Sunday, June 1, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

Nick Boström and the struggle to overcome death

Despite his considerable influence, few people know his name. Swedish Nick Boström is a professor and transhumanist who has inspired the likes of Bill Gates and Elon Musk.

Published 22 June 2024
– By Editorial Staff
Nick Boström at TED Talks 2015.

Swedish Nick Boström is the relatively unknown profile of the top tier of transhumanist philosophers. He often does not use concrete predictions, but relies on various probability theories to find further insights and possibilities. Boström has been an outspoken transhumanist since the 1990s, when he joined a movement with a utopian view of accelerating technology that was already known to drastically change social, economic, and biological science. How humans will enter the “singularity” was something Boström and his friends in the movement wanted to discuss.

An only child, Nick Boström, born Niklas Boström, grew up in Helsingborg. The Swedish school system never really appealed to Boström, and he struggled through elementary school. In his teens, the dreamy and philosophical young Boström came across some works by Friedrich Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer and began collecting similar texts and books, which he often read in a nearby forest not far from his childhood home. Boström has also said that it was here that he began to develop his own thoughts on life and found inspiration to write poetry and philosophy, and that it was also here that he decided that he had wasted far too much time in his life.

Boström’s curiosity and interest in the deeper questions of life and how to live as vigorously as possible grew as he delved deeper into art, literature, and science. Boström pleaded with his parents to allow him to complete his final year of high school by studying at home, which they finally agreed to, working with the school to design a curriculum with special tests for their son. Boström’s decision to study at home resulted in him completing the entire year, or two semesters of high school, in just ten weeks.

A few years later, as a graduate student in Stockholm, Boström studied the work of the analytic philosopher W.V. Quine on the difficult relationship between language and reality. During this time, Boström’s interest had increasingly shifted from psychology to mathematics and then to theoretical physics. The Internet began to emerge, and Boström realized that the philosophy he had been inspired by was becoming obsolete, leading him to write a poem in 1995 that was a farewell to his former self.

What Boström didn’t know at the time was that there were a growing number of people around the world who shared the same thoughts about the disruptive changes the Internet was bringing. Boström made himself known in related circles and met many like-minded people in online discussion groups run by an organization in California called the Extropy Institute. The term extropy was coined in 1967 and is used to describe “the ability of life to reverse the spread of entropy in time and space. Extropianism is described as a libertarian strain of transhumanism that seeks to direct human evolution in the hope of eliminating disease, suffering, and death. Extropians advocated the development of artificial superintelligence to achieve these goals, and envisioned humanity colonizing the universe.

In 1996, Boström continued his studies at the London School of Economics while becoming increasingly active in the Extropy Forum. A year later, he founded his first organization, the World Transhumanist Association, and began promoting transhumanist values, including giving interviews to the BBC. The line between Boström’s academic work and activism began to blur.

AI, futurism, and death

Nick Boström is a frequent speaker on the topic of “superintelligence”, often highlighting the potential consequences of true artificial intelligence. Boström argues that AI could pose dangers that surpass all previous technological threats, including nuclear weapons, and that humanity risks extinction if developments are not carefully managed and monitored. Central to these concerns is that AI could quickly overtake and exceed the intellectual potential of humans if it achieves the ability to evolve and improve itself. Boström compares humans to gorillas in this regard; both are primates, with one species dominating the planet while the other remains on the fringes.

“Faced with the prospect of an intelligence explosion, we humans are like little children playing with a bomb. We have little idea when the detonation will occur, but if we put the device to our ear, we can hear a faint ticking sound”, he writes in his book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies.

Among the famous names who claim to have been inspired by Boström’s work are entrepreneur Elon Musk and globalist Bill Gates. Futurist and millionaire James Martin also financially supports Nick Bostrom’s Future of Humanity Institute. The institute has a philosophical basis, and among the grants awarded are studies of a “dark fire scenario” – a cosmic event that could occur under certain high-energy conditions that would mutate everyday matter into dark matter, which could further obliterate most of what we call the universe. Here, even issues such as intergalactic machine intelligence, supported by a large number of probes, have a more ethical future than a cosmic empire with millions of digital brains.

The struggle to overcome death is a recurring theme in the hundreds of articles Boström has published over the years. In 2008, Boström wrote an essay as a call to action from a future utopia.

“Death is not an individual, but a mass murderer. Take aim at the causes of early death – infection, violence, malnutrition, heart attack, cancer. Point your biggest gun at aging and shoot. You must harness the biochemical processes in your body to overcome disease and aging. In time, you will discover ways to shift your mind to more sustainable mediums”, Boström writes.

Boström himself argues that the future can be studied with the same rigor as the past, although the conclusions will be markedly different. As an analogy, he says that it may be difficult to say where a traveler will be in an hour, but after five hours one can be reasonably sure that the traveler has hopefully reached his destination. Similarly, Boström says that the long-term future of humanity is relatively easy to predict, but it is more difficult to calculate exactly when the major technological breakthroughs will actually occur.

Photo: Future of Humanity Institute/CC BY-SA 4.0

Nick Boström is a professor at Oxford University and founder of the Future of Humanity Institute. He has a background in philosophy, theoretical physics, computational neuroscience, logic and artificial intelligence. His book "Superintelligence: The Age of Thinking Machines" is a New York Times bestseller.

Boström has been listed on Foreign Policy's top 100 "Global Thinkers" twice.

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WakeUpTV aims to challenge the Nordic establishment media

Published 29 May 2025
– By Editorial Staff
According to Oddane, the focus of the TV house will be on news and social programs as well as investigative documentaries and interviews.

The creators behind the WakeUpGlobe channel, the Nordic network WakeUpFriends, and the WakeUpConference announce that they are planning to build a new Nordic television network focused on “truth and awareness”.

The stated goal is extremely ambitious – they say they want to seriously challenge and offer an alternative to the major Nordic TV companies with their millions of viewers.

It’s time to build a new Nordic TV house under the WakeUpTV brand that can seriously challenge the big Nordic commercial and state-owned players, such as SVT, TV4, DR in Denmark, and NRK in Norway”, says founder Michael Oddane in a press release.

With WakeUpTV, we want to take everything to a whole new level, where we will operate in professional TV studios on a par with the major TV houses in an environment where the masses feel at home”, he continues.

According to Oddane, hundreds of millions of people around the world have lost confidence in the narratives broadcast by traditional channels and are instead looking for new alternatives.

We will create truth-focused and life-affirming TV that will both be a force for changing society for the better and help people develop both personally and spiritually”, he says.

“Traditional media obscures and distorts”

The plans began five years ago, and the property where the TV station will be built is located in a scenic area outside Lund. Two large TV studios, control rooms, and offices will be built on the property.

Initially, the TV station will have five permanent employees, and various external presenters will be brought in for different projects. It will launch its own streaming service but will also broadcast much of its content via social media to achieve the widest possible reach.

Our focus will, as always, be on uncovering the truth about what is happening in the world and sharing knowledge about personal and spiritual development. It is quite obvious that traditional media both obscures and distorts the truth, contrary to the mission they claim to have. They seem to operate largely according to the wishes of those in power and have lost their function as the third estate. Even spiritual and personal development seem to fall outside the scope of public service and commercial television, which is highly remarkable”, Oddane continues.

Holistic health and alternative medicine

WakeUpTV will also focus on areas such as holistic health, alternative medicine, and treatments – but not on sports or pure entertainment programs.

There will be news-related and socially oriented programs, investigative documentaries, and interviews. There are also plans for debate programs and talk shows with live audiences and, as I said, a separate section where we will share knowledge about spiritual and personal development together with a large number of Nordic actors. Everything will be packaged with high production values”.

Oddane is now trying to attract investors – both micro-investors and those who are willing to invest larger sums. However, it is currently unclear when the TV station is expected to be ready and start broadcasting programs.

Israel’s Eurovision public vote record sparks suspicion of coordinated campaign

Published 20 May 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Israeli representative Yuval Raphael performing at this year's Eurovision.

Israel’s contribution to the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 has become a hot topic – not only for its performance, but also for the record-high number of votes from the audience. Now, suspicions are growing that organized campaigns may have influenced the result.

According to the Schibsted newspaper SvD, both experts and Eurovision fans have reacted to Israel receiving so many votes from TV viewers. Israel’s representative Yuval Raphael won the public vote by a large margin, but Austria took home the final victory thanks to higher scores from the jury groups.

As in Malmö last year, Israel’s entry was controversial even before the final, mainly because of the ongoing war in Gaza.

It is worth noting that Yuval Raphael survived the Hamas attack at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, and she says that the experience has shaped her and her entry, “New Day Will Rise”, which she believes carries a strong message of hope and reconstruction.

EBU will investigate

According to SvD, there are suspicions of coordinated efforts on platforms such as Telegram, Facebook, and X, where users have shared instructions on how to vote from different countries and use VPN services to circumvent geographical restrictions.

Similar patterns have been seen in previous years, but this year’s mobilization is described as unusually extensive. There have also been reports of automated bots and paid advertisements targeting the Eurovision audience.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the contest, has confirmed that it is following up on the information and analyzing voting patterns. In a statement, the EBU says it has advanced systems to detect and stop cheating, but that it always reviews its procedures after the contest.

Journalist asked critical questions about Israel – banned from Eurovision

The situation in Gaza

Published 15 May 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Journalist Szymon Stellmaszyk, banned from Eurovision 2025.

Polish journalist Szymon Stellmaszyk has been denied accreditation for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Basel. He believes this is due to a critical question he asked Israeli artist Eden Golan last year – something the EBU denies.

Szymon Stellmaszyk has covered the Eurovision Song Contest for 20 years and runs both the Facebook page “Let’s talk about ESC” and the industry website “Radio Newsletter”. This year, for the first time, he has been denied accreditation to cover the contest in Basel.

The background, according to Stellmaszyk himself, is a critical question he asked Israel’s contestant, Eden Golan, during Eurovision in Malmö last year. He asked whether Golan, given the political situation and the war in Gaza, thought her presence could pose a security risk to other participants and the audience.

The question attracted attention and was criticized by some, but Stellmaszyk emphasizes that it was not intended to be offensive or “anti-Semitic”. In an email to Stellmaszyk, which the Swedish state broadcaster SVT has seen, the EBU justifies its decision by saying that the platforms Stellmaszyk uses do not have sufficient reach.

“Restriction”

Szymon Stellmaszyk himself is convinced that the EBU is making excuses and that it is in fact about the question he asked last year.

– This is some kind of revenge and, in practice, a restriction of freedom of expression, he says.

It should also be noted that this year’s EBU media handbook contains a new rule stating that published content must be “respectful” towards Eurovision and the EBU. Eurovision boss Martin Green says the wording is unfortunate and promises that it will be reworded for next year.

At the same time, he does not want to comment on individual cases, but points out that there are a limited number of places for journalists.

The Eurovision Song Contest 2025 will be held in Basel, Switzerland.

Bizarre children’s series described as “digital drug”

Cultural revolution in the West

Published 10 May 2025
– By Editorial Staff
The characters of the children's series Cocomelon with its abnormal proportions.

The children’s series Cocomelon attracts young children around the world with its colorful animations and catchy songs. Despite its enormous popularity, criticism of the series is growing, with some warnings that its extreme editing could have a very negative effect on children’s brains.

More and more parents and experts are questioning the extremely fast pace of Cocomelon and whether the mass-produced style is really good for young minds, or whether it risks overstimulating children and making them restless.

One of the major objections to Cocomelon is its rapid editing technique, where camera angles change every two to three seconds. This is a hectic and exaggerated pace that is unfortunately all too common in modern children’s entertainment, but here it is taken to a new level.

According to a study by PubMed Central (PMC), the executive functions of 4-year-olds, such as self-control and working memory, are at risk of being severely impaired after being exposed to fast-paced clips for too long.

Many parents also report that their children become agitated after watching children’s series such as Cocomelon, and there is plenty of criticism on social media platforms such as X.

Mass-produced aesthetics

Other research also indicates that rapid camera and clip changes can negatively affect young children’s concentration. The fast pace is no accident either. Cocomelon is designed to capture children’s attention, but some argue that it now goes too far.

According to Findmykids.org, the constant impressions can trigger dopamine release, causing children to seek the same quick rewards even outside the screen – something that can make it harder for them to focus on calmer activities such as reading or playing.

In addition to the pace, the series’ aesthetics have also been criticized. Like most animated productions today, the characters have disproportionately large heads and overly cheerful expressions, which some find unpleasant.

For many parents and viewers, it feels like the series is made on an assembly line where quantity takes precedence over quality, resulting in an aesthetic that is more frightening than charming.

Opinions are divided

Unlike traditional cartoons such as Scooby-Doo, Cocomelon is animated in a way that prioritizes quantity over quality, which is evident in the disproportionate characters and the assembly line feel.

Opinions about Cocomelon are divided. Some experts, such as Rebecca Cowan at Walden University, argue that there is insufficient evidence to single out Cocomelon as the problem – instead, it is total screen time that may be harmful.

– Without empirical research on the show Cocomelon, there is no data to substantiate claims that this show is overstimulating due to the pace of the scenes, she says.

But others warn that the series’ pace and overstimulating elements can have a very negative impact on children’s development, especially in terms of concentration and calmness.

Cocomelon may seem like an easy solution for entertaining young children, but it is worth considering what the fast pace and mass-produced style do to young viewers.

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