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Organ Harvesting Real Dystopian Reality for Uyghurs in Chinese Concentration Camps

Uyghur photo

Source: Extranewsfeed.com

Tursun gets out to tell her story to the world

Back in January CNN broke the story of alleged re-education (read: concentration) camps that the Chinese government were placing Muslim Uyghur minorities in. Numbers are unclear, but from 800,000 to possibly 2 million Uyghurs may have been detained in camps that the Chinese foreign ministry is refuting as “complete lies told with ulterior motives”. They prefer the term “vocational training center”. But leaks are getting out, like one Mihrigul Tursun who told a tale of detention and torture to the US Congressional Executive Commission on China in 2018.

The Uyghurs who have experienced it describe the experience as “cultural genocide” with camps giving forced lessons on Communist party propaganda and region-wide bans on Uyghur customs and traditions. In early January, Chinese authorities led a carefully supervised tour to show some activities in these centers, where the inmates were seen taking Mandarin lessons, painting, dancing, and singing the song “if you’re happy and you know it clap your hands”.

What happened to Tursun, you ask? Well, she was returning to China from Egypt with her eight-week-old triplets when the authorities stopped her for questioning. After they took away her babies and detained her for 3 months, she was told upon her release that one of her sons died in an operation. They gave her no explanations as to why they took her babies, or needed to put them in a hospital, or why they had scars at the base of their necks. They then took away her passport and kept a watchful eye on her.

The nightmare continues

Two years later, they returned to take her to the concentration camp. Inmates ranged from 17 to 62 years of age, and the camp was so crowded people had to take turns sleeping and standing.

Finally, Tursun was able to get released with the help of the US government. But if only the problems were as simple as that.

Uyghur DNA and blood type database?

There were later reports that Uyghurs were being offered “free health checkups” except that all that was done was a blood collection, without telling the patients what their results were. This week, an exiled Uyghur oncology surgeon from Urumqi decided he had to speak out on what was happening in the concentration centers.

Organ Harvesting

Enver Tohti recalls when he was called to remove a lived and two kidneys from an executed prisoner. Except the prisoner wasn’t dead yet. The Chinese execution squad had shot him through the right chest so he would have time to remove the organs while the man was still alive, in order to keep the organs fresh. He was to remove the organs without any anesthetic, too.

That happened in 1995. Years later, he released how widespread and systematic this process had begun, and in 1998 worked with a British media company to report on how cancer rates were spiking among Uyghur workers who were laboring in a Nuclear testing facility.

Tohti believes that this practice of organ harvesting sprang from a strong demand from wealthy Saudis. According to him, demand far outweighs supply, which would explain the compulsory blood sample collections from Uyghurs, to create a “live organ-matching database”.

Demand on the Black Market

After all, according to the director of Saudi Center for Organ Transplants Dr. Shaheen, 410 Saudis had purchased organs from black markets in China, Egypt, and Pakistan. And according to the European Parliament’s public health committee, illegally harvested kidneys can go for as much as USD $165,000 each.

It’s now possible to see signs on the floor of airports such as in Xinjiang that gives priority access to people transporting human organs.

Organ sign China photo

Source: Epoch Times

There is little more dystopian that I can think of than this kind of government-sanctioned DNA database of Uyghurs to allow for the systematic incarceration for human organ harvesting and all kinds of other torture than this story.

As journalist CJ Werleman points out in his article covering this story,

“These crimes against humanity are every bit as horrific as they are unimaginable, but given Uyghur activists have described to me and many others how Uyghur Muslims detained in concentration camps are being subjected to gang rapes, sterilization programs, systematic torture, forced marriage to Han Chinese citizens, forced disappearances and executions, there’s every reason to believe claims of live-organ harvesting barely scratch the surface of what is the largest cultural genocide of Muslims in modern times.”

The Dawn of delivery drone 6-wheelers?

Is 2019 the year delivery drones will finally take off? Or at least, roll out (pun intended)?

After we saw Amazon’s flying drones capable of delivering parcels in the air, we now have a glimpse of what that might look like on land: cute autonomous 6-wheeler robots delivering food and possibly other small parcels to specified location. The idea was first started by Skype co-founders Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis back in 2014, when they founded the robotics firm called Starship Technologies (I know, we love the name too). In the UK you can already find these fun autonomous bots wheeling around Milton Keynes, fulfilling grocery deliveries. Just this week, Starship just announced a partnership with George Mason University to allow their robots to deliver food anywhere on campus as well.

And it’s not hard to understand the appeal. Not only do the robots look cool and futuristic, but it’s also very practical for those who are stuck in the library or on campus without much time to spare, or simply for those students who have the munchies and don’t want to venture far from their dorm room. In the age of Uber, why not have an app for food delivery to your door as well? Not to mention it’s 100% eco-friendly.

Not to be outdone, Amazon has created its own 6-wheeler system as well, called “scout”. Able to accommodate small and medium-sized parcels, scout would only work with Amazon Prime accounts, of course, and is currently still being tested at Washington State University. However, sources indicate it looks considerably less cute, and is surprisingly quite late to the party, all things considered.

Revolution in Progress as National Assembly Leader Proclaims Himself President

venezuela protests

This is truly a revolution of the people happening in real time.

Due to the hyperinflation, rampant homicides and countless food and medical shortages wracking the country, the 35-year-old head of the national assembly declared himself de-facto president on Wednesday, claiming the current president illegitimate due to the questionable nature of his electoral win last year. Guaido is trying to create a transitional government to help reshape Venezuela’s government, in the process painting himself a target as he attempts to save Venezuela from itself and Maduro.

Surprisingly, Donald Trump was the first to recognize the new leader, along with Mike Pence. Many other countries then followed suit, such as Brazil, Chile, Peru, Canada, Colombia, Argentina, and Western Europe. As a response, Maduro decided to cut ties with the US, giving US diplomats 72 hours to get out of Venezuela. However, the US secretary of state Mike Pompeo refuted the statement, claiming Maduro doesn’t have the authority to break diplomatic relations. Mexico and Bolivia, however, still support Maduro, along with Russia, China, and Cuba. Some are denouncing the interference from the US and other countries in Venezuela’s affairs.

Many are worried about a potential disaster if the military support Maduro instead of Guaido, such as civil war. Internet watchdogs have also noticed that Maduro seems to be limiting social media websites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, in order to try to contain the rampant protests against his government.

Why are thousands and millions of people taking to the streets to protest Maduro’s government, you ask? Simply because after Maduro took power, Venezuela has become a country with rampant hyperinflation. Shortages for everything from food and medical supplies to basic necessities like toilet paper and diapers have crippled the entire country, along with the highest homicide rate in Latin America due to all the corruption. The ‘Maduro diet’ has led to hundreds of thousands starving, with some resorting to killing animals in zoos in order to eat, and many avoiding hospitals because the facilities are more disease-prone than simply staying at home.

As a result, three million Venezuelans have left the country since 2014 in a mass exodus.

This story is developing and is surely a turning point for the country, as leaders around the world are deciding which side to support. We have yet to see how this will affect the world stage, with countries taking different sides in the economic and humanitarian crisis.

2018: A Year in Review for Cyberpunk

I am grateful for the time afforded to me from Christmas through New Year’s to reflect on what the year has given me, and this year has been particularly giving as far as Cyberpunk is concerned, because it’s the year that I discovered the term. If you take a quick look at the posting history of this blog, you can see that it was born on March 20th, 2018. But my discovery of the term dated slightly before that, right near the beginning of the new year, in February when the legendary Altered Carbon series came out on Netflix. While binge-watching the series I discovered something within myself recognizing a passion that had been born long before that fateful cold afternoon–back when I saw The Matrix for the first time, in the blissful days of my childhood.

My, what a journey 2018 has been since then. After discovering that there was a name for the genre, linking The Matrix to Altered Carbon and then to Ghost in the Shell from the previous year, I dove headfirst into the genre. It was really those three movies that I loved so dearly that created the click in my head, that there was something here that linked them all. After some quick research I found my favorite Cyberpunk blog, Neon Dystopia, from which I found the most comprehensive definition for the term. I then looked up the “founding fathers” of the genre, having a bit of a hard time but finding some common denominators that the entire movement could be traced to. The two main ones that I found were the novel Neuromancer and the 1982 movie Blade Runner.  So I read the book, re-watched the movie, and then read the novel that was the loose inspiration of the movie, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I then moved on to more modern Cyberpunk, Snowcrash, while at the same time devouring any tv shows or movies I could get my hands on for the genre. Meanwhile, I read Ready Player One twice, and then went to see it in theaters during opening week. I created a reference book for all the media I was consuming, to help me keep track of what happened in them and the interesting ideas I discovered in each one. I created this blog as a way to post some of these reviews and ideas online, as well. It was also this year that I discovered synthwave, and some of my new favorite synthwave artists like Le Matos and Carpenter Brut.

I wrote to my favorite Cyberpunk blog, and then after months of waiting, I was happily rewarded by joining the writing team for Neon Dystopia, contributing to their weekly Last Week In Cyberpunk (LWIC) but also having my first review of cyberpunk media published, a review for Killtopia. It even inspired me to write my own Cyberpunk novel, for which I’ve already written an outline and have written the first couple chapters.

I wonder what 2019 will bring, but one thing I know for sure is that my love for everything Cyberpunk will continue. I will carry on consuming and writing about cyberpunk media, starting off with this new year with watching the newly released Bandersnatch episode of Black Mirror, and then hopefully from watching Replicas and then Battle Angel: Alita. I’m also excited to read the newest addition to my cyberpunk library, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, as well as learning more about Philip K Dick–his life, his writing, and his philosophy.

What about you, dear reader? When did you discover Cyberpunk, how, and will you be consuming more Cyberpunk media in 2019? What movies, books, TV shows, or music are you excited for?

Happy 2019!

 

Cyber Dystopia: Updates for the rest of 2018

I created Cyber Dystopia as a place to keep and cherish all my thoughts on the different media I am discovering and consuming in the realm of Cyberpunk. A vision I had for CD is for it to be a place where I could keep up with the Cyberpunk trends, including media that has been recently released, and media that is being released soon. A couple different excellent pending releases would include Akira: Battle Angel (which was supposed to be released in July of this year but was pushed back to December 2018) and Cyberpunk 2077, the new Cyberpunk video game by the creators of The Witcher that everyone is excitedly awaiting the release for.

I know I’ve been a bit MIA for the past couple months, but it’s been a busy time for me. I accepted a job to teach English at the University of Strasbourg come September, so I have been preparing for that. I also got married last week, which required a lot of planning and preparation. Now, however, I have one more month of living in the United States, before a honeymoon in Egypt and then a move to France in August. Because of this, I anticipate being able to dedicate more of my time to posting reviews and content of all the cyberpunk material I’ve been coming across, in a hope to not only keep it all in one place for myself, but also as an easy way to share it with you, the reader. A great part of this project consists in your responses as well, so if you feel the inclination, I’d love to hear your responses or any feedback about your take of the media I’m posting about. Reactions are great, and I’m sure we’ll probably disagree about some things, which is what makes this whole thing fun–where we all agree to disagree in a world without rules but instead with steadfast independent thought.

Well, for now at least.

-Alex, founder of Cyber Dystopia

 

Driverless Uber car results in first death

“Are driverless cars safe? Uber fatality raises questions”

This is the headline of the article and question that CNET asks. With a driverless Uber hitting and killing someone walking along the side of the street, the police now have to decide who is at fault: The pedestrian, the driver, or the robot/AI technology?

I think this will be the litmus test for whether the technology can survive or grow in the future. If I had to guess, I would say while this is a technology milestone and it’s never really happened before, the growth into driverless cars is unavoidable. I remember seeing this idea first addressed in the I, Robot movie with Will Smith. As his character takes over the wheel of his Audi, he later has an unavoidable crash (it’s bound to happen if countless robots are jumping on your hood trying to kill you) but after the crash, his police team want to blame him for taking off the auto-drive function and supposedly being the reason for the crash itself. So in the future, will we be pressured not to take the car off automatic, not to drive it ourselves?

Image result for i robot car

Personally, I still think driverless cars will be safer than cars with drivers. Sure there will be fatalities, but it’s unrealistic to think that any kind of driving can be victimless and perfect, considering how many roads we have and how many cars are on those roads at any given time. Perhaps what scares people more is the illusion of being in control of whether or not they get hurt or hurt someone else. But is that any different from getting hurt in a train, plane, bus, or ship?

You can read more about the CNET article here:

https://www.cnet.com/news/uber-self-driving-car-fatality-in-arizona-has-people-asking-how-safe-are-driverless-cars/

 

Neon Dystopia

Neon Dystopia is my favorite Cyberpunk website, and I can’t recommend it enough. With countless in-depth pieces about everything cyberpunk, they chose to break down their content into the following categories: Movies & Anime, Music, Games, Fashion & Lifestyle, Books & Fiction, Technology, Politics and Philosophy, and Art & Photography.

They will often discuss news related to up and coming movies, anime, games, or books, providing reviews of the most famous and popular ones. They also share their favorite art and music in the Cyberpunk genre, as well as their thoughts on topics in the news that fall under politics or technology. Finally, the website wouldn’t be complete with a philosophy section to discuss the different philosophical themes that recur in the many different Cyberpunk Media out there.

In addition to all of their blog posts, they also have a Cyberpunk Catalog where you can find different movies and books in the Cyberpunk genre to see at your leisure. They usually only provide a link to where you can buy the media online, however, without much of a description of the media itself. The database they have is incredibly vast, but not very deep, so you’ll have to do the digging yourself. But that’s part of the fun, isn’t it? To discover what you like and don’t like yourself.

Check out their website here: https://www.neondystopia.com/

5th package explosion in Texas reminds of a black mirror episode of technology misused by humanity.

Starting March 2nd, a series of packages containing bombs have been going off in Texas. So far it has killed 2 people and injured several others, the first three bombs being packages delivered to people’s doors, the 4th being a tripwire on the sidewalk, and the 5th one going off in a fedex factory. Since writing this story, however, I’ve seen on the news that the police were able to find a suspect, and on pursuing the suspect (a 23 year old white male), he decided to blow himself up in his car.

Doesn’t this feel like made-for-television news? Its seems like there’s been a lot of that going around these days. I can’t imagine how the people of Austin Texas must have felt scared and worried to simply order something on Amazon or receive a package. It’s easy enough to hold off on ordering a package until the perpetrator is apprehended, but how about employees of companies who have to order packages as part of their business?

Package delivery is a relatively simple idea, but this fits the theme of Cyberpunk by virtue of it being a simple, harmless technology (online delivery) being misused fwith fatal consequences.

It’s not hard to extrapolate this a little further. Imagine if this happened with Amazon’s drone delivery service. Bombs sent flying via drones to your backyard or doorstep. Truly a hellish idea indeed. This reminds me of an episode I saw recently on Black Mirror, called hated by the nation. In it the bees are dying out, so a company creates a network of robot bees to pollinate the flowers artificially and thus avoid a food catastrophe. Needless to say, someone misuses the bees with similarly fatal consequences.

But it seems to me that misusing something’s original purpose in dangerous means might perhaps go back as old as time, when cavemen fought each other using innocent rocks lying on the ground. Is this really any different? Perhaps the thing that alarms us is not feeling in control, and not being used to seeing the postal service being misused in this way. Although we’ve seen Anthrax be used in mail before, so perhaps this isn’t truly so new.

What are your thoughts? Comments always appreciated below.

Facebook in trouble with sharing private data feels like a Cyberpunk Dystopian nightmare

My, aren’t these interesting times we are living in.

Politicians not only on both sides of the aisle in the US, but also in Europe (namely the UK) are asking that Facebook, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, come to explain the company’s handling of the now current scandal involving the misuse of data and information of millions of users. The company that is blamed for misusing this information, Cambridge Analytica, was purported to have worked with the Trump Administration on making psychological profiles of people using their Facebook information in order to market to them and garner votes. Talk about mind control! A multi-billion dollar tech giant being summoned to members of government to explain their involvement in alleged unethical activities is exactly the theme that is so often shown and discussed in modern day cyberpunk themes. It is reminiscent to me of the company in Robocop, pushing to get congress to agree to cybernetics and robots to be sold and used in the United States. The current state of the world definitely feels a bit surreal. I wake up, turn on the news, see these things, go to work, see the news again on the tv in our lobby, work, come home, and to relax boot up my xbox to play Deus Ex Human Revolution and again see different tech mega-corporations involved in shady dealings. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why I love cyberpunk so much. In addition to being simply visually striking, mentally stimulating, and fun, it can also act as a stark warning for different paths that we as a people do not want to walk down.

You can read more about this developing story with Zuckerberg and Cambridge Analytica here:

Wake up, Neo…The Matrix has you.

Cyber Dystopia is a place where I post all the Cyberpunk Material I come across, as well as my thoughts, on the material. I welcome you to post your thoughts on the content here as well.

“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.” — Morpheus