Man-machine hybrid world
Hi guys and gals.
This is my first post, so excuse me if it seems a bit noobish...bare with me.
A little back story.....
I've been fascinated with how things work since I was a toddler. I received a Christmas present when I was like 3 or 4 years old. Mickey Mouse's steam boat. It was a great toy.....mechanical parts, moving characters...tons of fun.
I decided to see what makes said boat tick. Needless to say I promptly dismantled it and saw the inner workings of this magical device. I've been tinkering with things ever since.....more of an obsession now that I think about it.
Skip forward to today. I've been in IT (go fig) for 14 years now. It's 2018, everyone's obsessed with cryptocurrencies (myself included of course).
The world is a far cry from the simplicity of the 80's. Back then it was all cars and He-Man and big hair.
Today we live in a world dominated by the things that would astound and amaze the people back then. The age of electronics and technology has only just begun. Soon we will all have the option to "upgrade" ourselves, not just our phone contracts.
Look at prosthetics...they've been with us a while now and have come a long way from the pegleg visions of pirates.
Some advanced prosthetics today can even give you the ability to "feel" what you are doing with it. These things are advancing at such a fast pace that it's going to become all the more difficult to distinguish the real thing from a prosthesis.
Now here's the crux of the matter. If and when the tech gets to the point where the artificial limb/part is more advanced than your current biological parts, would you opt to "upgrade"? I have said it many times to my family and friends...the moment an arm gets developed that's much better than the real thing, I would gladly lop the said appendage off and replace it. Given that I have the means to acquire such a thing of course.
Check out these examples:
http://bebionic.com/
https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/features/robots-with-a-human-touch
This has started many a debate about the future of this idea. When will you stop being "human" and be more machine? Will it really be such a bad thing? I'm not talking about Terminator here, more Deus Ex.
This would solve a lot of problems too. One being space travel. A big issue is the long travel times in space..years, lightyears even. Bionic humans will be able to survive that long with minimal effort.
So, I'm gonna stop rambling now. Just wanted to share one of my weird thoughts on the future with you guys.
In closing.....would you "upgrade"?