Elon Musk talked about something interesting recently, which is not surprising at any given time. Musk’s ideas border on hard science fiction more often than not. But in this instance, he was stating a mere fact. Eventually, humanity is going to end up more machine than man.
Me personally, I think it will be pretty damned cool. Sort of like Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies books without the over-emphasized idea of beauty or terrorists that started that entire world-building scenario off. I could download a complete manuscript from my brain onto the Net without the whole hassle of publishers, editors, and artists to name one perk.
But it got also had me thinking.
Not what that kind of world would be like, because there are numerous examples, but more what it would be like to be in opposition to such a world. To rebel against the very point in our future history where cybernetics is the expected path of humanity.
I imagine it would be a frightening experience. At best, one would be a pariah to their local community and ostracized by the rest of humanity. At worst, well, we know what humanity is capable of against the Other.
Also, how does one survive in the face of those that are literally able to outmatch one in every way? And if cyborgs truly wanted to eradicate every standard human, by assimilation or assassination, just how desperate could that struggle get?
An interesting idea, to be sure, with a lot of permutations already out in the world. But the great science fiction authors don’t stand where we are in history and don’t have the clarity that we do now. They also didn’t have a technological powerhouse trying to outdo itself by leaps and bounds every two years.
Food for thought.
-T.A. Creech
Author of LGBT romance and speculative fiction.