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ZS Mythos (3a/3): Twelve Foundation Stones

Transhumanity.net Social Futurism & the Zero State.


This article is part of a series about the Mythos (worldview-narrative) underlying the Zero State (ZS). Part 1 is about our highest concept, ideal, and level of organization, which we call The Array. Part 2 explains the Sections & Sessions our core activity revolves around, and Part 3 (below) covers the Twelve Foundation Stones that form the basis of our story.

A previous article I wrote for Tnet mentioned the need for entertainment that gives people a strong sense of meaning and purpose in their lives, and introduced an idea known as the twelve “Foundation Stones” of the ZS-ARG Mythos. The Foundation Stones are the seeds of our unifying narrative. Each is the fragmentary initial story of one of the twelve ZS Houses, outlined very briefly below and spelled out in full in the forthcoming Black Book.

Before reading this article it is important to understand that it refers to the Zero State (ZS) Alternate Reality Game (ARG), and thus deals in metafiction. It is not a simple non-fiction article (obviously!) and will only make sense if you already know ZS, or follow some of the links above! This article draws – with thanks – upon text from the ZS wiki, some of which has been contributed by members of the various ZS Houses.

NEC unveils facial recognition system for 2020 Tokyo Olympics

NEC has announced that it will be providing a large-scale facial recognition system for the 2020 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo. The system will be used to identify over 300,000 people at the Games, including athletes, volunteers, media, and other staff. It’s the first time that facial recognition technology will ever be used for this purpose at an Olympic Games.

NEC’s system is built around an AI engine called NeoFace, which is part of the company’s overarching Bio-IDiom line of biometric authentication technology. The Tokyo 2020 implementation will involve linking photo data with an IC card to be carried by accredited people. NEC says that it has the world’s leading face recognition tech based on benchmark tests from the US’ National Institute of Standards and Technology.

348-Year-Old Radioactive Molecule Spotted in Space

“When Stars Collide” sounds like the title track of Barry Manilow’s latest album.

Unfortunately, Barry hasn’t released a single since 2012.

But astronomers did make the first definitive detection of a radioactive molecule spilled from two colliding stars. So that’s something.

Spotted with the Atacama Large Millimeter/tarubmillimeter Array (ALMA) and Northern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA) radio telescopes, the form was apparently ejected into space by the collision of two Sun-like stars.

Why China’s premier used hit movie ‘Dying to Survive’ to push for cheaper cancer drugs

Billed as the Chinese answer to Dallas Buyers Club, the tear-jerking film Dying to Survive last week became Premier Li Keqiang’s new rallying cry for speeding up price cuts for cancer medications. It is an issue of such complexity that he has held two cabinet meetings about it in the past three months.


Li Keqiang has been trying to speed up price cuts for life-saving medication for months, and it’s a boon that the box-office hit has generated widespread awareness.