you want a chip in the head?

[missionhill]

Today's medicine does offer implants to help human quality of life... a specific chip is available to help people with serious Tourette's syndrome.

It may come up somewhere so I just share here. I have a head injury. You know, is very common, especially young people, athletes and car drivers. Concussion is a good starting point. Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is the broader category with varying degrees of severity.

I'd get an implant. Would you get one for medical reasons? I say medical 'reasons cuz other than plastic surgery I don't know of any chip implant surgeries done for cosmetic reasons.

[fallen]

Cybernetics are coming. Already arrived in lots of cases (hearts, hands, regulators). I just saw an article about "plastic blood."

When the cool ones arrive, I wont' say no.

[grävling]

I have a hard time recognising people I haven't seen for quite some time. Not close friends or family -- but people I worked with for years but never got all that close to are a terrible problem for me. My brain forgets what they look like. I'd love an implant that would recognise people I am supposed to know and remind me a) what their name is and b) how I know them.

[missionhill]

True - maybe in the late '90s? a friend of mine was talking to me about nanocytes. Maybe this is related to "plastic blood' (isn't most plastic in USA a corn-by-product?) Sure, we seen scary nanocytes on Fringe tv show and film, Prometheus.

I brought up topic cause I have writer's block, Although I read lots of cool stuff. I been finding it uber difficult to write speculative fiction or sci-fi. How the early masterss did it? They must of dreamed it. (H.G. Wells, etc.)

Sometimes is a by-product from career life - for example "Dune" by Frank Herbert. He had a very difficult time getting that book published. He was a journalist in PNW. He wrote investigative reports about water conservation in Northern California.

Eventually, the book was published by his auto mechanic. Ha!

feel free to tell me your cybernetic chip wishes... thats what the thread is for

[Deleted]

Oh man! An implant that halves the amount of sleep I need!

[missionhill]

grävling -- so cool - that is a billion dollar idea.
@jr8825 -- that is so scary. would it even be legal?

[missionhill]

I want one of those sync-skill kinda chips. I think I seen it in Laura Croft or Bionic Woman -- where suddenly she knows how to use helicopter.

I want a chip - that allows me to play piano as as easily as I can play piano in my dreamstate.

[aegis]

People have been working on nuclear power for the better part of a century, and even after it seemed safe, it failed catastrophically. I agree that more implants are on the way, but I also think civilization may have reached the point where further complexity only worsens the aggregate situation. Joseph Tainter makes this case persuasively, complementing many others, recently including Michael Huesemann, author of TechNO-Fix. No chips for me.

[missionhill]

@aegis - Good points. I'll look to those thinkers you mention, thanks.

I would agree no chips for me if I never had my head injured.
Although mine is a medium TBI (scale: mild, medium, severe)

an invisible disability. The quality of my day to day life is different.
Everything important is different. As each case varies and few are familiar with
the most typical of symptoms, I'll just share...

I'd take a chip in the head simply to regain my former self and former abilities.
Just to normalize.

Do you think that advances in medical science complicate or worsen civilization?
Or do you believe it is a natural product of the very nature of civilaization?

Yes, infant mortality is down. Yes, a vaccine for Polio was found. Yes, people live longer.
(There is room for arguement of disparity of medical treatment within a socio-economic context.)

With that said - is it a case for assisted suicide? death penalty? big-pharma price gouging?

I don't know. Maybe I'm being a devil's advocate. It comes from a drive I have to understand the science of the NBZ's future.

An easy example would be - would you pay for your child to have braces? If it were only a cosmetic need for orthodondist work?

Is hypothetical. I grew up in the mid-late 80s. An adult by early 90s. Most people I knew had braces - I am from a relatively wealthy area. At that time maybe 10% of people I knew did not get braces. (Many got them as adults.)


Now - I'm nearing 40. The past 15 years, I don't know any parent who did not get their kid braces... even if it meant loans. I believe "a perfect smile" is important to a child's future perhaps as important as which university they attend. (Maybe I could go so far to say "a perfect smile" is in some fields - even more important than a college degree - sales or acting for example.

The commonality of perfect smile... teeth whitening, etc. a strong mark of civilization - do you think this is an example of a "Techno-Fix"? Or an exception to the rule.

I don't know enough from other sources to hazard my own guess. Teeth just an example that is current.

[grävling]

The perfect smile -- if you travel outside of the USA and Canada, you can find vast regions of the world where having one is not considered very important.

[missionhill]

grävling - well said! it popped out at me as a techno-advance in my lifetime. --
@aegis -- thank you for the Techo-Fix refrence - I will look for a sample tonight.

[missionhill]

@aegis - read some technofix on the kindle sample. that's the key isn't it? the fear of mass lifestyle change. the eventuality of it. (first thing that comes to mind is the American Dust Bowl as recent environmental example-- non-war example) i don't believe average person is so ignorant... i just believe many feel fear and are doing what they can in face of it all... for their kids, for their sanity... you know. i have no last thoughts... it just is what it is. (mother earth's revenge)

[aegis]

People could do much more, easily.

[missionhill]

@aegis - yea, you are right

[LordofSyn]

2 points to remember as one reads further on.
a) Science Fiction often deals with technology and how it benefits humanity...where as Cyberpunk deals with how it Doesn't.
b) Cyberpunk isn't about saving the world, it is about saving ones' self.

That being said: Humanity's current level of cybernetics, bionetics, information structures, and more are still somewhat early. Nanotechnology, quantum computing, augmented reality overlays and especially higher levels of biology and genetic manipulation will only improve exponentially as we near closer to The Singularity. Once humans reach that benchmark within the next 50 years or less...everything will advance at an astounding rate.