State of Friday: MEANWHILE, CHINESE SUPER CHIMPS
Where we go from here is up for debate
Greetings, Dear Reader,
Apologies for missing yesterday too. Not off to a great comeback, eh? Something came up, couldn’t make it. Such is life. You have to take the Ls like men.
One of the things I try to do here at SOTD is highlight things most of the wider (political) media isn’t covering much or isn’t covering aggressively enough.
Sometimes that’s because it’s too hard to explain, too hard to cover, or both. Other times it’s just not sexy enough. Activist judge releases criminal illegal alien murderer back onto the streets is right over the plate, slow as heck, easy dinger.
Chinese super soldier AI-brain chimps not so much.
MEANWHILE, CHINESE SUPER CHIMPS
From the get, I personally think transhumanism is an overblown subject.
Even as the assumption is that technology will inexorably and rapidly and interminably advance, I just don’t think we’ll ever reach true Robocop levels.
That being said, the Pentagon is super anxious about a recent high-visibility defection to China. First, renowned Harvard brain researcher Richard Lieber was convicted in 2021 for lying to authorities about payments he’d received from China. He spent two days in jail and six months house arrest. He also had to pay a $50,000 fine and back taxes to the IRS to the tune of, um, just $37,000.
(Not to digress, but really? Doesn’t that seem low for selling out to China? Is it wrong of me to think we should just start hanging these turncoats? But I digress, read on and make up your own mind.)
Lieber arrived in China in April of 2025 and opened the brand new “I-Brain” center in Shenzhen May 1. Prior to Reuters reporting on this, we had no real idea what this traitor was doing.
In his new research lab, Lieber has space for 2,000 research primates and access to cutting-edge chip lithography. China has long been a sought after destination for scientists conducting risky research with high downsides – just ask Anthony Fauci and Peter Daszak and the roughly 20 million people who died of lab-cooked COVID-19 – so Lieber is no different.
His stated mission is to cure, or fix, degenerative nerve and brain diseases like ALS.
China, on the other hand, is highly interested in mass-producing “super soldiers.” Beijing has identified so-called “brain-computer interfaces” as a “national priority.”
The reasons are obvious to anyone who’s even briefly read any dystopic sci-fi.
Not only could you theoretically create super-soldiers, but you wouldn’t need to actively censor or control a population the way China does its own if you could simply reprogram them with brain chips at birth.
China’s extremely loose scientific ethics also do not prevent it from following up the 2,000 primates with a few thousand Muslim Uyghurs. Again, I’m sorry to say, Dear Reader, but that makes it an ultra sexy destination for ideologically driven (see: insane) scientists. No FDA to footdrag human trials of cybernetic brain microchips in China.
There are two upshots here, as far as I’m concerned.
First, even with the regulations here at home, Harvard, MIT, the DoD’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are still working on competitive lines of research. Elon Musk himself believes he’s bound to cure blindness and paralysis.
Second: This is all a complete canard compared to the real thing.
For example, when Musk says his technology helped a totally paralyzed, vegetative person speak again, he means robotically, like a speak and spell.
Massive upgrade? Indeed. Really speaking? Definitely not.
You simply cannot replace actual legit, healthy speech. It can be simulated, but that will always, no matter how cutting edge the tech gets, still be just a facsimile. Same goes for eyesight, robotic legs, so on.
And that’s setting aside that no one really knows the health consequences of adding silicon to biological hardware that took billions of years to evolve. Cancer almost certainly, and probably as a best case.
Where we go from here is up for debate. While I get the Pentagon’s anxiety – it’s always safe to hedge on everything’s eventually possible – I don’t think China fielding drone cybernetic super chimps is actually ever going to work.
Sorry, nerds.
MORE LINKS
Country Raids Muslim Sect Over Alleged Sex Crimes, Slavery
More of this, please.
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How Much Taxpayer Money Did Democrats Spend Trying To Gerrymander Virginia?
Double whammy.
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We Are Trapped Inside Dystopia
Have we thought about it enough? Do we even have time?
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I won't panic unless Wicked Wang Fu shows up....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR2ecE_tfgs