The Internet of Bodies and You
The Internet of Bodies (IoB) is the biological extension of the Internet of Things that brought us driverless cars and smart houses. Both form part of the plans for the future of humanity as devised by the elites of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and their pet project, the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR), part of the Great Reset. The IoB confirms an unquestioned belief in the eternal benefits of technology and promises to improve your health and extend your life. What could be wrong with that? Plenty, once you understand what it really means. According to a recent RAND corporation report, the IoB “might trigger breakthroughs in medical knowledge […] Or it might enable a surveillance state of unprecedented intrusion and consequence.”
RAND defines the IoB as “a growing industry of devices that monitor the human body, collect health and other personal information, and transmit that data over the Internet.” The device must collect person-generated health or bio-metric data, contain software or computing capabilities, be able to communicate via the internet and finally, be able to alter the human body’s functions.
The keyword in this description is data. In this new technological era, data is supposed to be the new oil. We are used to having phones and Fit-bits that collect data about our location, spending patterns, educational and economic status, political allegiances, how many steps we walk, our oxygen. our pulse and heart rate. The Internet of Bodies will increase this data collection by progressively embedding more and more nano sensors or robots, that will turn your body into a quantifiable information platform that can easily be commoditized and even manipulated from afar. All this information will allow data owners to create very detailed profiles of the population which can be used to enhance surveillance and authority-defined security.
Klaus Schwab, founder of the WEF and proponent of the Great Reset has said that the pandemic and its lockdowns represent a rare opportunity to spread the increase in technological use, which “will lead to a fusion of our physical, digital, and biological identities”. Within the 4IR framework, he aims to change what it means to be human by integrating enough technology into the body to overcome our present limitations.
The IoB is possible thanks to the brave new world of nanotechnology that has been developing for a while and promises to change dramatically the way we live. A lot of this research has been done by DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the US army, with the aim of ‘improving’ the physical and mental performance of soldiers. The generous funding from the US government has come out with quite a few jewels in nanotechnology since 2016:
The Targeted Neuroplasticity Training program uses implantable devices to stimulate peripheral nerves and directly modulate the release of various neurotransmitters in the brain.
The Neuro Function Activity, Structure, and Technology program is creating approaches to writing and reading information from specific cell types that play roles in behavioral and cognitive function. One of the agency’s proudest achievements is the device that uses light to record and control cell activity with single-neuron precision.
The NESD program funds the research on implantable neural interfaces that can measure the activity from up to 1 million neurons and modulate the activity of up to 100,000 neurons that will then be recorded and transmitted to a data center.
All this sounds like science fiction, but advances in nanotechnology are happening fast and their intrusion into our bodies are here to stay. The DARPA research has led to a growth of private ventures that continue these developments in a profitable symbiosis. They all claim to improve your health, enhance your performance and provide Virtual Reality experiences as vivid as though they were inside your head.
It seems like a fantastic new world of opportunity for the healthy and enhanced future of mankind. Our belief in the goodness of all technological advancement tends to fog our brain to the biological risks inherent in this new level of invasion of our body, the threats to our privacy, and the ethical connotations of a very probable abuse of power by the owners of our data.
One worldwide project that is increasing the level of intrusion in your privacy and liberty is the ID2020 project, a collaboration between the ID2020 Alliance and GAVI (the Vaccine Alliance funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). The pilot project was implemented in 2019 in Bangladesh and was presented as an opportunity for digitally identifying all the citizens of a country and linking this ID to their vaccination record.
The idea of giving a digital identity to everyone on the planet sounds very commendable, but it comes with strings attached; this digital ID will not only say who you are but add your biometrics and track your vaccination record and health status. The systems required for digital IDs are complex and they can alter the relationship between the individual, and the power elite, be it the state, corporations, and world institutions.
A good example of the troubles that can happen with digital IDs is Kenya, where the digital ID was linked to the HIV status of the person. The people rebelled against it once they understood that their data could be used for discriminatory purposes or be subject to breaches or hacking. In India, the same program has created the same refusal and prompted HIV sufferers to stop seeking medical attention after their treatment was linked to the bio metric identity system Aadhaar.
The COVID digital passport is also being explored by several world governments and combined with the ID 2020 is a way of furthering the data mining and profiling to control people’s access to certain services and privileges, like traveling, going to a concert, receiving health care, or government assistance, and even shopping. As the people in Kenya and India have noticed, the linking of your health status to a digital ID creates a variety of opportunities for discrimination and abuse of power. You won’t be the owner of your body’s information and you won’t be able to choose what is good for you. Instead, the owners of your data, governments, and world institutions will decide whether your health status can catalog you as “an enemy of the people”. The linking of your health data to an ID and a passport can turn a normal person into a rogue outlaw just by dissenting with the dictates of the authorities regarding their health choices.
The ID2020 is just the beginning; the IoB envisions all sorts of implanted bio metric sensors that will monitor a myriad of biological functions. Based on the research of DARPA and private endeavors, it will expand to your brain by measuring brain function and neurotransmitters. These detailed profiles could include even your eating and bodily function habits, and your emotional states, whether you are depressed or have a tendency to angry outbursts. The privacy of your individuality will be destroyed; you will be quantified and parsed in a database, as though you were a machine. The tiny sensors not only have the capability to gather data and relay it, but also to receive feedback from your data owners to modify your body.
The technique for implanted microchips to use as sensors inside you has been progressing quite rapidly. A good example is the Silicon Valley Company, Profusa that has developed nano-scale bio chips using hydrogels, which can be injected under the skin to measure glucose, oxygen heart rate, and lactate levels. The hydrogel is linked to fluorescent molecules that can signal the concentration of a body chemical. A biosensor on the skin’s surface receives the signal and emits another signal which can go to an app on your phone that will then be relayed to health care data centers.
This company has also worked with DARPA to create bio-integrated sensors to track soldiers via GPS while monitoring their real-time biomarkers. Their research on tracking sick people is even more worrisome. Their influenza study required patients to wear a reader 24 hours a day with continuous biomarker information that is then transferred to a database. This could soon become an implanted nano-chip that could track your head colds and influenza. The recent pandemic also prompted the development of a possible detector of infection that will send a fluorescent signal outside the body when it begins to fight it.
The possibilities for abuse of power of just these few examples seem endless. The flu is a disease that most people recover from, it might be annoying, but it is only lethal for people with chronic diseases or a combination of health problems that usually arrive only with old age. This proposal for extensive monitoring of people undergoing quite normal life events is unnecessary and betrays an interest that goes beyond health. The owners of all these data will have the control, and control is only worth it if you get something out of it, i.e. you can manipulate people to your advantage.
The IoB is not troublesome just from the privacy and human rights point of view; its reliance on nanotechnology can also cause a myriad of adverse effects on our health. The idea of miniaturization of materials sounds fantastic but this process creates lots of problems, especially when embedded in the body. The size of the particles matters, a material that is not toxic at a certain size can become quite toxic at the nano-scale. Even if the nano-chips are chosen for their correct size, their interaction in the body can break them rendering them toxic.
The increased surface area of nano particles increases their chemical reactivity within the body making it difficult to predict their behavior, most worrying when crossing cell membranes and entering cells. Once inside the cell, they could wreak havoc in the nucleus or mitochondria by promoting the production of reactive oxygen (free radicals) which could cause oxidative stress, inflammation, and damage to DNA, proteins, and membranes, creating a cascade of damage. Their small size allows them to even enter the blood-brain barrier and can also affect normal blood coagulation by prompting platelet aggregation.
Nano particles also tend to cause damage in the lungs by provoking pulmonary inflammation and detrimental immune effects. A recent study published in the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology showed that certain Polyamine based nano particles can trigger abnormal cell death in the lungs. All the cells in our body normally get rid of defective cells to optimize an organ’s functioning. But when this process goes overboard and too many cells are destroyed, the result is lung damage. Chronic pulmonary inflammation caused by nano particles can also lead to changes in membrane permeability that can allow their passage to other areas and cause trouble with the cardiovascular system.
The negative health effects inherent in nanotechnology are endless and it would take too many pages to describe them all. In essence, the IoB promises “supposed” health benefits and enhancement of human performance by using technology proven to have serious detrimental side effects on our health. The Internet of Body’s dream of enhanced lives with sharper senses and brain capacities, improved health management, and reduction of the inconveniences of aging, seduces people into believing that all is possible and even death can be conquered. In reality, the IoB is a mirage that manipulates people into accepting technological advances without much critical questioning.
The allure of these promises blinds people to the reality of the IoB, not just from the biological point of view, but from the angle of the infringement of human rights by authoritarianism, invasion of your privacy, and high probability for abuse of power. The IoB is a Trojan Horse that appears like a gift but has a high probability of being harmful to the majority of the population. The enhancement required to transcend our biological limitations will only be possible for small elites, while the rest of us will be useful for data mining to create profiles according to our biomarkers, health status, and degree of conformity of thought with a status quo. They will determine which data in your profile deserves the punishment of having your freedom of thought and action curtailed.
Just like in Virgil’s Aeneid, in which Poseidon’s priest Laocoon was killed for attempting to expose the ruse of the Trojan Horse, attempts at informing people about the reality of the IoB aren’t welcome. Unfortunately, most people prefer to believe in a wishful thinking utopia proposed by the world’s elites, than to face the reality.
