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From: [email protected] (Omar Haneef '96)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: Frankenstein (was Dystopia cont.)
Date: 10 Sep 1995 18:11:51 GMT
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Zeitgeyser ([email protected]) wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>
> [email protected] (Omar Haneef '96) writes:

>

> >Technology has the potential to rob us of humanity: witness
> > Gibson's meat puppets or Rucker's Meaties or Cadigan's Synner or Sterling's
> > human chemical factories.

> Technology is an intregal part of our humanity. Humans can't NOT do
> technology. I would argue that technology is part of what makes us
> human. Are Case & Molly any less human for their toys?

Technology doesn't have to take away our humanity. It changes us
which is fine IF the change is to empower us - a la Case's implants and
Molly's claws - but I want to bring up the potential of problematic changes.
I will grant that Case and Molly were fine with their toys but surely you
will concede that Molly as a meat puppet (or any of my examples which you
did not address) was disempowered and entirely not human.


>

> > We haven't lost it yet.

> No and we're not gonna but our dfinition of what constitutes "human"
> will change. Would a Cro Magnan describe us as "post" human or even
> human at all?

Again, thinking of the meat puppets or the meaties or any of the other human
bodies but not minds makes me think that technology may transform us to a
point where language will apply different terms to us.

-Omar Haneef

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