From: Adrian Tymes (wingcat@pacbell.net)
Date: Thu Mar 14 2002 - 20:30:05 MST
Samantha Atkins wrote:
> As we hopefully become increasingly augmented there are very important
> questions of whether our augmentation will be considered as much a part
> of us as our brain or eyes or will always be considered mere equipment
> to be turned off, removed or damaged at the discretion of any official
> or semi-official. Will we be forced to implant such augmentation so that
> it can't be removed to escape such mangling of ourselves?
Indeed, this could be the "killer app" reason behind implants. Most
augmenting devices, it's cheaper and easier to wear them externally, and
usually considered safer *precisely because* they can be removed,
powered down, and even destroyed without causing major physical risk to
the wearer (or, at least, so's the majority belief, correct or not).
Anything which requires surgery to remove, at least for the near term,
the public would be up in arms about if people were forced to remove
them. ("Today, they took this chip out of that person. What next,
mandatory liposuction to make sure you're not smuggling a mininuke in
your blubber?" Well, ok, that particular example might actually win
some support, especially with the prospect of it being done at
government expense, but you know what I mean. ^_-)
> When humans
> commonly wear hearing aids or protheses they are not asked afaik to
> remove them at security checkpoints.
No? I recall seeing someone with an artificial leg being asked - at
gunpoint, by the security people - to remove it at an airport security
terminal, way before 9/11. (Granted, this could have been a special
circumstance; maybe the guards had evidence the limb was being used to
smuggle drugs or something. The dangers of anecdotes...)
> I hope Dr. Mann sues their asses off.
Sadly, I see almost any judge saying "this is not a medical condition,
you did this to yourself, and you knew the risks; the 'national
interest' is superior to your technobabble concerns". At most, he could
get damages for the parts that really did bleed, but legal precedent is
that non-life-sustaining equiment, even artificial limbs, is more
property than body.
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