The growing synergy of humans and technology--from dialysis to genetically altered foods to PET scans--is transforming how we view our minds and our bodies. But how has it changed the body politic? How can we forge a society that protects the rights of human and cyborg alike?
The creator of the cult classic Cyborg Handbook, Chris Hables Gray, now offers the first guide to "posthuman" politics, framing the key issues that could threaten or brighten our technological future. For good or ill, politics has already been cyborged in ways that touch us all: On-line voting promises to change who participates. Wars are won on video screens. Biotechnological advances-- cloning, sexual prostheses, gene patents--are redefining life, death, and family in ways that strain the social contract. In the face of these advances, visions of the cyborg future range from the utopian to the nightmarish, from a spiritual super-race transcending the body's confines to a soulless Borg consuming human individuality.
Only with a broad, historically rich and ethically grounded understanding of these issues, Gray argues, can we combat the threats to our freedom and even our survival. A work of vision and imagination, Cyborg Citizen lays the groundwork for the participatory evolution of our society.
Biography
Authored by Gray, Chris Hables
"[An] eruption of tomorrow's topics..." -- Andrei Yuri Lubomudrov, Willamette Week
"...insightful and well formulated." -- Andrei Yuri Lubomudrov, Willamette Week
"An intriguing social survey perfect for discussion groups." -- Reviewer's Bookwatch
"...a supremely readable book, enlivened by weird science and slap-shot one-liners." -- Wired, Mark Dery
"...Cyborg Citizen is a ripping good yarn-just the thing for Dr. Moreau's waiting room." -- Wired, Mark Dery
"In Cyborg Citizen, Gray manages to bridge the understanding gap between technology and politics. He uses a wealth of historical perspective to look intot he future of a cyber-augmented culture, and show us with depth and clarity what the changes will mean to our lives as individuals and as a society. The book is readable by people with all different levels of technological sophistication, and has much new to offer no matter how much you have already thought about the issues." -- Terry Winograd
"Cyborg Citizen is an accessible, comprehensive, and intelligent guide to the complexities of citizenship in the posthuman world. Sprinkled with first-person accounts, Cyborg Citizen is no dry academic treatise but an invaluable and useful guide to the ethical challenges of a future that is already upon us." -- Katherine Hayles, UCLA
Volume 31
"Cyborg Citizen provides an excellent introduction to the new normal and it is a worthy contribution to Chris Hables Gray ongoing project." -- Veronica Hollinger, Science Fiction Studies
