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posted by martyb on Friday July 19 2019, @12:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the superhero-cyborgs-need-a-special-suit,-too dept.

Why I'm turning my son into a cyborg (archive) (alt)

Imagine if everyone spoke a language you don't understand. People have been speaking it around you since the day you were born, but while everyone else picks it up immediately, for you it means nothing. Others become frustrated with you. Friendships and jobs are difficult. Just being "normal" becomes a battle.

For many with autism, this is the language of emotion. For those on the spectrum, fluency in facial expressions doesn't come for free as it does for "neurotypicals." To them, reading facial expressions seems like a superpower.

So when my son was diagnosed, I reacted not just as a mom. I reacted as a mad scientist and built him a superpower.

This isn't the first time I've played mad scientist with my son's biology. When he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, I hacked his insulin pump and built an AI that learned to match his insulin to his emotions and activities. I've also explored neurotechnologies to augment human sight, hearing, memory, creativity, and emotions. Tiger moms might obsess over the "right" prep schools and extracurriculars for their child, but I say why leave their intellect up to chance?

I've chosen to turn my son into a cyborg and change the definition of what it means to be human. But do my son's engineered superpowers make him more human, or less?


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  • (Score: 2) by legont on Friday July 19 2019, @04:26PM (3 children)

    by legont (4179) on Friday July 19 2019, @04:26PM (#869043)

    Assuming technology continues to develop exponentially, what will definitely happen... the difference between any humans will be exponential. Let me translate it.
    Every superhuman will be alone. The rest of the population will either be super super humans as compared to her or total idiots.

    P.S. This is similar to wealth accumulation. Rich who leave among rich are miserable because their neighbors exponentially richer (or poorer) so they don't "play" with them.

    --
    "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday July 20 2019, @12:45PM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 20 2019, @12:45PM (#869356) Journal
    Unless of course, the super humans decide to hang out with super humans of the same development level. And aren't obsessed with optimizing their gear. And that the technology development in question is actually exponential.
    • (Score: 2) by legont on Saturday July 20 2019, @11:10PM (1 child)

      by legont (4179) on Saturday July 20 2019, @11:10PM (#869474)

      I don't think that a human who already bothered to become a super-human would stop her development at some point just to chat with loosers while there are super-super-humans around she could potentially catch up with.

      As per the thechnology not being inherently exponential, yes, it very well may be. I suspect though that it will not be in a foreseable future. For some time we'll have super-humen tearing other super-humen's throats any chance they get.

      --
      "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 21 2019, @03:25AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday July 21 2019, @03:25AM (#869513) Journal

        I don't think that a human who already bothered to become a super-human would stop her development at some point just to chat with loosers while there are super-super-humans around she could potentially catch up with.

        Depends how lonely they get, right? You mentioned a trade off - so it shouldn't be weird to you that the trade off means that someone doesn't optimize all the way.