CYBORGS: THE FUTURE OF THE HUMAN RACE
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Ever since the existence of humans, we have always tried to enhance our powers in one way or the other. We have been imagining the possibilities of prolonging our lives, modifying our organs,increasing our intellectual capabilities and even being immortals. All these have led to the making of technological enhancements to human beings(CYBORGS) that is believed to make us become enhanced and probably live for eternity .
WHAT IS A CYBORG
A cyborg is a living organism with both organic and electrical or mechanical components which are either to Restore damaged parts or to enhance the organisms functioning in a number of ways. The word cyborg is short for cybernetic organism and it refers to enhancements and alterations made to already living beings to make them ''better'' so robots do not fall under the group of cyborgs
following the above definition, cyborgs include people with Cochlear implants,prosthetic limbs,bionic vision systems and also people with artificially produced organs. On my article today we are going to look at how cybernization have been used to enhance and help the human race as we know it.
HOW CYBERNIZATION HELPS THE HUMAN RACE
IN MEDICINE
There are two types of cyborgs used in medicine. They are the restorative cyborg and the enhanced cyborg. The restorative is aimed at using technology to restore limbs and organs that have been lost or have lost their ability to function effectively. It is aimed at fixing missing or broken parts of the body with technology which can perform or nearly perform the same functions of the broken or missing parts. Enhanced cyborg on the other hand is aimed at restoring this missing or broken parts with technology that has improved ability to function and performs better that the originally lost component.
Cybernization in medicine can be seen in The cochlear implants that have been used widely to help people with poor hearing. 
A brain computer interface(BCI) which is another cybernetic technology provides or creates a direct path for communication between the brain and a device place externally. 
A brain stimulation procedure is being used to treat people with Alzheimer's diseases, Parkinson's disease,chronic headaches,epilepsy and other mental disorders. the patients are made to be unconcious and are implanted with electrodes or brain peacemakers at the area where the disease has affected. That region is now supplied with electric currents from the implants which stimulates it and stops any form seizures. The deep brain stimulation procedure also have its pros and Con's like all other medical invasive procedures, but it have been proven to be most effective than any drugs for these diseases in recent years.
Another very important form of cybernization used in medicine are the retinal implants.
IN SPORTS
cybathlon, The first ever cyborg Olympics was held in 2016 at Switzerland. It was the first cyborg Olympic in the world and it was also to celebrate cyborg sports worldwide. It featured 16 teams which were made of disabled people who have been turned to cyborgs by technological advancements. Six events were carried out in the cyborg Olympic and the competitors used technologies such as robotic exoskeletons,prosthetic arms and legs and also motorized wheel chairs and bikes.
The Olympics was a really remarkable and good improvement because it enables people who are talented in sports but due to uncontrollable circumstances have been disabled. It also helped to showcase these advanced technologies to the world. It also showed that these technologies need more improvements. For instance, in the exoskeleton race which required competitors to perform activities like standing and sitting,walking over stepping stones and also climbing a staircase, was nearly a disaster because some of the teams 8 of them to be exact dropped off even before the start. However they Olympics overall was a success and it really changed peoples lives. The next cyborg Olympics should be expected to be take place in 2020.
IN SPACE
sending human beings to space can be a very dengerous task with so many disadvantages. The use of cyborg technologies can be very useful in limiting this risks. Stephen Hawking stated that life on our planet earth is at a risk of being eliminated by some natural disasters which include nuclear war, global warming etc. He futher said that he thinks mans race has no feature except he goes into space. Most difficulties involved with travelling to space could mean that it might take centuries before human beings could become multi-planet species. space travelling has so many effect on the human body. The major problem associated with travelling to space or space exploration is the need for oxygen. if this issue can in any way be solved, space travellingcan be done with ease. Two scientists, nathan s. kline and manfred f. Clynes have proposed a theory that is aimed at specifically solving this problem. They made a theory that if inverse fuels are used, breathing might be unnecessary because these inverse fuels could be able to reduce carbon(iv)oxide to its components and be able to the carbon and recirculate the oxygen.
Another major issue associated with space travelling is the issue of radiation poisoning or exposure. Humans living here on earth are said to be yearly exposed to an extimated value of 0.03rem of radiation, while someone who is out on space for 90 days is said to be exposed to about 9 rem of radiation. This issue is howver being tackeled By theories also from nathan s. kline and manfred f. Clynes. They proposed that a cyborg which has a sensor thats detects high and low level radiation ,and a rose osmotic pump that would inject the right dose of protective medicines automatically.
In as much as ways to reduce the spaces effects on our body are being introduced, the advancement of technologies used for space travel is also an important issue to look into. It would take a human spacecraft 260 days to reach planet mars and therefore very expensive to embark on due to many reasons including the consumption cost of the astronauts. A very intresting way to solve this issue is currently in progress. It is said that putting astronauts in torpor deep sleep with medical procedures to reduce their metabolic activities could drastically reduce the consumption costs during space travel. Experiments are being carried out and have resulted to patients being in deep sleep for about one week. However more advanced experiments are being carried out in other to make a human be in this state for a long period of time leading to the solution of the problem.
IN BODY MODIFICATION
Medical Technology is becoming more advanced due to the adoption of innovations,inventions and techniques made available by body modification communities. advanced technologies like the augumented reality, silicon silk implant electronics which are implantable, also QR codes are really bridging the gap between the human body and technology. Some technologies show a promissing future of bringing into reality the ''transhumanist'' way of living. it is however expected for some people to still feel some fear, uneasiness,nervousness and anxiety of some sort about agumenting and modifying their bodies with these technologies , but the cyborg future seems promising and hopeful.
WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS
Currently seeing the level of cyborg improvements and advancements, it is shown that these cybonization technologies will be highly proliferated and will definitely have connections to both governmental and medical networks. For instance, In the future, accessing medical database, visiting a vitual doctor and recieving medical prognosis will be made easy for patients from the comfort of their homes with the aid of computers and telemetric implants.
The transhumanist life should be expected too, because in recent years there have been a lot of investment into creating technologies that would improve the human race for the better. Technologies are being made that will improve our intellectual capabilities and even increase our life span, make us live for eternity. All these and more should be expected in the future.
Just like everything has their pros and cons (not everything though..most things) cybonization also has its cons too one being that this networking stratagy might bring about great security concerns the reason being that it have been proven that hackers could get control of these networks and stop peoples prosthetics from working .
Cyborg technologies are already being used in the U.S. today by a company called Three Square Market. They Partnered with a technological firm to implant chips in hands of their employees. The microchip which is the size of a rice grain allows people working in the company Access doors to offices, vending machines and computers. Over 50 employees were chipped under supervision by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Cyborg technologies will bring about a great change to our society and will greatly change the normal human life as we know it and i think it should be welcomed with open arms.
What do you think?
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By definition, we already have cyborgs. Through pacemakers or prostheses, for example.
What's next? That would be transhumanism.
Yes sure... I made mention of that in the post