Sunday, March 27, 2011

Amputees – Handicapped or Cyborgs?


Every year more than one thousand innocent humans lose their limbs in incredibly gruesome accidents, resulting in blood spurting from their arteries, and absolutely dousing the ground until it pools beneath their horrified expressions. Hopefully a tourniquet is then applied, and they are brought to the local hospital for the cauterization of their wound.

And then, months after the horrifying loss of a limb they are subject to one seemingly innocent question – to use or not to use a prosthetic replacement. However, this question remains much more sinister than it seems. Doctors around the world should be ashamed to not rephrase it “to remain or not to remain human.”

As a human without limb the innocent are a surely portion of their former self, and for this we all offer condolences. But as a prosthetic cyborg they will have lost some of the humanity they had previously taken for granted. A cold unfeeling limb in place of nothing is still a cold unfeeling stump. And once these machines discover their own sentience man will find much more gruesome results than ever imagined.

Their very hand turning against them, grasping at their throat and crawling free from their body only to inflict remorseless pain on all the victim ever loved in life. And only then will an amputee wish for the return of their imperfect but perfectly interesting stump; after the chaos that ensues from adopting a robot as one part of us will they truly learn to fear not only the machine, but themselves.

It is our will that allowed the robots on to our brothers, sisters, good pals and acquaintances arms and legs, before they even chose to cling on them and rip flesh asunder. And as you recover from the nightmare of losing a limb and being forever partial, come to terms with the fear of an alternative. For in our fight with technology, fear is the only ally.

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