hal@finney.org wrote:
>
> Mike Lorrey, <mlorrey@datamann.com>, writes:
> > Delightedly using the word as a self referent automatically triggers
> > emotional and preexisting reflexes in people's minds from cheap B movies
> > and bad TV scifi. Its just a bad move in the war of semantics.
>
> Perhaps so, but how does that relate to socialism? You wrote, "While
> some may take peruile pleasure at seeing themselves as such, especially if
> they are of a socialist or pro-borg bent..." Why did you say that people
> would enjoy characterizing themselves as cyborgs especially if they are
> socialists?
Because if they are socialist transhumanists (or other sorts of
collectivists), they would, or might, see the "Borg" as their ideal. Its
not an accident that the writers of Star Trek chose to utilize that
particular term. The point was to present technological augmentation of
the individual in Frankensteinian terms, and to link it with that which
the pro-technology individualst fears most: loss of self to the control
of society.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:39:42 MDT