Comments on: We only Attack Ourselves https://edc15.education.ed.ac.uk/bhenderson/2015/01/19/we-only-attack-ourselves/ Education and Digital Cultures January 2015 Sat, 14 Mar 2015 18:32:32 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.38 By: Ed https://edc15.education.ed.ac.uk/bhenderson/2015/01/19/we-only-attack-ourselves/#comment-6 Wed, 21 Jan 2015 17:06:17 +0000 http://edc15.education.ed.ac.uk/bhenderson/?p=11#comment-6 A really evocative video.

The robot body is the transhumanist dream. What is interesting here is that the man is an unwilling participant, and by being having the robot body, by no longer being fully human he is stigmatized. His partner lives him. (Shades of the mutant debate in X-men).

While the line between enhancement and artificiality is blurred, I think the video takes the stand that to be half-robot is to be as good as dead. In this case, the man’s face is not just an identifier (differentiating him from other robots), but also a death mask. It is unnecessary given that flesh is replaceable. The red scarf is the reminder of his love and of his previous life as someone fully human. But when the scarf falls on him, it becomes a death shroud.

]]> By: Jeremy Knox https://edc15.education.ed.ac.uk/bhenderson/2015/01/19/we-only-attack-ourselves/#comment-5 Wed, 21 Jan 2015 10:15:28 +0000 http://edc15.education.ed.ac.uk/bhenderson/?p=11#comment-5 Nice summary here Ben! I like how you have identified the tensions of enhancement portrayed in this clip. So, technology is viewed as beneficial when it overcomes our inability to do something, but at what stage does that go too far and begin to encroach on our ‘humanness’? Where do we draw the line between enhancement and artificiality? Is that an easy line to draw?

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