English Panel Discussion Jayden: Today we will be talking about the future and what it will hold for

us. We will be discussing some of the major concerns about the future such as genetic modification, Government control, privacy and robots and examine whether our fears are really justified. In discussing these topics, we will be looking at evidence from the present day to give informed insight into what the near future may hold. Chris: David Suzuki keeps reminding us that It took all of human existence to reach a population of 1 billion early in the nineteenth century. Since then, in less than two centuries, it has shot past 6.8 billion but now we are also living more than twice as long as people did in the past it takes a lot of air, land, and water to meet our basic needs. Jacqui: Already technology has changed the way food is produced but the ever-increasing need for food has caused more and more people to look into genetic modification as a means of producing crops and animals. How is that going to affect our health? Are we likely going to cause damage to our flora and fauna? Such questions are of great importance to governments and scientific institutions and a number of experiments have been conducted in order to answer these questions. Jayden: Genetic modification for crops used to be proclaimed as the answer to global poverty. However, time has shown this is not the case and a new set of problems have arisen. There are many health concerns with genetically modified foods. Testing conducted showed that mice fed with GM corn had an increase in body weight of 3.7% and 11% in their liver. Weight gain seems trivial when compared to research results showing that the kidneys and liver, the organs that process the chemicals in the body, both had problems from a GM diet. Thirty years ago, a genetically engineered food supplement called L-trytophan killed 100 people and affected 5,000-10,000 more. Morgellons disease is a recent disease that has been attributed to being caused by GM foods. Its symptoms include fatigue, memory loss, confusion, joint pain and vision loss. Evidence also shows a link between consumption of GM foods and allergies, liver problems, sterility and even death. Chris: There are also environmental problems from the use of GM crops. Since the initial use of GM crops twenty years ago, numbers of superweeds have dramatically increased. In the United States, weed resistance has spread to more than 12 million acres of mainly corn and soybean crop areas. These superweeds are resistant to popular herbicides such as Roundup, and this had caused farmers to lobby for the legalisation of toxic chemicals to be used instead. One of these is 2,4-D which was a defoliant used in the Vietnam War. It is estimated that this chemical was responsible for 400,000 people being killed or maimed and 500,000 children born with birth defects. It is for these reasons among others that have caused countries including France, Hungary and Peru to ban GM foods completely. Jacqui: There is currently no labelling for GM produce but this seems soon to change due to angry consumers. But if the shortage of food keeps continuing, we may no longer get a choice about whether we want to choose GM foods. The government might make that decision for us.

Jayden: Speaking of Government control, I was on infowars.com the other day and I came across an article that was really disturbing. Basically, what it was talking about was recent purchases of ammunition by the American Government. In March of this year, the Department of Homeland Security purchased 450 million rounds of hollow point bullets. These are the bullets that are designed to do maximum damage to the victims organs as they expand once the hit the body. In fact, these hollow point bullets are so brutal that it is a violation of the Geneva Convention to use them in battle. And to put into perspective just how much 450 rounds is, Major General Blount said that active battle operations in Iraq have used ammunition at the rate of 5.5 million rounds per month, roughly 70 million per year. This means that the DHS purchase of 450 million rounds would last for a 6.4 years of an active war. And since the March purchase, the DHS has purchased an additional 750 million rounds including bullets that can penetrate walls. Its important to realise that these departments which are purchasing ammo are not armed forces like the army or navy. These are non-military branches of the federal government and so they do not have a need for extensive ammunition. Another fact which is extremely concerning is that the Department of Homeland Security only has jurisdiction in America. It is a domestic agency with domestic responsibilities and so the only conclusion that can be made is that the DHS intends to use these bullets on the American people. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security has been quoted as saying its main purpose is to stop home-grown terrorism. Jacqui: Whats wrong with the DHS trying to stop terrorism? Chris: The problem comes about with who the Government classifies as terrorists. The FBI warns that these home-grown terrorists may be anyone who questions the Government or even stockpiles food. In fact, regarding Government opposition as treason and the classification of ordinary citizens as troublesome have both been identified as common predecessors to dictatorships throughout history. There has also been footage emerging on YouTube of the arrests of American people who have spoken out against the Government. One of the videos I watched recently was of a soldier who was arrested at his home for stating that 9-11 was an inside job on his Facebook page. He is currently being held indefinitely by police even though no charges have been laid. Jacqui: It sounds a lot like the story 2070 in the book 10 Futures by Michael Pryor. In the story, the main characters live under the control of a totalitarian Government. You could see how such a world had a real dystopian feel to it, the people living in constant fear. With the complete control of the Government, you saw how police brutality was out of control and free will was suppressed by the banning of books. The actions of the Department of Homeland Security sound like what you would imagine the first steps to be for a total police state. Chris: Another reason to fear the future is how technology is increasingly invading our privacy. Behavioural recognition software has already been developed so that Police can use round-the-clock surveillance at major events. These cameras are pre-programmed to acknowledge what behaviours are considered normal and then report any suspicious activity to police headquarters. The cameras build up a memory of suspicious behaviour to determine what could be potential criminal activity. Critics feel that this surveillance system is one step away from pre-crime, the technology linked with the science fiction film Minority Report. The movie depicts a ruthless police state that employs psychics called precogs to apprehend criminals before crimes occur.

Jayden: Another recent example of privacy being violated occurred in several Texas schools. Students from these schools are in protest over a program that forces kids to wear tracking name tags which are used to pinpoint their location on campus as well as outside school premises. This is only a step away from having a microchip inserted. Already there are cases where mentally disabled children have been micro chipped so that their parents can keep track of their whereabouts. Chris: The use of microchip is a tricky subject as it has two sides to it. On the one hand, people do not want to lose their privacy because of their tracking ability and the way they collect data. On the other hand, microchips are already being developed to control diabetes as they continually measure the patients blood glucose and release insulin as needed. It is not far-fetched to think that will be able to turn some genies on and off and be a cure for cancer and many other diseases. Whenever there is a major advance in technology they always seem to be good points and bad points. This can be reflected by the example with the nuclear energy. Initially it was used for destruction but now it is used as a major source of clean energy and it is also used in the medical field. All the research with genetic microchipping may find new ways to cure and prevent diseases of today. Jayden: The current use and continued development of surveillance drones and robots is also of concern in relation to peoples privacy and fears about the development of a police state. Despite the US secret service stating that they are not aware of any drones being used for security, drones have been used specifically in the monitoring of protestors. Such actions undermine the American Government taking the Amendments seriously, as such monitoring is in direct confliction with the first amendment, the freedom of speech and the freedom to oppose the Government. Two of the surveillance robots being currently used include the Wraith, which can travel over 100km/h and carries two 12-gauge belt-fed shotguns that can fire 250 rounds every minute per minute, and also the Aether Aero, a 4.5 foot wide helicopter drone. As for the future of robotic policing, DARPA, an agency of the US defence, has contracted an engineering firm with the task of building a two-legged humanoid robot, while Stanford Universitys robotics laboratory is working towards introducing autonomous robots into law enforcement. These robots will be armed with lethal weapons and be autonomous. This means that they will be able to decide by themselves when to kill someone. Of course, there is serious opposition to such an idea. A professor of robotics at the University of Sheffield said that robots that can think for themselves must be limited. The bottom line is that robots cant properly discriminate between a civilian and a criminal because there is no complete definition for a civilian. Soldiers and police officers rely on their common sense but robots do not have this. It can be seen from the current use of pilotless aircrafts in Iraq and Afghanistan that civilians are often killed in their attacks. We need to make sure that we regulate such technologies so they dont create more problems than they solve. Jacqui: And powerful technology can easily be manipulated. Governments can order robots to do any violent act and the robot will not hesitate or question the order. The way things are going at the moment, it will not be long before the freedom of speech becomes a criminal act. And if one of these robot police comes after you, youre as good as dead anyway. They are faster, stronger, have unlimited endurance and are better armed. In fact, the technology to detect a human breath or heart beat already exists and heat and motion sensors are old technology, so you wouldnt be able to hide either. It would find you and shoot you without thinking twice, just for speaking out against the Government.

Chris: Throughout history major civilizations have come and gone, but the human race is still here. It seems that it is in the human nature to go through these cycles. Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Incas, all prospered, then developed a fear to 'lose' it all, and in that fear, and the 'securities' they tried to build-in, they effectively destroyed their own culture. Despite the apparent hopelessness of the future, we should embrace it, focus on developing, and growing our culture, and step into the future with an open-mind. As Gandhi once said The future depends on what you do today.

Sources http://www.infowars.com/texas-students-revolt-against-mandatory-rfid-tracking-chips/ http://www.infowars.com/pre-crime-cameras-for-rnc-in-tampa/ http://www.infowars.com/dhs-classifies-ammo-purchase-following-controversy/ http://www.naturalnews.com/035649_DHS_ammunition_domestic_war.html http://www.infowars.com/long-predicted-gm-crop-superweeds-have-arrived/ http://www.naturalnews.com/035734_GMOs_foods_dangers.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange http://www.infowars.com/high-tech-police-state-hardware-rolled-out-in-tampa-for-rnc/ http://www.infowars.com/synthetic-police-are-coming-darpa-engineering-autonomous-robots/ http://www.freeworldfilmworks.com/anwot-killbots2.htm