[Ultratech] Citizen-grade cyberware?

[Flyndaran]

I have poor vision, not just near sighted, but also weak nigh vision, slightly low resolution, etc. It wouldn't take THS level perfect medical technology for me to consider replacing them.

I don't think implants are any way like glasses, contacts, or some other tools I could wear though.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

But is it? Who wouldn't want to slough off the frailty of the meat for the clean aesthetic of chrome?

Me for one. Aesthetics would be a terrible reason.

Functionality would be a much better one and I'd probably be in the market for a replacement of my whole skeleton. It's about the only thing that would deal with my arthritis and spinal stenosis. Note that I'm looking for _restored_ functionality and not "upgrading". I've never broken a bone so I feel little need for "unbreakable" bones.

Even then the lack of self-repair capability would be a potential problem downstream. It's probably not until TL12 with Living Metal that synthetic replacements retain all of the functionality of the originals.

[Flyndaran]

Self repair doesn't matter if what it takes to damage the artificial would have obliterated the fleshy.

So my super duper bones won't heal when severed by "light sabers", but would survive getting hit by a bus? Who cares?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Self repair doesn't matter if what it takes to damage the artificial would have obliterated the fleshy.

So my super duper bones won't heal when severed by "light sabers", but would survive getting hit by a bus? Who cares?

What if the joints break down over a period of years? Or those metal bones accumulate metal fatigue?

[Anthony]

Well, we might as well start with what real-world cyberware already exists. Most of it is medical and is basically repair, such as joint replacement and pacemakers, but if we want to look at superhuman capabilities, there's a couple examples that are worth looking at:

• While LASIK was originally designed for vision repair, people do use it to get better than human vision. The same thing could happen to any sort of repairs where the repair can be made better than human.
• Cochlear implants, for technical reasons, can directly receive electronic signals. Similar side effect benefits for other medical repairs might occur.
• Anything that requires small amounts of drug in a reliable trickle over a long period may be useful as an implant. In non-repair applications, we have birth control.
• ID chips are not currently used in humans, but they're used in animals, and an ID you can't drop is useful.

[rkbrown419]

Perhaps I should have included in my previous post that I have a medical implant for back pain. Considering the number of hoops I had to go through to get something medically necessary I'd say our society is a long way from accepting implants whose function could be accomplished with portable tech. Granted their are a minority who'd love to have their brains put in machines, but most people aren't going to want to lose bodyparts or risk loosing them as long as they still work.

[Flyndaran]

Realistically, make one link in the human body stronger just means the weakest link is a different fleshy bit, not that they're superhuman for the most part.

Human pupil diameter limits just how good vision could get seeing as how the healthy human eye is already not that far off the diffraction limit. Of course a cyber eye could go "anime size" allowing more classic fictional levels of super vision.
Some experiments with colorblind monkeys show that it is possible for an adult brain to adapt and incorporate new color channels.
But that would separate the person from the norm making all artificial images and video look wrong and messed up compared to reality.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Well, we might as well start with what real-world cyberware already exists. Most of it is medical and is basically repair, such as joint replacement and pacemakers, but if we want to look at superhuman capabilities, there's a couple examples that are worth looking at:

• While LASIK was originally designed for vision repair, people do use it to get better than human vision. The same thing could happen to any sort of repairs where the repair can be made better than human.
• Cochlear implants, for technical reasons, can directly receive electronic signals. Similar side effect benefits for other medical repairs might occur.
• Anything that requires small amounts of drug in a reliable trickle over a long period may be useful as an implant. In non-repair applications, we have birth control.
• ID chips are not currently used in humans, but they're used in animals, and an ID you can't drop is useful.

Let's also add contraceptive (IUCD) and æsthetic (piercings, tattoos, body shape modification) implants to the list.

[starslayer]

Asumming that the surgery is mostly safe, and repairable in the event of a screwup the early adopters will likely be married, educated, new retirees with significant savings (a VERY good early adopter market if your bringing a real product to the table, a terrible one if the technology is sketchy because they have support networks to help them get the lawyer and sue your company into oblivion).

A lifetime of moderate income sedentary office work, pick up a few broken bones during your life, poor diet while you were in college/university stretching to make ends meet, horrible sleep patterns while you had kids, and you end up with arthritis, heart problems, weight problems, constant pain, etc. Suddenly you can't use your lifetime savings for things like going on vacations, finally climb Everest, continue to be intimate with your partner every night- all of those things you put yourself through some difficult times and worked a professional carrier for 40+years for.

You've got the money, you've got the time, you've got the support network to accept that there will be an adjustment period, you have the personal dedication to 'relearn' things with the new hardware, and you've got the end states you want to achieve ('climb Everest, be intimate every night, bike 5k daily, etc).

Swap out that knee with no cartridge remaining, its better than my exiting leg in every way? How about the both legs, just so that the muscle density and strength is matched. The hands have arthritis, they should probably go too, and if I'm doing the hands, elbows and shoulders are pretty damaged... You know what osteo is already settling in, lets just get ALL the bones. New heart, new digestive system, increase fat-processing, augmented lungs, some motivation circuits in the brain to help me start the new exercise routine, eyes were going to need cataract surgery this year lets just go new. Hearing and smell are just going with age and I want to ENJOY the food I'm eating, and hear the birds on my nature walks- swap them out too, better install the gyrobalance with the ears, I'm not as young as I used to be...

Jeeze, now I'm going to have patches of smooth cyber-skin/hair matched with the existing flabby sections- lets swap all the remaining skin/hair, colour change is a free feature? Yea, I may never use it but what the heck.

Once grandpa is running along the grandkids while they are learning how to bike instead of watching from a chair with a walker at his side- adoption will happen pretty quickly.

It may actually be CHEAPER compared to the current methods as well (a single fall due to loosing your sense of balance while you have ostio can cost over 200,000, per incident, and then require lifelong expensive prescriptions for the pain).

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

But is it? Who wouldn't want to slough off the frailty of the meat for the clean aesthetic of chrome? The ease of upgrading? The modularity of form and function?

To me it seems that if you don't want to improve you're holding yourself back for some... reason? I withhold calling it a regressive or dysfunctional mindset, just because I don't grok it (and as mentioned, I might be the dysfunctional one).

No opinion was given as to that. Only to note that calling Colonel's opinion "judgmental" has no bearing on what in fact the judgement will be. Whether or not he is being "judgmental" in calling that dysfunctional, whether or not the majority agrees with him has bearing on your setting. If Colonel thinks it "dysfunctional" behavior and you think it "judgmental" to think it dysfunctional behavior is of no relevance to what a future society will think. Only what the majority of a future society would think.

To answer the rather rhetorical question quite a few people wouldn't want to do that. I bet if you asked most people if they would like to be roboticized they would say no. Whether or not that is a sign of anyone's dysfunctionality is not really helpful as a suppliment to that observation.