# Cyberpunk 2077 cybernetics special podcast ## History - Cybernetics Origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener ## Biohacking / genetic engeneering - GATTACA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca - Hacking Darwin https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40597264-hacking-darwin - embryo selection / PGD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preimplantation_genetic_diagnosis - CRISPR babies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Jiankui ## Human machine interface - optogenetics (neuronal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optogenetics - opsins - light sensitive ion channels - Interesting as it sits at the intesection of biohacking and cybernetics - deep brain stimulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_brain_stimulation - transcranial magnetic stimulation? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation ## Software - Corey Doctorow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg - free/libre software and richard stallman https://www.fsf.org/ - four freedoms - freedom to run - freedom to change <- open source (reduced subset) - freedom to distribute - freedom to distribute changes - perverse incentives in proprietary software - survailance capitalism / doctrine of shareholder primacy ## Devices now that show potential and risks - pacemakers / defibrillators (find the example of that woman whose heart rate dropped after running) - many vulnerabilities now documented from a quick search - DBS^ (depression, epilepsy, OCD, etc.) - insulin pumps (Easily lethal in mishandeled) - Cochlear implants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant - prosthetics legs/arms - what if they are financed and get repoed? The potential to do good, cure disease, expand human capabilities of these technologies is huge. Like all powerful technologies these can be used of good or ill, to increase liberty and autonomy or to take them away, to concentrate power in the hands of the few or to distribute it amonst the many. We are on the brink of a new battle over civil liberties one that will take place in cyberspace - the place were we all increasingly have begun to live. Fundamental freedoms established in the physical world, freedoms of speech, of assembly, from unwarrented search and seizure, from self-incrimination, to due process, to enter into contracts all need new settlements in the digital realm. should religious parents be able to buy their child a cochlear implant that makes them incapable of hearing blasphemy, or governments only supply cochlear implants which listen and report back to the government on conversations they hear about illegal activity? We increasingly off-load congnition to our computational devices, our smartphones are with us always and when we get them working for us they can make us much smarter even in the simple things like keeping apointments and doing arithmatic. The tasks we offload to them are getting increasingly sophisticated and they are getting more closely integrated with us. In the limit freedom of comupte is freedom of thought - we either control our technology or others will use it to control us. (use in attaining second order goals - manipulate self to attain your goals not a 3rd parties ~ alignment issues)