Transhumanism – Star Trek – First Contact

It’s taken us a while to make it to Star Trek but at least we picked a good story with one of the best villans of the modern era. The Borg represt both what can be achieved with cybernetic enhancements, while at the same time embodying everything that we fear.  The machine will consume us, […]

It’s taken us a while to make it to Star Trek but at least we picked a good story with one of the best villans of the modern era.

The Borg represt both what can be achieved with cybernetic enhancements, while at the same time embodying everything that we fear.  The machine will consume us, turning us into mindless zombie automatons – didn’t Picard get the memo.

The western world tends to reserve the best of the transhumanist transformations for the bad guys and the borg never fail to deliver.  While I am not overly convinced by their terminator esque go back in time to prevent the future machinations there is no doubt that from beginning to end of the movie, they are the scariest of the star trek villans.

Does cybernetics have to be scary?  There are a number of people that would literally give up their right arm for a working cybernetic one.  Why does that seam so nuts?  Wouldn’t it be great to have a limb that could be upgraded – try out new hand 4.2 with collaborative multitasking?

Unfortunately we never get to see what the borg have to offer.  From the borg queens perspective it’s all paradise, who knows, she could be right.