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The Not-Quite-Human Rights Movement
An anonymous reader writes "Yale University hosted a conference on transhumanism which organizers say served to
coalesce transhumanism from a subculture to a 'movement.' They're even sketching out where the role of violence becomes legitimate in the quest to become a cyborg.
But most of the talk was of peaceful integration and continuation of democratic values."
I was afraid they would discuss something stupid!
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
Any decent cyborg could simply destroy anyone who disagrees with them, thus ensuring their status as a sentient super being with power over all mankind. No self-respecting super-being would be seen dead in a namby-pamby meeting to talk about rights! Wannabes!
If we make these limbs much, much better - are we to expect anything different?
Yes! That's basically the whole point. Currently, even the best artificial limbs are a poor substitute for the genuine article. People get artificial limbs because they have lost their natural limbs, and have no other choice -- we do not hate or shun these people any more than we hate or shun people with any other disability. However, if artificial limbs become far superior to natural limbs, people will be able to choose whether they want their (perfectly healthy) natural limbs removed in favor of mechanical ones. At that point you will certainly have fear and loathing between the people who undergo the procedure (the superior beings) and the people who don't (the all-natural people).
As for your further point, it's not the role of bioethics departments to sell stem cell research. It's their role to think about the consequences for society of any new innovatio, and sometimes they might not agree with the techies.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Hmmm. I was going to rate this a troll.
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But then I noticed -- maybe it's just my imagination -- but the cyborg's seems bigger than the human's.
No wonder it "coalesced" into a movement. Before, it was just a few random, scattered geeks. Then, when they were running with the idea, they said to themselves "Hey . . . if I could get a bigger, stronger, artificial bicep, then what about my . .
And suddenly, it's a movement.
Very good points that s20451 made.
I suppose I would qualify as a Cyborg; I am hearing-impaired and have a Cochlear Implant. Social-wise, it's kind of a mixed bag. On one side of the coin, people in general are fascinated by the prospect of restoring hearing that was lost and the very idea of having a biological implant in my head. On the other side, however, the Deaf community generally shuns them as their equivalent of "tools of Satan." I feel that in the decades, even centuries, to come, such divisions will stil exist on this topic. It's unavoidable today and will be unavoidable tomorrow.
"Black holes are where God divided by zero." - Steve Wright
Intelligent machines will be given the full rights of humans once they demonstrate their abilities and begin flexing their power. Despite the moral underpinnings of our various societies, groups that have been historically excluded have fought, bought, or protested their way into equality.
Who knows how long it will take for computers to be as capable as we are. However, once a computer or group of computers becomes intelligent and wealthy enough to hire a legal team (not to mention a software development team), things are going to get very interesting.
We should not wait for our creations to force this issue. It would be better to have a framework in place before everyone begins to panic (including the intelligent machines).
- JML
In my, admittedly limited experience from taking a semester of ASL and having "deaf culture" lessons intermingled with that, what you're saying doesn't seem to be the actual issue.
People who subscribe to "deaf culture" seem to have constructed a world-view in which deafness isn't a biological flaw, but rather a "variation". They promote the view that a diminished or absent ability to hear is a healthy variant of the human biological norm. This is, I assume, a social reaction to the idea of being "flawed" or broken, and stems, I am sure, from the fact that by and large deaf people are capable of fully interacting with human society, so long as concessions are made for their lack of hearing.
But now its gone far beyond that, and in some cases (such as this) its gone to ridiculous extremes. Instead of being ostracized by hearing (aka "normal") humans, they ostracize people who recognize that deafness is not the human norm, and actually use technology to fix it.
It saddened (and angered) me when I first encountered this. Deaf people of this opinion think that folks who want to "fix" them just don't "get it", and that we as hearing people (as they call it) are just some sort of other normal variation on homo sapiens. As if the ability to hear is akin to hair color or something equally as irrelevant to human functioning.
I wonder if the same people would consider other birth defects "normal variations", and acceptable.
>
> And suddenly, it's a movement.
Walk into the shrink wherever you are, just walk in, say "Shrink -- you can mod any parts you want at Cyberdyne Restaurant" -- and walk out.
You know, if one Slashdotter, just one Slashdotter does it, they may think he's really sick and they won't take him.
And if two Slashdotters do it -- in harmony -- they may think that they're both trollin' and they won't take either of them.
And if THREE Slashdotters do it! Can you imagine three Slashdotters walkin' in, singin' a bar of "Cyberdyne Restaurant" and walkin' out? They might think it's a HACKER CONSPIRACY.
And can you imagine FIFTY Slashdotters a day? I said FIFTY Slashdotters a day -- walkin' in, singin ' a bar of "Cyberdyne Restaruant" and walkin' out? Friends, they may think it's a movement, and that's what it is.
The Cyberdyne Systems T-800 Model 101 Trans-Humanist Movement!
And all you gotta do to join it is to mod me (+1, Funny) the next time the mod points come 'round on the thread view. With feelin'.
You can mod any parts you want at Cyberdyne Restaurant (or be an Alice!)
You can mod any parts you want at Cyberdyne Restaurant
Implants, fuel cells, and neural hacks,
Muscle over bones made outa railroad track,
Oh, you can mod any parts you want at Cyberdyne restaurant...
Here's what we need to tell people:
When you're on your deathbed, only days or hours from kicking the bucket, will you regret your opposition to stem cell research during the early 21s century, that might have let you happily live another 20 or 30 years?
Nobody cares unless it directly affects them. We need to convince people that it will directly affect them.
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
Great now I'll have to wait even longer to get through airport security as those Cyborgs get screened manually. Crap.