A War is Brewing...

As specific guidelines were/have not given for this blog, I plan to comment on our class discussion on Thursday. When thinking about the idea of implants or augmentation, I am on both sides of the fence. I agree and have mentioned before to what Maggie just commented on,

“I feel that with all the technologies that we have in our lives today, we are losing basic skills that one must have to be an intelligent person. While we can teach computers to do basically everything for us, is this really what we want? Do we want to be completely reliant on technology and machines and be virtually powerless on our own?”

I am all concerned that if we continue on this frightening passed path to “enhance” ourselves, we are going to lose who we are as humans. I found the artifact Tetsuo quite humorous but on queue in pointing out the absurdity to these augmentations. This makes me wonder how these new media are affecting how we relate to the world. According to McLuhan, western culture is venturing father and father away from tribal orality. It seems possible that new media is amplifying our linear tendencies. I don’t see how, Kristi’s example of the touch screen computer is making interact with our world from all directions as sound does. McLuhan spoke about how sound in an experience that we can’t pinpoint from what direction it is coming from. It is more of a sense of oceanic harmony. Instead, we are developing eyesight dominant technologies that have us jump from one thing to the next at alarming speeds but still in our linear form.

On the other hand, I must say that I absolutely enjoy and look forward to all the new technologies that will be developed. To an extent, aren’t we already “enhancing” ourselves? Like we talked about, contact lenses or heart valve replacements, these things are mechanical objects that are not a part of our organic composition. And I don’t see many people have problems with these? I am interested to see where new technologies takes us. One point that was brought up that I found interesting was the idea that each side of the spectrum is going to feel alienated by the other. Augmented or enhanced will see the “unaltered” as lacking behind, whereas the unaltered will see themselves are pure, organic, and the altered as freaks. I don’t see this happening yet with technologies as implants, but who knows, with the Verachip and who knows what else right around the corner, this war between the pure and impure may be unleashed.