Transhumanism

spectrum.ieee.org

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/technology@lemmy.world/t/700828 > These early adopters found out what happened when a cutting-edge marvel became an obsolete gadget... inside their bodies.

www.technologyreview.com

An important article related morphological autonomy and self-determination. I think it's also worth considering this in the context of FOSS and it's ability to empower as such. Self-hosted stuff or implants that are capable of containing their own computation rather than being required to use the internet to the cloud may help with this \^.\^

As implants and biotech is developing, I think it is interesting and important to consider that the technology being integrated with people's bodies and minds is essentially a part of them (note: I have more thoughts on this like how I consider "external" technology to essentially be a part of me too, but that's a whole other thing ;p). As such, I think it's worth elevating the importance of Free Software and Free/Open Hardware from a transhumanist activism and politics perspective. \^.\^ If we generally consider the ability and access to control, modify, and understand your body - think things like legally having access to all your medical records - to be something like a basic human right, then Free Software and Free Hardware become more than just a fundamental aspect of the right to information and communication, and start to become an ever more important issue of basic bodily integrity. In the same way that things like abortion and access to trans healthcare are issues of bodily/morphological autonomy, so too does access, control, and right to understand tue schematics of any implants or mechanisms of communicating with them become a similar issue \^.\^. As such - at least within the current context of states (I'm an anarchist so I don't consider this as the political endpoint) - I think it would be a *really* good idea to push for some policies mandating that all schematics and software for devices intended for implantation or to specifically communicate with such devices, are open access and open source, including documentation on how to modify firmware of these devices (e.g. people receiving implants must have access to a cryptographic key that can be used to arbitrarily modify the device firmware). Furthermore, I think it'd be a very good idea to have strong protections against both coercive implantation and coercive removal of implants \^.\^ It's also worth considering the privacy issues. For example, trying to add legal protections to prevent any kind of location or sensory data being sent to opaque services with questionable consent.

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/tech/t/55456 > If Neuralink can prove its device is safe in humans, it would still potentially take more than a decade for the start-up to secure commercial use approval I think this illustrates the importance of FOSS and Open Hardware for biomodification. Thoughts?