Rudolph A. Dirven

Going under the pseudonym “dagon”, Ruud lives in the Netherlands, in the oldest city of the netherlands (it was settled by Romans) – Voorburg.
 
Ruud Dirven has spent a large part of his life dedicated to art, escapism, and understanding humanity. In the late 80s Ruud organized semi-theatrical events and published game-related articles. Doing so, he drifted into simulations and futuristic scenarios of an increasing complex nature. In 1991, during a university Philosophy study (RUL), he formulated the scenario “Nevada 2048 : Private Falls” which looked in detail at a collapsed United States, transhuman technology, cybernetics, survivalism, the post-oil era, and methanol crops. This scenario was followed by a fast succession of endeavors (“serendipity, NYBN, duality, Void Dancers”) throughout the 1990s, all covering the near future, space exploration, design, concept art, and human interaction.
 
In the early oughts Ruud drifted more and more into transhumanism. He flirted briefly with Orion’s Arm, explored several virtual worlds and devoured whatever publications on transhumanism he could get his hands on. Ruud worked with Giulio Prisco and Philippe van Nedervelde from 2006 and onwards in an advisory/design role, largely under an alias.
 
Currently Ruud is a game design/art student at the HKU in Hilversum. Ruud is an outspoken atheist in the Netherlands.
 
Ruud suffers from several distinct occasionally incapacitating ailments, one of which is diagnosed cluster headaches. His dedication towards transhumanism as well as existential threats is largely dictated by his intimate knowledge of just how much a human being can be humiliated and left useless by neurological impairment.
 
Ruud works from the assumption that humanity will be reduced by gigadeath to less than a million humans, in a largely uninhabitable world, well before 2100 (if we are lucky).