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.
Bu hikaye Reason magazine dergisinin August - September 2019 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye Reason magazine dergisinin August - September 2019 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Gimme Shelter - The U.S. confronts a growing homelessness problem. Does Miami have the answer?
The U.S. confronts a growing homelessness problem. Does Miami have the answer?
AI Is Coming for Hollywood's Jobs
But so is everyone else.
AI Can Do Paperwork Doctors Hate
With help from AI, doctors can focus on patients.
Antitrust May Smother the Power of AI
Left alone, AI could actually help small firms compete with tech giants.
A Brief, Biased History of the Culture Wars
THE FIRST PAR AGR APH of the book jacket lays it out: “There is a common belief that we live in unprecedented times, that people are too sensitive today, that nobody objected to the actions of actors, comedians, and filmmakers in the past.
FAMILIES NEED A VIBE SHIFT
THE AUTHORS OF FOUR NEW BOOKSWITH 24 KIDS BETWEEN THEM-SAY THE AMERICAN FAMILY NEEDS A COURSE CORRECTION.
"The Past Is There To Teach Us What Can Happen'
Hardcore History's Dan Carlin on hero worship and moral assumptions in the study of the past
Cutting Off Israel
ENDING U.S. AID WOULD GIVE WASHINGTON LESS LEVERAGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST. THAT’S WHY IT’S WORTH DOING.
WHAT CAUSED THE D.C.CRIME WAVE?
GOVERNMENT MISMANAGEMENT, NOT SENTENCING REFORM OR SPARSE SOCIAL SPENDING, DESERVES THE BLAME.
States Turn Their Backs on Criminal Justice Reform
IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE to avoid the “strange bedfellows” cliché when reading about the criminal justice reform movement in the 2010s.
