What happens when you ask your users about Cyborgs? | Hacker News Reader

What happens when you ask your users about Cyborgs?

blog.fetchnotes.com

19 pointsjeffepp11 comments

“If you had to pick an optimal human to machine cyborg ratio, what would it be and why?”

[looks at self] Being one, I'm not quite sure how one computes that ratio.

What's more important is how the mix leverages one's self to an advantage. I can't engage in certain activities lest I risk terminal disconnection of electromechanical components ... but installation of those same components prevented early cessation of the wholly 100% human configuration, and at least once since have, by happenstance, made the difference between racing to the ER by ambulance vs. walking in at my convenience and tolerating pre-surgery delays. The ability to do periodic data dumps on biosystem performance has also been everything from amusing to critical.

At this point of technology, I wouldn't recommend purely voluntary installation of machine parts, but if there's a good reason to get them then embrace the options fully.

BTW: battery replacement sucks. Yes, it's done the hard way. No, wireless/inductive recharging isn't reliable/durable enough to be viable.

What part of you is non-biological?

Judging by the fact it has a battery, i'd suspect an insulin apparatus or a pace maker.

Does the mechanical augmentation need to be necessarily electrical, though? Aren't glasses also applicable? What about prosthetics? Even canes and crutches?

Well, we were talking about cyborgs. Hard to be cybernetic without also being electrical.

He describes his pacemaker here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3735443

I don't usually whine about web site features, but when I push "page-down" that floating header covers a bunch of text I haven't read yet.

I've always expected cyborg bits will replace or "fix" parts of us that are malfunctioning. So the optimal ratio would be to replace the parts that you don't like with ones you like better.

It's possible to add functionality with cyborg parts, but it's socially awkward because we're bad at interacting with people who have different capabilities from us. Do you offer to help people who are struggling, or is that rude? Is it acceptable to ask the stranger next to you to read something you can't? How would you deal with someone who's augmented to know who you are and where you work as soon as they look at you?

I imagine that we might take a page from the Amish, and end up with various communities where a maximum level of technology is enforced.

There was a very interesting panel on that subject at the last WorldCon. Disclaimer: I have done no serious study of the actual Amish people and everything I think I know beyond what's current in popular culture comes from one visit to an Amish community 9 years ago and the contents of that one WorldCon panel. But according to that background, they don't enforce a single unchanging limit on their technical level. Rather, they exercise extreme caution in adopting new technologies- new technologies can be adopted, but only after consideration of all of the possible social side-effects of doing so and general consensus that it results in a net positive. Thus, different communities have different technological restrictions (or perhaps it would be better framed as "different technological allowances"). Other communities operating under the same kind of social system could have wildly different distributions of technology depending on the details of the founding culture.

Please educate me.

From a 1980s perspective, what is the difference between having a smartphone and being a cyborg? With some consumer electronics I can do most stuff Steve Mann could when he was at MIT.

(One difference is that the cyborg would have even bigger problems with battery time. Also, I ignore medical implants and military level stuff. I'm happy as long as I don't need either.)

Edit: The big difference is better controls with direct nerve connections? Hardly worth going under the knife for, imho.

Edit 2: Better vision is a good argument, but I just can't risk my work tools with a laser/knife/anything. :-(

People go under the knife for improved vision. Better, faster controls may be worth it - a day in surgery and a couple of days for recovery in exchange for minutes, hours, days, weeks, years saved over the longrun.

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