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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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You highlight it neatly here: such upgrades only really seem worth it if you're working an information-intensive job, the kind where you'd ordinarily be using some sort of sensor device or array. And modding yourself for something as ephemeral as a job feels excessive/vaguely droneish.

It's a given that we live in environments that are amenable to the barely upgraded baseline human form, since we adapted them to match our needs.

Speaking broadly, humans already go through intensive cognitive and behavioral modification for the purposes of a job. That's called school, college and uni! In physical terms, most jobs require us to either personally move a ton or two of steel and plastic, or ride as passengers in one. You might need glasses to correct vision, or more rarely cosmetic procedures if the job implicitly demands it.

I doubt humans will be forced to make ourselves into cyborgs for the purposes of labor, but only because even with these augmentations we would not be cost competitive with AI systems running industrial robots. I've elaborated further downthread on why I think hoping for humans to keep up with the machines is a forlorn hope. Imagine being asked to improve a monkey to the point it can be an accountant. By the time you're done, it's not really a monkey anymore, and in all likelihood the additional hardware you need to make a normal monkey fit for the job would be capable of doing it by themselves.

That being said, I am a transhumanist, and I will eagerly embrace cybernetics where the benefits outweigh the risk, or simply for the sake of improving my body. Getting legs that let me run faster than Usain Bolt won't make me dispense with a car, but I think they'd be handy. A good BCI would make most portable electronics like phones or laptops redundant, assuming you were happy using it as a wireless link to some kind of computational hardware. I imagine that if you want your compute close at hand, you'd carry around something the size of a USB powerbank in your pocket, and potentially even just to keep your internal hardware charged up.

Somewhat unrelatedly, have you seen Wildbow's Seek? As a transhumanist the themes and setting might be up your valley. One of the protagonists is a cyborg heavily adapted for tight spaces and low-gravity maintenance work.

I've only read (most of) Worm.

But funny you should mention that, because I write a novel where cyborgs are a mainstay (the protagonist is humanoid, but only because he hasn't been pushed further) , and the upcoming chapter has one who is basically a pair of frontal lobes in a crab-shaped shell.

You'll see clear Worm inspiration in my work, though I aim for much more of what I perceive as 'realism' in terms of societal and governmental reaction than Worm does with its desire to have the protagonists punch people on the streets. (I'm aware of in-universe justifications, I find them lacking)

Wildbow doesn't get nearly as wild as I do.

Wildbow doesn't get nearly as wild as I do.

I mean, it's kind of an outdated opinion if you're only basing it on Worm. 12 years and 5 web serials went by since then.

Fair enough, though I will reserve my doubts.