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Newsbud
Published: 2017-05-05
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4ZGvdk5d-E
Hey out there, I'm Jeff DeRiso and welcome to another edition of Mindhack. Today, researchers propose human rights to protect against mind-hacking, propaganda in the war on science, and the Russian Foreign Ministry calls on the UN to fight fake news and disinformation. Newsbud needs the support of people like you to continue creating informational content that counters the barrage of fake news from the corporate media. Please help
by making a contribution to our Kickstarter campaign. Whatever contribution you can make will no doubt help us to continue on our path of truth-based news reporting. The first article I want to look at today was published in the Guardian on April 26, 2017, by Ian Sample. The title says, new human rights to protect against mind-hacking and brain-data theft proposed. First of all, I'd like to say
that I'm flattered that the people at the Guardian are watching Mindhack. As a response to rapid advancement in technologies that read or alter brain activities, like the ones we've covered on this show, researchers in Switzerland have proposed a list of four new human rights, which would protect the privacy of people's thoughts and brain activity. Marcello Yenka, a neuroethesis at the University of Basel and Roberto Adorno,
a human rights lawyer at the University of Zurich, both believe that defining these human rights is essential to keeping the brain as the last refuge for human privacy. The first of these rights is cognitive liberty, which protects the right to alter one's mental states with the help of neuro tools, as well as to refuse to do so. The author cites a hypothetical example of an employer
who may want to use transcranial direct current stimulation to improve his employee's performance and may want to make that practice mandatory for all employees. As we know from past Mindhack episodes, our military is currently using transcranial direct current stimulation with success to boost the performance of special operations forces. The second of these rights is mental privacy, which is the right to prevent non-consensual access to our
brain information. For those who question whether this is a scientific possibility, the author points to a 2011 study by Jack Gallant and his team at the University of California at Berkeley. In this study, the researchers were able to use brain scan information from their subjects to accurately reconstruct film clips that they had just watched based on their mental picture of the images. The third right is
mental integrity, which protects against unauthorized outside access of a brain through a brain computer interface device. This one also includes the protection against the hypothetical neuralizer device featured in the movie Men in Black, which was mentioned in the paper by Yangka and Andorno. The fourth and final right is psychological continuity, which declares the right to preserve personal identity and the coherence of the individual's behavior from
unconsented modification. In other words, this right would protect against actions that seek to alter a person's sense of who they are. The author cites the use of deep brain stimulation, which is the surgical implanting of electrodes deep in the brain to control medical conditions such as Parkinson's disease. Patients who have undergone this surgical procedure report that afterwards they no longer feel like themselves. Now all four
of these measures seemed to me like a step in the right direction for creating a code of ethics when it comes to altering the brain. However, on the subject of psychological continuity, I'm a little unclear about how this continuity could be defined and enforced. I find this concept of psychological continuity, especially intriguing because it forces me to once again ask the question, what is it that
makes me, me? Is it the arrangement of neurons in my brain, the chemical balance? Is it the sum of my thoughts and memories? All of us are constantly changing, and the cells within our body are constantly regenerating. So after reading this article, I'm interested in researching deeper into what creates this feeling of psychological continuity. The next article I want to look at today was published in
Global Research on April 27, 2017 by Dr. Gary G. Coles. The title says, Propaganda and the War on Science, Corporate Sudo-Science, Edward Bernays and the 2017 March for Science. The author, Dr. Gary Coles, who is a retired physician from Minnesota, recalls a recent experience where he attended a talk by an author of a book whose theme was The War on Science. Coles comments that this author
was also on the National Steering Committee for the recent March for Science. Though Coles does not refer to the author by name in his article, I believe he is referring to Sean Otto, the author of a book called The War on Science, whose waging it, why it matters, and what we can do about it. Coles says that the reason he attended this talk was that although
the author is not a scientist himself, he appeared to be fairly well read about issues that Coles was also concerned with. These were mainly concerns over regulating pollution and protecting the environment. Coles then goes on to state. However, during this speech, I was disappointed to hear the author boldly state as fact a widely propagated media, medical, and pharmaceutical industry myth that falsely claims that vaccines, presumably
including the 270 new experimental ones that are in Big Pharma's pipeline, are totally safe and efficacious. When they are injected into the muscle tissue of tiny, even premature infants whose blood, brain, barriers, and immune systems are not yet developed enough to keep out the mercury, aluminum, and live viruses. Coles, who has an experienced medical doctor, points out that this non-scientist author is clearly ignorant of a
voluminous body of documented, peer-reviewed, and unbiased, neuroscientific evidence that refutes this claim. Coles then provides readers with a list to websites promoting unbiased research into vaccine safety. These include the National Vaccine Information Center and the Vaccine Information Network, and also several documentary films covering the issue. This was not the only ignorant claim made by the author, Coles continues. He also repeats the myth that fluoridation of
municipal water supplies is completely safe and has no downsides. Coles points out that he is again ignorant of the documented proof that the ingestion of that neurotoxic mineral fluoride can cause lowered IQ levels, hypothyroidism, and brain damage, as well as flerosus of bones and teeth. He also notes that fluoridation of water supplies is banned in most European countries, based on what he calls good, unbiased, science.
Edward Bernays, known as the father of modern propaganda and nephew of Sigmund Freud, is the originator of this non-scientific myth. Bernays was hired by the aluminum company of America, or Alcoa, in the 1940s, to orchestrate a public relations campaign to convince political leaders and the public that it would be good if Alcoa's highly toxic byproduct fluoride salts were added to the nation's drinking water supplies under
the guise of preventing tooth decay in children. This campaign worked very well, and soon municipalities across the United States passed legislation to allow their water supplies to be fluoridated. This allowed Alcoa to profit by selling the waste byproduct of their industrial process. A pretty good deal, right? Coles astutely points out that Bernays and Alcoa's fluoride caper was just another example of how cunning mercenary lobbyists that
work for sociopathic corporations can convince non-scientist legislators to do their bidding. He then points out that we must distinguish between two types of science. The first type is the biased big business kind of science that hires well-trained scientists to perform the necessary research in order to develop products that will make money for the company and its investors. The second kind is the unbiased kind of science
that is in it for purely altruistic reasons, with scientists that work only for the advancement of pure knowledge and the advancement of society to create a more humane and prosperous world for everybody. Unfortunately, the first kind of science he mentions is the most prevalent in today's world. Coles says that this type of science forces scientists to become mercenaries for regressive non-humanitarian agendas such as creating weapons
of warfare or unsafe psychiatric drugs. Coles talks about his own experience as a physician and first as a medical student, where everyone believed in upholding the Hippocratic oath to first do no harm. And where the spirit was all about looking for the truth no matter where the evidence led. He says, we students were naive enough to think that our professors were also idealists and not influenced
by the big business of medicine. But Coles and his colleagues and professors were slowly being groomed by big pharma through clever public relation strategies and the lure of material wealth. For him, being a doctor was never about making lots of money. He says, we thought that science was supposed to be fair and unbiased, but we didn't appreciate the greed of the sociopathic pharmaceutical medical insurance, medical
device, medical communications, healthcare providers, and other medical corporations that now rule the world. After returning home from the speech about the so-called war on science, Coles looked up the members of the advisory board for the March for Science. He found that it included representatives of giant multinational pharmaceutical corporations, such as Pfizer, Merck, and Glacosmith Klein. In his final comment, he states that this corporate funding for
the March for Science made him skeptical about attending the event, even though he is very passionate about promoting integrity in science. In my opinion, Dr. Coles shows brilliant rhetorical strategy in the fact that he does not mention the author he is refuting by name, but only refutes his ideas. I think this refutation of the war on science narrative is similar to the story recovered last week,