As I see it, we are already well on the way toward cyborg identity simply by our reliance on machines and our conjunction with them in so many instances in daily life.
Predictor: Poster, Mark
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 e-mail interview with Erick Heroux, Mark Poster, a member of the humanities faculty at the University of California at Irvine and author of “The Second Media Age,” talks about the future of humans and machines: ”As I see it, we are already well on the way toward cyborg identity simply by our reliance on machines and our conjunction with them in so many instances in daily life. This of course effects different socio-economic and cultural groups differently, but a massive secular trend seems to be affecting the human race globally. The question then is not whether this is bad or good, because that way of posing the issue confronts us with nostalgia, in fact produces nostalgia rhetorically. The question is, once we face the trend, is how to understand its significance and how to respond to circumstances in optimal ways, in other ways, to think critically and act politically. But we are so far from recognizing these issues in our political institutions … that even suggesting a political response risks drawing laughter.”
Biography:Mark Poster wrote the paper “Cyberdemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere” in 1995 while teaching at the University of California, Irvine. He also wrote about technology for Wired magazine. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: October 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Community/Culture
Subtopic: Human-Machine Interaction
Name of publication: University of Oregon Web site
Title, headline, chapter name: Interview With Mark Poster: Community, New Media; Post-humanism
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.uoregon.edu/~ucurrent/2-Poster.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Schmidt, Nicholas