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September Is Cyborg Month
Snowmit writes "In May 1960, Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline presented a paper called 'Drugs, Space, and Cybernetics.' The proceedings of the symposium were published in 1961, but, before that, an excerpt of Clynes & Kline's paper appeared in the September issue of Astronautics magazine (issue 13), entitled Cyborgs and Space [PDF]. Aside from a mention in the New York Times, that's is the first time the word appears in print. This month is the 50th anniversary of that article. To commemorate, a group of writers and artists have gotten together to create 50 Post About Cyborgs. Over the course of the month, there will be essays, fiction, links to great older material, comics, and even a song. We're going to talk about Daleks, IEDs, Renaissance memory palaces, chess computers, prosthetic imagination, Videodrome, mutants, sports, and maybe the Bible. To kick things off, Kevin Kelly wrote this essay arguing that we've been cyborgs all along."
September is Cyborg month, and the 18th is Talk Like a Pirate Day. What does that mean?
http://zenisstupid.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/cyborg-pirate-ninja-jesus.jpg
I for one welcome our new self cyborg overlords.
Aside from a mention in the New York Times, that's is the first time the word appears in print.
So the point is to celebrate the second time that the term was used?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
new there was some military connection
no thanks have a nice day
If a cyborg is a cybernetic organism, that makes the likes of Terminators cyborgs. Daleks and Cybermen, and the Borg, are cybernetically augmented organisms, which I quoined "cybauorgs".
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
What do cyborgs sound like when their emotion chips are turned on?
Cyborg #1: "All your base are belong to us biatches!!!1!11!!!"
Cyborg #2: "Duuuuude, that is so 1991, ugh..."
Cyborg #1: "Eat my shorts then!"
Cyborg #2: "..."
Tired of my customary (Score:1)
As a loyal slashdotter I have carefully read the summary and nothing else. If I understood TFS this isn't about the paper itself... and the New York Times and not this article was the first to use the word in print. What is this celebrating again? The second time cyborg appeared in print?
The idea is interesting, and it's certainly true that if all technology were removed, including stone and bone implements, humans would have a much tougher time surviving. But there are areas of the world where we could survive without handmade weapons or fire. We're not very well-equipped for such an existence, but we're not completely helpless.
One argument the author makes repeatedly which makes no sense to me is the notion that cooking provides an "external stomach" which pre-digests our food. There are some foods that are unsafe to eat without being cooked, because of disease that they could be carrying, but in general very little of what we eat MUST be cooked, or is even harder to digest without cooking. Raw meat is just as nutritious and as easily digestible as cooked meat, it just doesn't taste as good (with some exceptions). Raw vegetables are often more nutritious than cooked vegetables.
There's no argument that if we were to have all technology/tools removed and even lose our ability to create primitive tools the human carrying capacity of the earth would be at most a few million, maybe only a few hundred thousand. So I guess you could say that 99.99% of us are "cyborgs".
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
For all the sci-fi fantasy and the "we all are" cyborg nonsense, some of us living among you ARE cyborgs. Maybe not as exciting as a Borgified Picard, but without computer implants and mechanical augmentation we wouldn't be alive (and some have advantages as a result).
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Just throwing this out there, I don't have the energy/mindset to talk about cyborgs theory whatsoever, but give Miz Haraway a shot if any of this Cyborg definition interests you. The Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century"
GENERATION O98346: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig and remove a random number from the generation. T
I thought it was Android month. Could be "people who like to give fish weed" month for all cared
did you forget to take your meds?
When they start looking like this, email me.
http://blog.hdscreencaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/summer_glau_0002.jpg/
http://usemycomputer.com/indeximages/2009/May/SummerGlauTerminatorSecondSeasonMay2009114.jpg/
http://www.wallpaperweb.org/wallpaper/babes/1920x1200/summer_glau_20090725_0161.jpg/
http://www.wallpaperweb.org/wallpaper/babes/1280x800/summer_glau_20091211_2158_1280x800.jpg/
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
OK...what the HELL is "prosthetic imagination"?? That some sort of weird dildo worship? Figures....weirdos.
Yep. I have dental implants (titanium/ceramic composite teeth screwed into the skull) and a titanium plate with six screws in my arm. It may not be electronic, but I do have artificial replacement parts.
So there. Cyborg.
...I'm a Skinjob. ;-)
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
"Aside from a mention in the New York Times, that's is the first time the word appears in print. This month is the 50th anniversary of that article."
In other words, it's not the first time the word appears in print - but we're celebrating as if it were anyhow.
"To commemorate, a group of writers and artists have gotten together to create 50 Post About Cyborgs."
And why, exactly, am I supposed to care that a bunch of random bloggers I've never heard of are using a barely readable website to publish their opinions on cyborgs?
For another take, read Andrew Pickering's "The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future" ( http://bit.ly/bTFrqb )
I wear glasses and have a cochlear implant, so I've been mechanically enhanced. Does that make me a cyborg, or are those two enhancements too ordinary? What about a pacemaker?
http://www.tenjou.net/
Judging from the article and "50 Posts" web site, this group's definition of "Cyborg" is broad enough to be equivalent to Richard Dawkins' notion of the "Extended Phenotype" ( http://amzn.to/cbSmTo or many online hits ). Or perhaps to a second order recursion of the EP. The reach of our genes extends outside our somatic selves to the mechanisms we build with our tool-wielding hands. These mechanisms (perhaps themselves crypto-biological) are then candidates for tinkering within our soma - a prosthetic hand, for instance.
Published first in May 1961? Isn't this 8 months too early for the 50th anniversary? I should know, I just turned 49 last Thursday and I was born in 1961.
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
I'm probably not the first to note the similarity of the paper's title to that cliché about rock stars and their groupies. One has to wonder how much the authors were influenced by the Zeitgeist of the sixties, the so-called Flower Power era.
Still it makes for an interesting read that shows how much we already knew about space before Yuri Gagarin and John Glenn finally reached low earth orbit. Maybe a doped astronaut isn't such a bad idea, getting high in the high of space.
as Jesus was a zombie, wouldn't that be a cyborg-pirate-ninja-zombie-jesus?
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -
Those parts are not strictly cybernetic - they do not have their own technological control systems. Now a pacemaker, that is cybernetics in every sense of the word.
Cybernetics is about mechanical/electronic devices just like astronomy is about telescopes.
Well, 'cyber' doesn't just mean artificial, it refers to computer-like components. So you just have to get a cochlear implant or a pacemaker and you'll be a literal cyborg just like in the movies.
I, for one, welcome our steel-enhanced cyborg overlords!
I have a condition called otosclerosis - the membrane that the last ear-bone goes through to connect to the cochlea turns to bone. As a result, that last ear-bone stops moving = all three bones stop moving = you go deaf.
They drilled a hole in the membrane, and put a titanium-steel rod in place of the last bone.
The upshot? I can now hear again, but I have to fight the urge to find and kill Sarah Connor.
I think I'll celebrate by watching Cyborg 009. Though I can't remember if they're androids/robots or cyborgs. Guess I'll find out!
This is absurd. Dr. Weiner published his seminal book "Cybernetics" in 1948...
You have ignored the obvious: this thread is about cyborgs, which are part man part machine (implanted computer is implied). You're talking about 21st Century pen-pals.
This "cell phones and social networking make us cyborgs" stuff is just a childish attempt to jump on a fantasy's bandwagon. Cyborgs are cool, so you want to be one and proceed to extrapolate the notion to non-sequiturs to your satisfaction. No, you're not a cyborg because you have an iPhone and a Facebook account any more than having a telegraph key and CW radio does.
I'm a cyborg. It's a concrete reality. My heart beats because it's wired to a computer. I have to go for periodic diagnostics, reprogramming, and battery changes. (Actual thanks for provoking me, reminds me of another diagnostic required on Thursday.) Without it, I'm dead.
Yes, technology satisfies emotional needs too. Eliciting happiness from Facebook doesn't make you a cyborg.
Warm fuzzy "we're all cyborgs, kum by yah" is kinda pathetic. There's a vast difference between technology facilitating your emotional needs, vs. keeping you alive.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
That doesn't even qualify for a score of funny?
Now I remember why my time on reddit outstrips time on slashdot by a factor of three these days....
God how I loved that show when I was a kid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Six_Million_Dollar_Man
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?