How will science shape the human?

I watched with interest How will science shape what it means to be human on ABC2 last night, with various panelists from the fields of psychology, ethics, technology, physics, medicine and business.  Paul Davies was the only person to use the term 'post-human' but grappled with the notion and this might be, because in my mind at least, it is only by freezing a point in time - like now, that we can label the moment of change as something definitive, whereas in fact the humanimal has and always will be a potential to be something other than, or different to its present state of being.  Peter Singer thought it would be more fruitful to ask questions other than what it is to be human and that we might consider instead how future science might develop strategies to make us more ethical & less aggressive. One can only presume that he meant using genetic tampering to rid us of undesirable genetic traits and diseases, but he did not discuss whether this might be an ethical endeavor. The panelists did agree that future developments to physically and mentally enhance the human, would most likely be accessed by those who could afford it, creating a divide. The suggestion that access to enhancing medicines or technology would be equitable was just outrageous, since millions of people world wide live in poverty and that $1,000 fee to have your own personal genome sequenced for designer drugs, stem cells or gene modification to cure your current or future disease, would be out of reach for many people in the western world. I couldn't help but think of the film GATTACA whilst watching these well paid academics speak of a future in which science and technology will change our current notion of what it means to be human. On the point of desirable or undesirable human qualities, Liesl Capper-Beilby who has been developing 'conversational agents' (a computer system designed to converse with a human) for older or less mobile individuals, noted that if the conversational agent, as companion, was too amiable (that is, not aggressive enough) then individuals were less like to see the 'machine' as human and therefore not likely to interact with it. It seems that rightly or wrongly what made us human may have been our aggressive streak, our ability to fight for what we wanted and instigate change. She spoke of a future scenario in which those who were housebound or confined to a wheelchair could deploy virtual avatars to complete some of their social and business duties. However, I'm wondering if we are already, as Paul Virilio has said,the equivalent of the equipped disabled, since we rely so heavily on the internet and our communications technologies. Almost gone are the days when we would write a letter and go down to the post office to post it, or look forward eagerly to receiving correspondence in our letter box. Luckily, I don't fall into that category for I still have friends who send little things in the mail. Nostalgia is definitely human and I suppose that as the years go on there will be more nostalgia for the past?

Private school girls + public transport manners should be on the currriculum

I caught a crowded tram in Camberwell yesterday and since I was carrying two heavy bags I asked one of the school girls if she wouldn't mind giving me her seat. She grudgingly complied. At the next stop an older woman got on and was struggling to balance with the movement of the tram, so I asked if she would like to sit down. She said 'No, I won't accept a seat from an adult, I want one of the rich, private school girls to offer one to me'! I turned around and looked at the girls occupying the seats. Most wouldn't have heard her, three were speaking loudly on mobile phones, their feet up on the seats opposite, their summer school dresses hitched up almost to their thighs, their bags thrown onto the floor beneath their feet, often in the aisle, which made it difficult for standing adults straddling available space.

She continued: 'One day they'll know what it's like, they'll be old with hip problems, they'll'..., and she broke off looking at their disinterested faces, 'No, they'll be in their four wheel drives, they won't have to take public transport, they'll be living in their million dollar houses'! 

One of the adults offered heir seat and she finally sat down, but I thought about what she said and I considered the fact that parents of these girls have paid up to, perhaps more than $200,000 in fees for their children to attend private schools and apart from scholastic achievement what the schools had produced was inconsiderate, selfish, loud, uncaring beings.
But I should be fair about this, I'm sure that not all private school individuals behave in this manner and admittedly, public transport is crowded, particularly so after 3.30pm when children are traveling home. The new trams don't have over-head luggage racks as they did in the past and so the large school bags that children/teenagers have to carry do take up a lot of space on the floor  inhibiting movement and creating dangerous obstacles. The older woman showed me a small red wound, she had just come off another tram filled with private school children and had tripped over one of their bags, scraping her wrist in the process! No wonder she was angry. At the age of 75 she shouldn't have to endure this.

The absence of tram conductors over the past decade has meant that behavior on public transport has worsened, indeed, teenagers (but not only them) have come to regard public transport as a site of social engagement, using the space to eat, drink, listen to music and talk loudly with their  friends, without considering that workers and others traveling on the tram may need a bit of quite time to read their book or just relax on their trip.

I'm not sure who to hold to account here, schools, parents, the government or the individual.? But when I think about it, we all have a responsibility for each other and perhaps if the message isn't being relayed at home where values are instigated,  then perhaps it should be considered part of the responsibility of teachers to instill in their students good manners and consideration for others.

My sex robot: Gynoid revisited

Inventor Doug Hines with robot. 

My Sex Robot (documentary) follows three robot fetishists in their quest for cyborg love. One of the men featured in the documentary is Scott Maclean, a US construction worker who has been working on prototype robots since 2004.
As I viewed images of these mechanical bed mates, dressed in skimpy underwear and ready for action, I was prepared to be critical of men who, hurt by past relationships, unable to get a woman they really desired or unwilling to enter into a 'real' sexual relationship, resorted to having sex with cybernetic simulacrums.  I then remembered that in 2007 I'd seen the film Lars and the Real Girl (Craig Gillespie), which tells of Lars and his girlfriend Bianca, a mail order doll, purchased from the on-line Real Girl company and the entry of both into social norms. Lars, who has a myriad of personality disorders, creates a persona for Bianca, who he presents as paraplegic (she is always  in a wheelchair in public). It may be that Lars projects onto Bianca his own 'disability' albeit in a different form.  Surprisingly enough although Lars does not like being touched and generally spends much of his time alone in his room, his 'relationship' with Bianca enables him to overcome some of his social phobias until he no longer needs her as crutch for his own  lack. Since Lars does not have sex with Bianca, even though she was constructed for that purpose, we might ask whether his abstinence adds to existing negative stereotypes surrounding people with disabilities and in particular female paraplegics, who, rather than being viewed as asexual, incomplete and imperfect because of their limitations, engage in  everyday activities and enjoy sex with their partners.
In a post-feminist/posthuman world, perhaps instead of feeling threatened that women may be replaced by cybernetic counter-parts, like strange Stepford Wives totally subservient to their husband/boyfriends demands, we might consider instead the poor sex toy - used, abused and tossed in a corner when the man has finished with her!
I don't know that sex toys have come a long way since the Borghild Project, an initiative of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, who regarded the doll as an ” counterbalance” (or regulating effect) for the sexual drive of his stormtrooper; for they still appear to be about male desire for the perfect sexual partner.