JOURNAL ENTRY #3: Articles "Are we Becoming Cyborgs" and "The Post-human-condition"

"Are we becoming Cyborgs" from the New York Times published November 30th, 2012:

• With the start of the millennium, people all over the world have been using the internet extensively especially for social media purposes
• By the change in interaction, could this ultimately change us as humans?
• Susan Greenfield a professor from Oxford suggested that "current technologies are alternating life in just two dimensions- stimulating only hearing and vision" and that technology's role is as one's lifestyle instead of making improvements to one's life. In order to gain knowledge, one needs conceptual framework.
• Maria Popova the curator behind Brian Pickings, a website of "eclectic interestingness" states how mainstream media uses chronology to indicate to internet users that whatever is posted at the top and is more recent possesses more meaning; but the older posts are simply "timeless". "Cyborg" refers to an enhanced human. cyborgism of today is all made up of algorithms. Instead of enhancing human cognition, starting to replace or displace meaningful human interactions.
• Evgeny Morozov an author of Net Delusions and contributing editor to The New Republic proposed that Facebook has gotten people into thinking that within politics they are considered "slacktivists". Is it possible for Facebook to displace other forms of activism? Within new technologies tend to trigger moral panics and may be the cause of possible political and social consequences. He also claims that without technology, it can't be imagined how the evolution of humans could exist, so in that case we have always been cyborgs. Technology should be mediated when it comes to areas of friendship.

​"The Posthuman Condition" from Staying Human in an Engineered Age by Bill McKibben.

• Human Genetic Puzzle: all around the world scientists are trying to find better cancer drugs and a vaccine for Aids.
• Looks into possibilities with genetically altering children int he future to enhance your abilities
• Hunter-gatherer ancestors had a meaning-saturated world. In the last 500 years scientists have offered new explanations and technologies.
• There is the trading of old contexts as community had disappeared with "traditional values"; individual freedom.
• Without any context from the church, village, family and the natural world; as individuals we need to provide context ourselves.

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