Transhumanism, The “Saw” Films and The Need For Testing

I’m not a person who’s seen the “Saw” movie series, in which a psychopath sets people up in torturous death traps to teach them lessons about life. I don’t see much point when I can see horror stories in the real world.

However, there’s something that always stuck with me about the “Saw” films and most other Complex Deathtrap Themes. How the hell does your psycho, dungeon trap-a-teer, or whatever test this stuff? It’s got to be expensive to test, potentially deadly, and not testing it kind of destroys the attempts at a result.

Really, your average Complex Trap Psycho should be dead early on by one of their own creations backfiring or ending up with them found out.

This brings me, rather roundly, to Transhumanism, which I discussed awhile ago.

Though I’m all for human improvement, far too much talk I see about Transhumanism, and far too much fiction ignores how people are going to test transhuman techniques and technologies.

I mean those cybernetic limbs are going to take a lot of testing. Intelligence increase drugs could have all sorts of side effects. I rather imagine that attempts to upload our brains to computers is going to result in several people accidentally lobotomizing themselves.

I figure any attempts at Transhuman development will result in some painful, deadly, and publicly embarrassing backfires. Such activities are going to decrease enthusiasm for such endeavors, perhaps understandably.

Worse, the idea that the inventors of transhumance technologies will try it on themselves misses the fact that these geniuses who may invest such stuff would probably kill, cripple, and harm themselves terribly merely by the odds. I’d rather not have some genius who might help us upload our brains into computers fry his synapses trying.

(And I rather imagine when self-preservation kicks in, not as many will be willing to be their own test subjects).

As noted, I’m for Transhumanism. I’m just careful to be realistic and skeptical.  Transhuman technologies, poorly tested, will be like a horror movie.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.