Wednesday, June 01, 2016

Deus Ex: The Mechanical Apartheid



I saw this thought-provoking trailer, titled "The Mechanical Apartheid," for the game Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

It is a harsh look at some of the possible dangers that may come along with the inevitable augmentation of human beings- through cybernetic prosthetics & other digital technologies.



A lot of the issues in this trailer seem distinctly within the realm of possibility. Of course, there will likely be other complicated effects of human cyber-augmentation that we can't even imagine right now.

I played Deus Ex: Human Revolution awhile ago, and although the game was okay, it bought up many questions about the merging of man & technology. These concerns are being further explored in this new game, and perhaps the fictional scenarios will serve as a warning to prevent humanity from creating real suffering through these advances.

No matter how much merge with machines, biology is still primarily a vessel for preserving & propagating genetic information.

As long as people still reproduce through sexual means, there will still be human qualities such as family, intimacy, and love. 


If we somehow overcome that fundamental, biological reproductive function (& all its resulting behaviors), then there's no telling what kind of consciousness the individual and collective consciousness of human beings will develop into...

It is the function of art and creative thinking to help lead humanity into the best possible future for people, and all life. Works of fiction like this help us avoid pitfalls that we would otherwise blindly stumble into. We still might have to face these challenges, but at least there will be some collective anticipation of it- and that is necessary to overcome any of the seemingly insurmountable problems that we face.

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