Technology is wonderful. And I'm not even being cynical when I say that.

Saw something yesterday where scientists are starting to get around the problems of bionic limbs using deer antlers as a template. They can now attach artificial limbs directly to the bone and have them breaching the skin without risk of infection.

That's just cool. I'm looking forward twenty years to the day this evolves into wireless internet access literally in the palm of your hand, with the web downloaded directly into your head in three dimensions. At the moment, I think it'll look like a classier version of the Lawnmower Man, but science will no doubt come up with something smarter.

Of course, this does pose the problem of downloading viruses straight into your brain synapses, and the possibility of a new generation DDoS attack against your brain is a little disturbing. I always get a little excited about progress. All I've seen is a picture of a tiny rod protruding from someone's finger, and I'm talking up 'telepathic' conversation via direct inter-personal MSN or something.

Likely, as far as it'll ever get is providing working limbs for people who have either lost them (fair enough) or were born without them. The latter has somewhat concerning implications for the human gene pool, but such issues will be waved aside with the superfluous argument that these people have a human right to the limbs that they've never had.

A dangerous route to go down, though the sentimentalists will disagree. In a thousand years, we'll all be partly bionic. The bionics won't turn us into a race of six million dollar men. Rather, it will simply be an attempt to bring us back up to some semblance of the humanity that invented the technology in the first place.

A huge and highly advanced race of people who are little more than slaves to the machine. Literally.

I've raised my voice about the fragility of the human gene pool before, but I don't think my views are very popular. Certainly not with what might be termed 'the genetically challenged'. Maybe I'm just a bit radical, or maybe I just don't like human beings enough to care about the bottom of the genetic food chain. Humanity is waiting either for medicine to fix everything that genetics can get wrong or for science to eliminate the possibility of the genes not doing what we want. The former will proliferate genetic disease, while the latter will never be accepted by the religious zealouts that love to stick spanners in any attempt to improve the species.

In some ways, I'm glad I won't live long enough to see how these problems are concluded, because I don't think I will like the solution.

0 message(s) of denial

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