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The God Algorithm: How the Vatican Found Faith in the Surveillance State
Tracy Turner
The College of Cardinals elected Robert Francis Prevost on May 8, 2025, as the 267th pope of the Roman Catholic Church, a record since he was the first-born American pontiff. His election, which was international news, was not only significant to the Church's American constituents but also as a notable event to the world religious scene, which continues to evolve in an era increasingly characterized by technology and surveillance. Prevost's election is more than a national milestone; it is the latest chapter in the Vatican's complex history with power, technology, and global politics. The first pope born in the United States was elected, which shows the growing influence of the Western Hemisphere on global geopolitics and religions.
For the Vatican, an institution that is two thousand years old, the adoption of technology strategies and online platforms has been a vital element in the protection of sacred rituals and the institution's longevity. The 2025 Sistine Chapel conclave came with heightened security arrangements, a reminder of just how the conservative ethos of the Vatican had to coexist with the modern day of cyber-attacks, online rumors, and international scrutiny. Over 100 journalists and thousands of visitors were moving in on St. Peter's Square, and the conclave was fully shut off, cellular networks temporarily disconnected, and drones overhead to protect confidentiality. The worth of guarding the dignity of the papal election process, especially in modern times, remained topmost to the church as well as to its many worldwide followers (people.com).
Graduating into Modernity is not for the Faint of Heart
By Mark Aurelius
"Fate is the hand of the gods."
Sophocles
"In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
Martin Luther King
"We are not creatures of circumstance; we are creators of circumstance."
Benjamin Disraeli
As a new wave of millions of students graduate from high schools, colleges, trade schools, etc., they will hear various ‘platitudes’ as good advice, to take to heart when going forward into this complex world to live as adults in society. This is, of course, if they are even allowed to graduate. Checkout:
NYU Demands Law Students Renounce Protests or Be Barred From Sitting Final Exams
Programmed to Obey: Inside the Synthetic Reality Engine
Tracy Turner
At the center of this artificial world is an unholy trinity: the state, the technocratic oligopolies, and the algorithmic monstrosities they own. They conspire together to spin a tale as pliable as it is perilous—a world where facts are no longer fixed but extruded to mold collective consciousness. Truth is no longer a reflection of reality; it is a commodity, bought, stamped, and tampered to fit the agendas of the elite. Reality in such a world is not felt—it is ordered.
Will America Survive?
Paul Craig Roberts
The foreign policy of the United States is in the hands of the least capable, most uninformed, and most reckless morons the American education system has yet produced, and their successors, if any, will be worse.
American aggression toward the world is hidden under a euphemism: “national defense.” In past years before euphemisms took over from reality, the Secretary of Defense was known as the Secretary of War.
Washington conducted wars against Mexico. Against the Confederate States of America. Against the native American Indians. Against Spain from whom Washington seized Cuba and the Philippines. Against varied Central and South American countries–remember US Marine Commander Smedley Butler, twice decorated with America’s highest honor, who said that he and his US Marines were the enforcement squad in Latin America for the United Fruit Company and the New York Banks who were exploiting Latin America to the hilt, backed up by the bayonets of the US Marine Corps.
The Power of Growth: Lifelong Learning as a Compass for Community Leaders
by Janet Campbell
Image via Pexels
In the ever-evolving landscape of leadership, remaining static is not an option. Community leaders are the pulse of neighborhoods, towns, and cities, often acting as the bridge between diverse populations and policy, service delivery, or collective change. Yet, leadership is not a destination—it’s a process that thrives on continuous adaptation. Lifelong learning gives community leaders the tools to better understand emerging challenges, refine their strategies, and inspire those they serve. It’s not just about accumulating knowledge; it’s about actively applying it for the betterment of communities.
On the Key Points of Contemporary International Relations: Responsibility to Protect and Humanitarian Military Intervention
Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović
War and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
The R2P is one of the most important features of the post-Cold War global politics and international relations (IR) regarding the relations between war and politics, which was formalized in 2005, focusing on when the international community (the UN) must intervene for human protection purposes. The R2P was officially endorsed by the international community by the unanimous decision of the UN General Assembly as a principle at the UN World Summit in 2005. This agreement was regulated in paragraphs 138−140 of the documents of this World Summit. There are three crucial decisions concerning the principle of the R2P:
| 1) | Every state is responsible for protecting its population, in general, that means not only the citizens but more broadly all residents living within the territory of the state from four crimes: a) genocide, b) war crimes, c) crimes against humanity, and d) ethnic cleansing. |
| 2) | The international community has the responsibility to encourage and assist states for the sake that they will realize their fundamental responsibility to protect their residents from the four crimes defined in the first decision. |
| 3) | In the case, however, that the state authorities are „manifestly failing“ to protect their residents from the four crimes, then the international community has a moral responsibility to take timely and decisive action on a case-by-case basis. In principle, those actions include both coercive and non-coercive measures founded on Chapters VI−VIII of the UN Charter. |
Exposing Alphabet: Google and YouTube Censorship and the Corporate Colonization of the Mind
Robert David
In the vainglorious palaces of Silicon Valley, where surveillance masquerades as convenience and censorship is rebranded as "community safety," stands Alphabet Inc.—a sprawling, hydra-headed conglomerate whose flagship tentacles include Google and YouTube. What began as a search engine guided by the whimsical motto "Don't Be Evil" has metastasized into a monopolistic behemoth that dictates global discourse, rewrites epistemology, and curates reality itself. Alphabet, cloaked in the euphemisms of innovation and openness, has erected a digital imperium wherein dissent is algorithmically disfigured, and narratives unaligned with corporate-state orthodoxy are herded into oblivion.
The Silicon Prophets: How Big Tech is Remaking Global Religion With AI and Surveillance
Fred Gransville
Abstract: In a time when algorithms determine whom we wed, what we believe, and when we die, Big Tech has evolved from a purveyor of conveniences to a priesthood of prophetic gods. This essay delves into corporate technocrats' insidious but ubiquitous co-optation of religious frameworks, whose algorithmic creations now act as digital oracles. Faith, once spoken in stained glass cathedrals and prayers over the desert now arrives piped through cloud servers and app beeps. This heresy is the commodification of the soul—produced, sold, and surveilled.
I. When Silicon Becomes Sacrament
In the beginning, the Word was coded into machine code, computed by neural networks, and spread by cloud evangelists who do not wear robes but sweatshirts bearing the names of trillion-dollar conglomerates. The towering cathedrals of our time are not made of stone and stained glass but of fiber optics, machine learning modules, and biometric surveillance grids. Apple Park, Google's Themis-like headquarters, Meta's virtual retreats—all are temples in this new comitology of worship.
Synthetic Wombs and the Gospel of Genderless Control
Fred Gransville
Explore the rise of artificial wombs, CRISPR-engineered babies, and the push toward genderless reproduction. Who profits? Who loses? A deep dive into technocratic control, erasure of motherhood, and the future of human birth.
"The future of birth is sterile, algorithmic, and motherless—or so the engineers insist."
I. The Myth of Reproductive Liberation
It begins not with the wail of a baby but with a server boot. Somewhere in a lab owned by a defense contractor or a hedge fund's charitable front, artificial wombs buzz in the background, monitored by biometric dashboards more advanced than a fighter jet cockpit. The birth canal has been replaced by a fiber-optic cable. In this "new dawn of life," the maternal has been replaced by machine code.
This isn't science fiction fantasy. This is supported, patented, and in prototype. The slick pamphlet—ordered on retainer no doubt by an ad agency from Silicon Valley—isn't "reproductive liberation." What it's selling is sterilization. Sterilized not only of pain and danger, but of womanhood.
The Bell Tolls for All White Gentile Ethnicities
Paul Craig Roberts
The Vice President and Secretary of State of the United States have called attention to the tyrannical behavior of the current German government, a corrupt anti-democratic government, controlled by Israel, that is holding on to power by designating its rival, AfD, the rapidly growing second largest party as “extremist.” Recent polls indicate that the AfD has pulled even and perhaps a bit ahead of the government that is trying to suppress it.
By applying the “extremist” label to its rival, the government gives itself the power to use its spy agencies to keep the AfD under surveillance. This permits the current corrupt government to know in advance the AfD’s electoral plans while demonizing the AfD as so extreme that it must remain under surveillance.
