I may want me a sexy cyborg, but do I want to be one? That question is sitting on my table, staring at me, demanding my attention. I can’t seem to look away.
A disk in my neck has collapsed, permanently. Pain and discomfort levels are tolerable but never far away. The only real cure is to rebuild the disk with titanium and plastic parts. If I do, that becomes my first inexorable step into cyborg—part human, part machine.
Stop the melodrama, Sabrina. (Yes, I can hear you out there.) Lots of people have rebuilt parts, my mother included, and for many it’s been a true god send. As we age, the integration of machine parts into our bodies gets more likely.
But for this future obsessed geek, it’s more than just a medical fix. Underneath it all, are questions about who we are, where we’re going, and a niggling thought that we should think some deep thoughts about this before arriving at a new shore of what it means to be human.
My real concern with embracing my inner cyborg is once I get used the metal as a medical fix, it’ll be pretty easy to accept it as an enhancement. Don’t believe me? Take a look at sports and doping.
We want to shine, to be the best. Bionics—metal superpowers, genetic advantages, new sources of physical (and intellectual) power. See where I’m going with this. What happens when we are promised godhood in exchange for a few hours in the OR? Tempting, no?
So yeah, maybe its only a handful of plastic and titanium…now. But what of tomorrow?
Thoughts? Fears? Hopes? I love to hear from you.