Internal Revenue Service IRS tax news! IRS, avoid processing delays and refund adjustments using these steps to prevent tax return errors? Honestly, I bet they're about to tell us we need to file an accurate return in order to avoid processing delays. However, I'm fairly certain processing delays fall disproportionately on underserved communities, partially due to scammers stealing personal information attempting to file fraudulent returns to claim refundable tax credits. But whatever, that doesn't matter. That doesn't matter. I mean, according to President Biden's new equity policies, the IRS should actually process the returns with errors faster and first, dang it, like before doing the accurate and timely filed ones. I mean, really, get with the program IRS. You bigots.  Oh, wait a second. I know maybe the IRS just needs more money so they can properly and equitably process the tax returns, you know, doing the ones that were improperly filed first, like they're supposed to under the new equity rules. Therefore, in order to help the IRS fund its equity stuff, we really need to pass another like inflation reduction act. It's like, but wait a second. If we do another inflation reduction act to pay the IRS so it can do like its equity stuff, how are we going to actually reduce inflation? Because, because inflation also inequitably falls disproportionately hard on underserved communities, considering higher prices are most difficult on those living paycheck to paycheck. Fortunately, the government has the solution. They're just going to spend a ton of money just shotgunning it at like giant failed banks, which made horrible investment decisions. Because like, if the government takes care of wealthy uninsured depositors that have over 250,000 of the FDIC insurance limit, basically guaranteeing depositors, but only at the super large banks, those two large to fail, that'll really help the little guy with their like inflation problem. How? Well, it's complicated. It's complicated. It's complicated. But rest assured, it's part of sound and sensible modern economic theory.  Okay, shut up and trust the experts. And before you say anything else, just know this is a time for action. This is a time for action, not discussion about moral hazards. It's like, but wait a second. I kind of feel like the point in time when the government incentives are creating moral hazards is the best time to talk about, you know, the moral hazards.    I'm telling you, like, I totally thought we fixed the moral hazard banking problem after the Great Recession with the Dodd-Frank bill. Hey, what wasn't Barney Frank on the board of that signature bank which just failed and is looking to get some kind of bailout? Now, honestly, who, who's writing these dang banking bills? Bankers? That's like, that's like Gotham City having crime bills drafted by the Joker. It'd be funny if it wasn't so pathetic. No, what the heck, I'll laugh anyway. I mean, that's, that's like having, that's like having an investment policy drafted by Nancy Pelosi. It's ridiculous. Whatever, on to the news. IR2023-48, March 20, 2023, Washington, with only a few days remaining before the April 18th filing deadline, the Internal Revenue Service today reminded taxpayers how to avoid common errors on their federal tax return and help get possible refund sooner, gather all tax documents. Taxpayers should gather all documents such as W-2s and 1099s and any documents to support tax deductions or credits like education credits or mortgage interest payments. Taxpayers should also have their prior year tax return available. They may need it. File electronically. So, obviously the IRS has been trying to get people to file electronically for some time because they don't want all those, all that money they spent with the Inflation Reduction Act to hire all those people. They don't want them to have to, you know, they want it to be automatic and electronic so you don't have to like manually go through returns. So, any case, the IRS encourages taxpayers and their tax professionals to file their tax returns electronically through IRS free file. There's a link to that here. That's going to be software offered by third-party providers, but you can kind of organize the software on the IRS website and see what might be right for you. Even if you're not required to file, you might want to look into the software and see if it's because it's possibly free so you could, you could take a look at if it would be beneficial to file. Remember, those are two different things. Do I have to file? Well, not if you, if your income is under a certain threshold, would I benefit from filing quite likely even if you are under a certain income threshold because of refundable credits and so on and so forth and you've got free software. So, you might want to take advantage of that to check it out. You can also have the e-file service providers. So, electronic filing helps reduce math errors and identifies potential tax credits or deductions the tax mayor may be eligible to claim. Obviously, the tax code has become a little bit more complex, a lot more complex over the last few years due in part to the changes that were put in place in response to the pandemic and everything and also just because the changes themselves mean that the tax code is fluctuating a lot which creates an environment where people don't know exactly what's going on oftentimes with the current tax situation. So, tax software is helpful then because it can kind of give you a guide to help you with the data input process and like an interview process possibly to pick up certain information that you might not know about and so on and help calculate more complex credits such as the earned income tax credit and these changes to the child tax credit and so on. So, taxpayers should always review their tax return for accuracy. So, review it. Obviously, you are the one that's held responsible whether it was populated using tax software or somebody else. So, filing electronically and choosing direct deposit is the fastest and most secure way to receive a refund. I'm not sure about most secure but it's definitely the fastest if you're getting a refund. Use the correct filing status. Tax software includes IRS free file also helps prevent mistakes when selecting a tax return filing status. That's married, single and so on, head of household. If taxpayers are unsure about their filing status the interactive tax assistant there's a link to that on irs.gov can help them choose the correct status specifically if more than one filing status applies. That's a kind of an unusual situation. If you're in an unusual situation you don't know what your filing status is. You're in a gray area possibly because you have a dependent for example that's you're not sure if it's a dependent or not or if it would qualify for head of household status, custody issues and so on. Then you can dive into there in more detail. Double-check name, birth date and social security number. Tax payers must correctly list the name, date of birth and social security number for each person.  You need to have the correct number and over to for them to identify you matched up to the correct name and date of birth.  So you have to have those for the any dependent as well on their individual income tax return. So enter the SSN social security number of individuals name on a tax return exactly as printed on the social security card. So if your name has changed you want to make sure that you change that with the social security administration if possible. Otherwise you're going to confuse the IRS and when the IRS is confused then they get the delay stuff and whatnot. So it's a mess. You know how it is. So try not to confuse the IRS. So if a dependent or spouse does not have an SSN social security number and is not eligible to get one, list the individual tax identification number otherwise known as the I-10. There's a link to that here instead of the SSN social security number. Answer the digital assets question form 1040 and 1040 SR for tax year 2022. Ask whether at any time during 2022 taxpayer received as a reward, award or payment of property or services sold, exchange gifted or otherwise disposed of a digital asset or financial interest in any digital asset. So obviously the IRS is quite concerned with these digital assets because like cryptocurrencies and currencies and other kind of digital assets because they don't have as much of a hold on them yet to be able to track the transactions at this point in time. They're working on it. They're trying to strangle them which will probably decrease economic growth and you know dampen the whole pie that everyone is eating off of making it smaller and whatnot but at least they will have control of the pie when they have finished stomping on it. But in any case, so you have to tell them that you had a digital asset transaction. They want to know, they want you to say yes or no on it so that you're on the hook, you're on the line. So make sure you do that or else they might delay your processing return. So taxpayers should not leave this field blank but should check either yes or no so they want you to commit. You have to say yes or no so if they catch you lying then they could say you lied right there because you'd had a digital asset thing transaction and don't tell me you didn't know about it. We had a question. We had a question on the tax return that asked you specifically and you said yes or no or whatever. In any case report all taxable income. Remember most income is taxable under reporting income may lead to penalties and interest. That's what we're trying to avoid here. That's why we're doing this. That's why we're doing this. We're trying to avoid the sticks of penalties and interest. That's the point. Keep your head in the game. You know what we're trying to do. You know what the IRS has over there. They got those sticks they hit you with not not literal but those penalties and interest sticks. That's what we're playing. That's the game we play here. We dodge. We duck. We weave and then we you know so you don't get hit by them. So this includes unemployment income interest received and income from the gig economy service industry and digital assets. So see publication 525. There's a link to that for more information. Double check routing and account numbers. Taxpayers can request direct deposit of a federal refund into one two or even three accounts. Make sure the financial institution routing and account numbers entered on the return are accurate. Incorrect number may cause a refund to be laid or deposited into the wrong account. That would be terrible. It goes to the wrong account. Whoops we said we put that into you know Joe's account across the another state over there. You know what make sure your routing numbers the same. That's not likely to happen because it would have the routing number you would think and your name and so it probably just wouldn't process but you want to get that right. Taxpayers can also use their refund to purchase us savings bonds mail paper returns to the right address. Taxpayers and tax professionals are encouraged to file electronically if possible for those who need to file a paper return. They should confirm the correct address where to file on irs.gov or on 10 form 1040 instructions to avoid processing delays. So the IRS has offices everywhere and you got to send your return to the right place. If you're going to mail it in otherwise you will once again confuse the IRS and that causes problems. Sign and date the return. If filing a joint return both spouses must sign and date the return when taxpayers are self preparing their taxes and filing electronically. They must sign and validate their electronic tax return by entering their prior year's adjusted gross income the AGI. So you have to have your prior year A to the G to the I in order to file electronically possibly because that's the secret code you need to put in. Taxpayers can view validating your electronically filed tax return if they have questions. Keep a copy. Now notice if you filed your last year tax return and it's not been processed you might say then the you might ask right then how am I going to put in the AGI number because the IRS doesn't have it because they haven't processed my return yet from the prior year. I think you put in a zero or a one. I forgot which one a zero or one in order that's the secret code. I'm pretty sure if you don't have an AGI from the prior year because because they haven't processed the prior year return yet possibly so they don't so they so they don't know what your prior year AGI is yet because you maybe you sent it in but they didn't process it you know what I'm talking about you know what I'm talking about. So keep a copy of the tax return when ready to file taxpayers should make a copy of their signed return and any schedules for their records. Remember just because the IRS has accepted the return even if you get the refund that doesn't mean it's over it's not over because the IRS can come back at you at least three years into the future and try to question you with an audit shake you down for more money like like the sheriff of Nottingham could just come right into your door and say we're doing like an audit like right now and so you got to be ready and if there was a big error they can even come back after that so that's important to note because some scammers take advantage of that issue they try to say that they can get a big refund by filing taking positions that are not accurate or quite extreme or just fraudulent and then and then that might work in the short run but the IRS will probably catch it at some point and then they'll come back within the three years and then you're going to get hit not only with the tax but the penalties and that's not good so copies help them prepare future tax returns and make math computations if they need to file an amended return. Generally taxpayers must keep their records that support an item of income deduction or credit showing on the tax return until the period of limitations that tax return ends. Request and extension if needed taxpayers who need more time to file can easily request a six month filing extension to October 16th and prevent late filing penalties so what are we trying to do prevent getting hit by the sticks they wield those sticks like a maniac like a berserker of penalties and interest just whacking people with them and we're trying to avoid that and so if we're going to file late then we can try to file for an extension but that only avoids the penalties of an interest related to late filing stuff but not for the late payments so you still have to make your payments on time or else whack whack the berserker IRS hits you in the face with the penalties and interest for late payment even though you avoided you like ducked you like duck the left hook stick but they hit you they hit you with the right with the late filing one you're like dang it you gotta you gotta see like both sides of your head you gotta keep your eyes open like both sides so you can avoid you know in any case use IRS free file form 4868 application for automatic extension of time to file us individual income tax return by April 18th keep in mind that well an extension grants additional time to file tax payments are still due on April 18th for most taxpayers taxpayers can also request an extension by paying all or part of their estimated income tax due and indicating that the payment is for an extension using direct pay the electronic federal tax payment system or a debit or credit card or digital wallet meaning if you owe them money as of the point you're filing then you could basically just pay them and then assign that payment to to an extension form and that will be basically like filing the extension form however if they owe you money then you can't pay them because you don't owe them anything and therefore you would file the extension form possibly if you if you need to in that case note that the iris is really concerned mainly with people that owe them money because if you owe them money and then you don't pay them on time then then uh that they want they want their money sooner but if they owe you money is what i'm trying to spit out here if they owe you money and you say i'm not going to file my return you're basically giving them a loan an extension they get to pay you later and that's actually good for them for the most part if so uh this way taxpayers don't have to file a separate extension form and we'll receive a confirmation record number for their records okay there's links to this stuff if you want to look at any of it in more detail there'll be a link to this in the description


Hi everyone, Joe for Jaspies with a recap video for 2023 Panini Prison Baseball 12 box pick team number one to break we did on, I forgot to mark this in the title here, on Fanatics Live. So big thanks everybody for getting into this one, appreciate ya. We're doing this live, live to tape as they call it in the industry. Let me just set my focus level out for this camera right about there. Alright, so here's the recap video for that 12 box break, took a minute or two, but we finally got it done, appreciate everybody for joining that break and for watching. So sorry, just real quick, those parallels are to 75, the reds are to 199, that's to 99, so on and so forth, it's true Jones red wave not numbered, but it's true Jones orange waves are to 50, Jackson Cuiar to 75 for the brew crew, Paul Molliter as well, so you get the idea of the numbers of the parallels, which you can also look up on CardboardConnection.com, Bobby Wood Jr., purples, reds, blues, purples, so on and so forth, Adela Cruz's, these mojo refractors are to 25, so we're going to do these parallels first and we'll get closer to some autographs, maybe somewhere in the stack, Bobby Miller purple cracked ice, that's part of the the hotbox, which had those purple cracked ices, we did pull some of them some of the more notable ones like the Kobe Mayo, Chase Young, etc., but there were a lot all-card chip, Masataka Yoshida cracked ice not numbered, Ken Griffey Jr., Green Scope, we just thought this card was funny, that super high leg kick that Bob Feller used to have, Adela Cruz, hyperparallel not numbered, Jud Fabian to 10, nice and here come the autos, David Ortiz, purple auto to 99, Jesui de Paula to 99, that Kaminario was just out of five, that's nice, Tim Wakefield, the Manzardo to 50, Jackson Job, Tiger's not numbered, Taj Bradley to 99, nice Spencer Jones autograph for the Yankees, J.R. Richie, Bobby Miller, sorry there's some dust from the from the box in the case itself, Gordon Graceifo, Graceifo, I didn't know how to do that, Kam Collier was nice, another Bobby Miller, Jose Ramos, Kevin Alcantara, that's to 50, 4 out of 50, Christian Hernandez not numbered, another Graceifo, there's a Yoshida to 10, that's pretty cool, 9 out of 10, Eric Chavez, 4 out of 5, got old Matt Williams as well, Nick Gonzalez, Jackson Holiday, hyperparallel, Yuri Perez, Brandon Fatt not numbered, I'm mad and not a parallel, this is a parallel, Michael Burroughs 99, Seiya Suzuki, Silverado, Gavin Williams, Yuri Perez, Everson Pereira was to 10, you saw a peek of that card in the back, see it, Owen Murphy, Jett Williams, Jett, 1 out of 99, Owen Murphy, Colton Kouser, Gold Autograph to 10, we thought the Pat Gillick GM card was kind of funny, maybe after he's a Hall of Famer, a million dollar car in PSA 10, pot one, but the cool one here, Prismatic Buster Posey, one of one for my rivals of the Giants, I thought that was pretty awesome as well, I got respectful Buster Posey, alright there you go gang, Fanatics Live, pick your team, one full case of Prism Baseball, thanks for watching, thanks for breaking with us and I'll see you next time on the Fanatics Live app, breaking 7 nights a week, bye bye.


There's two different forms of throat cancer as well, and one of them is a HPV. What's that mean? The human papillovirus, and it's quite prevalent in young girls, they now vaccinate young girls up to the age of 14 against it, because it's quite prevalent when women get cervical cancer. It's normal due to HPV.  For a ginger kid, I did alright. For a ginger kid growing up, I did alright on the latest one. And the HPV virus can be a form of obviously having intercourse with a woman, obviously going down on a woman.  Yeah.  I know. I know. I just thought it was one of the good ones I got out.   I didn't believe it. But one of the film stars got it, and I was reading about it here, and I was like, I don't understand HPV virus. They split up with his wife over it, because they were saying, well, now I haven't got HPV, or they split up over it. So my mate said to me, he said, that'll be HPV virus, you know? So I looked into it, and when I went to my consultant, don't even know me, my wife knows the full extent of this. But when I saw my consultant, I said, is the cancer HPV? And he confirmed that it was. That's mad. So you got cancer through? Be careful. Yeah, I'm OK now. Yeah, I'm being, I'm being, I wish I'd known that. Fuck's sake, man. Any time you're scared to get an STD, fuck's sake, then all my sudden, man, you should be worrying about the big C. All my friends, my nickname going through the service for years was


Welcome, Fraders, to this week's live analysis session with me, Patrick Munley. If you can hear me loud and clear and see the tick-mill welcome screen on the chart, because I pay a Y in the chat box that would, that would be great, just so I know that we can hear me and see my screen. Okay, let's get going. Before we do jump into today's analysis, as always, we want to adhere to the risk disclaimer. Trading any financial instrument carries a high level of financial risk and we want to be cognizant of that. And most importantly, the views expressed here today are solely mine and they don't constitute investment advice and or are they representative of tick-mill? So for those who are new to this session, it's first time here, my name is Patrick Munley. I've been trading or been involved in financial markets for past 15 years. I wasn't always involved in financial markets after I graduated university. I joined a consulting firm in London and eventually left that firm with a couple of other employees and did a startup that experienced pretty rapid growth over a 45-year period and I cashed in my stake in the company when we merged with another business.  So I started to explore my passion for markets. Through the nature of the work I was doing in my prior role, I had a front row seat really to the dot-com boom and bust, seeing people make and lose a fortune and quite literally overnight in the market. So I started meddling or gambling really, I guess you'd more accurately refer to it as in the E-mini S&P and day trading that market was was heavily trending and I caught some lucky early breaks, made some solid and then some quite significant gains. But when the market phase shifted, I started to average down into what became a significant losing position to the point that I actually took a six-figure hit and really had a second look at myself and think what was going on. And so it was at that stage, I took some time to think about whether or not I could make trading work in terms of delivering a sustainable income. And I came to the conclusion that I thought I could, but what I needed to do was to seek out a mentor, someone who demonstrated excellence in field of trading, who I could model their behavior essentially. And so I worked with my mentor for about 18 months, two years, not just on my technical game, but more importantly my mental game. So really having a much higher level of self-awareness, understanding psychological drivers involved in trading and in personal performance management, which is something I spend a lot of time working on. So over that period, I developed a trading plan, a business plan, fully back-tested and forward-tested. Then I came back into the markets with my capital in 2008 and after a rough start, certainly that January I remember, I managed to continue to trade through that period and actually came out with a positive return at the year end. And since 2008, I've managed to deliver positive returns on an annual basis. Now, the reason why the screen it shows from 2013 to now is that in 2013, I actually started and managed account service. Initially, it was for friends and family who saw what I was doing and wanted a piece of the action. And then it's grown organically with external investors and I manage a multi-million dollar portfolio. And like I say, the focus for me really is on excellence in terms of trading process. I don't not attach to the outcome of an individual trade or even a string of trades where my focus is on the next 100 trades. And I know that if I adhere to my plan, execute that with excellence, then the returns will take care of themselves. That's not to say I don't have losing trades or losing months or multiple losing months. That's simply not the case. That's a reality of the business. But over an extended series of outcomes, so the next 100 trades, I'm expecting to deliver positive or see my edge demonstrate itself. And I'm looking, my real focus is on these annual returns. The key metrics down here that I keep a keen eye on are the average losing month being a negative 2.4%, whereas my average winning month is 8.1%. And so you can extrapolate that out to the idea that I'm looking to have two to three times risk-reward ratio in terms of my trades. And by focusing on that, that's where I can deliver these returns over time. So that's just a bit of context with respect to me. I've got a couple of other projects I'm involved in. I'm the market expert in residence at Tickmill. I deliver a daily market outlook and a daily setup that I'm watching. You can subscribe to those and get notifications via the Tickmill blog. The other project that I'm heavily involved in is head of trading and trader education for FX career swap and emerging retail trading talent development firm, really. We're taking aspiring professional traders. We're giving them a fully, full development program based around fundamentals of trading the forex markets. And then some bespoke strategies I've been using over the past 10, 12 years now, sorry. And then what we're basically doing is we are, or we believe so much in the quality of the education we're providing, that we ultimately fund traders with an account at zero personal financial risk. And then they can grow that because the biggest problem that retail traders basically face is the idea of capitalization. And you can have a fantastic trading plan. And if it's underpinned by professional risk management strategies, whereby you're risking less than one percent of trades, even if you have a great year and you deliver 30% or 50%, if you're only trading a $1,000 account, 300 or 500 pounds isn't really going to move the needle in terms of financial returns. What tends to happen to retail traders is that they experience some success with what they're doing in terms of their trading plan and their discipline with respect to risk. But then they become disconcerted by the lack of financial gain. And so they tend to overextend themselves. And in doing so, when their strategy comes into a small drawdown, the losses are amplified to the point that they ultimately end up over-leveraging and blowing up their accounts. And so what we're saying to potential professional traders is take that money invested in yourself and then you'll ultimately have the opportunity to trade a meaningful sum of capital and to grow that sum of capital over time. If anyone's interested in actually running a 14-day free trial for that service at the moment, I'll put the link into the chat, which I'll sign up through there, or message me on LinkedIn and I can give you more information. So that brings you up to speed with who I am and the projects I'm involved with. Now let's think about the market. So before I get into the actual charts, I just want to give you a heads up in terms of, as I always do, thinking about the seasonalities with respect to the market. The dollar has weakened this month in what should have been its best month of the year. And this is indicative, I think, of some bigger forces that are playing the market with respect to the vast liquidity that is being thrown at the market by the Federal Reserve to support risk assets. And so the seasonal tendencies are a little bit out of whack at the moment to my mind and we've been driven more by this vast sum of liquidity that's been put to the market. We're also seeing the all global central banks all going down the same path, essentially, as they try to plug up significant holes that have been caused by the coronavirus pandemic. And so we're seeing this dollar weakness develop at the moment. And if we go into the monthly chart, Mr. Chart, I keep an eye on. And for those of you who are regulars or returning here, you'll know that I've been tracking this trend line in the monthly dollar index. This is the broad dollar index, the broader basket, six currencies in the US dollar. And you can see similarities here. We're getting potentially a triple rejection now of this trend line. If we close at these levels or lower the end of next week, then that will be a harbinger for the dollar, I think this could be the start of this weaker dollar move. Even in terms of the momentum studies as well, they're all setting up pretty similar to how they did for this last leg lower in the dollar. So what I'm looking for ultimately will be a equality move. So equal legs. Initially, I think, obviously, what I've been looking for is a test of this trend line support where we could get a bounce. But ultimately, what I'm anticipating over time is that we see a test of this equality move probably back down into this 88 area as the move I'm looking to play out in the dollar. And then, obviously, that feeds into the euro, the euro being the major constituent of the dollar index basket. And you can see the inverse, basically trace the inverse. And we're holding here at this trend line support. And again, you can see these tails suggesting to me, if we think just purely in terms of price action, that certainly significant demand in and around this 108, 107 level. And certainly, if we can see some follow through to the upside, then I think we can revisit the 114, 115 area. Through there, what I'd be looking for is the test of this major trend line, which would be up at 118, 119. So that's what I'm looking for in terms of the bigger picture. Now, if we think in terms of near term trading opportunities, well, last week I talked about the idea of this 125, 74 area, 125, 60 as being potential resistance. This is the equal weighted dollar basket, the Dow Jones dollar, which is equal weighted versus the Australian dollar, euro, the Japanese yen and sterling. And we got a bearish rejection from that area. And we've since taken out the trend line support that I've highlighted to be cognizant of. We're moving through there. Looks like we're weakening up a bit again today. Target for this move initially is going to be an equal leg move, which would take us down into this 124 handle.  Then as we potentially see, you know, a correction from here, nothing, oh, markets don't tend to go in the straight line. Obviously, looking at that move there, you could question that idea. But what I'd be looking for is that is some a corrective move to developing around this 124 is actually now versus this swing high, an equal leg from this structure here. And so I'm looking for a test ultimately down to this 122 area. So whilst we're whole, whilst this high is in place, then for me, Euro points down to this 122. And so in terms of my trading, I've been, as I mentioned last week, I was long the Euro, got a signal on Friday to go long the Euro. I took profits as we tested the 130 pips out of it. And I've gone back into the Euro this morning from 109.60 and see if we can get the drive now to test the equality objective, which is versus this, I call this the interim quality objective at 110.50. But ultimately, what we'd be looking for now is this bigger equality objective or the primary quality objective versus this reaction low reaction high and secondary low is, it's actually up here at 112.30. So again, I don't think we're going to go there in a straight line. What I'll be looking for is a test of this 110.50 and then maybe to retest the descending broken descending trend line resistance of support, which would set up the next leg, which should take us up to that 112 area. So like I said, long at the moment, and I'm looking for a test now of this 110.50 to play out. Obviously, we'll should probably stick around 110.20 those price-wing highs. But if we can take out stops above there, then we should see further short covering that should take us into that 110.50 area. So that's what I'm doing with respect to the euro at the moment. I'm watching here in the Suisse. We're sitting on the trend line support and we've got a nice inside day candle developing here. And if we can, we can see this candle close at these current levels just sitting on the support, then what I've been looking to do heading into the New York Close tonight or the London Open tomorrow would be to sell a break of this trend line because similar to the dollar index and obviously to the euro, we've got bigger primary equality objectives to target here. And so if we can take out this trend line, what I've been looking for would be for Suisse to ultimately come down and test this 93 handle. Now, more likely than not, we get to 95 and we have a little bounce similar to the idea that I just talked about in terms of the euro. So a corrected pullback moving into these prior lows here. But ultimately, I think we should be heading for a test of the 93.90, which is the equality objective and certainly versus this resistance area at the 97.50. Dolly Yen, watching this one. I was looking for it to actually test the equality and symmetry resistance at the 108.50, but we're struggling to get up there. We're at the sitting at the monthly pivot, weekly R1. We've got the monthly VWAP just above us here and we're into the volatility resistance area. And so if we get a close tonight sub 107.40 and I'll be taking a look at this, this one on the short side because what I see here is, you know, we take out this trend line and then again, I've got an equality target versus this structure here down at 104.68. So if we can take out the trend line support, get a close below the daily VWAP, then that will green light my short setup here to take us down into that 104.50. So that's another one that's on my radar tonight. Looney, similar setup again. We're sitting at trend line support here, well just above it in what is potentially descending triangle. And again, we've got a target, an equality target versus this structure down here at 136.30. So if we can close in and around the lows here, then what I play for is a break of the monthly VWAP, the triangle support and ultimately be looking for a move then down to test 136 in the Looney. So that's another one that's on my radar. It's nothing in the Singapore dollar. Euro yen. I'm watching for the Euro yen to test a target here. Got this structure. So we've gone through the equality objectives. So now we're looking at the 161 extension of this structure, that swing. And then I bring in the symmetry swing. And you can see that that's lining up now with the 161 extension. And if we just pull up the fibs, the additional confluence, we've also got this 78.6% retracement. So what I look for here in the Euro yen is a move up into this area. And not necessarily looking to short it at that stage, but we get then a symmetry swing here. Like so, then what I'd actually be looking for would be a long setup to target a retest of these prior highs at the 121 area. So that's another one that I'm just keeping an eye on. Let's check in with Sterling. So Sterling had due to the Brexit issues and the way basically that the UK government is deemed to have mismanaged the corona pandemic. Sterling has been under pressure. But we're seeing, we've taken out the descending trend line here. And what I see the potential for now is a symmetry swing to play out. So an equal lead move, which could take us back up into that 124.50 area. So what I've been looking for with Sterling here is a bullish inside candle to close at or near these prior highs and then to break as we get over the coming sessions. So we'll see where we close tonight. But if we can get a close towards the highs here at this 122.80 then that would also be a long signal. And we target a move up into this 124.60 who knows we could be going higher. But initially that's where I would look for some profit taking to develop. And obviously we get a nice risk reward there because we've got this inside candle. So that's also one for the radar. The Aussie. So watching this as well, looking for a move now to test this long awaited target here at the 67 area. Where I think if we looked at the momentum studies you can see we've got significant divergence developing now. So if we get up into this 67 area and we still have divergence, we've got a 78.6% retracement of the crisis decline. We've got the equality objective all syncing up at 67. So I'll be looking for a bearish reversal potentially from the monthly R1 there to see at least a corrective move, three-way move lower in the Aussie. So that's one that is also on the radar. We've got a similar story in the Aussie Yen here. We've got some divergents developing and we're coming up into that equality target versus the move of the reaction lows here. So looking for a test at the 72 area and watching for bearish reversal patterns to potentially do something on the short side in the Aussie Kiwi. Similar deal in the Aussie Swiss looking for a pop higher and a quality move now will take us into that 78.6% retracement area monthly R1. So just about 65. I think we could get a tradeable correction from those levels. The other trade that I'm actually in at the moment is the Aussie Kiwi. Look to this five-way structure, momentum divergence and we've certainly seen at least at the present times some profit taking from long positions. This was the signal candle, this bearish reversal pattern from the volatility resistance and the equal equality move into that potential fifth wave high here. So we'll see how we trade. I've got to stop now just trading this daily VWAP but what I'd ultimately be looking for would be at least to move back down into these prior highs here at the 105.20 and keeping an eye of course on this area. First of all, which is the trend line support. So we could move back into here and still make one more high and it will be like an ending diagonal pattern. So we can make another high here by that time. I would imagine significant divergence and from there then we get that move but by the time we, if we trade down to this area, the trade will be risk free by that stage. So we'll just see how it plays out. We're ultimately looking for at least a test of this 105 area. So a couple of hundred pips lower and I'm already risking about 50 pips on that trade. Kiwi, similar story. I was long the Kiwi and took profit on that last night. Just over 100 pips out of it as we test into this resistance area. So if we get a close through here, through this resistance, then that's going to open up and move to this 64.30 area. So I'll go back into the Kiwi if we can get that close. I really want to see a close above 61.70 to open the doors then for some momentum higher here to then test 64.38 to 64.80. That's 78.60 per cent of tradesmen and we've got the equality objective here. So I've already taken some profits in that but I'm going to watch now for potential to re-enter here depending upon how we trade today or even in the coming days. Again, what I'm looking for is that close above this prior high to negate the potential triple top here and another pullback. So that's what I'm watching in that one. Kiwi Yan, highlighted this as the chart of the day or in the week and it's playing out. Again, now what we need to see is that close above this range resistance to open the door to a test of the 70 level. We've got the equality objective up here at the 69.50 78.60 per cent of tradesmen just above. So there's a nice target zone here. So we get a close above range resistance and I think this thing can break out and then we're trading up to the 70 level. So watching the close there and then what I'd be doing is then using intraday charts to get into that trade to basically target that equality objective. Last but not least, we're looking at the S&P looking for this to break out now, highlighted last week and this, you know, the Aussie and the S&P are basically trading in tandem at the moment. So if the Aussie and the S&P can both hit these equality objectives, 78.6 per cent of tradesmen, it's from these levels that I think we can see at least a correction developer. And so I'm watching these areas closely and watching the Aussie and the S&P because if you can't, for whatever reason, if you can't trade the S&P, you can certainly use the Aussie at the moment as a really nice proxy for it. So if we can get up into this area, get a bearish reversal pattern, then I'll certainly be looking at shorts in the S&P. Gold starting to see the reaction here. So yeah, with gold, you're looking at the, it basically trade to the tick, to its equality objective and we saw it sell off. Now potentially today we get a confirmation signal with a close below the near-term BWAP and I think that sets up a move then for an equality swing equal to this last swing that we saw over here should play out from here. So I'll be looking for a move down into this 15-25 area. The trade is, you know, the market is very long gold at the moment. It's a crowded trade and what we often see in these situations is we hit these equality objectives. We break out the triangle like we did somewhat prematurely. I would have liked to see another test of the triangle support here to confirm the ABCD pattern, but we didn't get that. We broke out and now we're stalling to the tick at the equality objective. So if we get a reversal here, I think there's a short opportunity in gold and we could see a meaningful swing to the downside. Certainly what you want to be doing is getting the trade risk-free by the time we're testing this ascending trend line support, but I think the scope potentially for a bit of a shakeout in gold. And last but not least today, crude oil. Crude oil is looking like it's on track for a recovery here, especially as these economies reopen. As long as we don't get any seriously negative news with respect to the infections in the coming weeks, then I think we see a correction in gold and it's going to set up a pretty nice in-burst-send-shoulders pattern here or potentially at least. And certainly I'd be looking at opportunities in crude. We can get a move back down into this $20 area, these prior loads over here, bullish reversal patterns on a daily close here for me. And then I'd be long and obviously what I'd be looking to do would be to target an equality move, which would actually take stuff into the 50% of the tracement of the entire decline that we saw in crude. This is the continuous contract, obviously not the futures contract, but looking for $38 here, so a pretty decent move to trade for if we can get this pattern to set up. Those are the charts that are on my radar and the setups that I'm watching and the two trades that I'm currently in at the moment. Are there any questions? Does anyone have a chart they want me to take a look at that I haven't covered? You can type it into the chat box or the question box. I'm happy to take a look at any other charts or give a view on a chart. Okay, no questions or charts. That's good. I must have done a wonderful job of explaining this to you today. Okay, guys, well, look, yeah, that's where I'm up to. So I'm long the euro and short the Aussie Kiwi at the moment. And I'm watching the Kiwi pairs, especially this Kiwi dollar, Kiwi yen, key closes potentially above some range resistance to start another leg higher, watching the Swissie, the yen and the loony as well as they potentially break out with this dollar weakness. So I think keeping a very keen eye obviously again on these monthly closes, they're starting to show real signs of potential future development here. So I strongly suggest you keep those on your radar as well. Okay, thanks very much for your time, everyone. And I hope that was helpful.


Hi, I'm Alan Arnett and I'm raising a million dollars for Alzheimer's research. You know, right now I'm standing on top of a Colorado 14 or Capitol Peak. And I have great satisfaction right now after climbing this one because it's one of the harder ones. But what would happen if one day I couldn't remember that I ever even climbed this mountain? I couldn't remember the difficulty, I can't remember the satisfaction I feel right now. That's what Alzheimer's does to people and it's a devastating disease. I know this personally. I know the toll it can take on families, on finances, but most importantly I know the toll it takes on an individual, how it robs them of their identity and it can happen early in life, in the middle of life or at the end of life. I know this personally. What was that song that grandmother would always sing? Was it Froggy Goes Accordion? Yes it was. How'd you remember that? I don't know. I can't remember though how it went. Do you remember the song? I don't remember. I remember the song. Oh, he went on a portlin' and he did ride her. That's very good. Do you remember the tune? Do you remember the words at all? I probably, yeah. I remember it's Froggy Goes Accordion. And he does ride her. Froggy went on a portlin' and he did ride something on his side. I don't know if I remember the words. I don't remember the words either.  Oh, my goodness. I would say I had a very pleasant life and wonderful memories of all my children and all of the things that came about. And I'm just thankful for the good years that I had for myself and my children. That's about all I could say. What else could I say? That's pretty good. Because I do really remember so many things about all of you and I could sit in. I believe to sit in and maybe write up some things for that. It's been a while. I'm washed out right up there. I'm washed out. Yeah. It's hard to remember those things. Well, my father was James B. Arnett. Oh, your kid, isn't he? And he passed away about two years ago. James B. Arnett? Yep, James B. Arnett. And my mother's name was Ida. Oh, come on. Arnett. No, come on. Why don't you say that? She's ironic. Oh, I'm sorry. You must like that name. I do. I love that name. Because that's my mother's name. Oh, it's not. It is. I'll never know. You know. You know deep down, you know. That's my mom, Ida Arnett. She struggled with Alzheimer's for eight years. And it finally took her life about three weeks ago. We celebrated her life, but we also celebrated the fact that there's hope. And there's going to be a world without Alzheimer's one day. But it's going to take a lot of more research than we're doing right now. And it's going to take a lot of money. And that's the reason I'm trying to raise a million dollars for Alzheimer's research. Well, hi, this is Alan. And obviously I'm back home after that summit of Capitol Peak in Colorado. You know, that was about a year and a half ago. And I've been working ever since trying to raise money for Alzheimer's causes. And I've partnered with two excellent organizations. The first of the Cure Alzheimer's Fund. And what I really like about them is that 100% of your donations go directly to research. And nothing goes to their overhead. And obviously nothing ever goes to me personally or to my supporters. The second organization that I'm working with National Family Caregivers Alliance. And this is a wonderful organization that provides information and support to families going through different types of caregiving challenges. So I really hope that you take a look at both of their websites. They both have dedicated pages on our climb on the seven summits climb for Alzheimer's memories or everything. So please take a look. And then also I want to talk a little bit about my seven summits climb and remind everybody that I'm asking for a pledge of only a penny a foot for every foot that I climb. So for example, for Mount Everest, that'd be about $190. It'd be a little over $800 for all the seven summits. And let me just kind of walk you through what the seven summits program looks like here over the next over the next year. And I've already submitted to starting with Mount Vinson in December. That's the highest Antarctica. And then the next in January of 2011 was Alconcagua, which was in South America. And next up is Mount Everest. And I'm leaving in a little under two weeks to go climb that. And then the rest of them throughout 2011. So here's what they look like. The first climb of the seven summits was to Antarctica, Mount Vinson, which I submitted on December 9th, 2010. Next up was in South America. This is the highest mountain outside the Himalayas, a little under 23,000 feet, Alconcagua. Summitted that on January 19th. Next up is Mount Everest, highest in the world, a little over 29,000 feet. I'll be climbing that in April and May of 2011. After that, quickly after that, is off to Denali, the highest point in North America, be climbing that in July. Quickly followed by the highest mountain in Europe, Mount Everest, which is in Russia, a little over 18,000 feet. And then down to Africa to see the top of Africa, the roof of Africa, Kilimanjaro, the snows of Kilimanjaro. And that'll be in September. After that, finishing up almost with Karstas Pyramid, which is the highest in New Guinea. So technical climb at about 16,000 feet in Papau. And then finally, a little bump in Oceana in Australia called Cozi Esco. That's the seven summits. Hope you're following along. Climb on. Okay. So that's it. Just want to also thank my supporters, the Alzheimer's immunotherapy program, the AIP program of the Janssen Alzheimer's immunotherapy and Pfizer. They're funding all of my climbs. So this means that 100% of your donations go directly to Alzheimer's causes. And this is really critical. Nothing ever goes to me personally. Nothing goes to support my climbs. Nothing goes to any of my supporters. All of your donations go directly to research and to caregiver causes. So that's really important. That's critical. And it helps you understand that your money is being spent only on Alzheimer's. So thanks a lot, everybody. I hope you follow along with lots of different ways to do it. On my website, which is alanarnette.com, at our Facebook page, which is Facebook backslash climb4ad. You can go to the climb4ad.com website, which explains the entire campaign and all of the supporters and all the other information there. So lots of places to go. No matter where you go, I hope that you follow. But most importantly is I hope that you make a donation to the Alzheimer's organizations that we've mentioned here today. And that we find a cure for this disease because that's what it's all about. Okay. Hey, thanks everybody. Climb on. This is Alan. And remember, memories are everything.


I have the tremendous honor and pleasure to introduce to you Xavier, the savior. He's coming to help us. He's a researcher in political science. And from that perspective, he's gonna show us a view on that paradox there in the future, the transhumanist one. I reckon he will start to open new chapters of human history. So give him a warm applause, a warm welcome. Light the fuse, put it in place, Xavier. Hey, so I'm gonna try in the next 20 minutes to live up to that introduction. Let's try and open a new chapter of history. But first, I just wanna make sure we're all on the same wavelength. So let me ask everyone here. How many of you here would accept, say, a US government-issued, US government-constructed laptop? Okay, I see one lonely hand in the air and it looks pretty sarcastic. And if I were to come up to you and say, hey, I'm a member of the US government, I just wanna run a quick virus scan on your computer, how many of you would let me do so? Again, a couple of lonely sarcastic hands. So, I think we're gonna get along great because today I'm gonna tell you why we need more political involvement in technology. So right up Hackers Alley, right? So what is the paradox I'm gonna talk about today? The paradox is very simple. It's that we live in states, liberal states, that protect individual liberty, but they're completely oblivious to the fact that technology is radically transforming the environment in which we exercise that liberty. Or to rephrase the paradox in terms of a question, what good is individual liberty? What good is the liberty that is protected by our states if someone else designed the playground in which you exercise it? Now, when I speak of playgrounds, when I speak of environments, what exactly am I talking about? What is an environment? An environment is nothing more than the parameters of the possible. It is what gives us rules of what can and cannot be done. So to make it somewhat more concrete and more familiar, we all know plenty about our natural environment. And first and foremost, the first environment which limits us and gives us rules for our lives is our body. And the rules of our body are the rules of our lives. They are the rules of how we think, how we talk, how we move, how we interact with one another. Our body is our primary and first environment. And then we have the larger natural environment, the physical laws, the earth on which we live, which is the larger environment. In both cases, we've lived with this for all of human history, so we take it for granted that the rules of our body are the rules of our lives. More recently, we've added political environments. And the political environment are simply the laws we agree to as a society. We're used to this as well. But what does it mean when we talk about a technological environment? What it means is that as we live more and more of our lives in and through technology, as more of our lives become dependent on technology, we increasingly rely and must follow the rules and parameters of the technology we use. Or to rephrase it, we could say, how does technology create this environment? Well, first of all, each new piece of technology requires the reorganization of the world around it. Let's get more specific. We've had cars for over a century now. And at first, cars, like most technologies, was a way of helping us to transcend our natural environment, help us transcend our bodies, the fact that we can't move faster. And yet the technology of the car also required, in order for it to function, in order for it to be useful, it required a complete reorganization of the world around it. First of all, in the forms of roads, we've cut the topography of the world up into roads. We've paved the world so that our cars could be useful and function. You go into any modern city, and you immediately see that the city, modern city, is built around the car. The way we move today, even when we're not in the car when we're in the city, it's built around sidewalks, it's built along zebra stripes, it's built along the rules necessary for the car to function. But even more than that, okay, cars require roads, big deal. But it also requires the reorganization of the world itself, of the planet we live on itself. It requires the reorganization of the world into resources, which is, as we can see right here in this picture, when it comes to cars, this is mostly the case when it comes to oil. But it's not just oil, it's not just the fact that we have to pillage the earth for oil and gas. It's also the fact that a car is made of many different particular elements, magnesium, iron, aluminium. All these different elements are needed to make a car. So in order for us to have a car economy, we need to have a global economy, because all these different elements are present in different parts of the world. So we see just in terms of the car, a simple device that helps us transcend our bodies in order to move faster. We have to completely reorganize the world. And just for the car, we live in a different type of environment. We live in a technological environment. But the car is an old technology. We hardly think of it as technology today. Today, when we think of technology, we think of computers, we think of internet, we think of artificial intelligence. We don't even really think of the car anymore. But what the car shows us is that much of human history, certainly in the last couple of centuries, can be said to be a replacement of our natural environment with a technological playground, the replacement of the natural environment with a technological environment. And this is gonna about to get much more obvious to us. It's about to get much more dramatic because technology today is much more powerful than it's ever been. In other words, technology's power to transform the world is much bigger than it's ever been before. When we talk about transhumanism, what is it?  Just a quick reminder, transhumanism is a movement or many movements that think that it is possible and desirable to enhance humans using technology. That is the basic claim, the basic wish of the transhumanist movement. There are plenty of subgroups within it, but that is the basic wish of transhumanism. Now, how would transhumanism transform our environment? Well, first, we already talked about how the human body is the primary environment of our lives. The human body and its rules and its limits are our rules and our limits of our life. And so by augmenting, by enhancing the human body, we're talking about radically shifting our primary environment. Now, transhumanists disagree on how exactly we're gonna enhance the body. But what is clear is that our human body is going to be transformed using machines. And therefore, many of the limits that we take for granted today about how we think, about how we move, how we interact with one another will no longer be the same in a transhumanist world. Many transhumanist movements also base much of their movement on the idea that eventually, virtual reality and virtual realities will become so complex and so rich that they'll be more attractive to us, more interesting, more compelling than analog reality, more interesting than the reality we live in today. So that's the second way in which we could possibly completely change the environment in which we live. Finally, often we think for transhumanism really to get off the ground, for us really to begin augmenting ourselves, and for us to really be able to create, for example, compelling virtual realities, we'll have to create something akin or approaching to a superintelligence, which is to say we'll have to create a machine that is more intelligent than all humans put together. And of course, creating a superintelligence would be a bit like inserting a genie or a guard into the universe. It would completely change the rules of our universe, of our environment. And then finally, to make all this possible, in particular, if we're gonna create a superintelligence, it's most likely gonna need enormous amounts of energy. And so one final thing that transhumanists usually assume is that we're gonna have to colonize some large part of this planet and maybe other planets as well, just in order to feed the energy needs of the superintelligence. So in short, a transhumanist playground is completely different from a playground today. The environment in which we could exercise individual liberty in the transhumanist playground is completely different from that in which we exercise it today. Now, transhumanism makes it clear that there are two types of liberty. The one, which transhumanists will say will be largely augmented due to transhumanism, is simply the liberty to choose a specific action in a specific situation. And as we just saw, transhumanism is all about augmenting this type of liberty. By enhancing our body, we'll be freed from the constraints of our natural body, we'll have much greater liberty. In virtual reality, often we'll be able to choose the parameters of our virtual reality. So we see that in terms of this first type of liberty, transhumanism greatly augments it. But what we also see is that the very idea of transhumanism, the idea of technology so powerful that we could fundamentally transform our bodies and the world around us, gives humanity a second type of liberty, which is the ability to design the environment in which we exercise the first type of liberty. But although this is relatively clear when we talk about transhumanism and how it changes our environment, both transhumanists and liberals focus on the first type of liberty. So we all know transhumanists make great promises about how augmenting our body will free us from natural and biological constraints, and that's the first type of liberty. But I wanna talk a bit also about how liberals focus on the first type of liberty. And to be clear here, I'm talking about political liberty, political liberalism. So what do we mean by that? What is political liberalism? So first of all, political liberalism, it only recognized the first type of liberty, the liberty to act in a specific way in a specific situation. And in order to protect this liberty, it limits the function and the power of the state. So going back to the two types of liberty, it only recognizes this first type of liberty, doesn't even consider the second type, and it builds the whole state mechanism around this first type of liberty while ignoring the second. So how does the liberal state function? How is it structured to protect this type of liberty? In short, the function of the state is quite small. The function of the state is to ensure peace, protect individual liberties, and provide some basic services. These are the functions of the state. The state has no role in formulating or enacting collective visions. And the power of the state, which is to say the state's ability to carry out its functions, is further limited by a constitution and individual rights. So this liberal state is based and is built around this first type of liberty, the individual liberty to act in a specific way in a specific situation. But of course, as we've just been talking about, transhumanist isn't an individual choice. Transhumanism is a collective choice. What I mean by that is that what is at stake with transhumanism is our collective future, and not just individual future. And therefore, individual liberty and individual choices aren't adequate ways of dealing with transhumanism. Why? Because the transhumanism movement and all the sub-movements within it, they would affect us all as a group. They wouldn't just affect the individual who made the choice to enhance himself using a specific technology. It would affect us all. So on the one hand, and most obviously, what is at stake with transhumanism is the future of the human species itself. In other words, how? Let's say, okay, first of all, are we going to enhance the human species using technology? And if so, how? What types? What types of enhancements will we use? And we'll particularly, when enhancing the human body, what is the essence we're trying to keep? Is there some human essence that must be retained in order for us to remain human? Or do we even care about being human? So what's clear in that case is that transhumanism is a question about the human species. How are we going to change it? Is it going to be surpassed or merely augmented? Anyone who's ever tried to live in modern society, say, without a phone or laptop or a car, knows that technology is increasingly sort of an entering pass into modern society. And so transhumanism is also a question about the future of society. Because ultimately, if enhancements become the norm, if a specific enhancement becomes the norm, it'll probably become an entering pass into the society of the future. And finally, as we already talked about, the energy needs of the computers of the future will be such that the chances are that transhumanism is also a question about the future of the planet. If we're all living in virtual reality, we may not care that much if the planet is colonized for its energy needs. But some of us might. So we see here that transhumanism is very much a collective choice in that whatever happens, our technological future will affect us all. It will not just affect those who choose to augment themselves. Now, let's bring back to what we were first talking about in terms of playgrounds and environments. If we increasingly live in a technological playground, as we would in transhumanism, because in transhumanism, even our body would be primarily technological. So if we increasingly live in a technological playground, if the rules we live by are increasingly technological rules, if the limits we have to adhere to are increasingly technological limits, then shouldn't we all have a say in the design of this playground? Shouldn't we all have a say in what the rules are going to be for this new playground?  What is the technological environment we want to live our future in? But then the question quickly becomes, okay, so we all want to have a voice in this, but we're not all hackers, we're not all working on AI, we're not all going to be directly involved with the technological revolution that's going to make it happen. So how can we be heard? The liberal solution, the solution that we're currently slouching towards is the market one. So what does it mean to leave technology to the market or to leave it to the individual? Because that's how rarely do we hear leave it just to the market. No, they always say leave it to individual choice, but what does individual choice in this case mean? What does it mean to leave technological development up to individual choice? What is the individual choice we're talking about here? The individual choice when it comes to new technology is essentially whether to buy something or not. And so the real choice is made before when we decide, when people decide what technology to develop, what research to fund. And as you guys all know, who are the primary funders of let's say probably the most important research field at the moment, artificial intelligence? Certainly one of the most popular and the one that could possibly create a form of superintelligence. So who funds this type of research? We all know about Amazon and Apple and Google. And most of you also know that of course perhaps the biggest funder of them all is the U.S. Department of Defense. So when we talk about leaving technological, our technological future up to the choice of the individual, let's be very clear that we're talking about letting the individual decide whether or not to buy the technologies that are brought to us by Amazon, by Google, by Apple, and by the U.S. Defense Department. And there's another problem with leaving the choice of a collective future up to the individual. Because some of individual choices, some of individual choices to buy something for themselves, a choice that they make with themselves in mind, that doesn't equal a collective decision. It's not saying, just by aggregating individual choices we don't create a collective decision. Now, so the paradox we're getting to here is that transhumanism can't simply be left to the individual because leaving it up to the individual isn't really giving the individual much of a choice at all. Simply giving him the choice whether to buy something or not, something that was created without any input from him. So it seems on the one hand that politics must be the means by which we decide. Because what is politics? Forget specific governments for a second. Politics, from the very beginning, is the means by which humans make collective choices about their organization, about the environment in which they live, about their futures. So in other words, if transhumanism and a technological future is a choice about the collective environment in which we wish to live, we wish to live, then politics would seem the natural way to decide upon this collective choice. Except that we don't just live in a political society. We live in a liberal society, a politically liberal society. And the specificity of liberalism is that it's a political doctrine that refuses to endorse or enact substantive collective visions of the future. Or in other words, if politics is the tool with which humans come together and make collective decisions about the organization and their future, liberalism is the political doctrine that has given up this unique possibility and power of politics. So, now, none of you guys wanted to accept a government laptop. I wouldn't either. But one of the things that the example of the laptops makes clear. And the fact that although none of us here would necessarily accept a government-issued laptop, we're all happy to use the internet, the dark net, satellites, all things that were mainly funded by various governments, mainly the US. So we're all relatively happy to use these technologies that essentially came from our government. And what the existence of all these technologies show, the fact that the dark net, the internet, satellites, virtually every major technology can in some way be traced back to government initiative, is that just because technology isn't political, just because we don't consider it political doesn't mean the government doesn't have its hand in it. What I mean by that is just because we aren't coming together as a political entity to decide upon, to discuss and decide upon a technological future, doesn't mean that our government doesn't have its hands everywhere in our technological future and present. The difference is that when technology is not political, when technology is not something around which we gather to decide collectively, when we ignore the fact that technology is another type of collective environment in which we all live, when we ignore this, we don't simply get the government outside of technology, it's just that the government pursues technology for its own ends, for its own ends, and not for the ends of some collectively agreed upon vision of the future. So simplify things drastically, most major government technology initiatives, as we all know, they come from the Defense Department. Most of the government's initiatives in technology have something to do with defense or attack, they have to do with war. And so what this leads us to realize is that making technology political is not giving new powers to the government. In a sense, it can be seen as quite the opposite, because whenever something ceases to become political, the government simply has a free reign to do what it will in that sphere, because there is no mandate from the people, from the political entity about what to do in that given sphere. In a sense, only once we recognize that technology is political, only once we recognize that transhumanism would constitute a new environment, a new set of rules within which we would live, only when we recognize this and recognize furthermore that we all would like to and all must have a say in the design of this future environment. Only then can technology become something political once again, instead of being something that is supposedly neutral, which it is today, and something which can simply be used according to the whims and goals of specific parts of the US government and all governments, but especially the US Defense Department, which has such a lovely, such a large, and untouchable budget. So to rephrase it, I think the essential transhumanist paradox has to do with these two types of liberties. On the one hand, we have what could be called the liberal liberty. It's the liberty we think about when we think of the word liberty, and it's the liberty to choose what to do in a specific situation. That is the liberal liberty. That is the liberty that our states are built to protect. But that liberty to choose what to do in a specific situation, it's nothing. If we don't also have the liberty to deliberate upon and choose our common future. For much of human history, this simple fact has been obscured by the fact that we haven't had the technological means to decide about the environment in which we live. We've decided politically, we've been able to change the laws under which we live, but the basic rules say of our body and of the natural world around us, those have been outside of our scope. We haven't been able to deliberate upon them because we couldn't do anything to them. But today we're entering, we're just beginning to enter the era where we will have that choice, where we have the technological capabilities to redesign the basic environment, the basic rules and laws under which we live. These are laws much more basic than our political laws. These are the laws of our body, these are the laws of the type of reality we live in, and these are the laws and the state of the earth we live on. And so only if we recognize this basic fact that with our growing technological power, we've also opened up a new type of liberty. Only if we recognize that this new type of liberty demands input from all of us and that it's a collective decision, only then will we be able to transcend what I like to call the transhumanist paradox. Thank you. Whoa. We could probably be sitting here and discuss this topic till dawn.  Guys, I suppose we have a tremendous amount of questions out there, isn't it? Jesus, or Xavier the savior. There, please, shoot. So are you saying that in order to have transhumanist utopia instead of dystopia, we would simply need to have software and hardware, of course, as technology, as open as possible for all kinds of people, as well as well open to modify and democratically deliberate upon by as many people as possible. In theory, I agree, but in practice, by opening, by opening up, by simply opening up, say, software and hardware, aren't you essentially putting our futures in the hands of the most technologically capable? And to the most technologically, yes, he's like, yes, well, okay, well, you and I come at this from different points of views because you're very competent on a computer. I could barely get my PowerPoint to run. So I think we simply come at this question from two different sides. But therefore you avoided to take your computer here on the stage, huh? So you wouldn't hack it. Exactly. Thanks for the talk, it was very interesting. What you mentioned about the fact that people would not use, as we saw, for example, an American government issued a computer, it maybe forgets a part that government already vets norms, standards, already emits guidelines, already is implied in many, many levels without even considering the fact that they were behind the beginning of a technology. So can we still consider that we are in the liberal and fact on this part since we already have this implication at pretty much every level be it the first idea or the way it's implemented afterwards? But I think that's precisely the point. Within a liberal framework, we have full liberty because the liberal liberty is simply the liberty to choose between specific things. In a sense, it ignores, like you say, the larger environment in which all the laptops we choose from even if they don't directly come from the government are vetted by them or the fact that many of the basic technologies that all these things rely upon were initially developed by them. So yes, the fact that the larger environment is in many ways controlled by the government is precisely what liberalism can afford to ignore. That was not what I was aiming at more than... Is it a rule set? Is it our government? Yeah, it's not a rule set. Is it something like you have a guideline, nationality? You have the choice to actually follow those guidelines for a couple of things. So you already have the liberal part, but the government is still implied. So, which does not render the paradox smooth, but I think... The fact that we have the choice whether to go along with it or not? Yeah. Well, but that's the thing. As I talked about before, when it comes to technology, first of all, technology transforms what it means to be a human. And second of all, when a technology becomes adopted, widespread enough, then it becomes an entry pass for society. In other words, you can't really meaningfully interact or take part in a society without also using these basic technologies that make it up. So, in that sense, the choice whether to use or not to use isn't much of a choice at all, especially when we consider that the larger choice that we're faced with is multipolar. It's not between using something or not. It's a question of what are we gonna build in the first place? Man, several questions. I start there. Sir, yes, you. You. I would like to ask what if transhumanist technology will only be available for the rich? So, how will you prevent that development? I mean, there's a lot of interest to keep it only to a small amount of people. And I think that goes back. I think that's one of the big worries about transhumanism. And that's yet another argument against dealing with technology within the liberal framework. Because if we leave it within the liberal framework of liberty, you have the choice to buy something or not. Like you say, the technology will initially probably be exorbitantly expensive, for example. It'll be initially available to those with the most means. So, and I think that's yet another argument for not staying within the liberal framework of simple individual liberty. Right. Sir. But I don't have a solution. I'm not saying that I know exactly how we're going to create the technology and make sure it gets to everyone. But I would say that making technology political, making it a democratic choice, is surely a first step. You're calling for assistant reboots. Be careful. We have seen with strong cryptography that government power to regulate technology is not limitless. What makes you think that we even have this choice whether to regulate transhumanism or not? But it's not a question of regulation. And I think that's a crucial point you just made. Because once the technology exists, regulating it, like you say, is more or less pointless. Let's take the example of the internet. The internet is a basic tool. Basically it's a tool for communication. And all efforts, even by governments such as China, to regulate the internet, to squeeze it, to make it different from what it was originally intended for, generally fail. Even someone like me can get beyond the China censorship laws. So I think it's precisely a question of getting beyond regulation and concentrating on what gets built in the first place. So projecting ourselves into the future rather than concentrating on what already exists. Traveling through times, that's the answer. Do we still have time for questions? No? No? If you have more questions than have to do. One more, one more, the man in green. Okay, one more, one more, last one. Do markets, is it working? Okay, do markets have a part in the society you imagine or capitalism? It's not necessarily that they don't. It's not necessarily, they don't necessarily not. But they are certainly not the guiding force that guides what technology is created. So my argument isn't that capitalism must be taken down. It is simply, it simply cannot be the primary vector through which we decide what's get built in the first place. Guys, I have to apologize, we have to shut down here because we would be discussing this till dawn, so I hope we will see you next year again because really this opens up new chapters of humanity.


My name's Connie Fowler and I came here with my husband in 1974 and we were both from the area sort of. He was raised in Ashland and I was raised in Grants Pass and I was always familiar with the Applegate and loved it and through him found Little Applegate and then found Buncombe and we live just three and three-tenths miles around the corner from Buncombe on Little Applegate and have been there since 1974. As we met neighbors we became more aware that these little buildings had some significance and I think we knew about the post office but the little clapboard building that was the post office and the lady that owned the property wouldn't let anybody do anything to preserve it and in fact it had sat there for all those years and never burned to the ground or anything and you know she had let people live in it you know kind of a stopover for a while you know and she was basically didn't want anybody on her property you know doing anything with it and we all were upset about that and wondered about it are they going to be saved or are they going to fall apart and there was just something about the fact that it was still there on a crossroads and and that it we knew that it had historical significance and also a certain amount of emotional significance. So what did you do? The property was sold to to Reeve and Lynn Hinyan and believe that was 1991 and they were very excited about preserving the buildings and so a group of us started the Buncombe Historical Society and began to do nothing but keep the buildings in as we like to say a state of arrested decay. In other words we don't want them to fall down but we don't want them to look like Disneyland either so well we could name our own position in the well the beginning was just a town council and you know with humor we were able to name ourselves so I'm the I was the town crier because I could write one person was the sheriff and one person was the master of building or whatever I can't remember exactly and then we decided to actually create a historical society and we don't we we ask people to join if they wanted to and we sold memberships for five dollars a family and to raise the money to help you know keep the buildings in repair but mainly just so that people could feel like a part of the whole thing and so we ended up with over 300 people from all over the world actually because some of the new people would have their friends either either the friends had been to Buncombe or they said you should you know belong to this it's it's really a cool thing to do and then subsequently through the Southern Oregon Historical Society we wrote the book about the history of Buncombe. I co-offered the book with JB Roberts and JB was a transplanted person but was very interested in history and he wrote the what was going on at the time in the country and in the world and then I wrote about the down home what's going on with the people and who they were and what they did and I had that need to do that or that urge to do it when we first moved there but I never got around to it and a lot of the old people died and I was fortunate to get some of them and to find some of the history through the Historical Society and through people that knew the people that were living not living at Buncombe but in the area. So what was that research process like? That was interesting I did some it took research takes a lot of time obviously and that fun part was going and and visiting with the people to me the hard part is sitting down and writing about it you know and and to write a book seemed monumental because I'd written lots of personal profiles and in some publications but not a book so that was you know kind of dragging your feet trying to say well how am I going to do this and so and in the book we his his writing about the history of or the current events more or less at that time is written separately from mine and but anyway it was it was hard to work the fun like I said the fun part was talking to the people and getting their stories and and I knew them a lot of them so that helped mm-hmm yeah the salt marshes the there was some people that would refer me and we still get people showing up at Buncombe day saying well my dad used to live here my mom cooked that building and even the other day a guy came and he says my grandfather worked on that building in 1930 or something and so that's always kind of fun and we try to get that documented but you know they get away from us and it's and and you wonder when I had a guy a man saw my number on the building but had no cell service out there so he his son called me and he said my dad wants to come and talk to you he lived in what we know as the cookhouse in 1930s because there was a resurgence of the gold rush in the 30s during the depression and people were desperate for some way to make a living and so they came from the Willamette Valley a lot of times because they'd gone up there originally to to mine and then they came would come back down here some of them and he came so he came out of the house he was 91 he had lived at Buncombe for I believe he said two years and he his parents just left the Willamette Valley they had no means of making a living and so they came down here and they just moved in and they tried to mine and he ran up a bill I think he said of forty five dollars at the Roosh store that they had in Roosh and this was a huge amount of money in those days and he couldn't pay it so he packed kids up and went back to the Willamette Valley and this man was very eager to see if he could find a relative to pay back what he had owed but of course it was hard to run anybody down we didn't pursue it and he since passed away but he had become a pilot and just a really nice person but that had bothered him for all those years there was a lady called me one time she got in my number from something and she lived in Klamath Falls and she said we had no clue where Buncombe was and she said my son is a historian and I am too and he works at the landfill in Klamath Falls and so he was digging around in the trash looking for whatever and he came up with this doll chest and it's approximately fourteen eighteen inches by maybe seven or eight and we could even have a picture of it if you wanted it and cardboard with a little wood around it and she said it was just full of postcards and letters postmarked Buncombe nineteen nine nineteen ten nineteen twelve and so she said we had no clue where it was and so she said that the Klamath Falls paper the AP had done an article and maybe that's where she got my number and here was Buncombe Oregon and she was really excited about it so she called and she said would you guys want that well no yeah so he said yes sure and she said well I want to show it at the Tule Lake Fair but then I'll send it to you and she did she followed through sent us the doll chest and I could I will have some of the postcards for you to see and so those are things I think that happened sometimes when you're doing research on a project you know I don't know about you but you know something will show up out of nowhere I mean how could anybody find that in the trash and what had happened the lady who was receiving these postcards or sending them was Grace Buck and she had married Mr. Heckham and he was from Klamath Falls and that's how it ended up in Klamath Falls and so she must have kept it you know as a kid and then when she got married she and then of course when he died they probably kids probably went we don't need that oh yeah she in fact the lady had him the woman that sent him to us had him cataloged actually and I've since then they're every which way but and there are some letters in there there was a address that she had made and I don't know what vintage it was because you know she could have made it later in life I don't know it was pretty small just and the buck there were two buck families in the area and we we figured out which one it was just conversations about I think one of them some of them are from her brother who was in World War one and we've read some of them and and then the postcards were just little you know chitty chats and interesting they would some of them were never postmarked so they either was either would put into a letter or were never sent but many of them there was we have postmarks from Rouge the little towns that aren't there anymore copper crump there was a school at little Applegate school and then and they were all approximately three or four miles apart because kids had to ride or walk to school anyway that's the doll chest story well I was thinking this morning I don't know who owned the property for before Mrs. Huckel but Buncombe was never it was a census area and at one time they believed there was probably 1500 miners living in that area in tents or you know just out on the ground and they would they would mine they mined along the creeks originally and Sterling Creek runs right by little or right by or through Buncombe so they they would go back and forth between the Sterling Creek area and Buncombe area and and then the as that along the river played out you know and was not as easy to find then they started working up the hills and that's when they came started using the power the nozzles the giants they called them to blast out the hillsides and and there's lots of evidence of that up and down the creeks what time that that was the middle 1800s were in when Buncombe was a six a census area and when it began to show up on the maps and then the post office was well actually after they a lot of the miners stayed around and then they became farmers and they farmed in the hillsides there and then they would mine when they weren't farming and they so they eventually they needed a post office so they established a post office in 1896 and the mail would come from Jacksonville over the hill by by stage probably by wagon two times a week and people would come down to Buncombe post office to get their mail and originally it was across the road in a house and the house burned and they built this little clapboard houses there now or building and eventually moved it across the road the other two buildings supposedly came from another mine down river called the federal mine and that was in the early 30s or even possibly a little before and so a lot of the miners stayed around and and just you know they became a community of sorts but there was never a town it was just a crossroads it was just a they had a little store in the post office they did maybe they'd have stick candy and flour and sugar and staples it was this it was the sterling creek over the mountain I guess yeah because Little Applegate Road didn't it existed but it was just to access people's homes and in fact there were eight fords across the river they didn't have bridges were there were there any particular bright spots in this project in the project well Buncombe day is probably what we consider the fun to fan fun thing and we started this well this year was the 25th anniversary of the Buncombe historical society but Buncombe but Buncombe day there were a few years that we took off but we've we've said all along the Buncombe is really a state of mind and and that it's a community and what's what's unique is that the people who have come in from other areas are the ones that want to be community because they didn't even know their neighbors in the city but they've retired and come here and they want that connection they don't it's not that they want a full-time hangout but they want that connection and we have phone trees for fire and different things that are important that we didn't have when we came and we had two-party phone and we didn't yeah and there was an old pumper truck at Roosh that was it took a half an hour to get to our house and the neighbors house cut you can probably wouldn't use this but the neighbors house caught on fire and the loggers had it out bucket brigade before the pumper truck ever cut there and now they can get there in 10 15 minutes but I think yeah in the whole process of doing of being there and doing the book was to see how Buncombe evolved from this just a pile of boards to something that means something to somebody it's usually well now it's the last Saturday of May this year it fell on Memorial Day weekend and we have two or three hundred people on the average come out we had a and for the centennial of the post office we had probably 2,500 people go through there and the the post office brought their postmaster out and he did a cancellation that we had designed and it was a blast but I think the main thing that that people are looking for I always say and in the book I said something about there's still gold in them their hills but that's not what the people are looking for they just want the hills they want the aesthetics they want to look at you know the mountains and and and they're concerned they want to keep the water clean and they want to keep you know things they know you can't go back but you can maybe bring along a little bit of of history with you you know or into your presence and hopefully that would make people you know more aware of what it might have been like in a simpler time it was hard yeah no doubt about that but but it was a simpler time I think you know it's just interesting and I've always been interested in in history so