In Defense of Cyborgs

-- By MichaelHughes - 12 Oct 2023

Introduction

The mass adoption of internet connected personal devices has brought about profound social change. The lives we now lead are made possibly only by the technology we have become wholly dependent on. These devices are extensions of ourselves and in that sense we have become a cyborg-culture.

The transition into our new cyborg era has brought about devastating consequences. Algorithmically driven social media platforms have disrupted our communities and sown political division while unfathomably large tech monopolies have strangled small businesses. Understandably voices from both the political left and the political right call for us to abandon these new technologies and return to a more traditional way of life. These traditionalist are in my view short sighted and reactionary. The integration of technology into lives is an opportunity to build a more connected world that fosters human liberty. If we are going to realize the potential of this new era we must embrace our cyborg identity.

The New Social Norm

We are witnessing the migration of human life from physical space into digital space. The average person now leads significant portions of their life online. I like most everyone else in my generation have meaningful friendships and communities that exist effectively exist only in digital spaces. These are friends who I speak with exclusively through text or voice chat. My relationship with them is mediated through the technology we use to communicate. In some cases I don’t even know their government names. All of my interactions with them are mediated through the technology we use to communicate. The time I spend with them is in a important sense time spent living in a virtual space.

This situation is not uncommon. Tragically the most common virtual spaces inhabited by young people are algorithmically driven social media platforms. These apps are fundamentally hostile places. They are designed to wring profit from their users by capturing their attention through any means necessary. In mindless pursuit of engagement the companies behind these apps have fostered toxic partisan divides, promoted hate speech, and created a mental health epidemic among our nation’s children. Even when they refrain from fostering our worse impulses these platforms seek to capture our attention with an endless stream of mindless content. In doing so they distract us from our real relationships and responsibilities. In Japan the term hikikomori is used to describe young people, typically men, who have withdrawn from society entirely in favor of videogames and other technological distractions. The ever increasing numbers of these shut ins have become enough of a social issue to warrant serious discussion in medical journals.

The Anti-Modernity Reaction

In the face of these dehumanizing systems it is unsurprising that that we hear calls for the complete rejection of the technological revolution we are experiencing. On the left the most virulent anti-tech rhetoric has come from the anarcho-primitivist movement. In the leftist telling technology plays a critical role in the process of social alienation. Just as dehumanizing factory work separates works from the fruits of their labors, reducing them to mere cogs in a machine, technology separates us from our ‘natural’ state of existence. This natural state is of course understood as an antediluvian utopia. In the words of anarcho-primitivist John Zerzan “before the Neolithic shift from a foraging or gatherer-hunter mode of existence to an agricultural lifeway, most people had ample free time, considerable gender autonomy or equality, an ethos of egalitarianism and sharing, and no organized violence.”

The anti-technology movement on the right is, like many reactionary movements, difficult to write about because its leading lights resist the kind of rigors self-classification we see on the left. The movement is probably best encapsulated by Bronze Age Pervert, the online pseudonym of far right influencer Costin Alamariu. Alamariu broadly rejects modernity in favor of a idealized patriarchal authoritarian past. In this telling modernity has ushered in an age of decadence and social weakness. While Almariu is singular in his influence, style, and vitriol he is hardly alone on the political right in rejecting modernity. As internet commentator Jeremiah Johnson writes the explicit rejection of even the acknowledged benefits of modernity, technology, and globalization is becoming more common among the American right.

Embracing the Cyborg

Along with a dubious understanding of pre-modern social conditions, the left and right wings of the anti-modernity movement share a stubborn refusal to imagine that better future is possible. These critics see what the current state of technology has done to us and reflexively demand its eradication. It is true that technology has undermined our traditional communities. By doing so it has also weakened the parochial social norms that once constrained us. It has disrupted our patterns of consumption, and connected us to artisans and producers globally. It has allowed us to form communities with people unbounded by geography.

If we ignore these benefits and choose to lash out at all technology we implicitly accept that the digital world is the exclusive domain of those who would use it to exploit us. Only after we accept that technology is going to be a fundamental part of our existence, that our future is a cyborg future, can we begin to imagine what a better world might look like.

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