The Moron's Guide To Transhumanism, Human Enhancement And Why It's Fucking Awesome.

[SCopE5000]

I doubt anyone without a penchant for mathematics would have any interest in pursuing banking or finance, but if they did I'd want to see them at least trying their damned hardest to learn and make it happen.

Besides, mathematics is mostly patterns, and whilst some people are naturally gifted with mathematical knowledge, it is something that can be learned, for the most part, by anyone.

[carcarcargo]

[QUOTE=SCopE5000;32137099]I doubt anyone without a penchant for mathematics would have any interest in pursuing banking or finance, but if they did I'd want to see them at least trying their damned hardest to learn and make it happen.

Besides, mathematics is mostly patterns, and whilst some people are naturally gifted with mathematical knowledge, it is something that can be learned, for the most part, by anyone.[/QUOTE]

I beg to disagree, much of it is memory and whatever the brains equivalent of computing power is, if you have neither of those you will very much struggle to get anywhere in relation to mathematics.

[Turnips5]

[QUOTE=carcarcargo;32137144]I beg to disagree, much of it is memory and whatever the brains equivalent of computing power is, if you have neither of those you will very much struggle to get anywhere in relation to mathematics.[/QUOTE]

I still think the biggest barrier to science and maths is bad teaching

[SCopE5000]

I think the biggest barrier to learning is the education system, as much as that might not make sense.

I mean, as soon as you go to school you're pushed through the gates, with very little creative freedom or ability to flourish with full support, in some cases it feels as if the teachers don't want you to succeed for some self-empowerment reason (I've experienced that before) if you try to do anything outside of the box.

You're taught very much absolutes, almost as if you were being forced into church to adopt religion.

I feel that teaching in schools is a very physical thing up until university-level. It's decent preparation for a lifetime of work-without-ambition but very much useless for stirring creative juices, which is imperative for entrepreneurs, inventing, and general progress (scientific or otherwise).

[Bat-shit]

[QUOTE=carcarcargo;32127314]
Prostheses would likely be far superior to the natural counter part.[/QUOTE]

A guy with two prosthetic legs competed in some world cup running contest and he came last..

I think you underestimate the naturalness of.. you! I at least haven't seen any big leap in replacing human limbs with prostheses so that it would be better than your natural limb, except in Deus Ex.

Now I don't know to what end the technological advancement is going to take us, but transhumanism might not be it. But it's still going to be very interesting for people after just 400 years... so welp

[Nerts]

[QUOTE=Bat-shit;32137819]A guy with two prosthetic legs competed in some world cup running contest and he came last..

I think you underestimate the naturalness of.. you! I at least haven't seen any big leap in replacing human limbs with prostheses so that it would be better than your natural limb, except in Deus Ex.

Now I don't know to what end the technological advancement is going to take us, but transhumanism might not be it. But it's still going to be very interesting for people after just 400 years... so welp[/QUOTE]If technology continues it's current trend, I don't see how we [i]couldn't[/i] have cybernetic parts on an assembly line that are superior to what they replace or add something with little to now downsides in the next few decades.

[Irockz]

[QUOTE=Bat-shit;32137819]A guy with two prosthetic legs competed in some world cup running contest and he came last..

I think you underestimate the naturalness of.. you! I at least haven't seen any big leap in replacing human limbs with prostheses so that it would be better than your natural limb, except in Deus Ex.

Now I don't know to what end the technological advancement is going to take us, but transhumanism might not be it. But it's still going to be very interesting for people after just 400 years... so welp[/QUOTE]

And the portal knee replacements. And Tavros's legs in Homestuck.

[Bat-shit]

[QUOTE=Nerts;32137985]If technology continues it's current trend, I don't see how we [i]couldn't[/i] have cybernetic parts on an assembly line that are superior to what they replace or add something with little to now downsides in the next few decades.[/QUOTE]

They won't be worth lopping your leg off for a long time.

But if you get your leg lopped off, you better get it lopped in about.. 40 years? then you'd have "little to no" downsides.

[JohnnyMo]

[QUOTE=carcarcargo;32137144]I beg to disagree, much of it is memory and whatever the brains equivalent of computing power is, if you have neither of those you will very much struggle to get anywhere in relation to mathematics.[/QUOTE]

No not really

Math at a high level almost completely does away with specific calculation or memorization.

[Nerts]

[QUOTE=Bat-shit;32138044]They won't be worth lopping your leg off for a long time.

But if you get your leg lopped off, you better get it lopped in about.. 40 years? then you'd have "little to no" downsides.[/QUOTE]Cybernetics isn't all prosthetics, why replace when you can add? I'd rather be able to do shit no one on this side of screen can today then do something I already can slightly better.

[Bat-shit]

[QUOTE=Nerts;32138075]Cybernetics isn't all prosthetics, why replace when you can add? I'd rather be able to do shit no one on this side of screen can today then do something I already can slightly better.[/QUOTE]

Add what? Nano-tech muscle tissue?

And what part of in a "long time" you didn't get? seriously, Deus Ex won't happen with all the shit that's going on in our world right now. Not in our lifetimes anyway.

[Nerts]

[QUOTE=Bat-shit;32138120]Add what? Nano-tech muscle tissue?[/QUOTE]You have no imagination! Think what you could do with a augmented reality system consisting of sensors to detect the position of your hands, something to send information to your eyes and bit of processing power and maybe even 3G or wi-fi as well.

[Carnotite]

[QUOTE=Nerts;32138174]You have no imagination! Think what you could do with a augmented reality system consisting of sensors to detect the position of your hands, something to send information to your eyes and bit of processing power and maybe even 3G or wi-fi as well.[/QUOTE]
Brain/nerve surgery so that I can check my e-mail without a handheld device? Fuckin' right boys and girls!

[Bat-shit]

See that's where you go wrong...

And yeah I know the possibilities are kind of limitless, but not everything that the science fiction has come up with.

[Devodiere]

[QUOTE=Carnotite;32138286]Brain/nerve surgery so that I can check my e-mail without a handheld device? Fuckin' right boys and girls![/QUOTE]

Artificial eyes at most, or interfering with the optical nerve, or just contact lenses with a holographic display. That gives you your output.

For an input I'm thinking a few small implants in your hard, forefinger, thumb and back of the hand. Forefinger and thumb either sense when there is pressure on both or more ideally when they are close to each other with the back of the hand implant being an accelerometer tracking hand movement. Treat it like a laptop touchpad with software to determine if the user wants to click or move and you have a mouse control which as touchpads have shown, is all that you really need.

So there, you have a computer with very little surgery and you can store the main processors for it in a mobile phone like external device so you don't need another larger implant, it's also easy to upgrade as your input and output will still work.

[Carnotite]

[QUOTE=Devodiere;32138453]Artificial eyes at most, or interfering with the optical nerve, or just contact lenses with a holographic display. That gives you your output.

For an input I'm thinking a few small implants in your hard, forefinger, thumb and back of the hand. Forefinger and thumb either sense when there is pressure on both or more ideally when they are close to each other with the back of the hand implant being an accelerometer tracking hand movement. Treat it like a laptop touchpad with software to determine if the user wants to click or move and you have a mouse control which as touchpads have shown, is all that you really need.

So there, you have a computer with very little surgery and you can store the main processors for it in a mobile phone like external device so you don't need another larger implant, it's also easy to upgrade as your input and output will still work.[/QUOTE]
That's pretty well thought out, actually.

[Nerts]

[QUOTE=Devodiere;32138453]Artificial eyes at most, or interfering with the optical nerve, or just contact lenses with a holographic display. That gives you your output.

For an input I'm thinking a few small implants in your hard, forefinger, thumb and back of the hand. Forefinger and thumb either sense when there is pressure on both or more ideally when they are close to each other with the back of the hand implant being an accelerometer tracking hand movement. Treat it like a laptop touchpad with software to determine if the user wants to click or move and you have a mouse control which as touchpads have shown, is all that you really need.

So there, you have a computer with very little surgery and you can store the main processors for it in a mobile phone like external device so you don't need another larger implant, it's also easy to upgrade as your input and output will still work.[/QUOTE]That was almost exactly what I was thinking, except having the main electronics outside the body sort of defeats the purpose of an implanted WNIC/PDA/smartphone, but it would be much easier to upgrade and would solve the problem of batteries being really fucking toxic. Charging implanted batteries is pretty easy with transformer effect, as long as it's not near sensitive electronics.

[Devodiere]

[QUOTE=Nerts;32138564]That was almost exactly what I was thinking, except having the main electronics outside the body sort of defeats the purpose of an implanted WNIC/PDA/smartphone, but it would be much easier to upgrade and would solve the problem of batteries being really fucking toxic. Charging implanted batteries is pretty easy with transformer effect, as long as it's not near sensitive electronics.[/QUOTE]

Yeah but it's still a pain in the ass to have a small computer stuck inside you when it works just fine sitting in your pocket. The much more fluent inputs are still there so you're getting the same benefit with the only downside being it's not completely internal.

It's cool to have it internal but if you can have all the benefits of it without needing even more invasive surgery and even more surgery every time you get a new phone, it's only an issue for hardcore transhumanists.

[Nerts]

Or maybe some kind of simple switch that can tell if a finger is clenched or not, that would give you 2^5 different combinations of inputs on one hand if you have all your fingers altered.
Would make short multiple choice menus easy to go through, just clench the corresponding finger, thumb and index finger to scroll up, thumb and pinkie finger to scroll down.

[Devodiere]

Yeah, that's a great idea. How about we also put 4 more buttons on a mouse and you can just click the combination of buttons that fits?

Two mutually exclusive buttons is already too much for some people, having so many just for novelty would fuck with everyone's head horribly.

[Nerts]

[QUOTE=Devodiere;32138625]Yeah but it's still a pain in the ass to have a small computer stuck inside you when it works just fine sitting in your pocket. The much more fluent inputs are still there so you're getting the same benefit with the only downside being it's not completely internal.

It's cool to have it internal but if you can have all the benefits of it without needing even more invasive surgery and even more surgery every time you get a new phone, it's only an issue for hardcore transhumanists.[/QUOTE]The point of it having it entirely implanted is so that as long you've got charge in your batter and wifi/3G (AKA, in a town or city) you'd be able to pull up any information you'd want, message people you need to, pull up a map if you're lost, ect. it doesn't matter if you've been pick pocketed or lost your luggage or anything like that.

[editline]6th September 2011[/editline]

[QUOTE=Devodiere;32138689]Yeah, that's a great idea. How about we also put 4 more buttons on a mouse and you can just click the combination of buttons that fits?

Two mutually exclusive buttons is already too much for some people, having so many just for novelty would fuck with everyone's head horribly.[/QUOTE]A finger binary based interface doesn't sound too complicated, would work far better than an on-screen keyboard style typing if you've only on one accelerometer per hand.

[Devodiere]

[QUOTE=Nerts;32138692]The point of it having it entirely implanted is so that as long you've got charge in your batter and wifi/3G (AKA, in a town or city) you'd be able to pull up any information you'd want, message people you need to, pull up a map if you're lost, ect. it doesn't matter if you've been pick pocketed or lost your luggage or anything like that.[/QUOTE]

You can do all that with the implanted interface, the only difference is one you can lose and the other is a large surgically implanted computer that you have to wear a magnetic belt to recharge and have no physical reset buttons or other manual overrides.

[Carbo]

people actually support this stupid shit ahaha

[highlight](User was banned for this post ("Trolling" - JohnnyMo1))[/highlight]

[Nerts]

[QUOTE=Devodiere;32138749]You can do all that with the implanted interface, the only difference is one you can lose and the other is a large surgically implanted computer that you have to wear a magnetic belt to recharge and have no physical reset buttons or other manual overrides.[/QUOTE]Both designs have drawbacks, but the external one is safer, so probably the better option.

[Devodiere]

[QUOTE=Nerts;32138692]A finger binary based interface doesn't sound too complicated, would work far better than an on-screen keyboard style typing if you've only on one accelerometer per hand.[/QUOTE]

No, it wouldn't. Would it be easier to go back to a menu based operating system and just press the keys on the keyboard that correspond to what you want or is it easier to move your mouse over an icon and double click? If you want to type then it's trickier but most people like a hard keyboard anyway, that's where the external device helps.

[Neolithic v2]

[QUOTE=Nerts;32138692]The point of it having it entirely implanted is so that as long you've got charge in your batter and wifi/3G (AKA, in a town or city) you'd be able to pull up any information you'd want, message people you need to, pull up a map if you're lost, ect. it doesn't matter if you've been pick pocketed or lost your luggage or anything like that.[/QUOTE]
Yes, brain surgery is definitely prefereble to just keeping an eye on your phone.

[Nerts]

[QUOTE=Neolithic v2;32138803]Yes, brain surgery is definitely prefereble to just keeping an eye on your phone.[/QUOTE]This idea only requires implants in your hands, but the rest of the stuff could be implanted into the eyes and somewhere well protected like the chest cavity if it's practical, there's no brain surgery involved.

[JohnnyMo]

[QUOTE=Carbo;32138768]people actually support this stupid shit ahaha[/QUOTE]

Aren't you that guy who showed up in that other thread and was all "GUYS CAN'T YOU SEE, IT'S JUST NOT RIGHT" and claimed that people were somehow oppressing you because they didn't share your belief

(My question was rhetorical I know you are that guy)

[Leo Leonardo]

Jesus Christ that fucking video

I have never cringed so hard in my entire life

[Sillypiggy]

[QUOTE=Carbo;32138768]people actually support this stupid shit ahaha[/QUOTE] Yea I mean why should the blind or the deaf get there sight back? I mean how else can I feel better then other people if they don't have a horrible disadvantage? Or are you the kind of person who thinks technological advances is just wrong and goes against god?