Friday, October 19, 2012

DASER, October 18, 2012

This was another interesting DASER. This month was part 2 of a discussion of the humans and their interactions with machines. Some people think we may be headed to a future as cyborgs -- beings that are part computer and part human.

Cyborgs may eventually come into existence along with a cyborg culture. I wonder, though, what such a culture will look like. Star Trek: The Next Generation included such a culture in their stories. They presented the Borg, though, as bad creatures who were enemies of contemporary humans, eager to take in new species and make them live in certain ways.

I've started making the point in public that we need more open minded, well rounded generalists in our society and we need to listen to them better. I will admit that I am one such person. That clearly influences my thinking -- along with the failures of specialists in some pretty basic ways. When doctors kill patients because they make bad mistakes when they are very sleep deprived or when engineers kill astronauts by making bad decisions when they are exhausted argues for more open people to be involved in such fields, influencing decisions in fundamental ways.

I wonder what reactions my comments will have.