Engineered Humans.

Cheer up: It's Norway Day.

1. Juan Enriquez:

The era of space travel, and potentially space colonization, may just force the issue of true speciation. Launch a human body into space and it dramatically decays. Almost all long-term astronauts come back severely damaged by their jaunts, in their vision, hearts, bones, brains. So if we are to leave this place, we are going to have to seriously reengineer the human body, very deliberately, to induce the kind of evolutionary adaptations required for surviving higher radiation, different gravity, more extreme environments. Those engineered humans would be diverse, and the differences between them and humans of today would increase rapidly as successive generations of them got further and further from Earth and adapted to truly different ecosystems.

Even if we do not begin to colonize space in the near future, the human genome will diversify by other means. As more and more gene therapies come online to deal with horrid diseases, the tools necessary for such procedures will become more standardized and widespread. People will use these tools to engineer their own genes and organs, and they won’t do it the same way everywhere, especially if different countries adopt different regulations, restrictions, and incentives. (Source: neo.life)

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2. Kevin Rudd:

There are several driving factors in the China calculus. One is structural, that is the Chinese deep calculus about the importance of the Russian Federation to their long-term strategic national interests. To break that down further, the Chinese say that under Deng [Xiaoping], “We had to pivot to America to deal with the Soviets. Now we don’t, because we have a benign relationship with Moscow. That’s good. Second, because we have a benign relationship with Moscow, we get to dedicate the bulk of our strategic energies to dealing with our principal regional and global adversary: the United States.” The third part of the calculus is that the Russians are useful around the world; that is, they’re an American distraction; they’re serious in the Middle East and in Europe, but they’re also a tag team operation with China in the UN Security Council, so right across the global policy agenda.

And there is one final structural factor, which is that the Chinese are deeply analytical about their long-term demand for a secure supply of commodities, not just hydrocarbons but also agricultural commodities. And not just wheat, but things like timber. So that’s a powerful set of interests, which is why they want to be as supportive of the Russians as they can. (Source: thewirechina.com)

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3. Eurointelligence:

The actual war is going really badly for Russia. But they are faring much better in the economic war. The January to April Russian current account data showed a record increase in the country’s current account surplus: more than even we expected. For the period January-April the current account surplus was $95.8 billion, compared to only $27.5 billion in the same period in 2021. The total balance of goods and services shows an even wider gap: $106.5 billion after $35.2 billion last year. As Elina Ribakova from the Institute of International Finance notes, Russia is well on course for a $200 billion-250 billion current account surplus this year. The rise in the current account surplus reflects the higher prices of oil and gas exports, but also a fall in exports from other countries to Russia….

The combination of a failing military campaign and rising current account surpluses is telling us that Russia needs to cool down the military assault this year, and tread a fine path between the imposition of economic counter-sanctions and sanctions-busting diplomacy to fund the next stage of the military campaign. A long game is Russia’s best strategic option, if indeed Russia wants to continue to on this path. Nukes and cash don’t get anything you want in the short term. But they do matter.

Our final conclusion is that western sanctions are not working. There is no need to mince words. We hear quite often that they are working, but those statements are now beginning to fade. This is the usual euphemistic nonsense. We Europeans are quite good at this Douze Points thing. Not so good when it comes to taking strategic action. The reality is that the sanctions are not working, full-stop. This is the war Putin has a chance of winning. (Source: eurointelligence.com)

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