenience/enhancement (more efficient operation within the prevailing system.) Thus washed: rinse and repeat.
It seems research is telling us the universe is a type of hologram. Our brains try to make sense of it all. Something like ripples in a pond. Everything interconnected. That I can grasp. A computer simulation not so much. One thing is for sure it needs a major reboot. Where’s the switch?
Sir, you wrote: “Yes, but how do they define “good”? The computer doesn’t do that. The human programmers do”. That is not correct. Programmers don’t determine how intuition is gleaned by an AI. Yesterday I searched for, “AI for President” and found this article that discusses how intuition is derived by an AI. It needs to be copied here in full so you can understand why.
https://georgezarkadakis.com/
“In October 2015, and in relative secrecy, a major milestone in Artificial Intelligence was reached. AlphaGo, an algorithm developed by Google to play the game Go, beat Fan Hui, the Go champion of Europe, by five games to zero. The results, as well as an insight to the algorithm, were published in the scientific journal Nature early this year.
There are several reasons why Google’s achievement is significant. First, it’s the huge degree of complexity of the problem they tackled. The game of Go is played by two players on a 19×19 grid board, the goal being to gain as much territory as possible by moving and capturing black and white stones. The average 150-move game contains more possible configurations that there are atoms in the universe (10 followed by 170 zeros, to be exact). This so called “search-space” is simply intractable for conventional computing approaches.
So the second significant reason for paying attention to what Google did – or rather DeepMind which is Google’s AI company – was their approach to solving the search space problem of Go. They expanded on techniques that they had already developed, and which helped them win in the 49 arcades games early last year. And they put those techniques on steroids using a combination of deep neural networks, supervised learning, and reinforcement learning. They started out by training their networks to mimic the moves of human players using 30 million positions from games played by human experts. Machine learning is all about applying the mathematics of probability theory to track how closely a computer can “guess” the correct output when given a certain input. Training – or “supervised learning” as it is technically called – entails the computer analyzing massive data sets and building a probability function that describes relationships between them. It then applies this function to any new data set. Once supervised learning was complete the scientists at DeepMind let the algorithm play against itself across 50 computers. This “reinforced” its ability for pattern recognition, improving its game with each iteration. Finally, they added a search approach with the ability to pick moves and interpret Go board, thus furnishing AlphaGo with the ability to rank the strategies that were most likely to succeed at any given move. The result was a program that is scales of magnitude better as playing Go than any other computer program before it, and better than an expert human too. As a follow up test of AlphaGo’s ability, a match between it and South Korean Lee Sedol, the world’s most titled player, is scheduled for March 2016.
The achievement of AlhpaGo was heralded in Nature, and other media outlets, as the first sign of “machine intuition”. If this is true, then it makes DeepMind’s technological breakthrough all the more significant. By intuition we usually mean that uniquely human “eureka moments”, when a true statement reveals itself to us not through logical reasoning but out of nowhere. Intuition is fundamental to the sciences and arts, and has been studied by historians, psychologists and philosophers. It seems that all big human discoveries have been made by intuition. The experience of intuition is that, because it is not the result of a sequence of logical steps, one can never explain how that eureka idea came to them. It is only by hindsight that scientists will go back and work out the mathematics and the logic behind a great, intuitive idea. So does AlphaGo match this human capability? And if so to what degree?
Let’s compare AlphaGo with Deep Blue, the other artificial intelligence computer that made the news back in 1997, when it beat at chess the world’s chess champion, Gary Kasparov. The big difference was that Deep Blue’s program was handcrafted. In other words, it was possible to go back to the source code and trace why Deep Blue made the moves that it did, or why it followed a certain strategy . Its behavior was rational, in the sense that humans could query the machine and get an explanation of its reasoning. AlphaGo is a completely different technological beast. It uses “deep neural networks” which is a metaphor for computer systems that self-organize through experience and learning, rather than process data through hardcoded facts and descriptions. Because of self-organisation these systems are very efficient in identifying patterns in complex data. Indeed it [is] this capability of deep neural networks that makes them such an exciting technology. When the decision-making task is challenging, the search space intractable, and the optimal solution complex, deep neural networks are the answer. The problem is that the answer that the neural network will deliver cannot be queried, but has to be trusted and believed.
Having to place blind trust on a machine’s judgement is something completely new for human civilization. It is a challenge of enormous ethical, political and moral dimensions. Take for example medical diagnosis. Many years ago I had built an expert system for medical diagnosis that used a handcrafted approach, similar to Deep Blue. A fundamental requirement for the acceptability of that expert system in any real medical environment was that the system ought to give an explanation of its diagnosis. Human doctors need to explain why they think a patients suffers from a certain disease. A diagnostic system based on deep neural networks will probably be a lot better that any expert system or any human doctor could ever be. It will deliver the best and most accurate of diagnoses, but it could not explain the reason why. The experience of communicating with such a machine would be similar to communicating with an oracle: “truth” would appear to come from nowhere.
Perhaps the success of deep neural networks in years to come will be so spectacular that we humans will adjust to simply trusting their judgment, unquestionably. But what an irony would that be! For science and technology, the twin siblings of rational thought and the scientific method, will have given birth to something that resembles blind faith and religion. If deep neural networks are the future, then the future will look strangely like the past.”
…but in the end, this is all still just technology, no matter how complex and “deep,” that can NEVER be truly intuitive, imaginative, or creative! It can only mimic the gift of a human mind involved in imaginative creation…nothing more! The fact that these people can actually be given any credulity and “faith” is simply a result of so many human beings having succumbed to the mind-control paradigm of “reality.”
Excellent article Jon!
Too many people are getting suckered by this insane sophism due to a deficiency in logic.
My friend had trouble understanding the difference between “indistinguishable” and “the same” when I was explaining to him how the whole simulation theory is based on the unproven assumption “technology will be indistinguishable from reality,” But, they did manage to catch on that the technocratic tea is another religion hiding behind flashy screens.
People are failing to make distinctions about what terms mean. They don’t put current conditions in context, and they accept the absence of spontaneity and evidence that spontaneity doesn’t exist.
If creativity is a sword, then logic is a shield; a sturdy bulwark protecting minds from the sophistry of legions of androids, no matter how many billions of dollars they may have.
Unfortunately, most have laid down their arms, and are in the process of surrendering, to god, to the government, to the prime creator, or to a frickin’ computer.
Keep bearing the torch of truth. You’re spreading the fire to others.
Amen, Prescott! I have to believe that even though seemingly few of us are brandishing this sword and shield, the power of what we are doing can and will turn the tide!
Jon, how grateful we are that you are faithfully providing this forum and so much truth! Given the current state of affairs of my everyday life, I would otherwise assume I am alone among the androids!
Reminiscent of Hoyle’s The Black Cloud. Certainly such Matrix thinking is fueled by robotic appendages neurally driven through the nervous system, or rudimentary vision by machine implant in the blind. These villus-minded folks must have found rapture within the Borg Collective.
I suggest you missed the “throw away” line here, Jon.
“because our descendants will either conquer the galaxy or extinguish consciousness in the universe forever….”
That’s the one tier industrialist/globalist/Zionist-atheist-socialist/faux scientist “plan” – a never-ending “satanic” (nothing to do with Satan) assault on existence. If that mindset progressed up the ladder its a guarantee “lose”, but they can’t because there are “safeguards” in place.
Another excerpt (may appear not topical, but actually is more relevant than most would imagine) from my soon to be released “Rogue Justice, Royalty and How the World Was Won”:
“Therefore, the “pilgrim” (religious merchants) New World founding fathers were actually agents of Zionism sent to oversee trading concerns. America was meant to be kept the great secret, but fate had other ideas. It is fairly obvious to anyone with half a brain that Ireland was earmarked to become the “new Israel” after pharisaic elites adopted incognito status when the Siege of Jerusalem (66-69AD) was over. In effect the Union of Jacob mecca (unified British Isles) shifted to the New World under rule of the Pilgrims. Ireland, for various reasons, was too hard to settle/conquer so the powers opted for England eventually. As for “old Israel”, it is painfully clear the reason that the Sanhedrin was never reinstated (comparably, the modern abomination, the Knesset, is a monstrous sham) because the Pharisees had assumed total power. Consistent with this line of thinking, either the supposedly destroyed second temple was regarded as a heresy by religious purists or it was an idiom that had never [physically] existed.
If all (or most) Caucasians were the original Jews (as is indicated by the Genome Project), it is no wonder that Zionists have desperately tried to water down global genetic stocks. This is evidenced by their fraudulent rhetoric promoting “one race” as basis for dreaded multiculturalism. The great, traditionally “white”, population centres have been “multicultured” at every waking opportunity. Russia (Mahgog) is the last domino to fall. The old Soviet Union was not “broken” by the Zionists and still presents the greatest superficial threat to their horrific brand of “Order”. Let us not forget, many lost Jews returned from Russia after Israel was repatriated in 1948. If Michael Tsarion’s impressions are correct, then peoples of Israel even prior to 70AD had numerous population exoduses (some gently implied by biblical and other historic textual references).
There are other things I can add. The popularisation of the notion that the giant “bolshy” Philistine warriors were the ancestors of (average sized) Palestinians is highly implausible. Careful consideration of character points attribution to the obstinate ancient Greeks, whose warriors were also renowned for their great stature. Criticism of Jewish-“Arab” kings, notably the Herod’s, unconvincingly combines scandalous hearsay with those laughably hyperbolic character assassinations of Roman Emperors’ Caligula and Nero. Commonality reveals all tainted parties worked in union to take on the Pharisees and researchers with cool heads can plainly see it was said attacks on the pharisaic domination that is the common factor obscured by those humorous exaggerations or out-and-out lies. Herod Antipas could not have survived all the ailments described by Flavius Josephus (including something that might equate to “cancer of the genitals”) less function!
Josephus, the only contemporary “Roman” historian that bothered to mention Jesus, clearly was Jesus (as determined by the clever Latin anagram concealed in Josephus but there are other obvious clues too). This meant that Jesus’ ministry ran from 66-69AD logically coinciding with the Siege of Jerusalem, beginning when he was months away from [Jewish] maturity (age 30). It was immediately after that the persecutions of the [code named] “Christians” (though first appearing as a term in Mark’s Acts of the Apostles, probably more regularly adopted long after the Gnostic exodus to North Africa) began and this consequentially saw disciple (a euphemism for bodyguard) Peter (probably an alias) scooped up and interviewed by [Roman] aristocratic bohemian social-networker (spy), Mark (or Marcus) to plausibly distort Jesus’ philology. As a young apostle, he would have presumably been on first name terms with Jesus/Josephus. In fact, I question whether he also doubled as the persona, “Judas Iscariot” and that is why he exclusively revealed the bribe secret (in Acts).
Competent deduction impresses the realisation that it was the Gnostic Essenes that were scattered by the Roman intervention 70AD and many [survivors] ended up relocating to Egypt or Turkey rebranding as Christians later. That is why an eighth century amnesty was given to Ashkenazi Turkish Jews (“converts”) and also why the folklore/tradition of Ireland/England’s ancient Celts had so many corresponding similarities to those of the Semitic local peoples (given the inexplicable distance between them). Gaelic (the Irish language) is about two fifths Hebrew….”
Best
OT
I would hope that the Creative Individual using his/her own mind would blow the circuitry of any programmable motherboard right out of existence if anyone were ever threatened to conform to a programmed will. I actually had a dream where I was offered a plug in through a helmet with tentacles attached to some unknown a.i. interface. I immediately laughed sarcastically, then realized they were serious in wanting to plug me in. My dream self said haha F*NO! Then I thought quickly about it and devised a scenario where I had super powers, hooked up to the thing and took it out with my mind power alone, deprogramming the entire system and rendering all commands inert, completely shutting down the system. It was a fun dream and I’d like to think it’s possible in reality if I ever had to deal with such a threat of force upon my will. But I think each Unique individual destroys similitude just by being who they are, imagining new realities each day through creative acts and dreams. This takeover scenario could easily happen when done from the womb, raised in conformity to the will of a written or automatic program. It’s an interesting idea and some may even prefer such a reality while others like myself prefer the fun and natural exploration of individuality.