Poll: Transhumanism: How Far Would You Take It?

[not_you]

Option 2...

I don't know, mainly because it's the only one that seems remotely reasonable...

I mean, if everyone could run around in cybernetic armour, it'd be like living in GTA online...
Although then the cops would only have to run EMP's to stop people, that'd certainly save lives.... ha ha

 

[TWRule]

I chose 'pure' - I don't really understand why anyone would care to do any of this in the first place.

I mean, I once daydreamed about transferring my consciousness into a robotic body so that I could be immortal and go on to rule the galaxy...

then I turned 13.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

5/4 leaning more towards 5. Especially after reading the Eclipse Phase core rulebook.

 

[TheUsername0131]

I chose 'pure' - I don't really understand why anyone would care to do any of this in the first place.

I mean, I once daydreamed about transferring my consciousness into a robotic body so that I could be immortal and go on to rule the galaxy...

then I turned 13.

To surpass existing physiological limitations and inconveniences. As treatment for encumbering and/or degenerative conditions. Huntington?s disease, Alzheimer?s (other forms of dementia,) blindness, deafness, and other myriad conditions. To provide protection against environmental hazards, ionising-radiation, toxins, drowning, etc.

The utility these hypothetical treatments (of varying levels of invasiveness,) provide is staggering.




"... it is certainly a quick and easy way to learn how to speak new languages, operate machinery, etc. On the other hand, interferance with the mind tends to cause personality disorders, problems with memory recall and occasionally total mental breakdown... repeated re-use accelerates the degenerative process."
- Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader: Technology in the Imperium

 

[Idlemessiah]

Well I'd certainly take a new pair of eyes since anything a foot away from my face looks like a blurry shapeless blob. I wouldn't mind better hearing and also something for bones. Maybe bone strength and a few joint replacements since I've had a few breaks in the past and they're getting achy.

 

[Alleged_Alec]

A quote which sums up my position:

"I don?t want to be human. I want to see gamma rays, I want to hear X-rays, and I want to smell dark matter. Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can?t even express these things properly, because I have to ? I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid, limiting spoken language, but I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws, and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me. I?m a machine, and I can know much more, I could experience so much more, but I?m trapped in this absurd body. And why?

Spoiler: BSG SPOILER

Because my five creators thought that God wanted it that way.

" -Battlestar Galactica

 

[Souther Thorn]

I'll take 5 and GITS for the win. My self is my own, it doesn't matter where my ghost is.

 

[Souther Thorn]

A quote which sums up my position:

"I don?t want to be human. I want to see gamma rays, I want to hear X-rays, and I want to smell dark matter. Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can?t even express these things properly, because I have to ? I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid, limiting spoken language, but I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws, and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me. I?m a machine, and I can know much more, I could experience so much more, but I?m trapped in this absurd body. And why?

Spoiler: BSG SPOILER

Because my five creators thought that God wanted it that way.

" -Battlestar Galactica

Aaaah, brother Cavil. That was an inspired rant.

 

[Heronblade]

[
We've evolved as much as we'll ever need to, what's the need to have even more? The human body has been more than capable ever since our existence.

Correction, the human body has been sort of capable, with a boatload of help from technology, of surviving the challenges we have faced so far. A lot of our own have unnecessarily died in the process, and are continuing to die in dealing with the challenges we have yet to overcome.

I suppose you could be content with the bodycount, and just hope life doesn't throw us a bigger curveball than usual. I prefer to take the long view however. For instance, the odds of us ever getting off of this rock go up by several factors of ten if the right bodily modifications are available to those who need them.

Much the same holds true when dealing with problems such as AIDS, cancer, and Alzheimer's. Perhaps you should explain to some of the cancer patients out there about how their body is working just fine in spite of the fact that their own cellular structure is going rogue and painfully killing them.

I'm talking limb modifications, as I clearly said in the first post, not cancer research. In which case, what you mean there is medicinal progress, not technoligical modifications. And what on earth more "challenges yet to overcome" are you seeing? Unless you're meaning man-made disasters like war, which could involve technology itself, then I don't really see the necessity to have a camera in your eyes. We're becoming far too reliant on technology.

But seriously, giving myself mechanical hands just because my hands are somehow not good enough anymore (which they completely are) is a waste of time and money. But this is all hypothetical anyway.

You don't get it do you? Cybernetic augmentation is a direct result of biomedical research, the two are one and the same. The first and foremost reason for cybernetics is in terms of fixing medical problems such as blindness or muscular dystrophy. The fact that it can be used for so much more is just a bonus.

In addition, there are only two methods on the table to reliably cure/prevent cancer, heavy genetic modification, or cybernetic modification. There is no other prospective method that has a good chance of reliably solving our body's tendency to turn cannibal on us.

As for the rest, speaking as someone who tinkers often, my hands have never been good enough. Not nearly enough precision and too little grip among other things. I can indeed counter some of these problems if I have the perfect tool for the task at hand, but that approach requires multiple times my body mass in specialized equipment, much of which is awkward and slow to use. The right tool also never seems to be around when needed.

And as for my eyes, every couple of days I get up and jam bits of polymer onto them. I do this because I (for some incredibly weird reason) don't like wandering around in a mostly blind haze as nature apparently intended. I can also tell you that even with perfect vision, we are all missing out. There is an incredible world out there that we will never see for ourselves, simply because a low quality nonadjustable camera feed covering less than 3.5x10^-26%, or 0.0000000000000000000000000035% of the light spectrum was "good enough" for our evolutionary path.

 

[bfgmetalhead]

I'd go to three, then all the way up to five later on. I would hold off the five to wait for more advanced rigs to be developed. Then I could be around for the human space empire, or perhaps even tech-immortality.

 

[hermes]

Option 3 or 4. I don't have much problem with augmentations of my physical body, but my mind is my own. That is were I draw the line. Also, no augmentation with remote access or similar. Internet is a wasteland of online security as it is...

 

[Saelune]

I am all for putting my brain in a different body, robot or otherwise. Long as it works right. My only real issue would be pain, since I don't like it, but as long as its still me in there, the body around it doesn't matter... but I hate my body as it stands though anyways.

 

[silver wolf009]

I could see myself giving up one eye, one arm, and, at most, my legs, but even that's a stretch. I'd not want myself to be at serious risk of being disabled by an EMP or other similar event.

A cool but useful minor augmentation would be Chromatophores in my skin, like Cuttlefish.

Screw race, I'm whatever color I want.

 

[2xDouble]

Option 7, other.

I want minimal augmentations that can interface with and control a giant mech/battlesuit. It's the best of both #2 and #5 with the ability to switch between them at will.

I am Iron Man!

Spoiler: Not this Iron Man

Not this Iron Man. Clearly he's option 6.

 

[Dagda Mor]

I dunno. If you can alter my cells so that they're stronger than they were and they naturally reproduce without changing my DNA to the point where my mental functions are too different to really be called mine, then I would see no reason not to. Past that, I would need a good justification. I don't believe that I'm mentally perfect, but nobody can know what is mentally perfect, and most people would agree that there isn't mental perfection, so I don't like the idea of giving up 'who I am' to be 'someone else' unless that 'someone else' was someone specifically designed by 'who I am'--that way, it's like a natural progression of thoughts, opinions, and personality in a person.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Going with Option 5. I'd prefer to be full synthetic, but, better safe than sorry.

 

[ryo02]

Id say either 4 or 5 depending on how much and which bits of brain your talking about if its purely mechanical stuff like the parts that regulate organs and motor control they can go but not important stuff like memory etc etc.

possibly 6 if its done slowly enough I.E. brain cell by brain cell as and when they would be die and be replaced naturally anyway.

as for 7 well some organic parts might all ways be better than mechanical ones I'm talking about genetically engineered parts not my original ones.

pity your pole doesn't allow for more nuanced answers.

 

[synobal]

Please I want to go posthuman, why stop with simple transhumanism?

 

[Sectan]

I would go Other. If I lost a limb I would gladly have it replaced with an augment. I wouldn't go to a hospital and have them cut off for the hell of it. Maybe some implants that would be in the same category as cochlear implants. Something to enhance without replacing.

 

[dragonswarrior]

What I would like actually would be to keep my brain completely intact but, if possible, have it hooked up to extra processors and hard drives (or whatever the brain equivalent would be) so I could think more, think faster, and remember more. But my actual brain would not be significantly altered in any way. I also would not mind having a full robotic body, (fleshies are for weaklings) but I'd settle for a couple of well placed augmentations if that wasn't an option.