Friday, September 4, 2015

Issue 671 Human Machine ?! September 4, 2015

Are we declaring ourselves machines?  And is that dehumanizing us?  That is the question in today's issue.

Bio-machine:  Have you heard people and documentaries calling the human body a bio-mechanical machine?  I have, but perhaps we are hearing it too much.  You see, by calling us a machine, or relating our body parts to say a computer or a robot, we may be demeaning ourselves.  Machines are used for labor and making life easier, but when we begin to hear it about ourselves being machines, do we think less of ourselves?  Do we begin to see other people as less human and more as a cog in the machine for us to do one less thing?  I am concerned that maybe we are hearing that we are machines too much and that it is changing the way we view ourselves and each other.  


Conclusion:  When people hear something often enough they begin to believe it.  By hearing that we are machines we may come to the point that people see themselves as machines.  Morally speaking, this may result in people not seeing people anymore, and that leads in my opinion to a devaluation of human life.  Seeing people as less human is troubling and may lead to things like another eugenics movement or potentially worse if we do not take precautions.  Though there is also the potential for this to go the other way, and we elevate machines to a higher level, though this would potentially occur when artificial intelligence progresses further.  Words have power and it will be interesting and a little disturbing to see where we end up with this.

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