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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from housetop work

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hey you wasn't the stuff to blow your mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I am Christian Sager.

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Speaker 1: So Robert sideboard the words cyborg. You hear that, What

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Speaker 1: does it mean to you? What is it? What pops

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Speaker 1: up immediately? Well, you know, I'm it kind of depends

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Speaker 1: on how far back in my own time when I

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Speaker 1: go like, I can't help but instantly go back to

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Speaker 1: being a kid, where cyborg meant terminator, cyborg meant RoboCop.

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Speaker 1: And so you and I are both children of the eighties,

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Speaker 1: and that's cyborgs were at their height of popularity, probably right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this idea that like, there's a machine, but it's it's

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Speaker 1: got at least a little bit of humanity to it,

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Speaker 1: but nothing nothing that's going to hold it back too

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Speaker 1: much from being like a you know, a terrorizing robot

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Speaker 1: or this this this brutal metal, all badass. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: U and I tease this a little bit on social media,

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Speaker 1: but for me, I immediately go to a comic book

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Speaker 1: character named Cyborg, and it's a character that it was

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Speaker 1: first created in the seventies, and that's you know, seventies eighties,

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Speaker 1: that's when I was reading these comic books. Uh. He

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Speaker 1: is an African American character who becomes a cyborg because

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Speaker 1: he's in some kind of like athletic accident or a

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Speaker 1: car accident or something, and his dad is like a

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Speaker 1: cyber next genius and rebuilds his body and he becomes

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Speaker 1: a superhero and joins the Teen Titans. A lot of

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Speaker 1: people out there may know this character from the Teen

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Speaker 1: Titans cartoon show in the last decade. Yeah, my nephew

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Speaker 1: was telling me all about Cyborg and I was hanging

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Speaker 1: out with him in the past few months, and it

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Speaker 1: was kind of I was impressed because it sounds like

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Speaker 1: Teen Titans has done a good job of sort of

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Speaker 1: giving a thoughtful treatment of Cyborg, Like what does it

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Speaker 1: mean that this character is a little bit machine and

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Speaker 1: a little bit human kind of middle it's kind of

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Speaker 1: I mean, the cartoon is more of a comedy. But

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Speaker 1: so the caveat I wanted to place on this is,

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Speaker 1: you know, d C is rolling out its big summer

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Speaker 1: blockbuster universe of superhero movies, and Cyborg is going to

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Speaker 1: have his own movie and he's going to be in

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Speaker 1: the Justice League. Movies and I haven't seen it, but

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Speaker 1: I guess that Batman v. Superman movie spoilers like hints

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Speaker 1: at him in somewhere. Uh So, I kept thinking as

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Speaker 1: we were doing the research for this episode, which if

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Speaker 1: you guys out there haven't guessed by now, is about cyborgs,

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Speaker 1: uh it, I kept thinking, you know, the people who

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Speaker 1: are writing and doing all the pre production on that

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Speaker 1: cyborg tent pole movie right now, I really hope they

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Speaker 1: listened to this episode because we've got a lot of

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Speaker 1: interesting themes going on here with the idea of cyborgs

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Speaker 1: in general, and and that is what this episode is

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Speaker 1: going to revolve around. Now. Certainly, we've had episodes in

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Speaker 1: the past that have dealt with sort of like mind

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Speaker 1: machine interfaces, including Joe and I did one in the

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Speaker 1: past few months. I'll make sure we linked to that

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Speaker 1: on the landing page for this episode, and it will

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Speaker 1: be doing episodes in the future. I'm sure about cybernetic enhancements,

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Speaker 1: prosthetic loombs, etcetera. But this episode is, as the title implies,

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Speaker 1: it's about what do we think about when we think

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Speaker 1: about cyboards. What is the meaning of cyborg as a

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Speaker 1: word and as a trope and as a metaphor for

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Speaker 1: understanding the human experience. Yeah, and what I especially got

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Speaker 1: out of it is that cyborg in general, there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of philosophical arguments to make that we're already cyborgs,

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Speaker 1: and that it is sort of like the natural evolution

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Speaker 1: towards trans humanism, which is another thing we talked about

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Speaker 1: on this show quite a bit. Uh. And I want

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Speaker 1: to read a quote by Donna Harroway, who we're going

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Speaker 1: to talk about later, but this really struck me as

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Speaker 1: being crucial to us kind of thinking throughout the episode

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Speaker 1: about she says, technology is not neutral. We are inside

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Speaker 1: of what we make, and it is inside of us.

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Speaker 1: We're living in a world of connections, and it mat

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Speaker 1: rs which ones get made and unmade. So she's not

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Speaker 1: just talking about like you know, pop sci fi, you

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Speaker 1: plug a USB poured into your ear, cyborg, that kind

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Speaker 1: of connection. She's talking about like cultural connections as well,

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Speaker 1: and sort of how we define reality based on that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So I think that that is just in general, let's

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Speaker 1: try to hold onto that while we're talking about all

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Speaker 1: this stuff. You two out there think now that unt mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, cast aside your sci fi ideas as well,

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Speaker 1: because yeah, I think she even I can't remember she

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Speaker 1: if she mentioned RoboCop in her money, and she definitely

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Speaker 1: mentions some of the sci fi visions of cyborg because

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Speaker 1: that's part of the metaphor. And we will, you know,

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Speaker 1: if we haven't thoroughly satiated your pop culture cyborg references,

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Speaker 1: will make them more throughout the episode. But there's too many,

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Speaker 1: I think, maybe to get them all. Yeah, yeah, they're

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Speaker 1: just they're rampant, especially in the wake of Terminator and RoboCop.

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Speaker 1: Just just dealing with films alone, there's so many fabulously

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Speaker 1: horrible be movies with cyboards and yeah, totally. But before

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Speaker 1: we get into the the word cyborg and where that

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Speaker 1: comes from, uh, let's talk a little bit about cybernetics,

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Speaker 1: which one of the core papers here. It comes from

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Speaker 1: m T mathematician Norbert Liner, who wrote Cybernetics or Control

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Speaker 1: and Communication in the Animal and Machine Back And this

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Speaker 1: is a work to dealt with information theory with a

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Speaker 1: focus on feedback and the similarities between a vast group

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Speaker 1: of different phenomena from everything from throwing a ball to

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Speaker 1: running a company to launching launching a missile. It's all

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Speaker 1: about you're doing things, you're getting feedback, and that allows

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Speaker 1: you to uh for rational control of everything from machines

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Speaker 1: to economic systems to communities. Uh, and even a way

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Speaker 1: to arguably tackle WI coul problems. UM use the term

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Speaker 1: we could problems, but essentially that was kind of the

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Speaker 1: area was getting into. Yeah. And I think one thing

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Speaker 1: that's important to keep in mind about Weiner's research, or

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Speaker 1: I guess just it's not really research as much as

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Speaker 1: just sort of like a general like pitch for the future,

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Speaker 1: saying like this is a field, this is an approach

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Speaker 1: that we can use to advance and to understand. He's

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Speaker 1: coming right on the heels of World War two. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and he is very much in particular considering cybernetics systems

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Speaker 1: as being constituted by flows of information. And there's a

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Speaker 1: really great article by a woman named Katherine Hales uh

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Speaker 1: and she's she's at it, or at least this is

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Speaker 1: hosted at u c l A. She may not be

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Speaker 1: there anymore, but just faculty and uh. She's basically looking

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Speaker 1: at like the idea of Winer's like version of cyborg

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Speaker 1: ism and how it mixes with sort of liberal humanism

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Speaker 1: as well. And she is my understanding, maybe not a

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Speaker 1: student of but a disciple of Donna Harroway, who we're

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Speaker 1: going to talk about extensively later. Um. But basically, the

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Speaker 1: Winer version goes like this, right, and we're we're gonna

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Speaker 1: use this analogy a lot. I think if a blind

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Speaker 1: man is used in a cane, is he a cyborg?

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Speaker 1: And the Winer argument would say yes, because it's about

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Speaker 1: the flow of information, right. The flow of information going

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Speaker 1: through the cane is building reality for the blind man,

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Speaker 1: therefore it makes him a cyborg. The other argument he

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Speaker 1: would probably make is a deaf person using a hearing

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Speaker 1: aid is a cyborg? Right, yeah, And that is going

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Speaker 1: to be a recurring theme, like to what to what

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Speaker 1: extent is this individual cyborg? And I think this strong

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Speaker 1: case to be made that, Yeah, when you are even

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Speaker 1: basic tool use use cybernetic, it's inherently cybernetic. And when

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Speaker 1: we're inherently cybernetic organism. I'm wearing contact lenses right now,

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Speaker 1: that probably makes me a cyborg. Yeah yeah, So, and

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Speaker 1: that also involves like dental low work. You know, you're

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Speaker 1: wearing a time piece on your farm, wearable computing, um.

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Speaker 1: And you can of course get into This isn't even

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Speaker 1: getting into the smartphone. Yeah. The whole smartphone thing is

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Speaker 1: just like mind blowing lee cybernetic. I should also throw

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Speaker 1: in it. He took the name Cybernettics from the Greek

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Speaker 1: word kuber mettes, which means steersman. Uh. And you can

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Speaker 1: think of just sort of the classic image of you know,

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Speaker 1: a helmsman at a boat, uh, you know, taking the

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Speaker 1: taking the old raft across the river sticks. Right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's what I was thinking of immediately. Why is that

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Speaker 1: like the first helmsman I go to his death? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean it's a great helmsman. He has an important

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Speaker 1: because he always gets across. Yeah, the Coxswain of the dead. Uh.

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Speaker 1: But it's essentially here, the steersman is depending on a

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Speaker 1: constant flow of information and that governs the interface. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: one of Winer's you know, big arguments is uh. And

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Speaker 1: he doesn't I don't think maybe make this explicitly, but

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Speaker 1: you know, basically it comes across as our cyborgs modifications

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Speaker 1: that are intended to compensate for deficiencies. So I just

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Speaker 1: mentioned my contacts deficient eyesight, so I wear contacts, right,

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Speaker 1: Or are they interventions that are designed to enhance our

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Speaker 1: normal functioning. Right, So I'm you know, I don't know

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Speaker 1: of this, but are there a lot of people who

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Speaker 1: wear contact lenses to give themselves better than vision? Um, well,

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Speaker 1: it's not necessarily good if that happens, because my my

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Speaker 1: eyesight changed, and it apparently occasionally, like I fight gets

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Speaker 1: like it improves, which throws your contacts out of whack.

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Speaker 1: And so that's what happened to me. So I'd actually

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Speaker 1: get my prescription taken down a little bit. Okay, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well that's interesting. Okay, So but yeah, so basically we're

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Speaker 1: looking at this as like, is it is it both?

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Speaker 1: I think it is. I think it's both. It's both

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Speaker 1: enhancing our our pre existing abilities but also compensating for

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Speaker 1: deficiencies that we have. Yeah, and there's like a blur somewhere.

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Speaker 1: But because deficiency and how do you define what's like

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Speaker 1: the what is the ideal human experience that we are

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Speaker 1: either correcting for or going beyond? Uh that Like there's

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Speaker 1: no there's no just a template for the human. There's

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Speaker 1: no basic human, right, so that line is just always

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Speaker 1: going to be distorted. Yeah, and Haroway, who we're going

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Speaker 1: to talk about later, it's very important to this, uh,

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Speaker 1: she adds in a distinction that is beyond you know,

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Speaker 1: cybernetics is beyond anything that fuses the device with a

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Speaker 1: biological organism. It replaces cognition and neural feedback, so it

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Speaker 1: challenges the difference between us as humans and us as animals.

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Speaker 1: So maybe that's a way that we can draw the

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Speaker 1: deficiency enhancement line, although again depends on what animal you're

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Speaker 1: comparing yourself. Plenty of examples of animals that use tools,

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Speaker 1: and including many primates crows, Jo and I are discussed

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Speaker 1: in recent episodes. So so yeah, even when when you

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Speaker 1: start applying tool use to the scenario, you can make

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Speaker 1: a case that there are plenty of cybernetical um, you know,

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Speaker 1: animals out there. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, that's something to keep

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Speaker 1: in mind as well. It's not just a human phenomenon.

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Speaker 1: So the last bit from Hails that I think is

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Speaker 1: important to consider when you're looking at Weiner is she

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Speaker 1: makes the argument that Weiner is sort of conflicted between

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Speaker 1: his uh somewhat humanistic endeavor that he envisions for cybernetics

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Speaker 1: and his use or proposal of use of them as

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Speaker 1: being effective killing machines for the military. So there's a

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Speaker 1: little bit of a contradiction there that she points out,

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Speaker 1: and again I would say, well, can they be both?

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Speaker 1: And clearly the Department of Defense would hope so, because,

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Speaker 1: as we'll talk about, millions and millions of dollars have

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Speaker 1: gone into us developing cyborgs for warfare. Well, it kind

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Speaker 1: of gets down to the fact if you were if

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Speaker 1: you're going to repair or you know, or augment human

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Speaker 1: form your change, you're also augmenting everything that is human,

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Speaker 1: both the good stuff and the bad stuff. So so, hey,

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Speaker 1: a blind man can read a book again perhaps, but

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Speaker 1: also maybe a blind man can shoot lasers out of

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Speaker 1: his eyes at the enemy. Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean,

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Speaker 1: like a lot of the research that we're seeing that's

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Speaker 1: sort of in its infancy with brain computer interfaces, that's

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Speaker 1: where it's at right now, right where it's like, we're

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Speaker 1: developing this so that like maybe a person who's missing

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Speaker 1: a limb can move a robotic limb with their mind,

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Speaker 1: but the application moves on from there. Right there, a

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Speaker 1: person with their mind could control a missile or something. Now,

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Speaker 1: it's important note that nowadays very few people call themselves

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Speaker 1: cyberneticists in the you know, the original sense of the word,

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Speaker 1: because cybernetics kind of petered out as a scientific discipline

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Speaker 1: for a few different reasons. So it branched off into

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Speaker 1: more promising fields of cognitive science and robotics, but it

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Speaker 1: also lost on funding. It couldn't deal with the ultimate

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Speaker 1: gap between organic and mechanic mechanisms of control and communication.

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Speaker 1: And the first cyborg recorded in history was a white

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Speaker 1: lab rat that was experimented on at New York's Rockland

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Speaker 1: State Hospital in the late fifties, so that's a good

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Speaker 1: ten years after Winer's making his proposals, uh, And basically

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Speaker 1: it had a tiny osmatic pump that was implanted inside

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Speaker 1: its body that injected controlled the control old doses of

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Speaker 1: chemicals into it to sort of regulate its physical systems.

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Speaker 1: And of course this is interesting though because it then

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Speaker 1: again draws this back to what is a cyboard because

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Speaker 1: perhaps you could because just mentioning the pharmaceuticals, like the

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Speaker 1: first human to take a drug, be it you know,

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Speaker 1: something that I've found in woods or certainly are our

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Speaker 1: modern pharmacological world, like that is kind of inherently cybernetic.

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Speaker 1: You're changing who you are and and creating this new,

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Speaker 1: perhaps ideal, idealized version of who you are. So I'm

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Speaker 1: on a penny dreadful kick, as as you guys out

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Speaker 1: there might know, I've been talking about it a lot

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Speaker 1: on the show lately. And uh, there's this great quote

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Speaker 1: where the Victor Frankenstein on the show is a drug

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Speaker 1: addict and he's I'm assuming it's harrowin or some opiate

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Speaker 1: that he's constantly injecting into himself. He gives this big

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Speaker 1: speech about why it's okay because basically the body is

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Speaker 1: just a bunch of biological and chemicot chemical processes and

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Speaker 1: all he's doing is either accelerating or decelerating those processes

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Speaker 1: with the you know, the narcotics. He's a lying to himself.

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Speaker 1: So you can sort of look at drug use in

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Speaker 1: general as cybernetics. As you're saying, Yeah, indeed, all right,

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Speaker 1: now at this point in the narrative, we're going to

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Speaker 1: fast forward to nineteen sixty. Now important note here this

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Speaker 1: is a year before Earth put the first human being

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Speaker 1: in space, or more specifically, you know, Soviet Union put

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Speaker 1: the first thing in space. But yeah, it's especially important

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Speaker 1: because what we're going to be talking about is a

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Speaker 1: paper proposed by manfred E Kleines and Nathan S. Klein.

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Speaker 1: They have very similar lesson insformer with the C ladder

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Speaker 1: with a K and it's called cyb worgs in space.

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Speaker 1: And I know that sounds like it would be a joke,

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Speaker 1: but hey, it was in nineteen sixty and they were

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Speaker 1: pitching a legitimate idea for making space travel easier. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and pitching an overall idea, specific ideas and sort of

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Speaker 1: a philosophy of how to approach taking humans into space.

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Speaker 1: Because the model that ultimately one out and the model

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Speaker 1: we're still using today, we've put sending humans to stay.

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Speaker 1: It is like, all right, look at the human being,

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Speaker 1: Look at Homo sapiens. This is an organism that is

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Speaker 1: evolved not only to live on Earth, but to live

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Speaker 1: in a very slim layer of Earth's atmosphere under certain conditions.

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Speaker 1: We can't. There's places on Earth where we go and

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Speaker 1: we die. So the environmental constraints are very important for

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Speaker 1: human life. So what we've been doing is we've been

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Speaker 1: taking humans and sending them into space in a capsualized

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Speaker 1: version of their own environment, or as much as one

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Speaker 1: as we can manage to replicate Earth's environment, and take

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Speaker 1: that replication with us. Yeah, it's and in a way,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of like I'm gonna move from Ohio to Florida,

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Speaker 1: but I'm going to make sure that I have all

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Speaker 1: I'm bringing Ohio with me, and it's going to be

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Speaker 1: like an encapsulated Ohio in flier. Yeah. You dig up

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Speaker 1: like a chunk of Ohio and then move it to

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Speaker 1: Florida and plant it there. My thermostat is always going

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Speaker 1: to keep things Ohio. Um so what clines incline where

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Speaker 1: are doing here? Is that? Well? How about we we

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Speaker 1: do the the opposite. How about instead of bringing Ohio

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Speaker 1: to Florida, what is as much as is humanly possible

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Speaker 1: or or trans humanly possible, you become a Floridian? What events?

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Speaker 1: To what extent can we take a human send them

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Speaker 1: into space and change the human so that they can

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Speaker 1: actually live in space, or at least they can better

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Speaker 1: manage what is an imperfect representation of Earth's environment and

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Speaker 1: what we're getting at here too. And those of you

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Speaker 1: out there who are sci fi fans are probably well

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Speaker 1: aware of this, But this is a trope that has

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Speaker 1: been used in science fiction, probably before these guys pitched

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Speaker 1: this idea. But but sort of the am I man

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Speaker 1: or am I machine? Conundrum? And where you know, where

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Speaker 1: do I begin? And where does the machine and kind

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Speaker 1: of thing that we've seen in pop culture fiction for

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Speaker 1: decades now, right. But but these guys, what's fast adating

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Speaker 1: to me about this is they pitched this whole thing

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Speaker 1: about like this is a great way to go to space,

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Speaker 1: and there's not one moment where they think about the

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Speaker 1: ethical quandary of like what's left over of the human

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Speaker 1: being that they're putting all this stuff. Well, they do,

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Speaker 1: and I think part of it is, you know, you

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Speaker 1: have to to to bear in mind like the time period,

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Speaker 1: you know, because putting humans in space was instill it

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Speaker 1: still is a just tremendously difficult endeavor. And they were saying, hey,

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Speaker 1: you want to climb the mountain, here's a way, here

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Speaker 1: are some possibilities. This is these are some ways you

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Speaker 1: can climb the mountain. And you know, it's it's very

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Speaker 1: matter of fact. Now granted we've we've steered away from

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Speaker 1: from what they outlined, but but you know, I still

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Speaker 1: think it's a it's a valid argument. Um, maybe it's

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Speaker 1: an argument that ultimately defeats the idea of sending humans

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Speaker 1: into space. Uh, you know, long term, but are they

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Speaker 1: human anymore? Right or right side word? Or if you're

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Speaker 1: having to make all these changes to the human body,

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Speaker 1: like does it? Then why are you doing it? To

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Speaker 1: begin with? They're saying that this is a means to

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Speaker 1: an end, that if you want humans to go into space,

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Speaker 1: if you want us to expand beyond this world, then

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Speaker 1: you have to change what humans are. And this is

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Speaker 1: a means to an end. Not that we want to

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Speaker 1: become cyborgs, but if this is what you want to be,

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Speaker 1: this is what you have to Transcending Earth's boundaries are

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Speaker 1: the most important thing for us, and we should be

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Speaker 1: willing to commit these acts. Um. And the way that

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Speaker 1: they start is with a very basic idea, which is respiration. Right,

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Speaker 1: we we breathe uh, And they say, well, you know,

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Speaker 1: for instance, you wear scuba masks when you go swimming underwater.

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Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you you know, change your respiration somehow for

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Speaker 1: outer space. Their example or metaphor, I guess, is what

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Speaker 1: if a fish was intelligent enough to engineer itself something

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Speaker 1: that allowed it to live on land and breathe air.

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Speaker 1: And what was fascinating to me about that was I

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Speaker 1: probably talked about this on the show before at least

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Speaker 1: talk to you about it. There's this really great Japanese

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Speaker 1: manga horror called Geo that's all about fish climbing up

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Speaker 1: out of the ocean and they're like strapped into these

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Speaker 1: exoskeletons that like keep them alive, and they scuttle around

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Speaker 1: and attack people, and it is one of the most

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Speaker 1: horrifying images I can ever think of. So these guys

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Speaker 1: back in nineteen sixty, we're basically pitching that and saying like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: let's do that. But but to human beings, uh. And

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Speaker 1: it comes down to efficiency, right, Like these guys were

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Speaker 1: ultimately about efficiently getting into space, especially when you consider,

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Speaker 1: and we've talked about this before, especially on our Space

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Speaker 1: Mirrors episode or or also our episode about space weapons,

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Speaker 1: how tremendously expensive it is to propel any mass in

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Speaker 1: outer space, right, And they talk about human fuel as

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Speaker 1: being sort of a detriment. And when they say human fuel,

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Speaker 1: what they mean is precisely ten pounds per day, and

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Speaker 1: that's two pounds of oxygen to breathe, four pounds of

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Speaker 1: fluids to dre and four pounds of food to eat.

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Speaker 1: So that's the way that they look at it is

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Speaker 1: like the same way that you would look at like, well,

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Speaker 1: we need fuel for our space shuttle, right, and how

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Speaker 1: much that way is and how much it will cost

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Speaker 1: to fly that up. They're considering the human fuel. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's ultimately like the human engineering problem. It's not

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Speaker 1: only the engineering problem of the vessel, but the just

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Speaker 1: the engineering problem of the human. Yeah, and space. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I gotta say, like I wrote an episode for our

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Speaker 1: video series brain Stuff one time that was all about

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Speaker 1: what space would do to the human body and all

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Speaker 1: the horrible ways in which you would die if you

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Speaker 1: were just exposed to uh space without a suit or

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Speaker 1: anything like that. And it's it's pretty vicious. Uh So

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Speaker 1: for them, what they were looking at was not just

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Speaker 1: the purpose of the cyborg as being to mitigate those effects,

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Speaker 1: but also to take care of those problems automatically and unconsciously,

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Speaker 1: right that the cyborg wouldn't be thinking about doing it

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Speaker 1: as they were doing it. And this is this paper

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Speaker 1: is where the word si board comes from. They coined it.

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Speaker 1: So um as we're talking about their their work here,

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Speaker 1: realized that these guys are the granddaddies of all the

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Speaker 1: ridiculous or um you know, real world ideas that come

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Speaker 1: out of it. But we can see that we're already

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Speaker 1: getting away from Winer's idea of cyborg just being about

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Speaker 1: the flow of information. So I'm gonna read a quick

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Speaker 1: quote from Cyborgs and Space to just give you a

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Speaker 1: taste here, Uh feel like muppet style like Cyborgs and Space, Well,

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Speaker 1: maybe no one can put some sort of echo hopefully.

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Speaker 1: Quote what are some of the devices necessary for creating

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Speaker 1: self regulating man machine systems. This self regulation must function

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Speaker 1: without the benefit of consciousness in order to cooperate with

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Speaker 1: the body's own autonomous homeostatic controls. For the exo genuously

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Speaker 1: extended organizational complex functioning as an integrated homeostatic system unconsciously,

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Speaker 1: we propose the term cyboord work. The cyborg deliberately incorporates

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Speaker 1: exogeneous components, extending the self regulatory control function of the

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Speaker 1: organism in order to adapt to new environments. So that's

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Speaker 1: basically their thesis statement. They're starting off and saying like,

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Speaker 1: all right, this is what we're proposing. May seem a

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Speaker 1: little outlandish, but here, let us give you some examples.

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Speaker 1: And when you read through the document, they they go

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Speaker 1: through one by one of like, here's some cool things

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Speaker 1: we could do to the human body. Right. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: a very readable document, so i'mcouraged one that's interested to

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Speaker 1: seek it out for themselves. Include a link on the

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Speaker 1: landing page of this episode. But some of the ideas

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Speaker 1: that they roll out involved the following. First off, drug

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Speaker 1: induced wakefulness, which is actually this is one of the

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Speaker 1: things that we see utilized in modern human space travel.

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Speaker 1: Uh and and this next one calls back to that

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Speaker 1: white rat. They want to implant osmatic pressure pump capsules

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Speaker 1: in the body that could sense and control mechanisms to

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Speaker 1: automatically administer everything from astronauts speed to hibernation in dou

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Speaker 1: seeing pituitary drugs. So and it's and certainly some of these,

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Speaker 1: um these pharmaceutical products are are utilized by astronauts, but

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Speaker 1: this would be a situation where they wouldn't have to

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Speaker 1: think about taking it. It It would just happen to their body.

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Speaker 1: What astronauts speed is, um I just sounds like the

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Speaker 1: best speed, but it's dried. It's like it's like astronite

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Speaker 1: ice cream. Yeah, well they're gonna get the good stuff.

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Speaker 1: Um I get a blog post years back off, I

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Speaker 1: have to link to it on the landing page for

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Speaker 1: this episode because there was a list available of the

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Speaker 1: various pharmaceuticals that are available, say on board a space

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Speaker 1: shuttle or then space Shuttle or the I S s okay, alright.

426
00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:46,560
Speaker 1: The next recommendation replaced the lung with inverse fuel cells.

427
00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:50,720
Speaker 1: They also talked about altering plumbing our bodies plumbing. I'm assuming,

428
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:53,800
Speaker 1: uh so that wastewater goes through a filter and right

429
00:23:53,840 --> 00:23:55,879
Speaker 1: back into your blood. Sounds kind of like a still

430
00:23:55,920 --> 00:24:00,000
Speaker 1: suit to me. Yeah, yeah, definitely, like a like a bioengineer.

431
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:03,480
Speaker 1: It's still suit. They also talked about enzyme tinkering to

432
00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:08,520
Speaker 1: create anaerobic organisms, in other words, astronauts that don't require

433
00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:12,280
Speaker 1: air or can live in different atmospheres. They would also

434
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:15,840
Speaker 1: drain your ear fluid or fill them up to cope

435
00:24:15,840 --> 00:24:22,480
Speaker 1: with weightlessness. Also electronic electric slash drug cardigo, vascular control

436
00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:26,080
Speaker 1: drugs that would prevent muscle atrophy. I wonder if that's

437
00:24:26,280 --> 00:24:28,120
Speaker 1: I don't know enough about that topic, but I wonder

438
00:24:28,160 --> 00:24:32,200
Speaker 1: if that's something they do. Um, I haven't. I looked

439
00:24:32,200 --> 00:24:34,400
Speaker 1: at the research recently, but it's still that's the course,

440
00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:36,800
Speaker 1: still very much in an area of interest. It seems

441
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:38,359
Speaker 1: like it would be, especially those guys who are up

442
00:24:38,359 --> 00:24:40,800
Speaker 1: there for like a year at a time. Uh. They've

443
00:24:40,840 --> 00:24:44,840
Speaker 1: also talked about lower press body pressure engineering lower body

444
00:24:44,840 --> 00:24:47,919
Speaker 1: pressure in the human body kind of I like to

445
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:51,639
Speaker 1: think to facilitate naked spacewalks kind of sort of but

446
00:24:51,760 --> 00:24:55,040
Speaker 1: essentially saying, all right, we can't maybe we can't actually

447
00:24:55,040 --> 00:24:56,639
Speaker 1: put a person out there in the void because the

448
00:24:56,720 --> 00:24:59,119
Speaker 1: void is just I mean, the void is death. Uh,

449
00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 1: and it's maybe we can make the human body a

450
00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:06,479
Speaker 1: little less you know, explosion e god. Yeah, yeah, space

451
00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:11,520
Speaker 1: does not space will kill you. Uh. Engineering of a

452
00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:16,240
Speaker 1: light sensitive, chemically regulated system which would adjust to its

453
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:20,240
Speaker 1: own reflectance so as to maintain the temperature desires. We're

454
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:26,320
Speaker 1: basically talking about like a uh light regulation system of

455
00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 1: of of the temperature of the body. And that's another thing,

456
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:31,760
Speaker 1: because like space can go from like being like incredibly

457
00:25:31,840 --> 00:25:35,439
Speaker 1: hot to being so cold it'll freeze you dead. Uh

458
00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:37,800
Speaker 1: it just in the blink of a shadow, right. Yeah.

459
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:41,720
Speaker 1: You need to be able to absorb solar radiation when necessary,

460
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:43,800
Speaker 1: but also to reflect it when it's just going to

461
00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:47,160
Speaker 1: cook it. Yeah. Wow, I'm trying to imagine what this

462
00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:50,240
Speaker 1: cyborg would look like. I wonder if I wonder if

463
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:53,160
Speaker 1: over the years, if anybody has like taken their recipe

464
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:57,160
Speaker 1: for the space cyborg and like developed that out somehow

465
00:25:57,200 --> 00:25:59,520
Speaker 1: and to some fan art or something like that. I

466
00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:01,239
Speaker 1: don't know, I would I would love to see it.

467
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:05,000
Speaker 1: One piece of fiction that that always comes to mind

468
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:07,280
Speaker 1: when I when I think about this paper was a

469
00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:11,680
Speaker 1: Clifford Semic novel that came out called The Werewolf Principle

470
00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:17,160
Speaker 1: Um And it's essentially a space werewolf story. But the

471
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:20,960
Speaker 1: the idea here is that we engineered human that would

472
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:24,040
Speaker 1: go into space and would rapidly adapt to life on

473
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:27,480
Speaker 1: other worlds. And uh so the space traveler goes to

474
00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 1: other worlds, adapts into these different forms that allow him

475
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:34,040
Speaker 1: to live in these strange environments, and then when he

476
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:37,600
Speaker 1: returns to Earth, he will sometimes shift into these forms.

477
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:40,520
Speaker 1: So he's changing into a quote unquote werewolf. But the

478
00:26:40,520 --> 00:26:43,720
Speaker 1: werewolf is actually a form that he adapted in another

479
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:45,959
Speaker 1: world another in order to live there, and it's no

480
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:50,720
Speaker 1: longer acceptable in Earth's environment and society, right like because

481
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:53,520
Speaker 1: he probably makes them eat people or something. Yeah, it's

482
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:54,800
Speaker 1: been a while since I've read it, but it's a

483
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:59,520
Speaker 1: pretty trippy book. It has also has flying houses and

484
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:04,240
Speaker 1: brown as in like the little fairies, those brownies, because

485
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 1: it just turns out that, oh yeah, brownies exist. Like

486
00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:09,320
Speaker 1: it's like like humans advanced to the point where they

487
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:11,520
Speaker 1: realize they realize, oh yeah, there are brownies. They live

488
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:14,360
Speaker 1: out there in the woods and occasionally we can glimpse them. Yeah,

489
00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 1: this does sound fascinating. All right, all right, so needles

490
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 1: to say, as we already pointed out, NASA did not

491
00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:27,040
Speaker 1: take all these recommendations to heart. And um, so there's

492
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:30,840
Speaker 1: a certain amount of space between cyborgs and space and

493
00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:35,280
Speaker 1: where we are in the Atlantic magazines Alexis c Magical

494
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:38,560
Speaker 1: caught up with the co author Manford Eclines back in

495
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 1: two thousand ten, and by the way, as of this recording,

496
00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:45,800
Speaker 1: Clients is still kicking at age ninety. This climbs with

497
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:48,879
Speaker 1: a c uh. One of the things that Madigal points

498
00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:52,760
Speaker 1: out is that many uses of cyborgs seem to view

499
00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 1: that the human machine hybrid as as an end point,

500
00:27:56,119 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 1: so like we're gonna get to the point where we

501
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 1: become the cyborg uh and and and maybe as a

502
00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:05,080
Speaker 1: compromise as well. But Clients saw it as as that

503
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:07,760
Speaker 1: means to the to an end quote a way of

504
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:12,600
Speaker 1: enlarging the human experience. Yeah, I highly recommend if you're

505
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:14,919
Speaker 1: interested in what we're talking about in this episode, go

506
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:18,800
Speaker 1: hunt down Madrigals Atlantic piece. It's really interesting basically what

507
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:21,440
Speaker 1: he gets out from talking with clients that Kleins saw

508
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 1: cybe words as a means to enlarging the human experience.

509
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:28,359
Speaker 1: It wasn't just about space for him, and he was

510
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:32,880
Speaker 1: focused in particular on expanding our brains relationship with the world.

511
00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:35,160
Speaker 1: And to me, like I wrote in my notes, isn't

512
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:37,600
Speaker 1: that trans humanism? Like this guy sounds like he's the

513
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 1: father of trans humanism to me. Uh And and I

514
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 1: know out there a lot of people have been asking

515
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 1: us to do an episode. I think we're gonna if

516
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:47,120
Speaker 1: we do, we're gonna have to do a two parter

517
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:49,960
Speaker 1: on trans humanism. It's just such a deep topic just

518
00:28:50,880 --> 00:28:54,920
Speaker 1: out and it's like this clearly interests us uh And

519
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 1: so his focus after the whole you know, space proposal,

520
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:04,640
Speaker 1: was on humans communicating without words, because, as he put it,

521
00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 1: language is messy and ambiguous. And what struck me about

522
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 1: this is if if you know anything about like in

523
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 1: the sixties, around this time that he was making these proposals.

524
00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:20,280
Speaker 1: This is when post structuralism really erupted in communications studies

525
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 1: and linguistics. And it's essentially, you know, it's oh god.

526
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 1: I can't simplify post structuralism into one sentence, but I

527
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:31,320
Speaker 1: would say his statement of because language is messy and

528
00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 1: ambiguous is a nice lead in for post structuralism. So

529
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:38,480
Speaker 1: he was thinking about cyborg ways to get us there,

530
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:42,440
Speaker 1: and that leads us to Donna Harroway eventually. But he

531
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 1: also did he invented this machine that he talks to

532
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 1: Madrigal about called the Computer of Average Transience. And apparently

533
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 1: what this thing did was cancel noise impulses in the

534
00:29:54,520 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 1: brain and translated them into averages of their impulses. Um.

535
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:04,000
Speaker 1: And the argument is basically like when we're talking about

536
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 1: these electrical impulses that he means language, like how language

537
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 1: is encoded in the brain. Uh, but words don't have averages, right.

538
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 1: You can't say, like, the word cyborg is five point six,

539
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 1: so let's round it up to six, right, or or

540
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:23,400
Speaker 1: or the average of you know, in between whatever two

541
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:26,520
Speaker 1: different numbers gives you a number in between, it gives

542
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:30,440
Speaker 1: you a word in between two words. Right. Um, So

543
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 1: he's not only does it seem like he is talking

544
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 1: about trans humanism at a very early age, and he's

545
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:41,280
Speaker 1: talking about post structuralism, but then he's talking about math

546
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 1: as language, which is really interesting. Yeah, and and certainly

547
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 1: essential to any kind of bridge between organic So yeah, definitely, yeah,

548
00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:54,520
Speaker 1: which leads us it both connects back to Weiner's whole

549
00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:57,720
Speaker 1: flow of information thing about being a cyborg, but then

550
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 1: leads us further down the road of sort of the

551
00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:04,160
Speaker 1: philosophy of what it would mean to be a cyborg. Indeed,

552
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 1: so we've already touched on, you know, a little bit

553
00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 1: on on what we call a cyborg. You know, the

554
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:12,160
Speaker 1: blind man with a cane, a monkey with the stick, glasses,

555
00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:16,080
Speaker 1: contact lenses. Um I would, And as I said, virtually

556
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 1: all tool use counts, like not only because we're picking

557
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:20,760
Speaker 1: up and using something, but it all a lot of

558
00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 1: it comes down to our body scheme, our brains conception

559
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:26,520
Speaker 1: of our body's position in space. Uh, you know, just

560
00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 1: that alone entails some pretty complex mental processing, you know,

561
00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:31,960
Speaker 1: just to say this is where I am, this is

562
00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:34,160
Speaker 1: this is the space around me, and I have kind

563
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:35,960
Speaker 1: of like this virtual version of it in my head

564
00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:38,800
Speaker 1: of and a virtual idea of what my body consists of,

565
00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:41,400
Speaker 1: what are its limits? Uh? You know, what are my

566
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:45,640
Speaker 1: limits of control? So our brains are constantly processing sense

567
00:31:45,720 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 1: feedback to establish where our limbs are at any given moment.

568
00:31:49,400 --> 00:31:51,520
Speaker 1: And here's the crazy part. When we wield a hammer,

569
00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:54,880
Speaker 1: when we wield a sword, when we you know, use

570
00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:57,600
Speaker 1: one of those reachy clothing e's to get a can

571
00:31:57,680 --> 00:32:01,760
Speaker 1: off of a shelf extensions, Yeah, our body scheme updates

572
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:05,480
Speaker 1: to include that as part of our bodies. So on

573
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:10,760
Speaker 1: a very like neuroscientific level, we're we're already cyborgs. And likewise,

574
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:15,040
Speaker 1: our memory adapts to use the internet via transactive memory,

575
00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 1: we effortlessly outsource the remembrance of data. This is something

576
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:21,880
Speaker 1: that I thought about a lot as we were researching

577
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:26,040
Speaker 1: this episode that, uh, I don't know about you or

578
00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:29,280
Speaker 1: the listeners, but I have definitely found in the last

579
00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 1: ten to fifteen years that like, not only do I

580
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 1: have more information available at my fingertips than I ever

581
00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:41,640
Speaker 1: would have before, but at the same time, like, because

582
00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:43,880
Speaker 1: my brain only has so much RAM, I have to

583
00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:46,840
Speaker 1: offload some of that into the cloud, right And I'm like, well,

584
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:49,320
Speaker 1: I can't particularly remember that right now, I'll put it

585
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:53,240
Speaker 1: in Google Docs, or I'll I'll let Wikipedia hold onto

586
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 1: that for me for now, and I won't memorize. I

587
00:32:55,920 --> 00:33:01,520
Speaker 1: don't know, like, uh, you know where Rod Stewart's from

588
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:05,280
Speaker 1: something some like casual bit of trivial knowledge. Yeah, it's

589
00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:09,120
Speaker 1: the same phenomenon that would have that allows or enables

590
00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 1: like one member of a you know, romantic compulse. The

591
00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:16,160
Speaker 1: couple say to forget like an important date. They forget

592
00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:18,560
Speaker 1: it because I'm like a subconscious level they know the

593
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:21,720
Speaker 1: other individual will remember it. So why should It's just

594
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 1: pure economics, right, Why should all members of this group

595
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:29,480
Speaker 1: of of interconnected humans a part of this network? Why

596
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:32,800
Speaker 1: should all nodes on the network carry that data? It

597
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:36,120
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense they should collectively carry it. Yeah. Absolutely,

598
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 1: And subsequently we end up with ICL or Google Calendar

599
00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 1: or whatever your your platform of choice. Yes. Right. If

600
00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:44,480
Speaker 1: you want to know what it's like to have a

601
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 1: cybernetic implant in your brain, you already have it. It's

602
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 1: called spell check. I was on my way to work

603
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:51,520
Speaker 1: this morning. I'm on the train riding and my phone

604
00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:54,200
Speaker 1: buzzes and I pick it up, like, oh, this is

605
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:56,520
Speaker 1: a text message. Nope, it was my phone reminding me

606
00:33:56,560 --> 00:33:58,800
Speaker 1: that we were recording this episode this morning because it's

607
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 1: on my calendar. And of course this isn't even getting

608
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:04,240
Speaker 1: into the whole realm of say, biomedical implants, etcetera. Yeah,

609
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:09,200
Speaker 1: I mean Cline's Incline had a very particular obsession. And

610
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:11,000
Speaker 1: again we go back to this. We talked about it

611
00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:14,880
Speaker 1: with with Minor right, that there's an obsession for science

612
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:19,640
Speaker 1: in the military with this combination of machine and man,

613
00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 1: and what it comes down to is how can we

614
00:34:22,680 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 1: escape our annoying bodies? Basically, right, and uh and man,

615
00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:31,800
Speaker 1: this was a great time for ideas. Uh. Not only

616
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:34,759
Speaker 1: does their paper coincide with the you know what I

617
00:34:34,760 --> 00:34:37,560
Speaker 1: was talking about with post structuralism, but it also coincides

618
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:39,719
Speaker 1: with something so completely on the other side of it,

619
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:42,480
Speaker 1: which is the Silver Age of comic books. Uh. And

620
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 1: in particular, you know, I'm not going to go into

621
00:34:45,239 --> 00:34:48,439
Speaker 1: a whole rant about the Silver Age and explain comics,

622
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:52,319
Speaker 1: but the Silver Age was very much about superheroes that

623
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:56,800
Speaker 1: were science oriented, that we're sort of above and beyond

624
00:34:57,080 --> 00:34:59,200
Speaker 1: what the human body could do, right, and so like

625
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:02,080
Speaker 1: the first Silver Age superhero character is often cited as

626
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:05,400
Speaker 1: being the Flash, and of course the the dream of

627
00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:07,880
Speaker 1: the flash, right, is that he can move faster. He

628
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 1: can do everything faster than we can because oh, these

629
00:35:11,080 --> 00:35:14,879
Speaker 1: bodies are so slow, they're limited, right. Uh. And it's

630
00:35:14,920 --> 00:35:17,680
Speaker 1: bringing industry and man together in a way that it

631
00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 1: sounds like the military was very interested in this was

632
00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:24,799
Speaker 1: when we get into uh clients incline. Their paper had

633
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:27,960
Speaker 1: a lot of influence in millions of US Air Force

634
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 1: dollars were spent developing exoskeletons, robot arms, biofeedback devices, and more.

635
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:36,879
Speaker 1: I mean, we are obsessed with this dream. That's why

636
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:41,480
Speaker 1: it showed up in our pop culture over and over again. Uh,

637
00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:45,239
Speaker 1: the six million dollar Man, the Bionic Woman. Right. I

638
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:47,399
Speaker 1: think if we were both a little older, like those

639
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:50,239
Speaker 1: would be the examples. Yeah, yeah for me, Like, uh,

640
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:53,480
Speaker 1: you know you mentioned RoboCop. I think of like, um,

641
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:56,680
Speaker 1: surely Star Trek and Doctor who had their own iterations

642
00:35:56,719 --> 00:35:59,719
Speaker 1: of cyborgs. But and again, like it was, it ultimately

643
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 1: comes down to that whole like uh, like they're they're

644
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:06,000
Speaker 1: agonizing over the am I Man or am I Machine.

645
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:09,399
Speaker 1: Where do I you know, where do I exist? In comics? Uh?

646
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:12,240
Speaker 1: This character that was just recently portrayed by Paul Bettany

647
00:36:12,239 --> 00:36:15,680
Speaker 1: in the Avengers movie, the Vision is an android and

648
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:19,560
Speaker 1: he there's this classic comic book cover with the Vision

649
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:26,200
Speaker 1: and it says even an android can cry. Uh. Yeah,

650
00:36:26,200 --> 00:36:27,719
Speaker 1: I mean it all comes down to, you know, to

651
00:36:27,719 --> 00:36:30,880
Speaker 1: to what extent is a is a cyborg either an

652
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:34,240
Speaker 1: advancement of the human condition, a lessening of the human condition,

653
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:37,480
Speaker 1: or somewhere nicely neutral in the middle. Yeah. I want

654
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:39,879
Speaker 1: to mention one more thing from that Atlantic piece. Uh.

655
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:44,600
Speaker 1: The authors spoke with Clins and Climbs presented just another

656
00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:47,480
Speaker 1: wonderful example of what it might mean to be a

657
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:50,760
Speaker 1: cyborg and what it means to perhaps you know, already

658
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:54,239
Speaker 1: be a cyborg. And that he presented the example of

659
00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:58,359
Speaker 1: a cyborg implant that's part of our naturally occurring anatomy.

660
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:00,880
Speaker 1: I'd never heard of this before. This is really I

661
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:03,640
Speaker 1: was like, oh, wow, that's creepy. I'll give you a

662
00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:05,800
Speaker 1: second to see if you can guess what it does. Listeners,

663
00:37:06,800 --> 00:37:09,480
Speaker 1: it's the lens of the eye. I'm going to read

664
00:37:09,480 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 1: the quote. The lens is not in any way part

665
00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:16,000
Speaker 1: of the body except that it happens to be there.

666
00:37:16,200 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 1: In fact, it has no normal blood supply. It does

667
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:22,600
Speaker 1: have liquid surrounding it, but there's no blood supply, because

668
00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:25,400
Speaker 1: if you had blood going through the lens, you wouldn't

669
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:28,120
Speaker 1: see too well. Nature has taken care of it. The

670
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:31,960
Speaker 1: biological control and invention of the lens is a beautiful

671
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:36,880
Speaker 1: and fantastic thing. Yeah. And he the way he talks

672
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:39,000
Speaker 1: about it, he and I don't know if this is

673
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:42,480
Speaker 1: the author of the Atlantic piece or Clients himself, but

674
00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:46,120
Speaker 1: basically says that our control over the lens of our

675
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 1: eye is the nearest thing that we have to telekinesis. Wow. Yeah,

676
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:55,600
Speaker 1: because we're talking. You know, it's a conscious movement of

677
00:37:55,640 --> 00:37:58,279
Speaker 1: the body, but it's the only one not tied to

678
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:01,200
Speaker 1: the brain by neural feedback. You see either results of thinking.

679
00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:03,640
Speaker 1: It's something you're thinking at it and it happens, but

680
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:07,560
Speaker 1: there's no muscular feedback from from those muscles that activate

681
00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:09,839
Speaker 1: the curvature of the lens. It's exactly what they were

682
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:12,319
Speaker 1: talking about with their whole space proposal, right, that we

683
00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:15,560
Speaker 1: have no knowledge of it operating automatically on its own,

684
00:38:16,120 --> 00:38:18,399
Speaker 1: and just because we think a thing, it happens. There's

685
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:21,400
Speaker 1: no feedback, and it's just it just does it thinks

686
00:38:21,600 --> 00:38:24,879
Speaker 1: and that big gun pops out of it, right, Yeah,

687
00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:26,520
Speaker 1: all right, we're gonna take a quick break and when

688
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:30,200
Speaker 1: we come back we will launch into some ethical quandaries

689
00:38:30,200 --> 00:38:34,160
Speaker 1: about cyborgs and into even indeed into the idea of

690
00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:44,920
Speaker 1: cyborg feminism. All right, we're back and we're gonna talk

691
00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:49,440
Speaker 1: a little bit about cyborg ethics. Um, there is a

692
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:53,000
Speaker 1: British cyberneticist by the name of Kevin Warwick, and a

693
00:38:53,120 --> 00:38:56,320
Speaker 1: number of you that follow sort of trans human topics,

694
00:38:56,680 --> 00:38:58,880
Speaker 1: you may be familiar with him thanks to his series

695
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:03,040
Speaker 1: of Captain cyborg experiments, and he's generally involved like placing

696
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:05,839
Speaker 1: chips in his body and sort of exploring you know,

697
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 1: early examples of what it is to be a human

698
00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:11,480
Speaker 1: cyborg based on you know, curcuitry. But he's also done

699
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:15,040
Speaker 1: some thinking about the ethics of it. Particularly he's he's

700
00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:18,840
Speaker 1: asked if humans will one day be required to upgrade

701
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 1: to a cybernetic state to become cyborgs, or if they'll

702
00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:25,359
Speaker 1: be be able to live their lives in a primitive state,

703
00:39:25,400 --> 00:39:28,239
Speaker 1: which he likens to that of a chimpanzee living in

704
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 1: the shadow of a human. I imagine that that is

705
00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:34,239
Speaker 1: probably like the the heart flutter that a lot of

706
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 1: people had when Google Glass hit the scene a couple

707
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:40,200
Speaker 1: of years ago. I remember like, oh god, I'm gonna

708
00:39:40,280 --> 00:39:43,799
Speaker 1: have to wear that to interact with society. No, no,

709
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:46,279
Speaker 1: I'll go live on a farm somewhere and I will

710
00:39:46,320 --> 00:39:48,839
Speaker 1: not participate in Google Glass. And luckily it didn't pan

711
00:39:48,880 --> 00:39:51,080
Speaker 1: out for anybody. It's kind of like when you encounter

712
00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:55,239
Speaker 1: somebody who doesn't have a smartphone, and which is to

713
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:58,279
Speaker 1: a large extent, I applaud those individuals who who do that,

714
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:01,759
Speaker 1: but you also you sort of act yourself like how

715
00:40:01,760 --> 00:40:04,080
Speaker 1: do you how do you live your life like that? How?

716
00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:07,319
Speaker 1: You know? How? Like we grow so accustomed to being

717
00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:09,799
Speaker 1: just constantly plugged in, and when we're not plugged in,

718
00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:12,160
Speaker 1: it it takes something out of you. Like when I

719
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 1: went on vacation at the beginning of the year and

720
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:18,040
Speaker 1: my smartphone didn't work for a week. It was a

721
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:21,400
Speaker 1: little panicky. I was. I felt a little panicky at first.

722
00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:24,880
Speaker 1: I had to sort of adjust to this new freedom

723
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:28,319
Speaker 1: of not being shackled to this device and all augmentation.

724
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:31,000
Speaker 1: I remember being in my early twenties and I didn't

725
00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:33,840
Speaker 1: have a cell phone, and I was like, I hate

726
00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:35,960
Speaker 1: that everybody's on these cell phones all the time and

727
00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 1: they just walk around and talk in and texting and

728
00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:41,080
Speaker 1: not paying attention to the world around them. And I

729
00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:43,279
Speaker 1: said something to a friend one time, like I'll never

730
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:45,600
Speaker 1: get a cell phone until they can implant them in

731
00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:49,520
Speaker 1: your skull. And then like, you know, cut to fifteen

732
00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:52,320
Speaker 1: years later, and I've got a smartphone just like everybody else,

733
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:56,439
Speaker 1: and it is kind of implanting exactly. It pretty much is. Yeah,

734
00:40:56,640 --> 00:40:59,239
Speaker 1: but a lot of individuals have have have studied, have

735
00:40:59,360 --> 00:41:02,600
Speaker 1: written about idea of cyborg ethics. One cool paper that

736
00:41:02,640 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 1: we ran across is one titled Cyborgs and Moral Identity

737
00:41:06,760 --> 00:41:09,800
Speaker 1: by Grant Gillette, published in two thousand six in the

738
00:41:09,880 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 1: Journal of Medical Ethics, and it explored several different ethical

739
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:17,600
Speaker 1: cyborg quandaries. Uh, it's a fun paper, very redal. The

740
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 1: author lays out some quote unquote fanciful cases. They often

741
00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:24,400
Speaker 1: kind of tread into black mirror kind of territory. I'm

742
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:26,520
Speaker 1: glad that you noticed that as well. Yeah. As I

743
00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:28,600
Speaker 1: was reading through it, I was like, man, this guy

744
00:41:28,680 --> 00:41:32,839
Speaker 1: is just pitching Black Mirror episode after episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

745
00:41:32,960 --> 00:41:35,480
Speaker 1: And they all kind of come down to the same question,

746
00:41:35,600 --> 00:41:39,920
Speaker 1: if we cybernetically enhance a human, if we cybernetically enhance

747
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:43,080
Speaker 1: the brain. Then to what extent is the resulting mind,

748
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 1: the resulting person still human some of the some of

749
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:50,040
Speaker 1: the exam I'm gonna roll through some of the examples here. Um,

750
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:52,160
Speaker 1: I'm not your favorite. One is the last one. Yeah,

751
00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:53,440
Speaker 1: the last one is the one we'll talk about in

752
00:41:53,520 --> 00:41:56,719
Speaker 1: more death because that's the problem, right. So he discussed

753
00:41:56,760 --> 00:42:00,200
Speaker 1: discusses neuro reconstruction of a three year old. Sever your

754
00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:02,719
Speaker 1: brain injury. It ends up changing who the three year

755
00:42:02,719 --> 00:42:05,000
Speaker 1: old is, but the three old, the three year old

756
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:07,839
Speaker 1: gets tooked to live, okay, And I think most people

757
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:09,880
Speaker 1: can get okay with that one because it's like you

758
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:13,400
Speaker 1: saved a life, right, and it's not perfect, but you

759
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:16,799
Speaker 1: saved alright. The next one cybernetic eyes for the blind,

760
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 1: the Jordy leafage scenario. Everybody's cool with Jordy. Another one,

761
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:25,120
Speaker 1: extensive brain injury and then replacement with micro networks. So

762
00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:30,000
Speaker 1: this is like the natural evolution of brain computer interfaces. Yeah,

763
00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:31,759
Speaker 1: and saying like, oh, there's damage to the brain, but

764
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:35,080
Speaker 1: we can fix it with with this new technology, all right,

765
00:42:35,120 --> 00:42:39,160
Speaker 1: And again we're treating the wound, we're treating an injury.

766
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:43,759
Speaker 1: Everybody's generally okay with that. An unborn child with an

767
00:42:43,760 --> 00:42:47,600
Speaker 1: incompletely formed brain, and then doctors grow that brain out

768
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:50,799
Speaker 1: with cybernetic techniques to ensure the child is born with

769
00:42:50,800 --> 00:42:53,799
Speaker 1: a working brain. This one's a lot that sounds like

770
00:42:53,840 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 1: the beginning of a horror story to me. Well, yeah,

771
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:58,799
Speaker 1: I guess it could be. But or but you could

772
00:42:58,840 --> 00:43:01,879
Speaker 1: also say that it forced dolls the the real life

773
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:05,680
Speaker 1: horror story, right, yeah, absolutely, Yeah, So I think this

774
00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:08,879
Speaker 1: one this, Yeah, this is a little more problematic because

775
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:13,719
Speaker 1: you're you're changing the the human in utero, creating a

776
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:17,160
Speaker 1: cyborg in utero, and then and then you have to

777
00:43:17,200 --> 00:43:21,800
Speaker 1: ask to what extent is the resulting child still the child? Yeah? Right,

778
00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:25,239
Speaker 1: But then there's the the Peggy story, and you want

779
00:43:25,239 --> 00:43:27,839
Speaker 1: to take this one, sure, yeah, this is so this

780
00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:30,040
Speaker 1: is the one that the most felt like a black

781
00:43:30,080 --> 00:43:33,680
Speaker 1: mirror episode to me. And and genuinely, as I'm reading

782
00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:39,399
Speaker 1: this academic article the twist to this story, I went, oh, like,

783
00:43:39,440 --> 00:43:41,560
Speaker 1: it's it's sent shivers. That might spend like the twist

784
00:43:41,560 --> 00:43:44,759
Speaker 1: to one of those old, like nine fifties horror comics.

785
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:48,880
Speaker 1: All right, so, uh, basically, the idea here is that

786
00:43:49,239 --> 00:43:52,759
Speaker 1: Bob and Peggy are a couple and they have problems. Uh,

787
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:57,920
Speaker 1: Peggy's depressed, right, and uh so they rent Cybo help,

788
00:43:58,080 --> 00:44:01,160
Speaker 1: which isn't like an android that's customized to come in

789
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:03,719
Speaker 1: and be compassionate and take care of Peggy and kind

790
00:44:03,719 --> 00:44:07,560
Speaker 1: of like help her get beyond her depression. Her presence

791
00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:13,759
Speaker 1: cheers everybody up, and Peggy undergoes neuropsychi psychiatric treatments and

792
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:16,520
Speaker 1: becomes her old self. Right. And one of the keys

793
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 1: here is that the the android has these like symbols

794
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:22,000
Speaker 1: on the back of her skull that show like which

795
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:24,759
Speaker 1: which features she's been loaded with. And I think it's

796
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:28,359
Speaker 1: like there's some for like artistic abilities, and the most

797
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:32,840
Speaker 1: important one is is is one that allows the android

798
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:38,839
Speaker 1: to to show compassion. Yeah, So Bob and Peggy they say, hey,

799
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:44,640
Speaker 1: everything's fine. Now Peggy's fine, she had this procedure. Yeah,

800
00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:46,840
Speaker 1: so they'll say, well, we don't need the android anymore.

801
00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:50,759
Speaker 1: They send her back to the plant. Uh. And at

802
00:44:50,760 --> 00:44:53,480
Speaker 1: the end of it, Bob is like stroking Peggy's hair

803
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:56,439
Speaker 1: or something like that, and he notices that she's got

804
00:44:56,440 --> 00:45:00,560
Speaker 1: the raised embossed indentations of lettering the same way that

805
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:02,960
Speaker 1: the android did on the back of her head. So

806
00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:05,400
Speaker 1: it's implied wait, what did that android do to my

807
00:45:05,480 --> 00:45:07,440
Speaker 1: wife when I wasn't home? Right? Oh yeah, there's like

808
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:10,040
Speaker 1: a thing in there where he takes an extended business

809
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:12,680
Speaker 1: trip and that's when and when he gets back is

810
00:45:12,719 --> 00:45:14,680
Speaker 1: when he notices that. So it's a little a little

811
00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:17,960
Speaker 1: bit like Stepford Wives. There's a very very like a

812
00:45:18,040 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 1: sexist theme here as well, But ultimately this one is

813
00:45:22,600 --> 00:45:25,719
Speaker 1: more problematic, right, because what happened to Peggy? Yeah, what

814
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 1: happened to the old Peggy? Was that the real Peggy?

815
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:32,000
Speaker 1: And is the new Peggy the new Peggy? Yeah? Where's Peggy?

816
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:34,360
Speaker 1: Also says something And I don't know if this is

817
00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:37,680
Speaker 1: just Grant Gelette or us how we approach this topic,

818
00:45:37,760 --> 00:45:41,080
Speaker 1: but like how we think of depression too, as like

819
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:44,840
Speaker 1: that's a thing you cure. Yeah, we have a robot

820
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:49,280
Speaker 1: come in and just fix it. Yeah. He makes two

821
00:45:49,360 --> 00:45:52,200
Speaker 1: main observations with all of these. At one, we are

822
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:55,239
Speaker 1: less concerned with the cybernetic components of the the of

823
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:58,400
Speaker 1: the person if they seemed peripheral or somewhat incidental to

824
00:45:58,440 --> 00:46:03,160
Speaker 1: their psychological identity a character. Okay, so we're cool with augmentations.

825
00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:06,239
Speaker 1: That's no big deal because certainly you apply that to

826
00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:08,640
Speaker 1: real life. We augment ourselves all the time. The cup

827
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:11,799
Speaker 1: of coffee is an augmentation, pair of glasses an augmentation,

828
00:46:12,040 --> 00:46:14,880
Speaker 1: But generally you don't. People may joke about their not

829
00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:17,720
Speaker 1: themselves until they have that cup of coffee, but nobody

830
00:46:17,800 --> 00:46:20,279
Speaker 1: actually believes that. You know, what's cyber netic for me

831
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:23,319
Speaker 1: taking a shower? Yeah, Like I was thinking about that

832
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:27,239
Speaker 1: this weekend, Like what did people do before showers? Because

833
00:46:27,239 --> 00:46:30,919
Speaker 1: if I don't have a shower, I feel exhausted and

834
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:34,480
Speaker 1: tired and gross. But then like you're getting that shower

835
00:46:34,560 --> 00:46:36,480
Speaker 1: and it's just boom, I'm ready for the day. I

836
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:40,040
Speaker 1: don't know what it is. The same way. His second

837
00:46:40,080 --> 00:46:43,719
Speaker 1: observation is that quote we are more concerned where a

838
00:46:43,760 --> 00:46:47,600
Speaker 1: non human mode of relationship or reaction or response to

839
00:46:47,640 --> 00:46:52,080
Speaker 1: others emergence. So that's pretty basic, right when when you're

840
00:46:53,160 --> 00:46:57,120
Speaker 1: when when the result seems non human or the relationship

841
00:46:57,239 --> 00:46:59,720
Speaker 1: is not seems non human, then we're saying, Okay, what's

842
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 1: what's wrong? This is not a cybernetic scenario I can

843
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:06,040
Speaker 1: get behind. So Gillette like proposing all of these fictional

844
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:09,759
Speaker 1: scenarios is basically getting at his big question, which is

845
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 1: how should we morally treat a cyborg. Right, we still

846
00:47:14,239 --> 00:47:16,879
Speaker 1: treat each other well, we like to think we do

847
00:47:17,160 --> 00:47:20,240
Speaker 1: as moral agents when we're interacting with each other through

848
00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:25,279
Speaker 1: diaries or computers or even antidepressants. Right now, again, I say,

849
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:27,400
Speaker 1: I like to think we two and then like go

850
00:47:27,520 --> 00:47:29,719
Speaker 1: take a look at some YouTube comments. Sometimes I don't

851
00:47:29,719 --> 00:47:33,239
Speaker 1: know that they're necessarily moral agencies at play there. But

852
00:47:34,520 --> 00:47:38,520
Speaker 1: his argument is, if we're ethical and moral to one

853
00:47:38,520 --> 00:47:41,239
Speaker 1: another through those things, shouldn't we do the same thing

854
00:47:41,280 --> 00:47:45,360
Speaker 1: if our brain is somehow connected to technology? Yeah, it's

855
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:49,239
Speaker 1: it's uh, the Peggy example, especially at the morning, you

856
00:47:49,360 --> 00:47:51,880
Speaker 1: chew on it because you have the android who is

857
00:47:51,920 --> 00:47:54,080
Speaker 1: fake and it's just you know, a servant that is

858
00:47:54,080 --> 00:47:57,279
Speaker 1: then turned back over. But if the same things that

859
00:47:57,680 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 1: that that make her seem genuine, like the same sort

860
00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:04,360
Speaker 1: of uh, you know, emotional programming. If that same programming

861
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:08,439
Speaker 1: is used to quote unquote fix Peggy, then is Peggy

862
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:11,520
Speaker 1: fake now too? And then by but then if the

863
00:48:11,560 --> 00:48:14,760
Speaker 1: reverse is true, then was the android a real person

864
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:16,400
Speaker 1: as well? What does it mean to be human? What

865
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:18,640
Speaker 1: does it mean to be non human? You know what?

866
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:25,440
Speaker 1: This is a perfect segue into the Donna Harroway uh conundrum.

867
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:30,279
Speaker 1: The Cyborg Manifesto. We're talking about Peggy and her depression

868
00:48:30,440 --> 00:48:34,000
Speaker 1: and her female identity and whether or not it changes

869
00:48:34,160 --> 00:48:37,600
Speaker 1: or is the same if she gets somehow computerized. That

870
00:48:37,680 --> 00:48:41,600
Speaker 1: leads right into Harroway. Yes, we are now somewhere around

871
00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:47,600
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five and we're talking about a cyborg Manifesto

872
00:48:47,680 --> 00:48:52,440
Speaker 1: by Donna J. Harraway. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita of

873
00:48:52,480 --> 00:48:56,239
Speaker 1: the History of Consciousness Department and Feminist Studies Department at

874
00:48:56,280 --> 00:48:59,200
Speaker 1: the University of California, Santa Cruz. They have a History

875
00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:03,319
Speaker 1: of conscious this department, or they did, who knows if

876
00:49:03,320 --> 00:49:06,600
Speaker 1: they're funding is still available. But that's pretty cool. So

877
00:49:07,680 --> 00:49:10,080
Speaker 1: let's just get this out of the way. We both

878
00:49:10,760 --> 00:49:14,239
Speaker 1: read or in my case, attempted to read the Cyborg Manifesto.

879
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:18,560
Speaker 1: It's dense reading. I will warn you out there people. Uh.

880
00:49:18,719 --> 00:49:22,720
Speaker 1: Hairway has written this in a very kind of postmodern

881
00:49:22,800 --> 00:49:27,040
Speaker 1: philosophical styling that it doesn't necessarily read like your traditional

882
00:49:27,080 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 1: academic paper in that it, you know, it doesn't set

883
00:49:30,040 --> 00:49:32,640
Speaker 1: up a methodology for you and then walking through an

884
00:49:32,640 --> 00:49:35,719
Speaker 1: experiment and tell you what the conclusions were. A lot

885
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:40,000
Speaker 1: of it is her riffing on the ideas of what

886
00:49:40,160 --> 00:49:42,719
Speaker 1: being a cyborg means. Yeah, and you kind of have

887
00:49:42,760 --> 00:49:46,239
Speaker 1: to unravel what she means and what her argument here

888
00:49:46,320 --> 00:49:50,439
Speaker 1: is as well. But ultimately it's uh, it's a very

889
00:49:50,520 --> 00:49:55,160
Speaker 1: compelling argument and one that that probably beautifully transforms and

890
00:49:55,239 --> 00:49:59,040
Speaker 1: illuminates the idea of cyborder. We've been discussing this whole episode. Yeah,

891
00:49:59,080 --> 00:50:04,520
Speaker 1: I find it particularly useful. Uh. And in seven uh,

892
00:50:04,640 --> 00:50:07,840
Speaker 1: Robert found an article in Wired Is written by Harry

893
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:17,040
Speaker 1: kuns Rue that basically deconstructs Hairways cyborg manifesto and explains

894
00:50:17,080 --> 00:50:19,799
Speaker 1: it much better. Uh. Let's see if we can take

895
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:21,480
Speaker 1: a stab at it here. But you know what, let's

896
00:50:21,520 --> 00:50:23,560
Speaker 1: start with that quote, just to give our listeners an

897
00:50:23,600 --> 00:50:26,920
Speaker 1: idea of what kind of reading material it is. Quote

898
00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:30,280
Speaker 1: by the late twentieth century, our time a mythic time.

899
00:50:30,600 --> 00:50:35,800
Speaker 1: We're all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism.

900
00:50:35,800 --> 00:50:40,160
Speaker 1: In short, we're cyborgs. The cyborg is our ontology. It

901
00:50:40,160 --> 00:50:43,520
Speaker 1: gives us our politics. The cyborg is a condensed image

902
00:50:43,520 --> 00:50:49,040
Speaker 1: of both imagination and material reality. The relations between organism

903
00:50:49,080 --> 00:50:53,560
Speaker 1: and machine has been a border war. Yeah, okay, I

904
00:50:53,560 --> 00:50:55,440
Speaker 1: think it's fair to say. And this is written in

905
00:50:55,440 --> 00:50:59,520
Speaker 1: the notes here, What the hell does that mean? Uh?

906
00:50:59,840 --> 00:51:01,960
Speaker 1: This is what I got out of reading it directly.

907
00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:04,200
Speaker 1: But then let's turn to that Wired article to see

908
00:51:04,200 --> 00:51:05,880
Speaker 1: if we can unpack it a little bit more so.

909
00:51:05,960 --> 00:51:09,319
Speaker 1: First of all, she sees cyborgs everywhere, and keep in

910
00:51:09,360 --> 00:51:12,520
Speaker 1: mind share out this in which you know, as we

911
00:51:12,560 --> 00:51:14,800
Speaker 1: talked about earlier, that's when we were growing up seeing

912
00:51:14,800 --> 00:51:17,800
Speaker 1: them in pop culture everywhere. But she sees them in war,

913
00:51:18,239 --> 00:51:22,080
Speaker 1: she sees them in sex, she sees them in medicine. Uh.

914
00:51:22,120 --> 00:51:25,960
Speaker 1: And her thesis is essentially that cyborgs are a fiction

915
00:51:26,640 --> 00:51:31,120
Speaker 1: that maps out our social and bodily reality that that

916
00:51:31,200 --> 00:51:35,600
Speaker 1: can suggest what she calls fruitful couplings. And I think

917
00:51:35,680 --> 00:51:38,200
Speaker 1: what she means by fruitful couplings are sort of like

918
00:51:38,239 --> 00:51:43,040
Speaker 1: a redefinition of identity in such a way that is

919
00:51:43,120 --> 00:51:46,359
Speaker 1: beneficial to the individual. We'll see, we'll see if I'm

920
00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:49,799
Speaker 1: right about that or not. But yeah, we're all chimeras, right,

921
00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:52,080
Speaker 1: and in particular that's important to her. And this is

922
00:51:52,120 --> 00:51:55,600
Speaker 1: where it's not a cyber feminism or cyborg feminism is

923
00:51:55,600 --> 00:51:57,640
Speaker 1: not her term, but it comes out of this paper.

924
00:51:58,320 --> 00:52:01,640
Speaker 1: Cyborgs are post gender beings, right, or at least they're

925
00:52:01,640 --> 00:52:06,080
Speaker 1: capable of being so uh and going back all the

926
00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:10,200
Speaker 1: way to us talking about Winer and Catherine Hayes paper

927
00:52:10,239 --> 00:52:16,040
Speaker 1: about him, Harraway sees cyborgs as being inherently a confluence

928
00:52:16,080 --> 00:52:20,759
Speaker 1: of both militarism and capitalism, and she breaks down. She says,

929
00:52:20,800 --> 00:52:24,200
Speaker 1: there's three boundaries that come into play when we're talking

930
00:52:24,239 --> 00:52:28,799
Speaker 1: about cyborgs. There's the human versus animal boundary, There's the

931
00:52:28,960 --> 00:52:32,680
Speaker 1: organism versus machine boundary, and then there's the physical and

932
00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:35,319
Speaker 1: non physical boundary. And I guess like that one to

933
00:52:35,440 --> 00:52:39,560
Speaker 1: me gets us back to that like flow of information thing, right, Yeah,

934
00:52:39,600 --> 00:52:43,719
Speaker 1: that's the non physical Yeah, the flow of information, the

935
00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:47,319
Speaker 1: network of information. That's very essential to all of this.

936
00:52:47,960 --> 00:52:49,719
Speaker 1: But again a lot of you are probably wondering what

937
00:52:49,800 --> 00:52:52,560
Speaker 1: the hell does that mean? And so let's turn to

938
00:52:52,640 --> 00:52:56,319
Speaker 1: that come through article h He profiled and chatted it

939
00:52:56,360 --> 00:53:00,200
Speaker 1: with Haraway for that piece and the one of the

940
00:53:00,280 --> 00:53:02,520
Speaker 1: more useful examples that he brings up, and this is

941
00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:04,960
Speaker 1: one where he's talking to her about this is the

942
00:53:05,000 --> 00:53:09,480
Speaker 1: example of doping and sports. Okay, So Haraway sees this

943
00:53:09,560 --> 00:53:14,600
Speaker 1: as just revelent because training, quote, training and technology make

944
00:53:14,680 --> 00:53:20,040
Speaker 1: every olympian a node in an in an international technoculture network.

945
00:53:20,320 --> 00:53:23,360
Speaker 1: So winning an Olympic foot race isn't just about running

946
00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:27,960
Speaker 1: fast or running faster because you took this particular medication.

947
00:53:28,320 --> 00:53:32,880
Speaker 1: It's about quote, the interaction of medicine, diet, training practices,

948
00:53:33,160 --> 00:53:38,520
Speaker 1: clothing and equipment, manufacturer and manufacture, visualization and timekeeping. In

949
00:53:38,520 --> 00:53:41,719
Speaker 1: other words, like that that that Olympic runner is the

950
00:53:41,760 --> 00:53:46,840
Speaker 1: product of just this vast interconnected system, these ideas of

951
00:53:46,920 --> 00:53:48,799
Speaker 1: what a runner is, and all of these technologies that

952
00:53:48,840 --> 00:53:51,759
Speaker 1: make it possible. And it's all artificial to her, right,

953
00:53:51,880 --> 00:53:54,680
Speaker 1: like all of that is an example of being a cybworg.

954
00:53:54,840 --> 00:53:56,920
Speaker 1: She even goes so far as to point out that

955
00:53:57,000 --> 00:53:59,520
Speaker 1: before the Civil War, I didn't know this. Before the

956
00:53:59,600 --> 00:54:03,480
Speaker 1: Civil War, there weren't right and left shoes. You just

957
00:54:03,560 --> 00:54:07,160
Speaker 1: had shoes, uh, And that the the invention of a

958
00:54:07,320 --> 00:54:11,799
Speaker 1: right shoe and a left shoe, you know, was essentially, yes,

959
00:54:11,880 --> 00:54:14,400
Speaker 1: it was for comfortability, but also to you know, maximize

960
00:54:14,440 --> 00:54:19,080
Speaker 1: walking and running. Yeah, to say nothing of reboke pomps exactly,

961
00:54:19,320 --> 00:54:23,000
Speaker 1: all those all those sweet hoops that you're and so

962
00:54:23,080 --> 00:54:27,760
Speaker 1: Harroway actually addresses the feminism thing here, and it basically

963
00:54:27,760 --> 00:54:30,640
Speaker 1: comes down to that she doesn't buy into that version

964
00:54:30,719 --> 00:54:35,359
Speaker 1: of feminism, that is, she calls quote goddess feminism, where man,

965
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:38,160
Speaker 1: I really want Kristen and Caroline away on this, our

966
00:54:38,239 --> 00:54:40,320
Speaker 1: our colleagues who do stuff. Mom. Now, I thought about that.

967
00:54:40,440 --> 00:54:42,400
Speaker 1: I did a quick search. I don't think they've covered

968
00:54:42,400 --> 00:54:45,000
Speaker 1: this topic before, but I think it would be awesome.

969
00:54:45,200 --> 00:54:47,719
Speaker 1: Uh So, anyway, she doesn't. She didn't buy into that

970
00:54:48,080 --> 00:54:51,440
Speaker 1: the the the kind of idea that you you shake

971
00:54:51,480 --> 00:54:55,640
Speaker 1: off the modern world and somehow connect to Mother Earth. Right. Instead,

972
00:54:55,800 --> 00:54:59,759
Speaker 1: she sees that the realities of modern life include a

973
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:04,240
Speaker 1: relationship between people and technology, and this is such an

974
00:55:04,280 --> 00:55:08,279
Speaker 1: intimate relationship between those things that it's impossible to tell

975
00:55:08,320 --> 00:55:10,520
Speaker 1: where we begin and they end. So again we're getting

976
00:55:10,560 --> 00:55:14,359
Speaker 1: back to that science fiction cyborg and thinking of like

977
00:55:14,640 --> 00:55:17,279
Speaker 1: episodes of Star Trek the Next Generation with data right,

978
00:55:17,560 --> 00:55:19,759
Speaker 1: he was like, am I human? Am I in android?

979
00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:22,960
Speaker 1: As opposed to the borg model, which is very much

980
00:55:23,000 --> 00:55:25,200
Speaker 1: like look, you can see the human part is the

981
00:55:25,200 --> 00:55:28,080
Speaker 1: white skin stuff and then the rest is just all

982
00:55:28,440 --> 00:55:33,480
Speaker 1: you know, trip to lows madness. So yeah, so for her,

983
00:55:34,160 --> 00:55:37,920
Speaker 1: one of the fundamentals about cyborgs and how we're connected

984
00:55:37,920 --> 00:55:41,320
Speaker 1: to modern society is one of our most important commodities.

985
00:55:41,360 --> 00:55:43,560
Speaker 1: It's a commodity that you're listening to right now, and

986
00:55:43,600 --> 00:55:47,680
Speaker 1: that Robert and I make a living off of information. Uh.

987
00:55:48,000 --> 00:55:51,040
Speaker 1: Cyborgs are information machines. Right. So I think like in

988
00:55:51,040 --> 00:55:53,799
Speaker 1: a way we could say, like, if you out there

989
00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:55,839
Speaker 1: right now are listening to podcasts like I do. You've

990
00:55:55,840 --> 00:55:58,200
Speaker 1: got your phone, there's some kind of platform on it,

991
00:55:58,560 --> 00:56:02,640
Speaker 1: it's running, uh the MP three file, and you're listening

992
00:56:02,680 --> 00:56:06,800
Speaker 1: to us talk about cyborgs while you're doing whatever, your laundry,

993
00:56:06,880 --> 00:56:12,040
Speaker 1: your commute. Uh, you know, whatever you're exercising. Uh. That

994
00:56:12,200 --> 00:56:15,680
Speaker 1: is making you into an information machine. And we're part

995
00:56:15,680 --> 00:56:19,279
Speaker 1: of that information machine. Yeah, indeed. Um. So, like one

996
00:56:19,280 --> 00:56:21,080
Speaker 1: of the ideas here too is that there's there's no

997
00:56:21,120 --> 00:56:24,280
Speaker 1: longer a dichotomy of natural and artificial in our world.

998
00:56:24,320 --> 00:56:27,960
Speaker 1: Everything is camera, everything is cyborg. And here's the thing.

999
00:56:28,120 --> 00:56:31,719
Speaker 1: There's no natural order. There's only the order of reinvention.

1000
00:56:32,200 --> 00:56:34,880
Speaker 1: We're all the new Peggy, um, and we can be

1001
00:56:34,920 --> 00:56:38,080
Speaker 1: any version of Peggy that we want to be. Yeah.

1002
00:56:38,160 --> 00:56:42,279
Speaker 1: And this, uh, this is where it gets really relevant

1003
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:46,320
Speaker 1: I think, to modern day society. Right. So, Haroway further

1004
00:56:46,440 --> 00:56:50,799
Speaker 1: goes into it by talking about erotic fascination with cyborgs.

1005
00:56:51,200 --> 00:56:54,440
Speaker 1: She refers to quote the violation of boundaries by a

1006
00:56:54,520 --> 00:56:58,799
Speaker 1: cyborg as a pleasurable tight coupling between parts that are

1007
00:56:58,840 --> 00:57:02,040
Speaker 1: not supposed to touch. And I read that and I

1008
00:57:02,080 --> 00:57:04,000
Speaker 1: thought of and I hope you haven't seen this, and

1009
00:57:04,040 --> 00:57:05,840
Speaker 1: I don't wish it upon any of our audience. But

1010
00:57:05,880 --> 00:57:09,280
Speaker 1: the episode of Torchwood, the TV show that is called

1011
00:57:09,880 --> 00:57:13,839
Speaker 1: cyber Woman. Have you seen this? I have watched this one.

1012
00:57:14,520 --> 00:57:20,080
Speaker 1: It's just like, first second, yeah, first season's terrible. Yeah, yeah,

1013
00:57:20,120 --> 00:57:22,720
Speaker 1: I did watch and it's and it's you know, basically

1014
00:57:22,800 --> 00:57:26,840
Speaker 1: the premises in the Doctor Hugh universe or these cyborgs

1015
00:57:26,880 --> 00:57:30,120
Speaker 1: called cybermen, and they just look like big kind of

1016
00:57:30,320 --> 00:57:33,880
Speaker 1: like robots, but they've got like human brains in them

1017
00:57:34,000 --> 00:57:37,040
Speaker 1: or some some organic parts in them. And uh, somewhere

1018
00:57:37,040 --> 00:57:39,960
Speaker 1: along the line they this woman was made into a

1019
00:57:40,080 --> 00:57:44,480
Speaker 1: cyber woman, and so she's like conflicted with between man

1020
00:57:44,600 --> 00:57:47,200
Speaker 1: and machine. But the design that they did for this

1021
00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:51,160
Speaker 1: episode is so insulting to this poor actress's basically wearing

1022
00:57:51,240 --> 00:57:55,439
Speaker 1: like a cyborg bikini. Uh and and and it really

1023
00:57:55,640 --> 00:57:58,240
Speaker 1: to me, I was like, oh, there's that erotic fascination

1024
00:57:59,200 --> 00:58:03,000
Speaker 1: with the measurable type coupling of the cyborg right, Like, Like,

1025
00:58:03,680 --> 00:58:07,800
Speaker 1: clearly somebody who had access to the BBC's UH finances

1026
00:58:07,880 --> 00:58:10,760
Speaker 1: was like, this is what our viewers want. They want

1027
00:58:10,800 --> 00:58:14,320
Speaker 1: to see this half naked cyborg lady. And to me,

1028
00:58:15,120 --> 00:58:18,720
Speaker 1: that leads us to the real heart of it, the

1029
00:58:19,080 --> 00:58:22,720
Speaker 1: heart of Harroway's argument, the trans humanism everything we've been

1030
00:58:22,720 --> 00:58:26,360
Speaker 1: talking about here today, And this comes via Hales and

1031
00:58:26,480 --> 00:58:30,320
Speaker 1: she says, the cyborg becomes the stage on which are

1032
00:58:30,440 --> 00:58:36,080
Speaker 1: performed contestation about body boundaries that have often marked class,

1033
00:58:36,520 --> 00:58:41,000
Speaker 1: ethnic and cultural differences. So we're looking at a complex

1034
00:58:41,080 --> 00:58:45,320
Speaker 1: hybridization that's going to get rid of our old fashioned

1035
00:58:45,440 --> 00:58:49,560
Speaker 1: concepts of what is natural versus what is artificial? Right Like,

1036
00:58:50,120 --> 00:58:53,160
Speaker 1: so again like this is what I imagined Harroway was

1037
00:58:53,200 --> 00:58:55,640
Speaker 1: thinking of. Breast implants was probably what she was thinking

1038
00:58:55,680 --> 00:58:57,520
Speaker 1: of when she was thinking about the like the erotic

1039
00:58:57,560 --> 00:59:03,680
Speaker 1: fascination of cyborgs. Uh. But it throws away binary concepts

1040
00:59:03,800 --> 00:59:07,480
Speaker 1: like gender right And as we're we're recording this, it

1041
00:59:07,640 --> 00:59:10,520
Speaker 1: made me think of what's going on in North Carolina

1042
00:59:10,680 --> 00:59:13,240
Speaker 1: right now with this law that's got a lot of

1043
00:59:13,280 --> 00:59:19,520
Speaker 1: people upset on both sides about transgender people and public restrooms. Uh.

1044
00:59:19,720 --> 00:59:24,000
Speaker 1: And you know wherever you fall on that that is

1045
00:59:24,120 --> 00:59:29,720
Speaker 1: a transition from a binary duality that is totally freaking

1046
00:59:29,840 --> 00:59:35,320
Speaker 1: people out right. Uh. And that's just the beginning. Like

1047
00:59:35,480 --> 00:59:40,280
Speaker 1: when you think about the cyborg transition that our whole

1048
00:59:40,320 --> 00:59:44,520
Speaker 1: world is going through right now, get ready for infinite identities,

1049
00:59:44,720 --> 00:59:49,640
Speaker 1: like any possible combination. We're just squeamish right now about

1050
00:59:50,280 --> 00:59:53,480
Speaker 1: something that doesn't fit into one of our two categories,

1051
00:59:53,720 --> 01:00:00,360
Speaker 1: right for restrooms, cyborg Ism makes an infinite possible ability

1052
01:00:00,480 --> 01:00:05,080
Speaker 1: of identities available or genders available, right Yeah, indeed. I

1053
01:00:05,160 --> 01:00:08,440
Speaker 1: mean it also reminds me of the recent episode that

1054
01:00:08,520 --> 01:00:11,120
Speaker 1: we did on hyper religions. Uh. And some of I

1055
01:00:11,240 --> 01:00:14,640
Speaker 1: think we've had conversations about this as well, about religious

1056
01:00:14,680 --> 01:00:16,320
Speaker 1: beliefs that are, you know, kind of the salad bar

1057
01:00:16,360 --> 01:00:19,240
Speaker 1: approach to religion. It's like a lot of us are

1058
01:00:19,280 --> 01:00:22,600
Speaker 1: engaging in a kind of cybernetic religion instead of saying like,

1059
01:00:22,840 --> 01:00:25,600
Speaker 1: this is an absolute truth. And instead of saying this

1060
01:00:25,760 --> 01:00:28,440
Speaker 1: is an absolute truth, we're saying, you know, I'm going

1061
01:00:28,520 --> 01:00:31,160
Speaker 1: to build my truth out of this element and this

1062
01:00:31,280 --> 01:00:34,440
Speaker 1: element and this element and create the kind of cyber

1063
01:00:34,560 --> 01:00:40,280
Speaker 1: cyborg um worldview that makes the most sense to me, yeah, totally. Uh.

1064
01:00:40,400 --> 01:00:43,439
Speaker 1: And and Harroway actually has a quote that actually makes

1065
01:00:43,480 --> 01:00:47,640
Speaker 1: sense to me, uh, with regards to this, especially to absolutes.

1066
01:00:48,000 --> 01:00:52,000
Speaker 1: She says, good or bad nature or nurture right or wrong,

1067
01:00:52,600 --> 01:00:55,840
Speaker 1: it's messier than that. And that's that's a great way

1068
01:00:55,920 --> 01:00:58,440
Speaker 1: to put it, Like, it's messier than that. So if

1069
01:00:58,520 --> 01:01:01,720
Speaker 1: you're nashing of teeth one way or the other over

1070
01:01:02,040 --> 01:01:05,040
Speaker 1: what's going on in North Carolina right now, it's messier

1071
01:01:05,120 --> 01:01:09,160
Speaker 1: than that. And then there's the networked aspect of all

1072
01:01:09,200 --> 01:01:12,320
Speaker 1: of this, So we're not isolated individuals within our own

1073
01:01:12,400 --> 01:01:15,800
Speaker 1: skulls were essentially part of the matrix. We're we're all

1074
01:01:15,880 --> 01:01:18,880
Speaker 1: part of that massive battery and that's that's not a

1075
01:01:18,960 --> 01:01:20,760
Speaker 1: bad thing. That's one of the things that she drives

1076
01:01:20,800 --> 01:01:22,840
Speaker 1: home is that we are we are we we are

1077
01:01:22,880 --> 01:01:26,360
Speaker 1: all networked together and that's something that should, uh that

1078
01:01:26,760 --> 01:01:30,760
Speaker 1: we should pay more attention to and not the district card. Yeah.

1079
01:01:30,920 --> 01:01:34,920
Speaker 1: So that subsequently, out of all of Harroway's ideas, is

1080
01:01:34,960 --> 01:01:38,120
Speaker 1: where we get cyber feminism from. And this is not

1081
01:01:38,360 --> 01:01:41,160
Speaker 1: her term, that's right, and this means that there is

1082
01:01:41,400 --> 01:01:45,200
Speaker 1: no natural role quote unquote natural for a female in

1083
01:01:45,320 --> 01:01:48,080
Speaker 1: society that we're past that, and that we're already kind

1084
01:01:48,120 --> 01:01:51,240
Speaker 1: of post human in that respect, and I think kanz

1085
01:01:51,280 --> 01:01:54,840
Speaker 1: Ru sums it up nicely in that Wired paper from quote,

1086
01:01:55,000 --> 01:01:58,560
Speaker 1: feminists around the world have seized on this possibility. Cyber

1087
01:01:58,640 --> 01:02:02,720
Speaker 1: feminism is based on the idea that in conjunction with technology,

1088
01:02:02,840 --> 01:02:07,040
Speaker 1: it's possible to construct your identity, your sexuality, even your gender,

1089
01:02:07,400 --> 01:02:11,040
Speaker 1: just as you please. And that is kind of, I

1090
01:02:11,120 --> 01:02:14,080
Speaker 1: think the appeal of trans humanism. This is the point

1091
01:02:14,120 --> 01:02:17,760
Speaker 1: where I think we're moving from cyborg to trans human, right,

1092
01:02:18,000 --> 01:02:21,840
Speaker 1: or at least the conceptions. Maybe they're the same thing

1093
01:02:22,200 --> 01:02:24,520
Speaker 1: when you get down to it, right. I'd be curious

1094
01:02:24,560 --> 01:02:26,960
Speaker 1: what Harroways take is on that, But yeah, that's what

1095
01:02:27,040 --> 01:02:30,520
Speaker 1: we're talking about, is really kind of evolving your identity

1096
01:02:30,640 --> 01:02:33,920
Speaker 1: beyond what is considered your natural state. Right. And of

1097
01:02:34,000 --> 01:02:36,400
Speaker 1: course this also ties into the whole area of race

1098
01:02:36,640 --> 01:02:40,600
Speaker 1: and racial identity um which is certainly certainly falls under

1099
01:02:40,680 --> 01:02:44,560
Speaker 1: that messy category that Haroway laid out in her paper,

1100
01:02:44,640 --> 01:02:48,960
Speaker 1: Because you know, there are aspects of racial and transracial

1101
01:02:49,040 --> 01:02:52,760
Speaker 1: identity that we're very open to exploring and in our

1102
01:02:52,840 --> 01:02:55,960
Speaker 1: our modern culture, there are other areas that are a

1103
01:02:56,000 --> 01:03:00,000
Speaker 1: lot more taboo. Like, for instance, identifying as African America

1104
01:03:00,040 --> 01:03:03,840
Speaker 1: and if you are in fact of Caucasian descent, Like

1105
01:03:03,960 --> 01:03:08,080
Speaker 1: this brings to mind, uh the story of appum leader

1106
01:03:08,160 --> 01:03:11,880
Speaker 1: Rachel DOLLASLT that came out in recent years. Yeah, the

1107
01:03:12,080 --> 01:03:15,960
Speaker 1: specific example here being that but she was born Caucasian

1108
01:03:16,000 --> 01:03:20,040
Speaker 1: to a Caucasian family, but that she was portraying herself yea,

1109
01:03:20,200 --> 01:03:23,600
Speaker 1: and said that she identified as African American. Uh. Yeah,

1110
01:03:23,760 --> 01:03:27,080
Speaker 1: and this was an idea that note basically nobody was

1111
01:03:27,120 --> 01:03:31,240
Speaker 1: comfortable with. Yeah, everybody in the media and and so harroway,

1112
01:03:31,560 --> 01:03:35,360
Speaker 1: you know, she says, well, but everything can be reconstructed

1113
01:03:36,200 --> 01:03:39,880
Speaker 1: between technology and biology, right, so then everything's up for

1114
01:03:39,960 --> 01:03:45,600
Speaker 1: grabs identity wise, So all basic assumptions about quote unquote

1115
01:03:45,760 --> 01:03:50,040
Speaker 1: how things are come into question. So she you know,

1116
01:03:50,200 --> 01:03:53,440
Speaker 1: whether we're talking about identity, ethnicity, gender, all of it

1117
01:03:53,600 --> 01:03:56,840
Speaker 1: is fluid. And here's the part, right, like like we

1118
01:03:56,960 --> 01:03:59,600
Speaker 1: see examples like that pop up or the North Carolina

1119
01:03:59,720 --> 01:04:02,120
Speaker 1: rest stroom thing pop up, and and it's like they

1120
01:04:02,160 --> 01:04:06,000
Speaker 1: seem like they're blips. We cannot escape this. This is

1121
01:04:06,160 --> 01:04:09,840
Speaker 1: where humanity is heading. And it's just these are kind

1122
01:04:09,880 --> 01:04:13,560
Speaker 1: of like I guess, growing pains along the way. Yeah,

1123
01:04:13,760 --> 01:04:17,240
Speaker 1: I mean it makes me think of pretty much any

1124
01:04:17,280 --> 01:04:20,520
Speaker 1: kind of trans human topic makes me think of in

1125
01:04:20,720 --> 01:04:25,000
Speaker 1: in Banks Culture series. In in that setting, the humans

1126
01:04:25,040 --> 01:04:28,280
Speaker 1: of the culture they live these extra long lives. There

1127
01:04:28,960 --> 01:04:33,280
Speaker 1: they're able to consciously and perhaps subconsciously administer various levels

1128
01:04:33,280 --> 01:04:36,120
Speaker 1: of pharmaceuticals into their own body to meet whatever their

1129
01:04:36,160 --> 01:04:38,520
Speaker 1: needs are. But they also throughout their long lives, they'll

1130
01:04:38,600 --> 01:04:41,760
Speaker 1: change their own gender. Uh, they will change their they

1131
01:04:41,840 --> 01:04:43,800
Speaker 1: may decide they need wings, They might want to sort

1132
01:04:43,840 --> 01:04:46,480
Speaker 1: of change species. They might want to live in a

1133
01:04:46,560 --> 01:04:49,760
Speaker 1: virtual environment instead of a physical one. And uh, I

1134
01:04:49,880 --> 01:04:52,600
Speaker 1: can I can't remember remember a specific example, but I

1135
01:04:52,640 --> 01:04:55,880
Speaker 1: can well imagine an individual in the culture changing their

1136
01:04:55,960 --> 01:04:59,840
Speaker 1: race and it being no big deal either. But we're

1137
01:04:59,840 --> 01:05:03,160
Speaker 1: not quite there yet for a number of reasons. Maybe

1138
01:05:03,200 --> 01:05:05,240
Speaker 1: that'll Yeah, I don't know, maybe I'm stretching a little

1139
01:05:05,280 --> 01:05:07,320
Speaker 1: too far here, but maybe that will be We we

1140
01:05:07,480 --> 01:05:09,640
Speaker 1: visit this idea often on the show. A couple of

1141
01:05:09,720 --> 01:05:11,800
Speaker 1: hundred years from now, people will look back at us

1142
01:05:11,840 --> 01:05:14,840
Speaker 1: and be like, they were just so uptight. Yeah, they

1143
01:05:14,880 --> 01:05:19,680
Speaker 1: were so stuck on their identities, their singular identities. Uh,

1144
01:05:20,520 --> 01:05:23,920
Speaker 1: and now we're all cyborgs. Well put, well, put Now,

1145
01:05:24,480 --> 01:05:26,360
Speaker 1: we don't have time to go into into all these

1146
01:05:26,400 --> 01:05:28,400
Speaker 1: in this episode, but I do want to mention that

1147
01:05:28,600 --> 01:05:32,360
Speaker 1: har Waits work has been tremendously influential on individuals and

1148
01:05:32,400 --> 01:05:36,200
Speaker 1: a number of different different disciplines. She's an influenced views

1149
01:05:36,240 --> 01:05:41,200
Speaker 1: on science, economics, computer development, thermodynamics, information theory. So yeah,

1150
01:05:41,240 --> 01:05:42,840
Speaker 1: you can you can go online and you can look

1151
01:05:42,920 --> 01:05:45,840
Speaker 1: up cyborg economics and it is a thing that people

1152
01:05:45,920 --> 01:05:50,520
Speaker 1: have written about, um rather exhaustively. Yeah, and so you know,

1153
01:05:50,880 --> 01:05:52,200
Speaker 1: here's how I want. I want to close it out

1154
01:05:52,240 --> 01:05:57,040
Speaker 1: how we started off. So somebody out there is writing

1155
01:05:57,120 --> 01:06:02,720
Speaker 1: screenplay right now for DC's Cyborg movie. Uh, and I

1156
01:06:02,840 --> 01:06:06,200
Speaker 1: think that there's a lot of potential there. I don't knowing,

1157
01:06:06,320 --> 01:06:09,040
Speaker 1: knowing what I know about superhero movies, and in particular

1158
01:06:09,080 --> 01:06:11,720
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers superhero movies, I'm not you know, I don't

1159
01:06:11,760 --> 01:06:13,360
Speaker 1: have a lot of high hopes that they're going to

1160
01:06:13,400 --> 01:06:17,479
Speaker 1: particularly address Donna Harroway's themes, for instance, in the Cyborg movie.

1161
01:06:17,840 --> 01:06:20,080
Speaker 1: But hey, if you're listening and you're working on the

1162
01:06:20,120 --> 01:06:24,480
Speaker 1: Cyborg movie, maybe think about the fluidity I've identity that

1163
01:06:24,560 --> 01:06:28,600
Speaker 1: Cyborg could have, or the flow of information that seems

1164
01:06:28,640 --> 01:06:30,919
Speaker 1: to me like something that they'll probably tap into their

1165
01:06:30,960 --> 01:06:35,280
Speaker 1: like real excited about the idea of humanity connecting with

1166
01:06:35,480 --> 01:06:39,919
Speaker 1: machines and using information is like power in a way. Yeah,

1167
01:06:39,960 --> 01:06:42,040
Speaker 1: I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. But the character

1168
01:06:42,360 --> 01:06:45,240
Speaker 1: is African American? Right? Is that explored at all in

1169
01:06:45,280 --> 01:06:48,520
Speaker 1: the comics? Like the idea that like the transformation of really,

1170
01:06:49,120 --> 01:06:53,160
Speaker 1: I don't I don't remember it ever being explored as like, uh,

1171
01:06:53,480 --> 01:06:57,320
Speaker 1: it's not specifically like ethnically, No, there is a point

1172
01:06:57,400 --> 01:07:01,760
Speaker 1: where he transcends being human and he sort of becomes

1173
01:07:02,400 --> 01:07:04,920
Speaker 1: like the T one thousand, he turns into this like

1174
01:07:05,160 --> 01:07:09,520
Speaker 1: gold liquid metal. Uh. And that I think that I

1175
01:07:09,640 --> 01:07:12,520
Speaker 1: think was maybe somebody's saying like, oh well, the natural

1176
01:07:12,640 --> 01:07:15,480
Speaker 1: extension for the cyborg thing would be that it would

1177
01:07:15,480 --> 01:07:19,680
Speaker 1: be beyond the identity of of of being African American

1178
01:07:19,840 --> 01:07:22,480
Speaker 1: or of being even human. Right, But he was so

1179
01:07:22,680 --> 01:07:25,439
Speaker 1: recognizable in the other form that they brought him back

1180
01:07:25,520 --> 01:07:27,960
Speaker 1: around to the to the form that will be in

1181
01:07:28,000 --> 01:07:30,880
Speaker 1: the movie. You gotta put something on the comic book cover.

1182
01:07:31,040 --> 01:07:33,880
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, exactly. Um. I wonder if he's going

1183
01:07:33,920 --> 01:07:35,680
Speaker 1: to go into outer space, if there's gonna be a

1184
01:07:35,720 --> 01:07:39,760
Speaker 1: little nod declines inclined there with the outer space stuff,

1185
01:07:39,800 --> 01:07:42,919
Speaker 1: and then you know, surely I would imagine they would

1186
01:07:42,960 --> 01:07:46,480
Speaker 1: talk about the ethics uh, surrounding it, how he will

1187
01:07:46,480 --> 01:07:49,400
Speaker 1: be treated. And what I'm concerned about though, is that

1188
01:07:49,480 --> 01:07:52,120
Speaker 1: it's going to end up being like all that nineteen

1189
01:07:52,240 --> 01:07:54,680
Speaker 1: eighties cyborg fiction we grow up with, which is just

1190
01:07:55,280 --> 01:08:00,200
Speaker 1: you know, agonizing over humanity. Is human anymore? Is he? Uh?

1191
01:08:00,640 --> 01:08:02,920
Speaker 1: And a gun comes out of his legs? Right exactly?

1192
01:08:03,520 --> 01:08:05,760
Speaker 1: All right, Well we will see, we will see. Yeah. Yeah,

1193
01:08:05,760 --> 01:08:07,480
Speaker 1: I hope they incorporate some of those ideas that would

1194
01:08:07,480 --> 01:08:09,800
Speaker 1: be that would be very cool. Well, uh, you know,

1195
01:08:10,080 --> 01:08:12,840
Speaker 1: I think we've done a pretty good job of tackling

1196
01:08:13,080 --> 01:08:18,519
Speaker 1: the theory the philosophy of cyborgs. We maybe didn't get

1197
01:08:18,560 --> 01:08:22,040
Speaker 1: into the technology that you might be interested in, but

1198
01:08:22,280 --> 01:08:24,560
Speaker 1: you know, out there, let us know, let us know

1199
01:08:24,640 --> 01:08:28,439
Speaker 1: what you know about cyborgs that we missed. Uh, you know,

1200
01:08:28,520 --> 01:08:32,720
Speaker 1: what do you think about harroway and uh, cyberfeminism or

1201
01:08:32,920 --> 01:08:37,040
Speaker 1: the ethics surrounding this, uh, the black mirror style Peggy

1202
01:08:37,200 --> 01:08:41,920
Speaker 1: android as wife scenario? Yeah? Indeed. And one thing I

1203
01:08:41,960 --> 01:08:44,720
Speaker 1: would love to hear is, first of all, I would

1204
01:08:44,760 --> 01:08:46,880
Speaker 1: love to hear people take what you what we've talked

1205
01:08:46,920 --> 01:08:49,439
Speaker 1: about in this episode and apply that to like a

1206
01:08:49,600 --> 01:08:52,600
Speaker 1: night bad nineteen eighties cyborg and give us a like

1207
01:08:52,760 --> 01:08:57,439
Speaker 1: nice intelligent read on that simple character. Or likewise, if

1208
01:08:57,520 --> 01:08:59,959
Speaker 1: you can think of an example of a really intelligent

1209
01:09:00,120 --> 01:09:04,599
Speaker 1: treatment of cyborgs in fiction does tie into this material,

1210
01:09:04,960 --> 01:09:08,080
Speaker 1: I would definitely want to hear about that. Man, there's

1211
01:09:08,120 --> 01:09:11,000
Speaker 1: a there was a missed opportunity when they remade RoboCop.

1212
01:09:11,360 --> 01:09:13,439
Speaker 1: They had a lot of opportunity to dive into some

1213
01:09:13,560 --> 01:09:15,479
Speaker 1: of this stuff, but they just kind of remade it.

1214
01:09:15,520 --> 01:09:17,439
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I haven't seen that one yet. It's not bad,

1215
01:09:17,640 --> 01:09:20,880
Speaker 1: but it's just you know, it's pretty much just a remake.

1216
01:09:20,920 --> 01:09:22,559
Speaker 1: And then they have more c g I, so there's

1217
01:09:22,560 --> 01:09:24,720
Speaker 1: a lot more crazy gun play because I remember the

1218
01:09:24,760 --> 01:09:27,240
Speaker 1: original exported a little bit like the whole bit. Maybe

1219
01:09:27,280 --> 01:09:28,760
Speaker 1: it was in the sequel where they were like, oh,

1220
01:09:28,760 --> 01:09:30,800
Speaker 1: well this isn't him, this is just this is a

1221
01:09:30,880 --> 01:09:33,439
Speaker 1: tribute to him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, that wasn't there.

1222
01:09:33,880 --> 01:09:35,040
Speaker 1: So hey, you want to get in touch with this,

1223
01:09:35,160 --> 01:09:37,960
Speaker 1: pull that cybernetic enhancement out of your pocket. Head on

1224
01:09:38,000 --> 01:09:39,680
Speaker 1: over to stuff to Blow your mind dot com. That's

1225
01:09:39,680 --> 01:09:42,080
Speaker 1: where we'll find all the episodes. You'll find videos, you'll

1226
01:09:42,080 --> 01:09:44,320
Speaker 1: find blog posts. You'll find links out to our social

1227
01:09:44,400 --> 01:09:48,800
Speaker 1: media accounts like Twitter, Tumbler, Facebook, and Instagram. And you

1228
01:09:48,840 --> 01:09:51,800
Speaker 1: could use the old fashion cybernetic way of getting in

1229
01:09:51,880 --> 01:09:54,519
Speaker 1: touch with us, write us an email. You could use

1230
01:09:54,560 --> 01:09:57,200
Speaker 1: it on a desktop computer or a mobile device, or

1231
01:09:57,320 --> 01:10:00,840
Speaker 1: maybe with your mind. We are at blow the mind

1232
01:10:01,040 --> 01:10:12,880
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com for more on this

1233
01:10:13,080 --> 01:10:15,559
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works

1234
01:10:15,600 --> 01:10:16,000
Speaker 1: dot com.