By: Richard Enos / Collective Evolution   There is a story from World War 2 that always struck me as the essence of what it meant to have a conscience. A German soldier who was a member of a firing squad told his commanding officer that he could not bring himself to fire upon and kill a lineup of helpless, innocent Jews. The commanding officer told the soldier if he did not follow orders and kill the Jews that he would have to join them. To the officer’s surprise, the soldier laid down his rifle and walked across to stand amongst the Jews. The officer gave the command and they were all shot to death.

Acts of conscience are never in vain, even if they are never heard about. No doubt, every time we hear of someone challenging authority to do what is inherently right, there are a thousand other such instances that are hidden or covered up. But these acts all contribute to our collective consciousness, and help to move our shared sense of self a little closer to the light.

Pushback From Google Employees

Today, one of the major battlegrounds of conscience is the corporate office, where a small but growing number of the rank and file of the employed have started to question their own complicity in corporate policy and activities that is detrimental to humanity.

Google employees learned three months ago about the company’s decision to provide artificial intelligence to a controversial military pilot program known as ‘Project Maven’, which aims to speed up analysis of drone footage by automatically classifying images of objects and people.

This has spawned a petition signed by nearly 4,000 Google employees that asks Google to immediately cancel the contract and institute a policy against taking on future military work. The petition reads,

‘We can no longer ignore our industry’s and our technologies’ harmful biases, large-scale breaches of trust, and lack of ethical safeguards.These are life and death stakes.”

Open Letter Lays It Out

In support of Google employees, a recently written open letter from more than 90 academics in artificial intelligence, ethics, and computer science calls on Google to end its work on Project Maven and to support an international treaty prohibiting autonomous weapons systems. In the letter, they outline the implications of Google’s partnership with the military:

With Project Maven, Google becomes implicated in the questionable practice of targeted killings. These include so-called signature strikes and pattern-of-life strikes that target people based not on known activities but on probabilities drawn from long range surveillance footage.

While the reports on Project Maven currently emphasize the role of human analysts, these technologies are poised to become a basis for automated target recognition and autonomous weapon systems. As military commanders come to see the object recognition algorithms as reliable, it will be tempting to attenuate or even remove human review and oversight for these systems. According to Defense One, the DoD already plans to install image analysis technologies on-board the drones themselves, including armed drones. We are then just a short step away from authorizing autonomous drones to kill automatically, without human supervision or meaningful human control. If ethical action on the part of tech companies requires consideration of who might benefit from a technology and who might be harmed, then we can say with certainty that no topic deserves more sober reflection – no technology has higher stakes – than algorithms meant to target and kill at a distance and without public accountability.

Google Balks At Petition

An article on Gizmodo notes that ‘the mounting pressure from employees seems to have done little to sway Google’s decision—the company has defended its work on Maven and is thought to be one of the lead contenders for another major Pentagon cloud computing contract, the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, better known as JEDI, that is currently up for bids.’

In the face of this intransigence, a dozen employees have decided that the only thing left for them to do in good conscience is resign in protest. Their reasoning points to the contention that Google was not living up to its founding policies, and their very legitimate concerns were not being seriously considered:

Historically, Google has promoted an open culture that encourages employees to challenge and debate product decisions. But some employees feel that their leadership no longer as attentive to their concerns, leaving them to face the fallout. “Over the last couple of months, I’ve been less and less impressed with the response and the way people’s concerns are being treated and listened to,” one employee who resigned said.

“It’s not like Google is this little machine-learning startup that’s trying to find clients in different industries,” a resigning employee said. “It just seems like it makes sense for Google and Google’s reputation to stay out of that.”

One employee explained that Google staffers were promised an update on the ethics policy within a few weeks, but that progress appeared to be locked in a holding pattern. The ethical concerns “should have been addressed before we entered this contract,” the employee said.–Gizmodo article

Hmm. A small company starts off with a big idea, grows by virtue of an open and inclusive policy with its employees, gets big and financially viable, and slowly abandons its founding principles in favor of power, control and influence. Where have we seen this before? Everywhere. It’s happening every day in our Corporatocracy, where the insane wealth and power at the top of the pyramid is able to gobble up companies any time they begin to present problems. Even more insidious is when they let them grow into a potent entity, with time-tested mechanisms in place to eventually infiltrate, compromise and corrupt any once high-minded and open company.

Why Employee Conscience In Corporations Is So Important

By our words and actions we as a collective define ourselves anew every day. Those who act with conscience against efforts that are harmful to peace and harmony on the planet help bring a better future into being. Those who avoid looking at the larger consequences of their actions out of fear or ignorance, or those who go ahead and do things they know are not right, simply because they were told to do them by their authority, are equally influential–and responsible–for defining what it means to be human.

Recall the verdict on German soldiers at the Nuremberg trials who said they were just ‘doing their job.’

When a critical mass of us make it a point to stop complying with policies and actions whose consequences are not in humanity’s best interests, that is when our collective evolution will really take hold.

This article 4000 Google Employees Sign Petition To End Controversial At Drone Contract With The U.S. Military by Richard Enos originally appeared on Collective Evolution.

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By: Markab Algedi / The Mind Unleashed   Melbourne, Australia is now the city that contains the world’s largest known 3D printer. Melbourne based manufacturer Titomic recently displayed their accomplishment by printing a large metal rendering of their corporate logo.

Among the objects listed as capable of being printed by the Australian 3D printer, the CEO of Titomic Jeff Lang reports that it can print a submarine, or wings for an aircraft: Soon.

At the Titomic factory in Waverly, Australia in the outer regions of Melbourne, this 9 metre long, 3 metre wide and 1.5 metre tall 3D printer now surpasses the next largest, owned by notorious General Electric. GE’s printer is about 5 times less large.

The printer owned by General Electric is capable of printing solid metal objects up to a cubic metre in size, while this Titomic bed can put out parts up to 40 cubic metres in size.

Here’s where this story gets realistic: you know their ability to develop this technology came with strings attached.

A government agency in Australia gave out a significant portion of funds to create this 3D printer. It was CSIRO who supplied the funds, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. Remember, Australia is still fully a Commonwealth nation, under the control of Britain in more respects than one may care to admit.

In the UK, research is financially controlled by the government in a similar fashion. Research grants are provided by the government very often, specifically to satisfy the needs of the government and not the common people.

People think of 3D printing as a decentralization of power thing, a technology that if properly utilized by the common people, could really lessen our dependency on corporate manufacturing and centralized power. Naturally, the people who want to preserve theirpower are going to develop it first because they have the money. However, elite organizations developing 3D printers and the common people using them are not mutually exclusive. What people have to do is be empowered with the ability to skirt possible regulations on 3D printers.

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Think you have seen all the amazing inventions in the world? This set of crazy gadgets will change the way you define the word “innovation”. Here are the strangest and most unbelievable Japanese inventions you probably have never encountered before. These will leave just one question in your mind: are they for real?

1. A Hand Chopper

Ever had the misfortune of cutting your finger while slicing some cheese or chopping some vegetables? Well, you don’t need to worry now. Japan has invented a hand chopper to help prevent you from cutting your hand while preparing a delicious meal for yourself.

The post Wackiest Japanese Inventions You Have To See to Believe appeared first on True Activist.

1. Melting Metal With Magnets

The Science: The copper wire has a significant amount of AC electricity running through it, causing it to act like a really strong electromagnet. In the metal slug, eddy currents form due to the magnetic field the copper wire is causing while the copper wire has high-frequency AC flowing through it. The metal slug’s electric resistance causes a portion of the electric energy to turn into heat, but the heat builds up until the metal slug becomes white hot and melts.

2. Orange LED Light In Liquid Nitrogen

The Science: When a LED is immersed in liquid nitrogen, the electrons lose a lot of thermal energy, even when the light isn’t turned on. When this happens, the bandgap in the semiconductors increases. Since this gap is increased, when electrons in the conduction band fall to the valence band, they emit a higher energy light, meaning the light emitted has a shorter wavelength and a higher frequency. This is why we see the orange light turn into colors that are higher on the electromagnetic spectrum when it is frozen in the liquid nitrogen.

Click “KEEP READING” for the next 15 AWESOME CHEMISTRY GIFs.

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Think you have witnessed enough amazing inventions in the world? These unusual gadgets will probably change your mind. Here are the strangest and most unbelievable Japanese inventions you have not seen before. These will leave just one question in your mind: are they for real?

1. Leg Pillow

This weird invention is for all the lonely men out there who love to take a nap.

The post 30+ Crazy Japanese Inventions That Are… Simply Awesome? (Part 2) appeared first on True Activist.

Privacy is one of our primal needs. We often cry “rights to privacy” whenever we feel that it is being encroached, especially by people we barely know or by organizations we have no business with.

Unfortunately, little do most of us know that many of the things that we use on a regular basis, such as our smart TVs, are being used to gather information about ourselves, our habits, and (gasp!) even our most closely-guarded secrets.

That’s what Samsung inadvertently warned us about in their Smart TV’s Privacy Policy: their smart TVs may be eavesdropping on us.

Voice command – the future of remote control

Long gone are the days when someone had to leave the comforts of the couch to switch channels on the TV a few feet away. Now, we have the convenience of the remote control.

The post Samsung Warns Users To Avoid Talking About Personal Information Around Their Smart TVs appeared first on True Activist.

Work smarter, not harder, right? If that’s the case, some of the following ‘hacks’ need to be implemented around the world stat. Not only do many of the genius tricks inspire people to adhere to good habits (such as avoiding littering), some would prevent a lot of hassle.

Prepare to be inspired by the following 30+ hacks that should be implemented everywhere!

#1 Beijing Subway Allows Riders To Pay With Plastic Bottles

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Floating cities sound like a concept out of a science-fiction film, but this is no longer the case. By 2020, the first floating city is expected to emerge in the Pacific Ocean, and life on it will be drastically different than life on land.

Seasteading Institute, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, is presently developing the first floating city — and has been since 2008. Recently, it reached an agreement with the government of French Polynesia to begin testing the proposed idea in its waters. Said Joe Quirk, the president of the Seasteading Institute,

“If you could have a floating city, it would essentially be a start-up country. We can create a huge diversity of governments for a huge diversity of people.”

The New York Times reports that the community in question would consist of about a dozen structures. These would include homes, hotels, offices, and restaurants. The buildings would also feature living roofs, be made using local wood, bamboo, and coconut fiber, and contain recycled metal and plastic.

Already, engineers and architects have visited an undisclosed location where the floating city is likely to emerge. Reportedly, the goal of the city is to “liberate humanity from politicians,” and to “rewrite the rules that govern society.”

Not surprising to some, the venture won’t be cheap. The total cost of building the offshore utopia is estimated to be around $167 million. Still, it could prove a worthy undertaking — especially if it frees humans from the rule of countries’ governments.

“Governments just don’t get better,” said Quirk. “They’re stuck in previous centuries. That’s because land incentivizes a violent monopoly to control it.”

Thanks to PayPal founder Peter Thiel, the Seasteading Institute has already received seed funding. However, more money still needs to be raised. To accomplish this, the institute hopes to hold an “initial coin offering,” which is a crowdfunding campaign that raises money by creating and selling virtual currency.

“I want to see floating cities by 2050, thousands of them hopefully, each of them offering different ways of governance,” said Quirk. “The more people moving among them, the more choices we’ll have and the more likely it is we can have peace, prosperity and innovation.”

Are floating cities the future? Time will tell. For now, enjoy a peek at what life in a floating city could look like…

Floating cities are no longer a science-fiction concept

Seasteading Institute, a San Francisco-based nonprofit has been working on the idea since 2008

Recently, it received permission from the government of French Polynesia to begin testing in its waters

“If you could have a floating city, it would essentially be a start-up country,” said Quirk, the President of Seasteading Institute

“We can create a huge diversity of governments for a huge diversity of people”

The community in question should consist of about a dozen structures, including homes, hotels, offices, and restaurants

Reportedly, engineers and architects have already visited the undisclosed location

Those behind the project seek to “liberate humanity from politicians” and “rewrite the rules that govern society”

In total, the utopian society will cost $167 to build

Watch the video below to learn more:

https://youtu.be/9XlxqbEqgnE

What are your thoughts? Please comment below and share this news!

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It sounds like the premise of a science-fiction movie or book, but this story is the reality for one man living in Washington who curiously took a paternity test after his newborn baby’s blood type matched neither his own nor his wife’s. The 34-year-old man grew nervous because the couple had gone through a fertility clinic to aid his wife in getting pregnant and they feared that sperm samples had been mixed up in the process.

As a result, he returned to the clinic and took an initial paternity test that he subsequently failed. To take it a step further, they decided to administer a genetic ancestry test which determined that this man was not the son’s father, but instead he was his uncle. Since the man has no brothers, it seemed impossible that his son could actually be the offspring of a sibling, and that’s when geneticists took it a step further.

The man’s sperm was found to have a 10 percent match to the genes of the infant, and when geneticists cross-matched the man’s sperm with his saliva, they realized what the problem was: the man is one of the rare human chimeras in the world

“Even geneticists are blown away by this,” Barry Starr, a geneticist at Stanford University, told BuzzFeed News.

A human chimera is a person composed of a genetically distinct types of cells. Geneticists concluded that the sperm from the man must be the DNA that the man absorbed in the womb from an unborn twin brother. While human chimeras are rare, multiple pregnancies that result in only a single birth are not. It’s estimated that 1 in 8 single childbirths actually start off as multiple pregnancies, so it’s fairly common for women to be pregnant with multiple fetuses in the beginning and never know it. What’s not common is the single child absorbing that DNA when one of the fetuses doesn’t make it.

Starr worked specifically with the couple after their first failed attempts and says that the moment the man was shown to be the son’s uncle was a “eureka moment.” This is the first reported case of a paternity test being fooled by a human chimera, and now doctors aren’t sure what to make of this very obvious loophole in testing. Since most tests rely on cheek swabs, and the man failed this test outright, it’s unknown how many others have failed for similar reasons.

Some other similar cases that involve human chimeras occurred in 2002 and 2006. In 2002, a woman was in need of a kidney transplant and her two sons underwent testing to see if they could be donors. The results said that the two young men were not even the sons of this woman, which of course led to further questioning. In the end, it turns out that this woman’s blood cells had one set of genes while her ovaries had another. In 2006, a woman found that she had the same problem, although it nearly caused her to lose her children after maternity tests required for welfare payments came back negative.

It’s surprising that this most recent Washington man is the first to be a human chimera whose genes failed the paternity test, but, according to the geneticists that worked with him, it’s not all that surprising when looking at the man. He has two-tone striped skin that is so distinct that he told his peers he was a burn victim when he was young to escape bullying. Doctors say that such a pattern is suggestive of chimerism.

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World’s second largest crude oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, has announced an ambitious new project on the horizon. A tremendous megacity, “NEOM” will be fully automated and 100% powered by renewable energy.

Plans for NEOM were revealed last week by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the Future Investment Initiative Conference in Riyadh. “This is a place for dreamers who want to do something in the world,” he said. In his address, Prince Mohammad presented two phones, one a decade old brick cellphone, and the other a new smartphone. He said the smartphone represented NEOM, and compared any other city to the old cellphone.

NEOM is currently under construction in the Kingdom’s northwestern region, near the Red Sea. Expanding into neighbouring countries Egypt and Jordan, NEOM will be the “first private zone to span three countries,” reported the Ethicalist. At 10,230 sq. miles (26,500 sq. km), NEOM will be 33 times the size of New York City. The $500 billion project will be financed by the Saudi government and private investors.  

NEOM intends to emphasize “living”, along with industries including biotechnology, digital services, advanced manufacturing, entertainment, energy, water and food– with the intention of reducing the region’s dependence on oil.  “An idyllic lifestyle paired with excellent economic opportunities that surpass that of any other metropolis. It will attract Saudi Arabians and expatriates, as do all other global societies,” says the PIF.

Prince Mohammad also promised to end extremism, reported Arab News. “We want to go back to what we were, the moderate Islam that’s open to all religions. We want to live a normal life …. coexist and contribute to the world,” he said. “We will not spend the next 30 years of our lives dealing with destructive ideas. We will destroy them today.”

What are your thoughts? Please comment below and share this news!

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