Tau.Neutrino said:
Welcome to the era of transhumanism
In a compelling webseries from 2012 entitled H+, we were introduced to a future world where much of the population has a hi-tech implant, allowing individuals a direct neural interface with the internet. As often is the case in science fiction, things don’t turn out well for those technological pioneers. A virus infects the implant and chaos quickly descends on a human race that has become biologically fused with technology.
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Not a particularly new theme. I can’t remember Neuromancer (1984) well enough to remember if it has the same stuff in it, but some SciFi work of about that vintage has.
> Early in February 2017, innovative billionaire Elon Musk reiterated an idea he had floated several times over the past year: Humans need to merge with machines. Musk sees a direct brain/computer interface as an absolute necessity, not only in order for us to evolve as a species, but as a way of keeping up with the machines we are creating. According to Musk, if we don’t merge with the machines, we will become useless and irrelevant.
Musk is right. We will become useless and irrelevant, at least until the next flowering of civilization. Unfortunately, so will the machines.
> What could go wrong?
Well, despite heaps of dystopian possibilities coming to mind, by many people leading to a Luddite backlash … despite that, nothing can go wrong. That’s because the interface between man and machine will remain incomplete and unreliable for the next thousand years or so. So because the interface will remain so poor, any problems caused by the interface being too good can’t occur. Nothing can go wrong.
> Transhumanist thought often parallels the ideals of eugenics
No! The exact opposite. Eugenics deals with the elimination of people with disabilities. Transhumanist thought is all about helping people with disabilities. It’s the exact opposite.