{"id":2555,"date":"2020-08-02T23:31:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-02T23:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/?p=2555"},"modified":"2021-01-03T17:49:50","modified_gmt":"2021-01-03T17:49:50","slug":"humans-have-always-been-cyborgs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/?p=2555","title":{"rendered":"Humans Have Always Been Cyborgs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"SALWITAY - Humans Have Always Been Cyborgs\" width=\"695\" height=\"391\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZColEuF7tSw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption>Unifab Drop Ship aka \u201cThe Lead Kite\u201d &#8211; Designed to fulfill minimum requirements of controlled orbital descent and landing. Ships have modular options to accommodate a range of planetary descent needs, but each ship is built for only one descent and has no other flight capabilities. Ships can be immediately converted to durable habitats upon successful landing. Extremely cost effective to manufacture but prone to catastrophic failures so they are primarily used for bulk cargo and economically challenged colonial expeditions.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I think and blather a lot about technology so I should probably put some effort into defining what I\u2019m going on about all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My definition of technology is pretty broad and pretty much encompasses tool use, calculation and language. In general practice, a technology is anything besides your body or things your body creates without you telling it, or your natural senses, that you use to interact with your environment. A stick or a rock is technology with the right intent and skill, though it\u2019s right on the edge of just being a long claw or fang in animal terms. There\u2019s a continuum. Knowledge of how to reliably start fires or grow crops is definitely technology. Water vessels and shoes are technology. Language and communication is debatably a technology when used to organize and refine complex hunting maneuvers or construction. Writing language down requires and\\or is a technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Technology is just functional knowledge, but technology is so powerful because a tool or process can embody knowledge that the user doesn\u2019t need to grasp as completely as was necessary to create the tool or process. Technology is a shortcut to the power of knowledge that makes it more easily transferable and preservable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Human civilization has been dependent on technology from the beginning. I think technology is actually what defines and enables all civilization, with the critical minimum technology being language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019d argue human\u2019s dependence on technology started earlier than that, in pre-civilization when the largest groups were still mostly small, genetically connected tribes. To make that point I like to imagine a week in a life without any technology. That means naked, no blade, no shoes, no canteen, no fire. You\u2019re basically foraging within a few miles of available fresh water. Of course this is hard to even imagine because it feels like our instinct would be to sharpen a stick or hollow out a gourd first thing, but I said no technology. I think it\u2019s fair to say without technology, humans are literally animals. But that also just means that humans are an animal that are perfectly suited to utilize the things I\u2019m calling technology to advance its survival. Of course that\u2019s anthropic, but what isn\u2019t?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So what\u2019s this got to do with humans being cyborgs, you ask? Admittedly nothing except that I\u2019m making it about that, because I think there\u2019s actually some semi valid reasoning to it, and it sounds good and I think it makes a more vivid point about humanity\u2019s relationship to technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I don\u2019t care what anyone says the definition of cyborg is right now. It\u2019s a new enough word and doesn\u2019t really have much in the way of definitive examples, mostly just sci-fi concepts of what a cyborg might be, so I think the definition is still up for grabs, so I\u2019m grabbing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The notion of integrating technology into the human body is not new, but nobody calls Captain Hook a cyborg, or someone with a cosmetic piercing for that matter. It feels like it needs to be digital or robotic. But then again I don\u2019t know that anyone would argue with a steampunk cyborg, but steampunk gets away with a lot so maybe that\u2019s more about steampunk. But also we never really know if the apparently \u2018digital\u2019 technology is really digital, or positonic, or some silicone analog of a spiking neural network so it\u2019s really just an aesthetic association with \u2018digital\u2019 technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Doesn\u2019t seem to have to be human either, I think we\u2019re all good with a cyborg dog, monkey, or even shark, in theory of course- should go without saying but don\u2019t anybody make cyborg sharks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The aesthetic preference is that the technology be literally implanted in the body and visible enough to provide visually interesting juxtaposition between biological and technological components, but functionally it seems like a cyborg just has to have a biological base structure that incorporates technology to enable and enhance survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So a cyborg is a creature that depends on technology for survival. That also describes humans. So, like the title said- humans have always been cyborgs. Q.E.D. Or more like I decided the words I\u2019m using mean what I\u2019m using them to mean to make a point. So Ipso Facto because I said so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But if I\u2019m proposing this as a definition of cyborg, seems like I need to look around and see what else it might apply to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think it does have to be a survival necessity. As in- literally can\u2019t live without using some kind of technology for a whole day. A clever crow or ape might demonstrate a clear use of technology by the definition I\u2019m using, but it obviously doesn\u2019t need to. Most other animals we\u2019re aware of using anything resembling tools do so for a clear advantage, but in almost every case identical members of their species tend to do okay without the behavior or tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Though nest building animals and harvester ants in particular might fit this definition of cyborg too. Not sure what that does for my point, but I\u2019m okay with ants being fellow cyborgs, we could learn a lot from them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Birds and beavers I\u2019m not so sure I want to include because their nests aren\u2019t always a daily survival necessity. But it is clearly a necessity for long term survival and reproduction, so maybe there needs to be a continuum of cyborg-ness. The most obvious relevant value seems to be durability without technology. So let\u2019s say the metric of cyborgness is: 1-(T\\S) with S being an average lifespan in a given environment and T being the average survival time without any use of technology. Of course this then becomes environmentally dependent, but we can use \u2018natural conditions\u2019 as a baseline to make comparisons across species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So a snail\u2019s cyborness value might be 1-(10days\/10days), or 0, same as a lizard or a sloth. They live and die without ever using any kind of technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A human would be something like 1- .01y\/100, 0.9999 cyborg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Interestingly by this metric a toy poodles cyborgness might be .9, a healthy mutt might be .4, and a husky might be pretty much 0, even though they\u2019re the same species. Though I guess that depends a lot on what you consider each of these breeds \u2018natural environment\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also that\u2019s kind of stupid because dogs didn\u2019t invent the technology they \u2018use\u2019, so that probably has to be included in the distinction. But then again a lot of humans are more consumers of technology than users of it, but we have to draw a line somewhere and species seems pretty obvious so yeah- has to be a technology created by the species, so forget about the dog thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course the more individual the metric the less meaningful it becomes. Someone who completes an advanced wilderness survival course may bring their cyborgness metric down to to .9991, but then fall into a coma and it jumps to .9e-100 or whatever. Weird example, but it sets up how this same weirdness might have some meaning for humans if we ever start existing in environments beyond Earth. Though at that point we\u2019ll be comparing exponents. A human on Earth may have a .99999 cyborgness score on average, but an Apollo astronaut was briefly .9e-10000 something.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So what\u2019s the point? I guess it feels important to get humans used to the idea that we\u2019re already cyborgs and always have been. There\u2019s no need to freak out about technology taking over your life if you realize it started out that way for our entire civilization. That gives us more time to focus on freaking out about how to optimize technology for our benefit before it kills all of us or just makes life unbearable with or without technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also there\u2019s a point that someone in an uncontacted tribe that will never read this is still within just a few negative exponents of the guy on life support on the cyborgness scale, so let\u2019s all just get past any generalized anti-technology sentiment. We can be specifically against some kinds or uses of technology for specific reasons, but if you\u2019re really all that anti-technology you\u2019d be naked hanging out by a stream eating bugs, or more likely just dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019re going to have to get even more cozy with our dependence on technology if we want to do anything interesting beyond Earth, and even if we just want to keep doing interesting things here for more than another few hundred years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The good news and the bad news is that resistance is not at all futile. Human\u2019s defiance of their dependence on technology can and almost certainly will prevail. But then again if you think about what that means, then resistance is back to being pretty futile. So I\u2019m saying let\u2019s accept that we are the borg, resistance is futile, but if we\u2019re smart and careful we can design our borg suits to be removable and not have all the eye socket hardware so we can still get naked and swim in a stream and eat bugs when the mood strikes us. Though eventually that will all be simulated by a data feed directly to your neural cortex floating in a nutrient bath, but let\u2019s take it one step at a time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I think and blather a lot about technology so I should probably put some effort into defining what I\u2019m going on about all the time. My definition of technology is pretty broad and pretty much encompasses tool use, calculation and language. In general practice, a technology is anything besides your body or things your body <a href='http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/?p=2555' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2555"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2556,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2555\/revisions\/2556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}