Poll: Transhumanism: How Far Would You Take It?

[persephone]

I went with Option 2, but my preference would actually be Option 1. However, I would find Option 2 acceptable to fix medical problems -- and given how many of those I have, you'd probably find me in line for some minor augmentations in order to fix them or compensate for them. More than that is too much to me, though, both for practical and religious reasons.

Even if you leave out the religious reasons, though, I find the idea of extensive augmentation off-putting and dangerous, simply because our bodies are complicated, *complicated* machines, and it would be all too easy to mess things up, either subtly or strongly. However, if things are already messed up enough, a certain degree of augmentation becomes more reasonable -- like to fix medical problems. Heck, we already do that today when we can and I've got no problem with it, especially when it's as minimally invasive as possible. We just need better tech that tackles a wider variety of problems.

In any case, I probably wouldn't support minor augmentations for their own sake, when they weren't necessarily needed -- that's a slippery slope. But I'd be fully behind the medical stuff.

 

[Heronblade]

Depends on how dependent I would become. In the Deus Ex world, the anti-rejection drugs are expensive and turn people into corporate slaves.

Conversely, ME2-3 seem to have little in the way of negative repercussions (aside from that whole dying bit...)

Implant rejection in the real world is nothing like the problems faced in Deus Ex.

In reality, barring any technical problems with the implants themselves, the majority of people who are technically already cyborgs are doing just fine. There are some exceptions to this, about 13% of people have a false immune system reaction to one or more materials used in the coating of implants such as nickel, cobalt, or other alloying metals. In other words, an allergic reaction. The ideal response for these people is not a dependency on expensive drugs, but simply a different coating that does not contain the offending allergen.

I strongly suspect that if cybernetic implants start to become common, we will quickly find a way around even that level of rejection without compromising the immune system.