Transhumanism: Push Start to See Your Future Death
1.introduction
In the words and eyes of writer Gustave Flaubert, the death of a friend was described as, “A friend who dies, it’s something of you who dies.” There are various solutions however: in the eyes of some individuals, transhumanism(h+) is a viable solution to said problem. Of course, some view transhumanism closer to a fantasy than reality but transhumanism does directly answer death as an issue and is supported by the likes of Max More, Nick Bostrom, and Ray Kurzweil. While living in a society where many view the possibilities of a transhumanist world to be likely and, as members of a race in constant fear of death, it would be responsible to educate ourselves and pave a harmonious mindset to transhumanism in order to pave the a future where we may
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Grand Theft Auto IV promotes hetronormative hierarchical distinctions between feminity and masculinity through its framing of female and male bodies, its presentation of females as objects of the male gaze and its encouragement of players to adopt and act out a hypermasculine role. It is of vital importance that we do not exclude race, gender or sexuality from discussions of videogames, because as Leonard (2006, pp. 84) asserts, doing so ‘contributes to problematic, if not faulty, understandings of video games and their significant role in contemporary social, political, economic, and cultural organization.’ Instead as players we must engage in discussion regarding videogames and, as Jenkins writes, we must ‘find a way to move beyond our existing categories and to once again invent new kinds of virtual play spaces’ (1999, pp.
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Donna Haraway’s 1984 “A Cyborg Manifesto” is an enduring essay unceasingly analyzed, critiqued, and adored by scholars and students. The piece, in which Haraway uses the cyborg as a metaphor to scrutinize hegemonic problems and refuse the binary, claims that “the boundary between science fiction and social reality is an optical illusion.” In other words, like the cyborg who cannot distinguish whether it is a machine or an organism, in society there is no difference between male and female; rich and poor; black and white. There is only gray, and there are countless shades of it. “A Cyborg Manifesto” is an influential essay that has been relevant to the past and is still relevant to the present. Hence, it is no surprise that it has inspired
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This journal article is entirely credible and written by two women who know what they’re talking about. This article discusses how video games form stereotypes about both genders and that they impact both gamers and non-gamers. Men are portrayed as aggressive and women are unsurprisingly portrayed as sex objects. A main issue with this is that video games are mostly played by the younger generation meaning these are the ideas being imbedded into the youth of the world. The...
Cyberpunk is, as its authors would have it, a revolutionary new genre. The Movement is made up of radical new authors breaking from traditional SF ideology and prose. The style evokes a sense of fear and paranoia while overloading the reader with information. Aside from these indefinable feelings evoked by the genre, cyberpunk contains several concrete, identifiable themes in every story. The central theme is about fringe characters -- outsiders -- living in a grimy, seedy world ruled over by huge, all-encompassing megacorporations. The megacorps permeate the world of these characters with an impersonal, hopeless aura. One can either work for them as a wage-drone in mediocrity, or against them as against gods in a pitiful fight to outwit them. The cyberpunk world is completely overwhelmed, infused, and inundated by corporate technology such as decks, the Matrix, "prosthetic limbs, implanted circuitry, cosmetic surgery, genetic alteration" (Sterling xiii), and artificial intelligences. The megacorporate philosophy that everything can be bought and sold, like the technology that is bought and sold, makes human life cheap and worthless. Technology has replaced humans, much like machines today have already replaced workers on the assembly line.
Today’s world is full of robots that vacuum the floor and cars that talk to their drivers. People can ask their phones to send a text or play a song and a cheerful voice will oblige. Machines are taking over more and more tasks that are traditionally left to people, such as cleaning, navigating, and even scheduling meetings. In a world where technology is becoming increasingly human, questions arise about whether machines will eventually replace humankind altogether. In Ray Bradbury’s short stories, “The Veldt” and “August 2026,” he presents themes that technology will not only further replace the jobs of humans, but it will also outlast humankind as a whole. Although this is a plausible future, computers just cannot do certain human jobs.
Bodies have instead become cyborgs. We, as humans, are a mix of organic and technological/scientific enhancement. She argues that “The cyborg is text, machine, body, and metaphor, all theorized and engaged in practice in terms of communications.” (212) Joseph Schneider, a professor of sociology at Drake University and a writer of many books about Donna Haraway, argues in his article that indeed, Haraway’s ideas were a radical redefinition of humanity, especially our relationships with other living beings. He does, however, reemphasis the limitations of the human body, and its susceptibleness to disease. His viral analysis calls into question the use of this manifesto to further the idea of human exceptionalism based on the improvement of technology. He warns that Haraway’s ideals were to keep the human “in the game” as an important being, even if not the most important or the most capable. (Schneider 300) The idea of the cyborg is profound, and has the potential to the change the construction of identity in a divided and inconsistent world. Our relations with new technologies and living beings are deviations from original expectations, jobs, and cultural needs. We should instead be aiming to change for the new requirements emerging in
In 2006, Videogames became the most dominate media source in America. They are a great source of entertainment, but gender differences exist in video games and it is important to consider stereotypes because of how society demotes one gender over another. Videogames were once considered “boys only” and is the most male dominated entertainment, in terms of players, audience, and character representation in games (Zorrilla). Many things make up gender studies on videogames such as the option to play as ether a male or female, the physical appearance of the character, the role of the characters, the mechanics of the game, and playing the game itself. The research gathered represents both “corporate display” and an “interior colonization” of Gender in videogames (Connell 69, Millet 25). Key figures and games have strong effects on shaping people’s perspectives on gender roles. Iconic figures such as Lara Croft are used to determine if gender roles exist in videogames. Her identity in pop-culture is viewed as both a sexist dream, and a feminist icon. The role of her character takes human to character interaction to a new level. Before Lara Croft, the common stereotype for females was ether the “Damsel in Distress” or the object of desire for the male hero. Females are constantly underrepresented and not much has been done to solve this problem. Feminist and Patriarchy theories will be bricolage to deconstruct videogames and to view apparent gender in and outside electronic entertainment.
In the late twentieth century, two words cybernetics and punk were merged together to form a term that would label the art of combining the science of communication, with an anti-social or rebellious attitude. An ideology was established that included an infatuation with high-tech tools and disdain for conventional usage of them (Elmer-Dewitt 59). Many descriptive phrases have been connected with the cyberpunk culture. An activist in the movement calle...
Death is a central focus of conversation that individuals and society discuss when analyzing the meaning of life. It is an aspect of life that everyone at some point must become acquainted with. There is one thing that every living thing can be sure of: “I will eventually die.” This paper will examine a number of issues that can arise once an individual reflects on their own mortality.
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In fact, the marketers of technology present it in a way that conceiving life without seems impossible. At present, it’s the artificial intelligence dictating people how life should be lived. Humans resort to mach...