It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.

Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.

Thank you.

 

Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.

 

Military AI Supercomputer Mind Monitoring: What I have learned

page: 14
61
<< 11  12  13    15  16  17 >>

log in

join
share:

posted on Apr, 26 2009 @ 06:05 AM
link   

Originally posted by tmk81
It may be that you are suspicious of my mental state without fully realizing the scope of my experience. Without evidence your position is not going to accept what I have to say so there is no use in debating you. It is either real or not.


I'm sorry you feel that there is no use debating me.


Originally posted by tmk81If you choose not to accept it and feel the need to diagnose me then I expect a circumspect response as to why you consider my daily abuse to be isolated to my mind with no external reality. So far not one person has provided such an argument, instead they have said:

1. I have a mental illness (especially considering my drug use): either schizophrenia due to the disturbances and/or delusional disorder due to the hypothesis. This diagnosis is based on pop-psychology, drug effects and common knowledge of reality.


You're extending my argument. I haven't diagnosed you. I have asked you to consider the possibility. I have used the modal verbs could or may to express the possibility that your experiences may be psychosis.

There's an obvious distinction between what I've said & what you've interpreted me as saying.


Originally posted by tmk81Pandora's box is set to open, if you catch my drift.


Catching "your drift" is not a problem.


Originally posted by tmk81

your belief that there is near omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent quantum computer controlling almost every action you take seems like a compensatory reaction to the possibility that you're just ill.

You are not an expert on my situation & you have made false and exaggerated claims about my beliefs.


True, I'm no expert. I am merely a concerned & interested person who has been around a host of friends and acquaintances who have been through drug induced psychosis. I am merely attempting to open the possibility up for your consideration (though I know from previous posts that you have been down that route).
Take this as a healthy dialectic.

And again, a distinction needs to be drawn between what you state are my claims about your beliefs, and what I have actually wrote:


Originally posted by Extant TaxonAnd as other posters have mentioned, your reality tunnel is fascinating but consider that your experiences, past & present, could be informing you of a paradigm that you are investing in far too heavily and is causing you to believe that you have no free will, that you are being controlled by forces beyond your ken. This could all well be down to your state of mind rather than a state of fact.



Originally posted by Extant TaxonIt's not that I think that voice to skull & other psychotronic manipulation definitely does not exist, & that pyschotic symptoms could be enduced that simulate schizophrenia, but your belief that there is near omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent quantum computer controlling almost every action you take seems like a compensatory reaction to the possibility that you're just ill.


I made no concrete "diagnosis".

As for the "exaggerated claims" about your beliefs (note that this is belief you mention, not knowledge or fact) your quantum computer would be near God-like as evidenced by it's abilities you list in your original post:

Military AI Supercomputer Mind Monitoring: What I have learned

If what it can do is not near God-like I don't what is.


Originally posted by tmk81What part of the river metaphor did you not understand?


Your simplistic river metaphor is not what I'm discussing. Your beliefs are.
This is only the voice of a possible alternate view. Be well.


[edit on 26/4/09 by Extant Taxon]



posted on Apr, 26 2009 @ 02:52 PM
link   
TMK,

What do you think that they want you to do and also is there any reason to believe that a posthuman populace is bad?

BTW, I do believe that the computing tech could be *possible* if certain individuals had unlimited resources decades ago before we now equate a computer to he standard parts we know today... dunno about the thought waves though.... stands to reason that if we are producing waves into space that a sensitive enough instrument should be able to pick them up.

Thought about this type of thing a lot tho. I am not a big proponent of the supernatural or anything but personally I have experienced an alarming degree of synchronicity of outside events with my thoughts.... dunno just thought I would chime in.



posted on Apr, 26 2009 @ 03:29 PM
link   

Originally posted by wmd_2008
that no one has the ABILITY to produce yet.




We just spent 700 bil... how much money over the past half a century do you think could have produced that or any tech we wanted to? We have the ability to do practically anything, we don't commit the resources or it becomes public or spread out and diluted.



posted on Apr, 26 2009 @ 04:44 PM
link   

Originally posted by miragezero

Originally posted by wmd_2008
that no one has the ABILITY to produce yet.




We just spent 700 bil... how much money over the past half a century do you think could have produced that or any tech we wanted to? We have the ability to do practically anything, we don't commit the resources or it becomes public or spread out and diluted.



Buy a dictionary ABILITY does not mean the same as MONEY does it
.
We dont have the kind of tech spoken about is this thread it doesn't matter how much it is claimed if we did why are the USA still fighting in Iraq etc if we can target an individual with this so called supercomputer we would not have to fight wars its BS just accept it!!!!!!!



posted on Apr, 26 2009 @ 07:29 PM
link   
reply to post by miragezero
 


What do you think that they want you to do

I think they want me to talk about my experience and to explain my interpretation of it. They could be doing this for the reasons I mentioned in this post or it could also be given as a warning so that people will be somewhat prepared if the truth is revealed.

is there any reason to believe that a posthuman populace is bad?

I think it depends on what form of government is in place and who has authority. I imagine that it could go both ways--I consider the worst-case to be a totalitarian one-world state exerting the utmost control over the population's every thought.



posted on Apr, 27 2009 @ 07:17 AM
link   

Originally posted by wmd_2008


Buy a dictionary ABILITY does not mean the same as MONEY does it
.
We dont have the kind of tech spoken about is this thread it doesn't matter how much it is claimed if we did why are the USA still fighting in Iraq etc if we can target an individual with this so called supercomputer we would not have to fight wars its BS just accept it!!!!!!!


Just accept we can't fly or go to the moon or have any sort of technology that doesn't exist in the mainstream at this particular moment in history right? And a person should have ALL the answers about everything when you ask. You have obviously not looked at hardly any of the links provided which suggest at the minimum such things are possible. Maybe not from remote without some kind of hardware link or something... not sure but just because you can't accept that a certain type of tech exists or could exist doesn't mean it can't or won't.



posted on Apr, 27 2009 @ 01:44 PM
link   
IBM research along with five university collaborators were recently awarded funding for a cognitive computing project under DARPA’s Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) initiative. Here is a quote from Dharmendra Modha, manager of IBM’s cognitive computing initiative:

So the quest is cognitive computing which is about engineering aspects of mind such as emotion, perception, sensation, cognition, emotion, action, interaction by reverse engineering the brain and then to deploy this technology by connecting it to vast array of sensors, billions trillions of sensors such as sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell but even going further to non-biological sensors, sensors for example monitoring the forest, sensors monitoring the oceans, sensor moni... sensors monitoring people, animals, organizations, homes, cars and to stream this vast amount of data in real-time or near real-time to global brain that can extract patterns, large scale invariant patterns from the sensory overload and to act and respond to this data
It should be noted that remote sensing can be used for monitoring purposes in addition to in situ sensors.

IBM Seeks to Build the Computer of the Future Based on Insights from the Brain
ATS Thread: DARPA & IBM building a “global brain” “cognitive computer” for “monitoring people”

This confirms my belief that DARPA is being used to fund projects years behind what the government is currently using. Brain implants have been in use since the 1950s from rudimentary devices such as José Delgado's stimoceiver [1] to modern-day electrode chips such as BrainGate. It may be that in future society nanorobots will be used for high-resolution in situ brain monitoring and communication through something like 'global brain'.

A visualization of how nanorobots may bind to neurons.

Overall it is my belief that implants are unnecessary for remote brain monitoring since there is rudimentary proof that electromagnetic radiation in the sub-visual range can interact with brain tissue (such as MEDUSA) and be reflected by bio-materials (such as millimeter wave scanning). I also think that it is unlikely that every synchronistic human event I have experienced was due to a select portion of people having nanorobotic implants as they could be expensive and difficult to install on a wide scale.

[edit on 27-4-2009 by tmk81]



posted on Apr, 27 2009 @ 03:39 PM
link   
FBI mole Robert Hanssen claimed that before his arrest he heard noises on his car radio which indicated that his car was bugged. During the first several months of my overt manipulation clear low-volume voices which I perceived as coming through my car radio communicated with me. The voices spoke in full-sentences sometimes with the general theme that I was being investigated/targeted by the FBI or being recruited into a clandestine service.

Robert Hanssen's KGB handler Victor Cherkashin writes in his memoir "Spy Handler",

The information Hanssen provided Moscow was worth tens of billions of dollars. He supplied the KGB and then the SVR with thousands of documents, many on twenty-seven computer disks containing information downloaded from FBI servers. The intelligence helped expose some of the NSA's most expensive and technologically advanced eavesdropping programs, the most shocking of which was a tunnel the agency built with the help of the FBI beneath the Soviet embassy compound in Washington. A technological wonder, it was packed with equipment to listen in on conversations. Special sound-conducting materials helped. On orders from the FBI, American contractors had installed them during the compound's construction. The project had cost almost $1 billion.

...his disclosure went to the heart of Washington's intelligence infrastructure. He gave us documents about the national MASINT (measurement and signature intelligence) program, revealing American spy satellite technology. He provided information about how the United States intercepted the satellite transmissions of other countries, including the Soviet Union. And he passed along documents on the American continuity of government program meant to secure the country's political succession in the event of nuclear war. The program included measures to track cabinet officials and evacuate them, together with the president, to command centers in massive underground bunkers.

To me this indicates he was close to information which could reveal the government's brain monitoring system.

Also, one experience I had about two years ago was while driving my car I felt an overlay on my body as if someone else were driving at which time one male and one female voice began communicating as though they were two specialists assigned to stimulate my brain. At one point it felt as though they were traveling around my brain on my neural circuits. They made friendly quips such as after stimulating one area saying something like "whoops unlocked an embarrassing memory".



posted on Apr, 28 2009 @ 10:59 PM
link   
Very nice info. If it can be thought it can be done. I have often during my work observed what obstacles are hindering the flow of a process or operation... for scientific research or an engineering problem... if you had the resources of the government and more than a few willing scientists (most of whom would jump at the chance) in the most extravagant facilities where funding was not a concern... and just kind of let them not worry about anything but the work... there's no telling how far you could go on any particular discipline and if you attracted some exceptional people...

I mean, it's kind of funny but when you mentioned the AI before I have been thinking of it over the past few days (and actually before for a few years) as a "brain" in my head. Computer implies something else... actually if IBM succeeds then eventually we could probably... transfer consciousness to a machine. You figure if you can teleportan atom of identical properties (or even the same)... then you should be able to teleport all the information of their arrangments (ie your brain) into an artificial model as well so long as it could retain it and somehow. Actually all you would need would be the synapses really and their arrangements, and if it is artificial you don't need the oxygen, blood etc... the arrangement of the electrical connections is what matters most I would think. Chemicals tho, or chemical memory at least... you would have to find out what you could do without and convert what was organic into something else... or hell, you could keep it organic. I read a while back that using RNA tanks you could have a near infinite memory for computing! Or... someone could teleport information into yours. >.>

This is not to say that I agree with your conclusions about what is happening to you. I am merely posting thought experiments, although I do appreciate your posts.

[edit on 28-4-2009 by miragezero]

[edit on 28-4-2009 by miragezero]



posted on Apr, 28 2009 @ 11:03 PM
link   
Here is something I posted in the thread T.V Changing my Dreams which is related to dream manipulation by this system:

Experiments have shown that external stimuli can influence dreams [1]. One experience I had in 2007 was falling asleep during a C-SPAN broadcast and dreaming that I was in a post-apocalyptic compound where Mitt Romney was consoling a crowded group of families spread across multiple rooms all the while I was trying to escape feeling suffocated. I awoke to Mitt Romney doing a campaign meet-and-greet.

I have had more experiences with a different kind of stimuli which I consider to be electromagnetic radiation. These dreams seem to happen every night of which I will sometimes recall during unrelated circumstances. For example while on an induced train-of-thought out of nowhere a completely unrelated dream I had several nights or weeks before will materialize in my mind and stabilize my mood. A strange dream I had recently was in a half-awake, half-asleep state where the Snuggles bear was vividly saying to me "Snuggles loves you" all the while my mental state had reverted to how I was as a child.
I think in some cases this has to do with the government remotely crafting neural networks of emotional memory to be triggered at will so as to influence behavior similar to MKULTRA triggers. I consider advertising campaigns as having significant utility as such 'trojans'. For example a few years ago I recalled a Crazy Eddie commercial and being in a suggestible state it seemed like Crazy Eddie was one of my alter-egos programmed to be a killer. This commercial had left an indelible mark on me as a young child and had remained dormant until I recalled it at this time.
This is the closest Crazy Eddie commercial I could find to the one I remember which consisted of only a black background, yellow lettering and Jerry Carroll



posted on Apr, 28 2009 @ 11:14 PM
link   
They scurry over your house carrying germs... they creep into your shoes, yuck. You've tried smelly sprays to get rid of them but look, roaches can smell to so they avoid the sprayed areas and keep coming back... but now there's new roach kill, the amazing new product...

Do not feel like the lone ranger. I remember that commercial distinctly from my childhood probably more than 25 years ago and it probably has had some effect me... I mean I dislike roaches. ;-)

I can't be serious any more tonight. Here is a link to the RNA stuff I was talking about before...

www.princeton.edu...

I cannot find exactly what I was looking for however. More tomorrow.



posted on Apr, 28 2009 @ 11:29 PM
link   
reply to post by tmk81
 


If that technology existed, i'd advocate it in a heartbeat


The true powers would be a meshed/parallel network of quantum computers with human-machine interface. If we could upload our neurological pathways to a quantum computer and create some kind of android to interact with the physical world, then we can transcend our archaic humanistic bodies. Probably not everyone's cup of tea but we'd live forever.

In a nutshell, you are talking about my new found religion: Singularitarian Extropianism...





posted on Apr, 29 2009 @ 05:41 AM
link   

Originally posted by tmk81
reply to post by letthereaderunderstand
 


Do they ever use a song over and over for hours and hours, days maybe.

Yes. There are times when the computer repeatedly plays songs in my head with volume fade ins and fade outs. Around the beginning of its overt interaction its voices were intelligible and clear and I thought they were coming out of my car speakers from the FBI. It also played faint music which I also thought was coming out of my car speakers.

I was going to ask you what makes you believe it is "Control of the mind" over "Spirit".

I don’t know if I believe in a spirit. I am starting to consider fate as real and the energy of our bodies flowing on a predetermined course and not separate from anything else.

Are you able to descern outside auditory sensation from internal.

There was a time when I sensed the computer's voices as originating from inside my head which distressed me very much. After awhile the computer brought them outside of my head. There are times when the computer provided auditory disturbances which I mistook as external sounds like a knocking on a door, whispering and talking.

About the tactile sensation. Mine is my left shoulder blade and underneath it. I feel them enter through there.

I often have tactile sensations on my genitals, anus, fingers (generally my right index finger) and lips.

[edit on 15-12-2008 by tmk81]


Hi. I get the tactile sensations too. A feeling of a hand on my back; or elsewhere. I dont know for sure what it is; but it has really messed with my head. I dont know if the origin of the 'technology' would be human; altho who knows; but im not sure if we're that advanced -maybe we are. i think whether human/alien, that the purpose of it is for experiments. i think they're testing technology on us. to do with mind control/reading/emotional control; perceptions etc.

I also feel like its some sort of computer or something communicating. they can direct your attention to something; i think perhaps they can physically alter your perception of what you see - or what you and other people see. Example: i was reading those Meyer books about vampires recently. i turn on the news, and theres a story about sailors in the army on one of those documentary programs. My parents were watching too. across the hat of one of the sailors (fairly close up too; not from a distance) was the word 'vampire'. Well, that is what i saw. I just took it as more of the same crap that happens all the time to me. i didnt ask if my parents could see it cuz i was trying to ignore it. but with other odd things (synchronicities to me) i have asked them and they could see what i was pointing out.

More disturbingly, i was driving home from meeting friends one night, and i ALWAYS drive home a certain way. Well, this night (and i had not been drinking at all or using drugs or anything), i suddenly found myself on an entrance to the freeway and i didnt even know about this particular entrance, or how i happened to get there - (as i never go home this way) - and it felt like someone had taken over my brain or something/blacked me out, and driven the car for me. This really disturbed me as i worried about the danger of it. Luckily it hasnt happened since. But i didnt want to be on the freeway, so i took the next exit off the freeway (which they must have known i would do) and this took me right past a funeral parlour. There was a guy standing on the lawn out the front. I cant explain but i just had this FEELING, that i was deliberately directed to drive past this place, and that it was a threat/or warning to me, to back off all of the stuff im interested in/conspiracy stuff. mainly to do with archaeology.

Of course i realize most people call this disorder schizophrenia. but what is schizophrenia? how do people really know that its NOT someone else messing with your brain. Having experienced it, i think there's a good chance it could be that perhaps.

My grandfather was supposed to have had schizophrenia; although he always seemed perfectly sane to me. one of the most practical and down to earth people ive ever met. with a good sense of humour and perspective on life. Maybe it was i dont know. But while in hospital on one occasion (they gave him electroshock therapy) (he worked his entire life inspite of his illness) he made a candle holder. I had it sitting in my room for ages (he's since passed away) before i realized what it was. Its clearly a ufo. And to me, hes not the type of guy to be at all interested in ufos. I know he wasnt. Yet he made one out of clay. Its a bit ODD. to me.

So i guess, its either a genetic disorder; or brought on by drugs/traumatic event; or the same people who were messing with him are now messing with me.



posted on Apr, 29 2009 @ 08:29 AM
link   
reply to post by PrisonerOfSociety
 


LOL, I love it!



posted on Apr, 29 2009 @ 03:22 PM
link   
reply to post by rapunzel222
 


More disturbingly, i was driving home from meeting friends one night, and i ALWAYS drive home a certain way. Well, this night (and i had not been drinking at all or using drugs or anything), i suddenly found myself on an entrance to the freeway and i didnt even know about this particular entrance, or how i happened to get there - (as i never go home this way) - and it felt like someone had taken over my brain or something/blacked me out, and driven the car for me. This really disturbed me as i worried about the danger of it. Luckily it hasnt happened since. But i didnt want to be on the freeway, so i took the next exit off the freeway (which they must have known i would do) and this took me right past a funeral parlour. There was a guy standing on the lawn out the front. I cant explain but i just had this FEELING, that i was deliberately directed to drive past this place, and that it was a threat/or warning to me, to back off all of the stuff im interested in/conspiracy stuff. mainly to do with archaeology.

This reminds me of something that occurred in June 2006, only a few months before my overt manipulation began. I was driving at night to my parent's home in New Jersey after my sister's wedding which was in Brooklyn. I wasn't intoxicated, in fact at this time I had been drug & alcohol free since January 2001. At first I got lost on a Brooklyn highway by going the wrong way--I felt almost blind due to the darkness and dim lighting. I finally managed to find my way to the New Jersey Turnpike. Once on the Turnpike I missed the exit for the Garden State Parkway and not being aware of where to exit I drove for awhile until I eventually resolved to turn around. Throughout the drive I was absorbed in deep thought yet still in a state of confusion but then for a moment things fell into place. In the dead of night with no other cars around and trying to find my way back to the Turnpike I halted at an eerie road lined on both sides by a tidy row of trees which together seemed to trail into nothingness. Reading the road sign I discovered the road's name happened to be the same as mine! This took my breath away, it perhaps being a divine symbol of my destiny although at the time this was something I still didn't understand. I got to my parent's home around 1AM, hours later than they were expecting. After referencing the road for this post I found that the exit is 8A on the Turnpike which cryptically equates to 81.

I associate this image of trees with the Tales from the Darkside introduction which has always been symbolic to me of evil. The image has stayed with me like the 'trojans' I mentioned above and as a child I always tried to find it again on TV but with no luck. To me the CIA represents this unseen force which I would often remember but could never locate.


[edit on 30-4-2009 by tmk81]



posted on Apr, 29 2009 @ 03:40 PM
link   

Originally posted by wmd_2008
We dont have the kind of tech spoken about is this thread it doesn't matter how much it is claimed if we did why are the USA still fighting in Iraq etc if we can target an individual with this so called supercomputer we would not have to fight wars its BS just accept it!!!!!!!


Why do you think that a superpower is fighting in a less than first world country?

Because the 'uncivilized' sociality inherent is of an unpredictable sort. Human Behaviour has the potential to be very unpredictable and as such requires much attention and study.

The Iraq War is merely a testing grounds. Why squelch a scenario when you can learn from it? It was never about 'winning' the war...patriots...


And, on a side note, human behaviour is not something that can be effectivily changed and transformed over night...it takes time. So all the tech in the world means nothing if the end goal is to amicably change and effect behaviour.

For the record...I think tmk is correct. I think that this is real and that it is a conspiracy of greater proportions than UFOlogy.



posted on Apr, 29 2009 @ 04:57 PM
link   
Wow, this thread is unbelievable! (And not in the good way)

In order to have an operational quantum computer, you would need to have it a a temperature lower than that found in the universe from the cosmic background radition, i.e. a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. Something which is unattainable currently. As for saying that they have such a device, I'm sure that the thousands of respected scientists working every day on quantum mechanics will be more than a tad annoyed when they discover that their life's work was already done by the US military in 1981! Where did they find these geniuses from?

My second point is your obsession with this issue. You have done an incredible amount of research, and for that I applaud you. However it is like a glossary, it is does not back up your claims at all, each link or video only explain the terms you are using.

My mother has been working in mental health for many years, and I asked about this (by phone, I'm in my thirties and not living at home) her words to me "If I had a pound for every schizophrenic who told me that their symptoms were being projected into their brain by the government, I wouldn't need to go to work tomorrow!"

Good luck on your journey, but I feel this is the wrong path for you.



posted on Apr, 29 2009 @ 05:17 PM
link   

Originally posted by Molech
In order to have an operational quantum computer, you would need to have it a a temperature lower than that found in the universe from the cosmic background radition, i.e. a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. Something which is unattainable currently. As for saying that they have such a device, I'm sure that the thousands of respected scientists working every day on quantum mechanics will be more than a tad annoyed when they discover that their life's work was already done by the US military in 1981! Where did they find these geniuses from?


Moot point. While the exact technical details may not be accurate, remote stimulation of an individual is a huge concern and has already been experimented - MK-ULTRA is still the best 'proof' available for the extrapolation of these issues.

Quantum schmontum...cell tech would accomplish what is being supposed here.



My second point is your obsession with this issue.


Suggests that the reason for obsession may indeed be valid. Not every deviance from 'acceptable behaviour' is an indication of mental illness as the 'medical books' can't possibly account for all of the combinations of social contexts and perceptions.



My mother has been working in mental health for many years, and I asked about this (by phone, I'm in my thirties and not living at home) her words to me "If I had a pound for every schizophrenic who told me that their symptoms were being projected into their brain by the government, I wouldn't need to go to work tomorrow!"


No offense...but that means absolutely squat. And it is likely without a comprehension of the actual mental faculties of those who are claiming such projections. The television 'projects' ideas and concepts into the brains of millions and the shows/advertisments/'projections' are designed to be memorable...even to the unconscious mindset. Projections of thoughts can very well just be the conscious recognition of a barely noticed enticement of the amygdala...and without proper awareness of one's mental faculties/physiologies it is easy to resort to such simplistic explanations that lack any kind of proper description (paranoid thought)...

Seriously...just because your mom said something and you read a book doesn't mean that you are qualified to discount someone's experiences. And to do so without any actual consideration of the presented material (supporting contextual data, reaction to terms, assuming that popular culture tells the complete truth, et cetera) is ignorant and even hazardous.

Perhaps myopic is a relevant term for you to learn as you may want to avoid it in the future...

[edit on Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:19:29 -0500 by MemoryShock]



posted on Apr, 29 2009 @ 05:17 PM
link   
reply to post by Molech
 


I believe they are only suggesting that certain technologies could exist. The claim about quantum computing is not entirely accurate any longer.

www.google.com...:en-US
fficial&client=firefox-a



posted on Apr, 29 2009 @ 05:32 PM
link   
About that AI brain...

I came up with some problems last night and moreso after watching some videos this morning. Our brains are awash in hormones etc which alter our perceptions good or bad.. there are also actual differences between male and female for example, and there is also the emotional factor. If we have an AI then what would be its motivation if it did not start with an original human brain that was continuously augmented by itself... and if we did that then how would we assume to know when and how it could do without hormones etc... it would then just be possibly just pure (maybe reactive) logic, but pure logic has some real problems with morality, and additionally what would give it any drive to do anything at all... if it is just processing commands then it isn't truly AI and just multiplexing a lot of data.

[edit on 29-4-2009 by miragezero]




top topics



 
61
<< 11  12  13    15  16  17 >>

log in

join