The Singularity

A popular topic with some commentators, thinkers, and books today is what authors call the singularity. It was Ray Kurzweil whose writings first introduced me to this concept. And the concept is that one day human consciousness can be uploaded into computers, and since the computers can be connected, consciousnesses will merge so that there is just one being. Today's authors seem to have mostly lost sight of that ultimate merging, having assigned the term Singularity to uploading consciousness to a computer, artificial intelligence ruling the world, and various other stages of the process that are short of Kurzweil’s vision.

One of the big issues with this whole view is how consciousness can be uploaded into a computer. It is suggested that the brain can be mapped slice by slice and cell by cell, so that an exact understanding and image of it can then be laid into a computer whose memory can be exactly mimicking what was mapped. The computer would at that point have the same memories, the same motivations, and the same behavior, as the human. People rejoice at the idea. Not me. For to me, someone making a copy of me in digital form has not perpetuated me. They have created a clone whose life would from that point depart from my own and would not be me. I would be in a position where I could stand outside of it and observe it, look at it, and so No, that wouldn’t be me even though we would have the same origin.

Suppose there was a way to transfer us into computer memories, where we could all access the same information and share our intelligences. Who would be paying for the power to keep the computer running, for the maintenance, and other costs associated with it? Would we have to work and render services to earn our keep? And if so, I can expect that the pay would not be very high because we'd all be doing it, and all offering the same sort of service, since we would all have the same abilities more or less. The concept of Singularity is interesting, but it seems to me there are too many bumps along the way for it to be a practical aim. There is something to be said for individuality. Vive la difference!!

How the Muslim Brotherhood is Taking Over France

HOW THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD IS TAKING OVER FRANCE!

By Yochanan Visser

Israeli Middle East expert and Arab affairs commentator, Tzvi Yehezkeli made history when he began to reveal the inside workings of the ongoing Islamic revolution taking place in France and other European countries with a large Muslim majorities.

Yehezkeli, a father of five children, made headlines before with his two and a half hour documentary 'Allah Islam' aired in September 2012 when he entered Muslim communities in European countries and exposed the widespread radicalization among Muslims there, hiding his Israeli identity.

This time around, however, Yehezkeli decided to go undercover using business cards and other items suggesting he was a Jordanian businessman heading an export/import company who wanted to donate money to European Muslim charity organizations run by the Muslim Brotherhood (MB).

The goal of his unique and risky mission was to expose the danger the MB poses to the West and Europe in particular and how European governments still fail to see what the Muslim Brotherhood's plan is all about.

The Arab affairs commentator of Israeli TV Channel 10, who holds a BA and MA in Middle East studies and speaks Arabic fluently, was advised by a Palestinian Arab sheikh and an expert from the Israeli intelligence services about how to behave and talk while infiltrating Muslim Brotherhood hubs in Europe.

Yehezkeli also learned how to pray as a Muslim in mosques and how to recognize suspicions about his identity during his encounters with Muslim Brotherhood leaders and officials.

In the Middle East, Yehezkeli filmed Syrian refugees and the Islamist stealth revolution taking place in Turkey under the leadership of dictator Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Erdogan is sponsoring Islamist organizations in East Jerusalem who work to radicalize the young Arabs there and to organize a violent uprising, when the time is ripe, against Israeli control over the city.

Once in France, the Israeli journalist discovered how the Muslim Brotherhood uses the same method and succeeded in gaining control over the Muslim communities in the country via 'Dawa', a missionary charity which aims to turn secular or less religious Muslims into Islamists.

He exposed the doublespeak by Muslim Brotherhood leaders in France who talk about coexistence and tolerance in French but preach Jihad in Arabic.

The MB at this stage tells its supporters to adhere to French law but prepares them for the next stage, the day Islamists will take over France.

The French government, for its part, facilitates the Muslim Brotherhood's control over the Muslim communities in the country, for example, by subsidizing schools which teach a curriculum that is totally different than the one studied by children at French schools, according to Yehezkeli.

Many of the lessons deal with Islamic conquest via Jihad and teach Muslim children that France will collapse because of the lack of (Islamic) ethics in French society, said Yehezkeli during the first episode of "B'zehut B'duyah" ("under a false identity").

The Muslim Brotherhood educates and the French government subsidizes," claimed Yehezkeli adding that the education Muslim children in France receive is comparable to what Palestinian Arab children in the Gaza Strip get under Hamas rule.

The Israeli Middle East expert showed that Islamic books which are forbidden in countries like Jordan and Saudi Arabia because they advocate Jihad as a means to expand Muslim control across the globe, are available in book shops in the Arab suburbs of Paris. So are DVD's of speeches of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the current spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.

According to French law, it is forbidden to use or sell discs with the virulent anti-West and anti-Israel sermons and speeches of al-Qaradawi, but shops in the Arab neighborhoods in Paris continue to sell them.

Yehezkeli also interviewed Yoram Cohen, head of the Israeli internal intelligence group, ISA or Shabak, who said "Dawa" will eventually turn into violence aiming to seize control over countries.

Cohen also said that in the end there is no difference in the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaida as well as Islamic State which uses Hassan al-Banna's idea of SS-styled shock battalions to terrorize the world.

Yehezkeli cited an Israeli intelligence expert who told him "Islamic State is a pimple, but the Muslim Brotherhood is cancer."

The Muslim Brotherhood began its activities in Europe in 1958 when Said Ramadan the son-in-law of MB's founder Hassan al-Bana travelled to Geneva and later to Cologne in Germany where he studied at the local university.

Ramadan, with the financial help of Saudi Arabia, started a process in which the steadily expanding Muslim communities in Europe were brought under the control of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood also gained domination over the Islamic World Congress (IWC) an organization founded by Haj Amin al-Husseini the anti-Semitic leader of the Arab community in pre-state Israel.

By the year 2000 many European Muslim communities were brought under MB and IWC control.

The Muslim Brotherhood also built a global financial network and in 1988 opened the al-Taqwa bank which was also involved in financing the Al Qaeda attack on the United States on September 11, 2011.

Al-Qaeda ideology, but also the ideology of ISIS and Jaish Tahrir al-Sham, by now the most powerful Islamist rebel group in Syria, is based on the writings of Sayyid Qutb, the first MB ideologue and spiritual leader of the organization.

In Qutb's view, the establishment of the Kingdom of Allah on earth cannot be achieved through prayer and preaching alone. In order to reach this goal, it is necessary that those who do not recognize Allah's authority be killed.

Qutb's views on Islam were translated into a slogan by founder Hassan al-Banna which appears on the flags of Islamist terror groups such as ISIS:

"Allah is our objective, the Koran is our constitution, the Prophet our leader; struggle is our way and death for Allah is our highest aspiration."

Tzvi Yechezkeli, who became a religious Jew after filming "Allah Islam" and now lives in Gush Etzion, says that now that the total defeat of Islamic State is imminent, there will be an new kind of bomb - a stealthy one.

The Middle East expert predicts that if nothing is done, European countries such as France, Denmark and Belgium will come under de-facto Islamic rule in the near future.

"In 10 or 20 years, some of the European countries will be home to an Islamic movement that will 'only' serve as kingmaker in local elections. But it will be so influential in the general population that it will dictate the tone in everything it wishes," Yehezkeli told the media last week.

Asked why he concentrates on France in particular, the undercover investigative journalist said the French are "naïve and innocent."

They refuse to see what is happening because it is a very gradual attack on French culture and values, according to Yehezkeli.

"A gradual process is more dangerous than a surprise attack. The world is afraid of wars. Give the French their croissants and they will sit quietly," according to the Channel 10 commentator who for two weeks resided in a suburb of Paris and didn't speak a word of French - because he didn't have to.

"You don't feel like a foreigner in France. In the cafes, women and men are segregated. It feels exactly like being in a real Muslim country," Yehezkeli said about his undercover stay in the Paris area.

Judge Not.....

When I was young, I saw people in more black and white terms than I do today. This resulted in liking some and disliking others. Long experience has shown me that people are the result of many influences. All have aspects I like and ones that I dislike. Some are more compatible with me, so I still tend to like them better I suppose, but at least I have learned not to be as judgmental as I was.

Even Josef Stalin, who instigated the deaths of millions of his own people, had an honorable side to him. I am reminded how he refused to save the communists in Greece from the British after the Second World War because he had promised Churchill that Britain could have Greece. It would surely have been in his interests to have a communist Greece, but he kept his word. I know we could argue that he kept his word because if he hadn’t, then Britain would not have allowed the Soviets free reign in the Slavic countries, so it was really in Stalin’s interests to honor his promise, but I don’t see how Britain was in any position to stop Russian predominance in Eastern Europe.

Long ago I started asking Why in regards to people’s behavior, partly out of curiosity, but partly to know how to influence better behavior. I’m a Bible student, and I know that the Bible is not so much into the Why of human behavior so much as the What and How. I mean Bible based therapy is focused on What, not Why. William Glasser’s Reality Therapy is a solid approach to psychological problems that focuses on the What far more than the Why. This is in contrast to psychotherapy, which wants to explore childhood and formative influences to understand what is going on. The problem is that no amount of understanding of how you got to where you are is going to fix the problem. Reality Therapy is about identifying and making choices and then acting on them. It is done with the aid of a therapist who behaves as an interested and loving friend, whereas the psychotherapist practices detachment.

Back to the point that began this post. We are all a mixture of good and bad. Propaganda sometimes tries to persuade us to make enemies. I grew up during the Cold War. The godless Soviets were not to be trusted. They wanted to bury us, so thankless were they for the USA winning the War. Now that I am older, I see that it was really the Soviets that won the war. They cost the Germans 6 million men, whereas the USA and other allies took out only 1 million. The Soviets lost more personnel in the Battle of Stalingrad than did all the Allies during the entire war.

FDR recognized this and he appreciated it. He viewed the Soviets as America’s friends. He died, and the rather inexperienced Truman, who in his 82 days as vice-president had only met FDR twice, began listening to Edward Stettinius and other business moles in government who felt threatened by communism. They urged Truman not to trust the Soviets. Even the dropping of the 2 atomic bombs on Japan seems to have been to threaten the Soviets. Japan was already defeated by that time. The mega “slaughter bombing” had destroyed both military targets and hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Anyway, just musing this morning about the complications of people’s motives and how they are not always evident, so we need to be slow to judge.

Bitcoin Bitten

I know I keep hammering at Bitcoin in this blog. My big beef is that it is subject to being attacked by people that have the power to disrupt it. http://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/2129645/pboc-orders-banks-halt-banking-services-cryptocurrency offers an example. China has now made it illegal for banks to deal with crypto-currency businesses. Effectively, if someone wants to sell bitcoin for cash, neither buyer nor seller can do it through a bank account. What will they do? Send cash through a courier? I don’t know, but it greatly increases the transaction cost and the ability to match buyers with sellers. In short, it destroys the market.