VISION AFORETHOUGHT

And people wonder why Trump won in the US and we voted Brexit here!

Although I used to maintain the dedicated Towards Dystopia page on this blog, (no time – things so see, people to do!), along with other sensible people (I hope), I cannot believe how quickly this country is turning into a police state devoid of reason or common sense. And woe anyone who attempts to say otherwise or challenge the status quo. That is the power of a bitter josbworths who are alas making their way further up the chain of command, from council leaders to head teachers and the police. All once honourable professions.

Exhibit A – Note reference to ‘speeding along’ 37MPH? Really? And how were they supposed to remember who was driving? In the past, a polite but concerned policeman would pull over a driver, and make a common sense judgement on the road conditions, the state of the driver (young, drunk, not paying attention etc – VS – professional new to the area and made an innocent error), today, it’s all automated, and even if you are INNOCENT or wish to challenge the fine, you face a massively time consuming and stressful battle.

Exhibit B – This is probably one of the most worrying examples of toxic politically correctness to creep into our educational system, and further part of the replacing of natural tactile activities (in this case, raising one’s hand in class) by other means to further appease the precious snowflakes. Hope the headmaster is fired or the parents pull their children from the school immediately if they can find another in their catchment area. Hope the social engineers behind this madness realise how weak, spoiled and useless the product of their self serving deeds will be?

Exhibit C – The mass archiving of web pages and other private data associated with your life. All to protect us from the bad guys. Really? Can we define what is worse, a huge breach of individual privacy by even the Food Standards Agency, or occasional threat of terrorism? If the authorities wish to track a suspect, fine, monitor, spy on and more that person or persons, but not the lot of us! Thank you. Why not stop the sorts of people who become criminals from coming into the country in the first place? At least the Australians show some testicular fortitude and impose standards at their borders. My concerns about CCTV and comprehensive surveillance since day one has been:

a) Misuse and breach of privacy for profit by our news media.
b) Misuse of data by corrupt government or other officials.
c) Monitoring of (for example) fracking protesters and other good people.
d) Use of it all to repress people if the technology falls into the wrong hands. (Unlikely, but it could happen.)

Exhibit D – (No link yet) Councils have turned every bit of land into a car park, where dystopian parking machines render the most dignified professional adult to tears whilst CCTV cameras monitored by evil corporations such as ParkingEye watch your every move. Oh, and don’t have the correct change? Well you’ll have to signup for their app (and pay a fee that is MORE than the sign says in it’s disclaimer) and guess what? They will know where you have parked, then, now and forever. ParkingEye, you ARE evil! Now f*ck off.

Exhibit E – How could I forget? Yesterday morning, and again today, the main interview subjects on the BBC’s Radio 5 Live were some clearly not very bright oh woe is me vegi wimen protesting that the new plasticy £5 note contains (I forget the term) a biproduct of beef. Holy cow batman! We’re all going to fry! 0.1 of the population, including a Hindu, an Irishman and a Jew walked into a bar / (scratch that), were upset that our national currency was ‘polluted’ with animal product. Oh no! Meanwhile, climate change is wrecking havoc across the world (fires in Israel, Tennesee and elsewhere), kids are dying in Syria (& Yemen – had to slip that in), a tragic air crash has wiped out most of a beloved Brazlilian football team, the polar ice caps are melting, everything else is in melt down too, and all they care about is a personal sensitivity to the ‘ingredients’ in the makeup of our currency!

FFS people: a) Natural incredients are better for the environment. b) The plastic that makes up the note is way more harmful than the beef biproduct, that by it’s nature will be biodegradable, and c) You are not expected to EAT your hard earned money, unless the jobsworth apocalypse renders your local supermarket shelves empty…

Update: Dec 2 2016 – Inventor of plastic note talks sense, phew!

Fight back club: Protest? Emigrate to more dignified lands? Am running out of ideas.

Despite the interesting subject, the article referenced below is full of grammatical errors. Willing to bet that ‘inclusive’ hiring practices are at work here. What a terrible example for those wishing to better their English via a once respectable entity, in particular the young or foreign. Who to look up to now?

Much more on the BBC to follow in my most heated blog post ever.

Mars probe returns first pictures – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38147682

Before starting, I wish to be clear that on both a personal and professional basis, I take the matter of plagiarism very seriously. Some of what you are about to read may be familiar, however, I have, like many thinkers, spent much time on the subject of how and why are we here, and I suppose, from where?

I first began to think about the concept of a simulated universe in the mid 1980s, when first getting interested in computer graphics and programming. I remember pacing up and down the kitchen in our parents house having revelation after revelation, and looking at reality from a totally different perspective. Most of this has been covered in earlier writings by thinkers, philosophers and of course, science fiction writers, although back then I don’t think I had read any books or such that covered the subject.

The Lawnmower Man, The Matrix, and earlier than that, some episodes of Star Trek have delved into the subject of characters unaware they exist in a simulation. In others, the characters are sometimes aware, or unable to tell, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall.

One particular episode of Star Trek TNG (Ship In A Bottle) features a semi nefarious Holodeck character by the name of Moriarty who becomes sentient and starts to question his existence. The plot is both entertaining and genius, but I won’t spoil it by going any further regarding the outcome.

More recently with Virtual Reality finally becoming practical and mainstream, others are now also discussing and questioning our reality.

However, and I have mentioned this before on this blog and elsewhere over the years, no one has as far as far as I am aware discussed how a an advanced AI in a video game would prove it’s status. Or in our case, if we are a character in a game, beyond proving or disproving the nature of our existence, if we are in a simulation, what the consequences of this revelation would be.

“Uhm, there’s something you should know”
Copyright CBS Studios Inc

After several starts and stops due to other more important matters arising, I am starting to teach myself Unity – a software development framework for developing and publishing video games across multiple devices. Although videogames can be ‘hand’ coded and dedicated engines developed (such as Frostbite for titles like Battlefield and Star Wars Battlefront, or CRYENGINE (used to power the hauntingly enchanting Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture), the concept is all the same. At the core, advanced mathematics render and simulate increasingly complex 2 and 3D environments. And now with VR, fully immersive experiences are possible – and well worth experiencing.

However, complex math(s) and flashy visuals aside, what makes single player games stand out is good AI. And that is where things get interesting. Ideally, you want AI characters that are as random and believable as a real co-op player or enemy.

Fast forward a few years, when game engines are running on hardware with 10 times the performance of today’s high end PC gaming rig, coupled with network derived knowledge (the Googleisation of gaming), how long will it be before a game character becomes sentient?

“I think, therefore I am.”

And if so, how would that character prove they were or were not an advanced 3D model with AI attributes and sensory perception attached? More so, if we ‘Earth’lings are characters in a game, and God is the programmer (‘sup Niall?!), then he has the power to bend the laws of ‘physics’! For example, move any object or entity in the ‘Universe’ to any other point, instantly, just by adjusting or inputting some mathematical co-ordinates.

81,000 years to get to Proxima Centauri from ‘here’?

No! Tap tappity tap, go! Instantly.

Forget warp drive, how about NOW drive!

Want to bypass ‘evolution’?  No problem.

“God of Engineering? I fancy an eye in the back of my head.”

Tappity tap tap, blip blip, whooosh, thwap. Re-spawn you 3.1.

“I see you there! Thought you could sneak up on me eh?”

Scientists, engineers, physicists ‘astronomers’ and perhaps even philosophers must try to find a way to prove or not whether we are in a simulation. If we’re just code, how do we get to ‘see’ the core algorithms and even manipulate them, assuming DNA is just an illusion designed to distract us from the truth? Or is DNA real and an advanced system to self populate the simulation.

Don’t forget, if we are in a simulation and engineering are keeping an eye out, then nothing matters, it’s all just an illusion and that means even climate change isn’t going to harm us because if engineering God loves us, he’ll fix it.

Oh this is getting heavy. Bed!

I am still pondering this, will update this blog if I have a revelation. How would a Unity character take control of C# or Javascript?

So, for a million helicopters and a dah-lah, who is going to be the first to hack the Universe – from the inside?

</endprogram>

Fight back club: Prove yourself!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-38026524

Such a lenient nation we are. Lost for words.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-37905858

BBC, Sky News, others now so lacking in educated staff they cannot narrate news reports any more, so instead display large text that often obliterates the actual subject video and also means you cannot concentrate on the footage because your eyes are reading the text! And to make things worse, even on more serious subjects, atmospheric music is used, as if it is a movie or drama doc.

How dumb our species is becoming. I despair for our future,  I really do.

People say a secure energy supply and strong economy are important for a nation. Agreed.

Right. That out of the way, let’s proceed:

1. Today, as expected, the UK government gave the go ahead for Heathrow runway 3. The reason given is that it is vital to keep London the hub of global trade and travel.
2. A few weeks a go, the go ahead was also given to begin fracking in a peaceful English village, and that to be followed by many more all over our lovely sleepy countryside.
3. A few months ago, solar panel subsidies were ceased, instantly destroying the UK solar panel industry. Maplin, the only UK high street hobbyist retailer to stock solar panels on the shop floor – vital to get youngsters interested in the technology, just as Tandy did with their superb electronics kits when I was a lad – no longer stocks the panels in store.
4. Also a few months ago, the UK government overturned a law designed to discourage companies from selling children sugary drinks and snacks.
5. At the London mayoral election (and this is a BIG ONE), much was made about the idea of a Muslim mayor, odd in view of the number of horrific terrorist attacks across Europe and the USA, leaving the bloodied sometimes broken bodies of innocents in the streets. The green Heathrow runway 3 Conservative candidate was humiliated after his advisors somehow made him make some fairly untactful remarks about certain members of his community. At the time I smelled a fish, it seemed out of character for a Jewish environmentalist, the last sort of person to ever offend a minority.
6. And at the recent Conservative leadership elections, the only intelligent, witty, honest candidate, Boris Johnson was thrown under the bus. Politics is like this, but the way he was treated was appalling.
7. A year or so ago, a superb initiative to build a huge tidal energy generator in the River Severn Estuary (or nearby) was scrapped, despite the fact it would create thousands of jobs during construction. After completion a large harbour area would allow people to sail and enjoy other water sports, protected from rough seas. The energy generation capacity would power tens of thousands of homes, with zero pollution.
8. A huge multi billion pound nuclear power station is to be built at Hinkley Point, after it was given the go ahead with our pretend PM who pretends to ‘think about things’ to give the impression she is making a decision after considerable thought. BS! Funded in part by the Chinese, this will be based on a technology that has never been tried before. What could possibly go wrong? And assuming nothing does, what will we do with all the waste? Are readers aware of the cost of processing our current waste at what was once known as Windscale? The numbers are embarrassing. (Oh and Windscale was also a new technology, and look how well that worked out.) As a keen environmentalist, I will concur that today, nuclear is the most reliable and clean method with which to generate lots of consistent power, however, why not use more modern tech that has been developed in labs that does away with a lot of the risks associated with current nuclear energy generation? Or put the billions into small local wind and solar farms, linked to local battery packs and use grid energy to power industry. We being lazy, unimaginative and short termist.
9. Across the world, as documented on my employer’s @lifemachine and various tech and eco blogs, there have been rapid advances in the price performance ratio of solar, wind, tidal and other clean energy sources. Germany, Spain, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, California, Texas and other nations and states are racing ahead with industries of the future.
10. Startups and large corporations are working on clean personal electric flying machines that over the coming decades will render both trains and large passenger aircraft obsolete. (Just you wait!)

So, what’s going on?

All of this is verifiable through a quick search of the quality press. (Since the 1970s I have followed ALL news articles, and so put the pieces together.)

1. The London mayoral candidate was chosen because being Muslim, he is best suited to engage in negotiations with the Saudis for a massive oil deal that is in the works. (I will add a link when I get time.) He is being exploited. A total disgrace and contrary to his own keenness to clean up London’s air.
2. Zac G was setup so he could not oppose Heathrow Runway 3, despite the appalling mess it will make of the local environment and QOL (Quality Of Life) for locals. (I used to live right under a Heathrow flight path, and was woken at 4am every single morning by low flying jets. And then there is the pollution that you can begin to smell even when you are still 10 miles from the M25!)
3. Boris was kicked out because he was keen to harness Britain’s expertise in engineering to build an all new airport in the sea, similar to those in Hong Kong and San Francisco. Safer too in case of an air disaster.
4. Our current PM’s husband has interests in all the dirty noisy old school ventures outlined above, and if you pay attention to the news media or dig a little, it is all there. After they leave their positions of power, a nice little earner will be had by those with their hands in the kitty, and damned your QOL (Quality of Life.)

Nasty

1. This is all made worse by the unjustified attacks on Polish by some white trash. Such behaviour goes back to the 70s and 80s when immigrant shop owners were often attacked for no reason other than their skin colour. 99.5% of those who voted Brexit oppose such behaviour and likewise are not opposed to good immigration, IE, hard working decent people who share out values, they just worried that liberal policies were letting terrorists in and making it hard to imprison or extradite home grown baddies. I talked a lot with outstanding respectable people I know about the EU vote, and each who voted Leave (I voted Remain) stated they were very concerned at the quality of people we were letting into the country (or allowing to stay, often at the tax payers expense!), and I was about to vote Leave, but chose not to for the sake of the economy and well meaning immigrants who are already here.
2. As I type this, the UK is reverting to how it was in the 70s: Old clunky dirty noisy dangerous energy sources, visionless national infrastructure policy and now physical xenophobia against the wrong people. The worst has been bought out of the English: Backwards, hateful and lacking in confidence and vision. What would Brunel say?

At least the Americans have Musk to drag them kicking and grinning into a thoughtful future. What a shame that our bright eyed youth at colleges and Universities won’t be able to channel their energy into the clean industries of the future. As I have already discovered by mixing with engineering students at the UK’s top Universities, they will be plucked by boring city firms and maintain the status quo.

Flight back club: Avoid using anything that draws upon dirty, noisy or risky energy. As the say, vote with your wallet. I am now bicycling everywhere. And building a rather spiffy full size electric flying machine. You?

I’ll come back to this post later, but it is a commentary on how contemporary capitalism and local councils have enslaved us all, at least here in the UK.

Another War Of The Worlds issue. (Spoiler alert if you have not read the book, listened to the superb! album, or seen either of the movies.) That is, a catastrophe occurring that was not predicted. In the aforementioned case, despite surviving our own mechanical defences, the Martian invaders are wiped out by Earth’s bacteria that neither their technology or immune system could cope with.

We ourselves worry about asteroid impact, terrorism, nuclear war, viruses and other threats, but it is our slow poisoning of our superbly effective ecosystem and the nitrogen cycle that is already killing us off, albeit very slowly and painfully. Hence the significant increase in incidences of cancer and other odd conditions that did not exist at all not long ago, or were less common.

Today I wanted to throw the radio across the room as I listened to an industry shill (paid for lies) suggest the government let his paymasters regulate their own industry, rather than accept a full on ban of microbeads by the UK government.

On my twitter account, and now here, I have suggested that those responsible for what is in effect environmental and/or planetary destruction, are charged and punished with the same gusto as a murderer and have their earnings taken and donated to environmental clean up operations. And if that means selling their lovely home in the Cotswolds, so be it.

The mass population today are so dumb and poorly educated (more interested in screaming “I’m offended” or discussing matters of the bedroom such as ‘transgender toilets’ – really? WTF???) that there are no longer mass protests against really important issues. No matter your politics, in the 1960s, people had their priorities right, got up and protested en mass against serious goings on that they saw as morally wrong, whether it was the Vietnam war or other.

Today, whilst we can easily – lazily? – click a link to support Greenpeace or other charity (guilty as charged), there is no full on physical response by the masses against direct threats to our well being as a species and life on Earth in general.

Microbeads are poisoning one of our major sources of food – fish, and already turning up in areas as far away as the arctic. This is VERY serious folks! Worse than any other threat.

Fight back club: Stop buying products containing microbeads. If you don’t know, don’t buy any body cleansers and stick to naturally produced soap. And if you have time, organise a mass protest outside a pharmaceutical company and block the entrance, I’ll go!

Being very busy with both business and family, and with most of the analysis and predictions made on this here blog having come true, I won’t be posting here as much. Further, there are some (alas) who may perceive me as being somewhat crazy, which could harm my career and therefore others who are reliant on my efforts for their income. This is a sad reality of today’s Britain (and already in America), where truth is banned and self serving (very selfish harmful) viewpoints are given way too much airtime and anyone who does not agree is insulted or worse. It isn’t a left wing right wing issue, it is about control, insecurity and greed.

Effectively, my blog will soon go behind a password, and if you want access, you’ll need to contact me and I’ll have to know you too, in particular because it’s become very risky to express certain opinions in public.

As part of this change and to divert more of my time towards business, I’m not renewing the visionaforethought.org and oflife.org domains. Just don’t have the time to manage them.

I have two major posts to publish, both years overdue, ‘The Big C’, about cancer and the corrupt pointless nature of the ‘industry’ (superbly portrayed in Breaking Bad) and the other, ‘Napalm’, that discusses repression and the pure terror and heartbreak (if that is the right word) of being abused by people in positions of authority. As mentioned before on VA, the trigger point for me was an incident at Reading Station (UK) a few years ago, that was a life changing event and influences much of what I write here regarding a dystopian society and my empathy towards the mistreatment of good people. Your greatest enemy is not asteroids, ebola or climate change, it is the jobsworth. A person who brings little to the table, is morally inept, has a false sense of entitlement and authority – and takes out his or her personal insecurities on the innocent, either through official ‘due process‘ or physical action.

When time allows, I’ll write and publish these two final posts that will mark a transition to a full on focus on my business, which itself intends to continue to be a force for good by liberating people in a manner the very opposite of a dystopia.

Better to walk the walk eh?

It’s happened. After over a decade of warning and tracking changes to our society on this blog, the nightmare scenario of a dystopian Europe is now a tangible reality. Although I’ll move this to the dedicated Vision Aforethought Dystopia page in due course, here’s a check list:

1. Police to introduce airborne drones to (amongst other things) replace police on foot. If you have lived in a city (such as London or Oxford) and lay awake stressing as a helicopter hovers above, this is your worst nightmare, because other than the total detachment between one human and another, the noise will be unbearable, day or night. Never mind the privacy implications. (I build and fly electric aircraft and drones – they are very noisy.)
2. Ultra aggressive left wingers have made it impossible for anyone who opposes their views to say anything without public vilification.
3. Light hearted harmless banter and humour, that has been the bedrock of UK society for ages is now fought with the risk of fines, banns, arrest and so forth. All despite the fact that Internet forums are awash with all manner of hate and lies against good people.
4. Politicians who have the wealth to ‘run to the hills’ are totally out of touch with the average person, such as those victims of the recent floods. Said floods were predicted decades ago if we continued to use carbon base fuels to power our society and industry. And what do we do in return? Reduce the price of fuel so much (99p a litre today) that cleaner sustainable alternatives are threatened.
5. Rather than evict evil hateful people from our nations, we allow them to settle here, and instead, use advanced surveillance techniques to monitor and record ALL our communications with the hope that this blanket monitoring will catch someone. And then when there is a possible threat, decades if not centuries old customs, such as public fireworks displays are cancelled. Pure capitulation to the forces of hate and dishonesty, with the public too weakened to speak out and protest. And if they do protest, aforementioned drones will be used no doubt to monitor them.
6. Major threats to the environment are hushed up and swept under the carpet. For example, the huge sink holes that appeared in Siberia a few years ago and the other melting permafrost in Canada and Alaska, all of which mean huge amounts of methane is being released into the atmosphere that will in turn speed up climate change with catastrophic consequences for predictable weather forecasting and farming.
7. This will probably raise a giggle, but bare in mind that in my eyes, Dystopia is about a less human centric society, no matter where you go in the UK today (I cannot speak for abroad), there are no longer any public toilets, so you are forced to find a John Lewis and then work your way up the floors to the loo. The public toilets were removed from town and cities over the last few decades to stop people doing drugs or engaging in gay sexy in them. So the majority are being made to suffer? How about more imaginative solutions, using technology?
8. Poor quality houses being rushed into construction that will make life for the residents pitiful and also harm the environment due to the concreting over of fields that otherwise absorb the sun’s rays. This is dystopian because it socially engineers people into living a lower quality of life without them realising how much better things could be if more imaginative designs were conceived.
9. The authorities are making it harder for us to save money and live a responsible lifestyle. For example, whilst vaping cigarettes have been allowed to flood our shops without any lessons learned of the effects of tobacco (IE, test the ingredients for long term toxicity effects), they are about to make it impossible for us to be fiscally responsible and use large refills. IE, buy in bulk. (The fact the government is now to impose other regulations that will include testing the ingredients is good news.)
10. To make it less likely that the masses realise the aforementioned issues are so important, people are bombarded with tittle tattle, a sudden onslaught of gender issues and dumbed down television programming (BBC 3 an example of how low the BBC has sunk) so they are too stupid to engineer themselves out of all this. (‘Bread and Circuses is the correct term.)
11. New is increasingly automated and lacks any form of journalistic integrity or due process, with little link between truth and reality, or a reliance on unverified social media feeds. This article from The (once respected) Independent is factually inaccurate and makes a big issue out of a non event. (See comments below the article for what I am referring to. Just one of thousands of articles across the UK media that are junk advertising filler news.) The Daily Telegraph had a story on the 5cm (oh, we’re all doomed) snow that was 50% twitter feeds, again, no verification of the facts through journalistic follow through. ‘On scene’ social media reporting can be useful to bypass censorship, but only if verified.
12. Ah we have an new one (Jan 8 2016), a single individual has suddenly realised that alcohol, even in small quantities, is bad for us and updating the government guidelines and suggesting we drink tea instead of a glass of red wine after work. This is in fact worse because non herbal tea contains stimulants that will keep one awake, and lack of sleep is far worse than the odd tipple. This sudden clamp down on even a minor relaxing drink could be part of a swing to an all out ban to appease those who are infiltrating our nation. I think those of you clued up know what I am saying here.

Am very busy, but will add more to this in due course.

The irony of all this is that it is not due to any specific political ideology or party. Everyone is in on it because they are too weak or fiscally influenced to care or do anything about it. Life is going to become more and more cold, humourless and difficult to appease thanks to a mix of big business, left wing Mafia and hateful people with more oil than us, something I for one, and those close enlightened colleagues of mine are deeply concerned about.

My politics? Leaning towards Libertarian, the most ethical and responsible concept, but I have more research to do first to weigh up the pros and cons.

Fight back club: Working on some ideas. BRB…

I have to stop work to state that if this is what the BBC truly believe, then our future is NOT looking good. If people today are so clueless (am going to say it, thickl!) to not realise how this programming is all about schadenfreude and has no moral, artistic, cultural or other benefit, then it is no wonder that as the climate and pollution spiral out of control people no longer protest like they did in the 60s. The public reaction to the (justified but way too lenient) 5p plastic bag charge in the UK is evidence of how disconnected and selfish some are today. And it’s all down to insipid television programming. Bread and circuses indeed!

Fight back club: Terraform Mars and send the TV producers there and let us have our smart pretty planet back. And can we put scientists and engineers in charge of our nations and planet?