When I’m having a bad day, I trawl the internet for videos of happy cyborgs.
My favorites are clips of hearing-impaired people getting their cochlear implants turned on for the first time. The videos follow a soothingly predictable pattern. Mumbly background chatter and shaky cam—the cinematography is rarely good—then a pregnant pause, wide eyes, and finally that peculiar kind of sobbing that human beings do when we are overwhelmed. The pattern is the same whether it’s a babe in arms or a full-grown man.
If you catch the right algorithmic wave on YouTube or the right hashtag on Instagram, you can surf for hours in this genre: videos of Parkinson’s patients as their tremors are calmed by a new therapy, paraplegics walking with the help of adaptive prosthetics, infants getting their first pair of coke-bottle glasses, and more.
Adorable kittens and soppy love stories do little to warm my cold, dead heart. But show me a part-robot baby flipping out because he heard his mom say “hello” for the first time, and it’s onion city.
I’m not deaf or hard of hearing, but I am aware that cochlear implants are not without controversy in that community. As with almost everything you see on the internet, behind the scenes there is invisible labor, difficult setbacks, and the occasional disaster. Hardly anyone posts those on their YouTube channel.
Still, entire religions were once built around the spectacle of someone banishing a severe disability with the wave of a hand. Today any certified R.N. in the right audiologist’s office can be a secular saint. When my own worthless eyeballs were corrected with lasers, making me ablind(ish) woman given the gift of sight, I didn’t fall to my knees and worship the ophthalmologist. I just got out my credit card. We live in an age of reliable, scalable, profitable miracles.
This story is from the August - September 2019 edition of Reason magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the August - September 2019 edition of Reason magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Libertarianism From the Ground Up
ARGUMENTS FOR LIBERTARIANISM typically take two forms. Some libertarians base their creed on natural rights-the idea that each individual has an inborn right to self-ownership, or freedom from aggression, or whatever-and proceed to argue that only a libertarian political regime is compatible with those rights.
Lawlessness and Liberalism
THE UNITED STATES is notorious both for mass incarceration and for militarized police forces.
Politics Without Journalism
THE 2024 CAMPAIGN WAS A WATERSHED MOMENT FOR THE WAY WE PROCESS PUBLIC AFFAIRS.
EVERY BODY HATES PRICES
BUT THEY HELP US DECIDE BETWEEN BOURBON AND BACONATORS.
The Great American City Upon a Hill Is Always Under Construction
AMERICA'S UTOPIAN DREAMS LEAD TO URBAN EXPERIMENTATION.
Amanda Knox Tells Her Own Story
\"OUR CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM RELIES UPON OUR OWN IGNORANCE AND THE FACT THAT WE DON'T KNOW WHAT OUR RIGHTS ARE.\"
Trade Policy Amnesia
WHILE HE WAS interviewing for the job, President Joe Biden demonstrated an acute awareness of how tariffs work. It's worrisome that he seems to have forgotten that or, worse, chosen to ignore it-since he's been president.
Civil Liberties Lost Under COVID
WHEN JOE BIDEN was sworn in as president in January 2021, he had good reason to be optimistic about the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bye, Joe
AMERICA'S 46th president is headed out the door. After a single term marked by ambitious plans but modest follow-through, Joe Biden is wrapping up his time in office and somewhat reluctantly shuffling off into the sunset.
Q&A Mark Calabria
IF YOU HAVE a mortgage on your home, the odds are that it's backed by one of two congressionally chartered, government-sponsored enterprises (GSES), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
