We Are Becoming Cyborgs

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We Are Becoming Cyborgs
Tweet Topic Started: Dec 2 2016, 03:46 AM (657 Views)
~~Doggo Champion 2k17~~	Dec 2 2016, 03:46 AM Post #1
Posts: 7,931 Group: GTFO Member #6,380 Joined: June 20, 2011 Country United States Favourite Anime here comes What Browser do you use? o shit waddup! Favourite Manga dat boi	This is a theory that's been mulling about in my head for a while now, and I thought I'd share it with you guys. Yes, I know that "cyborg theory" exists, and there are probably tons of articles that have already been written about this (which makes my idea somewhat unoriginal), but I hope this still interests you and gets some type of conversation going. Think about what life was like for humans 20 plus years ago, before the mass distribution and personal usage of computers. If you weren't alive 20 years ago or were still a baby, think about what life might have been like. Google wasn't used. Research was something that people rarely did; it was something that we had limited access to. You could turn on your TV and watch the news, or you could pick up a history/science book and read those, but access to research and facts was slim and dismal compared to what we have today. Imagine the way that people read and processed information 20 years ago. Now imagine what a normal, everyday debate may have looked like back then. I'll give you a random scenario: the legalization of marijuana. What might that conversation have looked like? Person A: "I know a few people who have smoked pot. My cousin smoked pot and ended up in a car crash when he was high. He killed someone. Everyone I know who smokes pot does nothing with their life. Pot is dangerous. It's addictive. It affects your mind. That's why it's illegal." Person B: "Oh, okay." That's it. You probably don't get where I'm going with this, but I'll do my best to explain. So far it's looking way better in my head than it does typed out. Today, we have access to a plethora of information. It's all right at our fingertips. If we have a question, we ask Google. We research. We find articles to support our claims. The ways in which we process information have also changed. Have you ever found yourself skimming through information online? Never reading things in full? You even have trouble sitting down and reading a book or graphic novel because you find yourself skimming through it? You might not always want the full experience; you just want to see the argument through to its end. Isn't that what a machine would do? I have no evidence to back this up, but I don't think that this is the way that humans read or processed information 20 plus years ago. Skimming wasn't something that was ingrained in our brains back then. We wanted the experience along with the end goal, usually because we needed the experience to get to an end goal, whereas now we're more about finding answers right away. Because we can. If we don't want to read a book, we don't even have to experience it. We can just look it up on Wikipedia or Sparknotes and get all the information we need to carry on an entire conversation about it. Isn't that what machines do...? Today, a conversation about marijuana wouldn't be so restricted. Person B in my previous example responded to Person A's emotional, experienced-charged argument with "Oh, okay" because back then, arguments and opinions were built upon experience--we thought like humans, driven by emotions and first-hand accounts because we needed those things to come to a conclusion. Today, Person B's response may be something more along the lines of, "Well, actually, according to most scientists and insert studies and article titles here, marijuana is neither physically addictive nor damaging to a person's health. It actually provides many health benefits and can be used to treat mental health issues and seizures." Person B has access to information today that he may not have had 20 years ago. 20 years ago, studies like this were being done, but they weren't easily accessed. We didn't process that information like we do now. Have you ever wondered if your instant reaction to fact check and google everything before making a statement makes you more machine than man? If your laziness when assigned a book to read, and your instinct to SparkNotes it instead of actually reading it, might actually make you less human? I foresee a future in which we are no longer driven by experience; we can simply download information and experiences into our brains at will. Like a machine. There's no need to base opinions on something human like "experience" when we have all the information and facts that we need at our fingertips. Are we becoming cyborgs? I probably have a lot more to say about this, but I'll leave it at that, mostly because I'm not sure how best to put everything into words.



+ Sandy Shore	Dec 2 2016, 02:57 PM Post #2
Posts: 1,860 Group: Elite Member Member #12,337 Joined: May 18, 2015	We're not becoming less human-like; we're just becoming ever-so-slightly, collectively more intelligent. I say "we are", but I don't mean to say I'm part of it. Though, perhaps the former. Intelligent individuals have long favoured knowledge, logic, and objective reasoning over ignorance and demagoguery. Having information, evidence and research acting as evidence as the basis of and to inform your position has always been part of it. It's just fortunately incredibly easy for some people to get their hands on it now, for virtually any topic, though even those that manage to absorb the information will more-than-likely still fail the hardest obstacles of all: logic and objectivity. We skim text because there's so much of it in-front of us; we need to try and discern which of it is most accurate and/or valuable, or because simply getting the information is beneficial to us in some way, but there is an awful lot of it to get through. Laziness, too. Still learning all you need to know about an especially boring book isn't a bad idea at all, nor is it inherently machine-like. It might even be interesting at that surface level, and not so much when delved in to. Of course, in matters of art and discussing that, a deeper appreciation of something is irreplaceable, with a value all its own. We're still fundamentally experience machines first and foremost - the mindless droves are testament to that. I know I haven't said anything that wasn't impossibly obvious, but my point is it's always been and continues to still be fundamentally human - it's just perhaps more exaggerated. People starting to resemble something else doesn't mean they're becoming other that what they are, or that thing itself. They may appear more cyborg-like in behaviour, but—like I said at the top—they're just becoming, and will continue to become, on average, slightly more appropriate of beings that are said to be intelligent and wise, thanks to the information revolution. Edited by Sandy Shore, Dec 2 2016, 03:00 PM.



DanielSan	Dec 14 2016, 04:06 PM Post #3
Posts: 1,536 Group: Donator Member #5,730 Joined: February 14, 2011	I don't think we are becoming cyborgs like the ones in Ghost in the Shell, but we just have more readily available information at our fingertips. I think with all the instant access to research, it makes for a more inform general population. You are right that 20 to 30 years ago most people did not have that information at hand like you can get today. It makes since that people are going to change along with technology. We will see how far the future takes us in 20 to 30 years from today.



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