Remember your favorite mantra as a kid during car trips: “Are we there yet?” Dilbert creator Scott Adams thinks so.
Technically, you’re already a cyborg. If you keep your cell phone with you most of the time, especially if the earpiece is in place, I think we can call that arrangement an exobrain. Don’t protest that your cellphone isn’t part of your body just because you can leave it in your other pants. If a cyborg can remove its digital eye and leave it on a shelf as a surveillance device, and I think we all agree that it can, then your cellphone qualifies as part of your body. In fact, one of the benefits of being a cyborg is that you can remove and upgrade parts easily. So don’t give me that “It’s not attached to me” argument. You’re already a cyborg. Deal with it.
His whole post (this is just an excerpt) has a scary logic to it. So—maybe the future of poetry does belong to Christian Bök, Kenny Goldsmith, and Flarf.
Ick.
Lyle, I don't know if you've seen a blog called <a href="http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/" rel="nofollow">The Technium</a>. If not, give it a look. The author, Kevin Kelly, has been using it to post chapters of his next book as they develop. You'll find it interesting, if only because he's something of a Tech Triumphalist, attributing desires and goals to technology. I can't
Lyle,<br /><br />Your workplace sounds like a scene from one of them prophetic sci-fi films of the 50s–hang in there, kid!
I haven't been to read Adams' whole post, but just taking the paragraph you've quoted here:<br /><br />It strikes me that his argument (at least within the limits of this paragraph) hinges on his statement, "If a cyborg can remove its digital eye and leave it on a shelf as a surveillance device, <i>and I think we all agree that it can</i>…" [emphasis added].<br /><br />For