Category Archives: Futurism

A new Pentagon department may be bad news for the degree of transparency thats developed into the militarys secretive cache of UFO documentation.

In an editorial forThe Hill, former defense analyst Marik von Rennenkampff argued that the Pentagons new Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group is very bad news for the four brief years of unprecedented openness into the governments knowledge of UFOs (or, as they call them in militaryspeak, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena).

And von Rennenkampff should know he was appointed tothe Department of Defense under former President Barack Obama, and previously served as an analyst in the State Department.

Bolstered by interviews with other former officials, von Rennenkampff warned that the new DoD group, which will be under the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security what a mouthful! is an attempt to turn back the clock on the steady drip of declassification of military pilot UFO sightings, and the Pentagons terse acknowledgement of its interest in them.

News of the new Pentagon office came quietly just before Thanksgiving and, in what is likely not a coincidence, was announced just after Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced a bill that von Rennenkampff and others say will revolutionize the study of UFOs.

Self-styled whistleblower Luis Elizondo, who used to lead the DoDs informal UFO unit, told von Rennenkampff that this phenomenon shouldnt be treated solely as an intelligence issue.

If we want 70 more years of secrecy on this topic, then [this] is the perfect place to put it, Elizondo said of the new group. Theyve had four years so far, and we have little in the way of efforts serving the public interest.

If we want meaningful change and transparency, he added, then we should keep the spirit of the Gillibrand amendment.

Elizondo said he is not convinced [that] burying this [issue] in the deep, dark bowels of the Pentagon under an intelligence organization is the best way to shed light on a topic that needs a whole-of-government approach, and even claimed that Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks is being hoodwinked by certain elements and members of her own staff.

The whole thing sounds remarkably like an X-Files plotline, and its unsurprising that Elizondo had such harsh words. In 2017, he resigned from the DoD in protest of the bureaucratic challenges and inflexible mindsets that he said plague his former employer and its treatment of UFO phenomena. Ironically, the first of the shocking UFO declassifications that became an often-overlooked hallmark of Donald Trumps presidency dropped just a few months after Elizondos resignation.

In spite of his exit which the Pentagon responded to by claiming he never ran the unit he claims to have run Elizondo lauded most of his former colleagues as patriotic and competent, and expressed optimism about Gillibrands amendment in the face of the DoDs latest alleged attempts to hush up its knowledge of UFOs.

I think were in a good spot, he told The Hill. I think weve come a long way. There seem to be a lot of people really trying to get behind this in a productive not in a sensational way.

READ MORE: Ex-officials voice deep concerns over new Pentagon UFO unit [The Hill]

More on governments intersection with UFOs: Head of NASA Suggests That UFOs Could Be Alien Technology

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New Pentagon Group Accused of Trying to "Bury" UFOs Again - Futurism

Its not necessarily nefarious but its definitely ominous. Dim the Sun

A billionaire researching plans to dim the Sun might seem like the plot of a famous The Simpsons episode but thats exactly what Jeff Bezos seems to be doing.

Bezos megaretailer Amazon has partnered with the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the geoengineering nonprofit SilverLining to help create models that show what exactly would happen if we blocked out some of the Suns rays, Gizmodo reports.

More specifically, the company is donating its powerful computer processors to help model 30 different simulations of Earths future climate. In one of those simulated worlds, humans have artificially injected aerosols into the atmosphere to dim sunlight drastically cooling down the planet in the process.

Climate modeling often requires expensive supercomputers. Thats where the Amazon partnership comes in, allowing climate researchers to use the companys cloud computing system.

Cloud computing has started to reach the point where it could contemplate supporting workloads like this, Kelly Wanser, the executive director of SilverLining, told Gizmodo. And so you have this inflection point where the underlying technology is sophisticated enough, and so the question is, can you break the adoption impasse and see if you can get this stuff running on the cloud? And then what happens if you do?

While a ominous as hell, there are a lot of upsides to Amazon donating resources for this effort. For one, theres very little research done on the full impacts of solar radiation management a term used to describe a method of cooling down the Earth by limiting sunlight.

Since catastrophic climate change seems to be getting more likely each year, the technique could be a valuable tool in preventing future disasters. However, it could also end up creating a horrible set of problems on its own which makes research all the more important.

READ MORE: Amazon Is Helping Researchers Study How to Dim the Sun [Gizmodo]

More on geoengineering: Climate Scientist Warns That Countries Are Going to Start Geoengineering the Earth

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Amazon Is Quietly Researching How to Block Out the Sun - Futurism

What on Earth?Do the Sperm

Because we live in a nightmare of our own making, a group of ardent morons have created a new cryptocurrency based on the idea that vaccines lower your sperm count.

The cryptocurrency, dubbed Unvaxxed Sperm, launched earlier this month, Vice reports. Its developers wrongly claim that most people dont need the COVID vaccine, and are fierce advocates of quack treatments such as ivermectin.They also told the website that the project is to ensure the continuity of objective scientific inquiry and the freedom of discourse.

Were not anti-vaccine, one of the developers, who only went by the name Jason, told Vice. But later he added, To a degree, Id say we are anti-vaccine. Okay then.

Though Unvaxxed Sperm initially saw significant growth when it launched, it seems to have blown its load early and crashed over the weekend.

Still, the developers of the crypto hope that its absolutely stupid name will draw more people into the anti-vax community, according to Vice.

They also have future sperm-themed projects lined up, including a cryogenically frozen sperm project and an anti-vaxx dating app, because we are a cursed species.

It should go without saying that there is absolutely no evidence that the COVID vaccine lowers sperm count. In fact, theres some evidence that suggests getting COVID could cause impotence. Still, that wont stop morons from claiming otherwise.

Overall, the crypto is a hideous marriage of so much that is awful about the modern world. After all, using the already tedious cryptocurrency trend to bilk money from other idiots and push dangerous misinformation about the COVID vaccine has to be some sort of grim high water mark for our dystopian hellscape.

READ MORE: Unvaxxed Sperm Is Trying to Become the Anti-Vax Bitcoin [Vice]

More on bad crypto: Hackers Just Stole Nearly $200 Million from a Crypto Exchange, in the Second heist in Two Weeks

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Anti-Vax Group Creates "Unvaxxed Sperm" Crypto Because God Is Dead and We Have Killed Him - Futurism

Image by KENA BETANCUR/AFP via Getty Images

We have yet another reason to dunk on nerds, because the United States second reported case of the Omicron COVID-19 variant seems to have come from an anime convention in New York City last month.

AsGothamist and other outlets have reported, a fully-vaccinated Minnesota man who traveled to the Big Apple to attend the Anime NYC convention is now the second person to have gotten this new, reportedly more-virulent strain of COVID.

While news of new variants is always frightening, Minnesotas Department of Health said the unidentified mans symptoms were mild and have resolved since he tested positive on November 24. For those counting at home, that means the guy tested positive about nine days ago and, as of press time, seems to be recovered.

Anime NYC an event that required attendees have had at least one dose of vaccine and wear masks indoors took place from November 19-21 and the man began developing symptoms on the 22nd, reports have noted.

While contact tracers are likely working to figure out who the convention attendee came into contact with, this timing of both the convention and COVIDs 48-hour minimum incubation period could suggest that the man brought this Omicron strain with him, rather than the other way around.

Since South African scientists discovered and subsequently warned the World Health Organization about the Omicron variant last week, theres been ramped up concern over reports that this new COVID strain could be more transmissible than those that came before, even in fully-vaccinated people.

Nevertheless, theres a lot we dont know about it, and officials like New Yorks Interim Governor Kathy Hochul are warning the public not to panic, and to instead continue to focus on mitigation efforts getting vaccinated being chief among them.

As of right now, we cant say whether Omicron is the vaccine-resistant variant so many people fear, or if like the Delta variant that became dominant in both the minds and bodies of the American public over the summer and fall, this, too, shall pass.

READ MORE: WHO has not seen any reports of deaths caused by omicron variant, urges people not to panic as delta still dominant [MarketWatch]

More on Omicrons origins: A Disastrous Collision Between COVID and HIV May Have Caused the Omicron Variant

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Tourist Anime Nerd Accused of Spreading Omicron Variant - Futurism

But the consequences could be disastrous. DIY Geoengineering

Surprise: Itd actually be much cheaper to artificially change the worlds climate than you probably think. So cheap, in fact, that one scientist believes that some countries might soon geoengineer the planet in response to climate change.

Kate Ricke, a climate scientist and researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, told Wired that since geoengineering is actually so affordable, countries will inevitably choose to do it. However, the consequences of doing so might be well, complicated.

I just have a hard time seeing with the economics of it how it doesnt happen, Ricke told the magazine. To me, that means that its really urgent to do more research.

To geoengineer the planet, all a nation has to do is inject aerosols like sulfates into the stratosphere. There the aerosols would disperse throughout the Earths atmosphere, where theyd would bounce back the Suns radiation thereby,in theory, cooling the planet.

It mightsound like science fiction, but this same phenomena can be seen when global temperatures dip following a large volcanic eruption. But the full impact might be disastrous.

In fact, geoengineering could result in worsening weather conditions in certain parts of the world, according to Wired. It could also cause a global reliance on geoengineering which means if were ever unable to spray sulfates into the atmosphere, we could see mass extinction events and crops die out.

Thats why Ricke urges the scientific community to devote more research into geoengineering, especially if its going to be inevitable.

[In] order to have collective decision-making at the global scale, you need science thats viewed as legitimate by everyone, Ricke told the magazine, later cautioning that were not there, by a longshot, with geoengineering.

At the end of the day, it does seem more like a band-aid solution to the bigger problem of climate change one that could allow us to avoid doing the hard work of decreasing carbon emissions at the root level.

READ MORE: Think Climate Change Is Messy? Wait Until Geoengineering [Wired]

More on geoengineering: Scientists Reveal Plan to Cool the World Through Geoengineering

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Climate Scientist Warns That Countries Are Going to Start Geoengineering the Earth - Futurism

Everything was normal and nothing was a grift. Egg Head

Non-fungible tokens meet artificial insemination in a piece of art thats for sale at the renowned Art Basel art fair this week.

Artist Narine Arakelian, asPage Six reports, is including a contract promising one of her eggs to whoever buys her NFT, entitled Live, at the Miami art exposition.

The digitized piece of art comes from a physical Live, Laugh, Love triptych,The Daily Beast noted, and the 42-year-old Arakelian hopes that whoever buys it will actually use the egg to have a baby.

My artworks are all my children and the fact this one will actually produce a child is wonderful, she told Page Six. The art will always mean so much to the buyer because it brought them their child!

While the concept is certainly outlandish, this ovarian contract is par for the course for the provocative Armenian artist, whose portfolio includes interactive paintings that are displayed in augmented reality. Shes got chops in the art world, too: in 2019, she lit up a staircase at the Venice Biennale into a kaleidoscopic rainbow.

Amazingly, Arakelians egg NFT isnt the weirdest one for sale at this years Art Basel, or even the only one containing genetic material. Someone, for some reason, implanted Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberrys signature into the DNA code of a bacterial organism, and is selling it as the first living NFT.

Between the egg, the Roddenberry bacteria, and Trump fixer Michael Cohens prison badge being sold as NFTs at the Miami art festival, this was certainly a banner year for this bizarre and arguably useless digital art form.

READ MORE:Artist sells her eggs as an NFT at Art Basel [Page Six]

More on NFTs: Cory Doctorow Roasts NFTs as Massive, Fraud-Ridden Speculative Bubble

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Artist Promises to Sell One of Her Eggs to Whoever Buys Her NFT - Futurism