BlackEconomics.org®
How familiar are you with cyborgism; that is, the integration of biological and electronic apparatuses into a living organism? All of us are familiar with robots of the simple and human-like kind that appear in everyday life and in media, and we are also familiar with cyborgs that are portrayed as part human and machine creatures. However, we may not have given much thought to the future of cyborgism in our lives and/or the lives of our descendants. Given that we and our descendants will function within an economy, we should consider how cyborgism is affecting Black Americans’ economic lives today and will impact our future.
We are not “expert” on cyborgism. But expert knowledge about cyborgism is not a prerequisite for comprehending the many implications of cyborgism and how it is affecting, and will affect, our future economic lives and life on Earth. Possible applications of cyborgism are vast: From machines that are extensions of, but not fully integrated into humans, to machines that appear as human-like creatures. Remember the phrase: “Let us make man?” We believe that the goal of scientists who develop cyborgs is to create a partial or complete machine that can do what might be desired of humans, but to do so in a more “excellent” and prolific manner.
Logically, the historical and future integration of cyborgism into or economic lives is expected to have an extended trajectory. In fact, one of the worrisome aspects of cyborgism is that the conclusion of that trajectory is unknown. In the limit, and at some uncertain point in the future, our Earth could be inhabited only by cyborgs left here by humans to perform work assigned by the latter because the latter had failed to preserve the planet’s environment sufficiently to sustain human life. This potential reality is more likely to unfold the greater the extent to which scientists believe that they possess knowledge and power to solve the following equation:
Solution to a problem = The application of science to a problem created by science.
In this regard, consider two recent headlines. The first concerns the release of large volumes of produced mosquitoes to save bird populations (birds consume mosquitoes) that are dwindling because of the destruction of their environment, which was caused by introducing scientifically produced products into the birds’ environment. The second headline concerned the recent flash floods in Texas that killed over 120 persons and highlighted the possibility that “cloud seeding” could have contributed to the down pours that created the flood.
Simply put, cyborgism is one of many manifestations of excessive materialism, which is a product of a “Western World Mentality” that is evidenced by greed and the need to produce things (artificiality) at all levels and of all kinds. This need for production birthed socioeconomic hierarchies that now find Black Americans (and Black people of the world) at the very bottom.
Without Reparations a removal of hierarchies will be difficult to achieve without a very elongated and complete transformation of socioeconomic systems. And even if a more equal society is established, most expect this to occur in the same context that established our current problem(s)—a world of artificiality. Artificiality is not innate to non-Western World People.
Consequently, to evolve a permanent solution to Black America’s problem, the entire social system must be transformed from a Western World Mentality and from a reliance on the artificial to a mindset that values the natural world that we were given in which to “live and love freely” (the latter clause is used often by Prof. Maulana Ron Karenga). While cyborgism offers seeming advantages, unfortunately, it leads humanity away from the natural and increasingly toward the unnatural; i.e., toward increased artificiality.
Without perfect foresight, it seems relevant that, at a minimum, all humans should err on the side of caution as cyborgism is researched. For Black Americans who are largely excluded from Western World development of science and technology, our logical posture on cyborgism should be to reject it until we have an opportunity to comprehend its implications more completely. Black Americans cannot afford to adopt a wait-and-see attitude about this topic, just as we should not sit idly by and follow the stream on the adoption of artificial intelligence and robotization broadly and the impacts that they promise to produce on our future economic outcomes.
When we work to reclaim a natural course of life and living in a natural environment, we are likely to find that our former problems disappear because they are not part of our new natural and most favorable environment that can produce a very favorable and long future.
B. Robinson
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