Cyborg Citizen: Politics in the Posthuman Age
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.83 (978 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0415919797 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 264 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-01-01 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
His simple thesis, coupled with this attitude, create a web of thought that is simultaneously entertaining and enlightening. Some great science fiction has asked about robots and the right to vote--but what happens when we're 51 percent artificial ourselves? Cyberculture scholar Chris Hables Gray looks at the ever-changing human body in Cyborg Citizen: Politics in the Posthuman Age and makes some well-educated guesses on the makeup of the future cybernetic body politic. The book never dips into freak show territory, though; even if Gray uses colorful examples to illustrate his points, he still maintains a humanistic attitude throughout. Though he does go out of his way to remind the reader that nearly all of us are bioenhanced (that is a vaccination scar, isn't it?), he's neither a chrome-eyed Extropian nor a Rifkinesque fear-mongerer. Though our track record on preemptively dealing with change
"Almost achieves coherence, but not quite" according to A Customer. Why does it seem that all books written about human interaction with emerging technologies are written in postmodernist lingo? Gray's book is not nearly as objectionable in this regard as others (note, especially, the works of Pierre Levy, for truly awe-inspiring levels of incomprehensibiliy). At times he hits on topics that struck me as having a lot of merit (he takes the editors of WIRED to task, for instance, for promoting a sort of hipster-oh-man-this-is-so-awesome approach to technol. "Call Me Cyborg" according to Panopticonman. Written in the personal, post-modern style, down to earth, and occasionally profound, Cyborg Citizen is an instructive meditation on the interpenetration of the machine and the human, the machine and the non-human, the human and the non-human. Hables Gray reviews most of the relevant academic literature (Haraway and others) draws examples of cyborg lifestyles from the news (Christopher Reeves and others), from pop culture (TV, Sci-Fi, comic books) to make his larger point that the signs o. The Vanatru Techno Maven said A man with a vision. Not only does his book have a dazzling perspective into all the ways that the body is modified within modern practice he also brings it to a level that even the most novice of readers can grasp. Having been a philosophy student of Mr. Gray's in 1997 I must say it is not quite as enlightening as being in person with him, but it still shows his brilliance and true connection to the cyborg-mentality. Frankly if you can find a way to meet him, every second is worth it. But if you can't, this
Chris Gray is a cyberculture expert and social activist who is editor of The Cyborg Handbook and author of Postmodern War. . He has worked for NASA, the Smithsonian Institutions, and the computer industry, and is currently Associate Professor of Cultural Studies of Science and Technology at the University of Great Falls in Montana
The growing synergy of humans and technology--from dialysis to genetically altered foods to PET scans--is transforming how we view our minds and our bodies. A work of vision and imagination, Cyborg Citizen lays the groundwork for the participatory evolution of our society.. For good or ill, politics has already been cyborged in ways that touch us all: On-line voting promises to change who participates. Biotechnological advances-- cloning, sexual prostheses, gene patents--are redefining life, death, and family in ways that strain the social contract. But how has it changed the body politic? How can we forge a society that protects