Off topic, but can’t resist commenting, for reasons that will become clear.
Over at Sadly No, Brad discusses a review of Glenn Reynold’s latest book, which includes some babble about “Transhumanism”.
The very first comment?
I was watching a show on the History Channel on Star Trek’s influence on scientific research- there’s a guy in Britain, as I recall, who is trying to connect everyone to the Internet, and engage in cyborging, etc.
This is, actually, rather more widespread an ideal than one would think, particularly among both neo-libs and communistic types; theoretically, a non-intrusive connection would “benefit everyone” and allow complete connection without the need of a government to work together… theoretically.
I think it’s a pile of horseshit, naturally- and will happily proclaim my reactionaryness about keeping my bits and pieces together as God intended them (flesh, unless they fail first).
Now, who do you suppose the British scientist he’s talking about might be?
I’ll give you a hint. Look at this.
Yes indeed, it’s that great visionary of modern Britain, John Lumic, CEO of Cybus Industries.
A fictional character.
A fictional character from a goofy, but terrific TV show, which has put together some really silly tie-in websites.
Lumic is the villain in a Dr. Who storyline that was recently broadcast in the UK. He’s the inventor of that old Dr. Who staple enemy, the Cybermen. The upgrades to connect people to the internet and give them cybernetic limbs are the first steps, in the storyline, to turn people into Cybermen.
From the “Thoughts from our CEO” of the Cybus Industries website:
People often ask me: “John Lumic, you’re the richest man on the planet, you control the media, the arms trade, computing, medical research, the Cybusnet™, the telecommunications industry and the space programme. Some even say you control governments. What is there left to do?” To which I reply: “The hardest job of all.”
Every one of us, great or small, rich or poor, important or unimportant, me or you, will wither and die whether we like it or not. Mortality is the universal enemy, and until mortality itself is beaten and subjugated, until I discover the cure for death, then my work on this world is incomplete.
I am developing, as we speak, a series of cybernetic Upgrades™ for the human body. A skin of flesh and a heart of metal that does not age and does not die. These will be offered to the Great British public for free, whether you like it or not. They are both beautiful and compulsory. To those who ask me if I regret not having children, I say: “These Upgrades™ are my children.”
Yeah, there are actually people who take that website seriously.
Personally, I just can’t wait to actually see the damned storyline that it ties into. It’s been a long time since we got to see a new cyberman episode of Dr. Who. The very first Dr. Who episode that I ever saw was a Cybermen story, and it hooked me but good.
I’ve seen the storyline. (Since discovering BitTorrent, I’ve been watching each new Doctor Who episode a day or two after they come out, since it looks as though it’ll be at least a year before they show up on American TV.) The first two-part story of the second season of the new Doctor Who, it’s one of the best so far. Basically, the TARDIS malfunctions, and Doctor and Rose accidentally wind up landing on an alternate Earth, where everyone wears earbuds that feed them their news and content at specified times. Lumic, wheelchair-bound and slowly dying, develops the Cybermen, envisioning them as a means of preserving the brain after death. (Unfortunately the brain is all that survives, and it is at the cost of one’s individuality.) When Lumic starts converting large numbers of people in the alternate London into Cybermen in a plan to take over the world, the Doctor must stop him.
“Incredibly Gullubility of the Clueless”
That first word should be “Incredible”. Don’t you even proof-read your own posts?
Dom:
Excuse me for my dreadful error. I deeply apologize for making such a horrible and profound error. I’ll spend the rest of the day hanging my head in shame. All right?
It could be he is thinking of Kevin Warwick, a real life crazy scientist, professor of cybernetics at Reading university. The Register has documented his exploits over the years, nicknaming him “Captain Cyborg”.
Cool! Doctor Who fans!
I’m in the US, so I haven’t seen the second season yet either. The guy who creates the Cybermen is from Earth? And a human? Even if its an alternate Earth, I didn’t know they were supposedly created here. I don’t remember if earlier episodes with the Cybermen said anything about when or where they were created or not.
While we’re on the subject of horrible and profound errors, it’s spelled “gullibility”.
As for the episode, Orac’s summary is pretty accurate. He’s skipping the actual storyline bits, like Rose’s obsession over the alternate version of her dead father and Micky staying behind at the end to eradicate all the Cybus Industries factories in the world as a replacement to his alternate counterpart Ricky, but it’s an accurate summary of the important bits.
Are you sure he’s talking about Lumic? After all, he gives no links.
Instead, he could be talking about Kevin Warwick, aka Captain Cyborg, who’s been the subject of a fair bit of media criticism for being more than a little over the top (“I have implanted an RFID tag in my arm, and now I can open doors, so I am A CYBORG!”).
OK, so there’s not that much difference in the end.
Ironically, expert proofreader Dom missed the other error in the title of this post. (Personally, as long as the math is both good and bad, I don’t care about the spelling and grammar.)
He might have been talking about Kevin Warwick, who is Professor of Cybernetics at Reading Uni. The guy is often a talking head on futurist shows.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Warwick
D’oh, excuse my silly proxy cache… Gunnar’s post wasn’t displayed when I replied.
Didn’t know about Warwick; but something in the thread of messages after it made my think it was Lumic. Apparently I wasn’t the only one; check out Atrios’s link to it; he actually got hold of an image of the new cybermen, and used it for the link.
Laugh all you want, but I still remember when NRA president Charlton Heston single-handedly exposed the liberal plot to euthanize people and recycle them into tasty green wafers.
It’s “Dr. Whom”!
;P
Dom whined:
“Don’t you even proof-read your own posts?”
The word is ‘proofread’ with no hyphen; don’t you know how to use a dictionary?
Sorry that sounded snotty. I didn’t mean it that way. And you still have “gullubility”, with a “u”.
“Micky staying behind at … Ricky” – I knew there must have been a reason why the Doctor kept calling him Ricky! I really like the writing their doing for the show.