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Bionic Man May Soon be a Reality
choongiri writes "The London Guardian is reporting on the creation of replacement eyes and working hands in the race to build a $6bn human. Currently being worked on is everything from bionic eyes to an entire exoskeleton enabling the wearer to carry 200lbs. From the article: 'The 1970s gave us the six-million-dollar man. Thirty years and quite a bit of inflation later we have the six-billion-dollar human: not a physical cyborg as such, instead an umbrella term for the latest developments in the growing field of technology for human enhancement.'"
Actually it is for a fair amount of people. Transhumanism.org is a good place to start. Extropians are still around (from a recent mailing list post at least). A common thread is frustration with these types of technology being addressed only to the disabled by short-sighted people. Think for a moment how you would feel if given transhuman powers, then have them taken away. Quite disabled, right? Join our growing dream. The singularity is near.
Many futurists foresee humanity leaving behind biology and joining with hardware and machine bodies. That's the vision of the future in Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines. Silicon is growing at such an exponential rate that if trends continue there will be no need to continue with all these chemical solutions.
One interesting question raised by this story is what world religions will think of these enhancements. Orson Scott Card conjectured in Speaker for the Dead that the Catholic Church would condemn what is essentially a cell phone/PDA, which is funny nowadays when so many people are walking around with a Blackberry and Nokia's never faced a sectarian boycott.
Plot Summary for
"The Six Billion Dollar Man"
When ace test-pilot Steve Austin's ship crashed, he was nearly dead. Deciding that "we have the technology to rebuild this man", the government decides to rebuild Austin, augmenting him with cybernetic parts which gave him superhuman strength and speed. Austin becomes a secret operative, fighting injustice where it is found.
Air Force Colonel Steve Austin, an astronaut who had walked on the moon, is almost fatally injured in a plane crash. Many of his damaged parts are replaced by experimental bionic limbs, including his right arm, his left eye, and both legs. These bionics give him superpowers such as increased speed and strength and the ability to see long distances. To pay the U.S. Government back the $6,000,000,000 it cost to rebuild him, Austin goes to work for the Office of Scientific Investigation as an agent, investigating foreign spies, mad scientists, bombers, space aliens, and even Bigfoot.