I wouldn't want them. Too much that can go wrong.

Yes, if they're not owned and controlled by some corporate entity.

Considering how unlikely that is, I'll probably never get cybernetic implants.

It's been done. There are some people with cybernetic optical implants which give limited vision.

The company that did this went bankrupt, and a patent troll bought the patent. The implants are now rotting away inside the heads of the original test subjects, and no doctor knows how to remove them because the procedure is also part of the patent.

Depends on the definition of "cybernetic". Is a cochlea implant cybernetic? Is a replacement lens one? A tooth filling?

Hip replacements with a step counter coming soon

Not sure what I would be able to get that's an improvement on my current body. Maybe something that behaves as a mouse/keyboard? It could be interesting to have something that skips songs playing or can click the TV interface but not sure why I wouldn't just get 5 mice or have a programmable IR blaster on the phone. Even something minor like a chip in the hand for RFID sounds better served with a smart ring since a power source, replacements and programmability sounds better than essentially just having a card chip in the hand. Make the ring into a solar panel with a physical on/off switch and it fits all my requirements.

So probably not anything, only possibility is that I lose something such as hearing, vision, leg and I get a replacement.

New Chrome? Well Cyberpunk made it seem fun, but in reality you'd get so many ads...

I used to be really deep into this rabbit hole. Theres a community of "biohackers" who do stuff like inserting rfid chips and magnets under the skin.

The magnet in the finger tip is what always interested me, but im too much of a chicken to seriously consider doing it because its not a medical procedure (you can't just go to a doctor afaia and request to have it implanted - theyll just refuse to do it) so you need to do it with local anaesthetics that you can legally acquire, yourself or with a friend.

People who have done it have reported they became able to sense electromagnetic fields once they got used to its sensitivity, which is bizarre and awesome at the same time. They literally gave themselves a "sixth sense"

ITT: Aug scum.

My initial reaction was a strong yes, but after a bit of thinking the realistic options are really limited. Most of the cool stuff from cyberpunk fiction is completely implausible or useless to me personally.

1. Durability. Metal bones, subdermal armor. Resisting small arms may be possible? But it's useless. Even if you're a soldier or an American schoolkid, people would start using higher calibers once this becomes a known technology. Resisting impacts is impossible because all the force would hit the weakest link (heart, lungs brain). You'd need a full body replacement with a remote brain, which is sci-fi nonsense and comes with its own drawbacks. I think the most likely risk to me would be head injuries (car accident, falling over), you can't really avoid that without removing the brain, or adding padding like a built-in helmet. If I wanted to wear a bike helmet all the time I could do it right now, but I'd look like a chud.

2. Arm Tools. Gun arm, scissor hands. Just carry a normal one. The only useful thing I can think of is a hidden weapon, which would be illegal and useless for most people. Again, every security operation would start scanning people to counter them.

3. Super Strength. Most useful lifts involve your full body, you'd need to replace the whole thing or you'll risk straining something. An exoskeleton might work, but why would you make it part of your body? Plus, if you're performing an industrial process, there's probably a more efficient way with custom tools. It could be usable if it's within the normal range of strength, and it'd save you some time at the gym. Also, maybe a super-strong hand would be useful for grip strength?

4. Extra Limbs. Your brain isn't structured to control these. Might work with a brain implant, but this would be very advanced technology if it's even possible.

I think brain and eye implants are the only things that'd be useful for a normal person. For brain implants it's hard to say what's realistic.
Eyes, you could add different modes and switch quickly, that might be useful? But how likely are you to need this with no notice. Just wear goggles. I'd still get it for the cool factor tbf.

I think the main use-case would be as a social tool to keep mildly offensive things on your person, using an argument from bodily autonomy. But then this is only socially acceptable if they're widespread, which requires them to be useful in the first place. I wouldn't want to do this and look like a total loser.

The magnet definitely intrigues me but I’ve had several fingertip injuries and the pain is not something I’m interested in voluntarily experiencing even though I’m good friends with someone with the surgical skills and anaesthetics.

RFID is also cool but tech moves fast.

Not unless it was medically necessary, and they had open hardware and software for the parts. Otherwise, I don't trust companies and the US government to properly regulate it, and I really don't feel like having to play whack-a-mole with adblockers or whatever to keep my cybernetic parts from beaming ads straight into my brain, or doing other crazy stuff. I'd also be wary of companies just discontinuing support for the implants when it became too expensive for them to maintain, and being left with a useless bunch of metal somewhere in my body.

RFID is also cool but tech moves fast.

Just install a zipper so you can hot swap

Definitely. I couldn’t afford to anyway, but I would not want to be one of the early adopters. But eventually, they’ll be hacked and it’ll be possible to remove any insidious corporate “features” and I’d be left with all the benefits.

RFID is also cool but tech moves fast.

the golden age of mifare classic is not yet over

Looked into Lasik surgery? My mom had severe astigmatism, and before surgery she couldn't see the big E on the eye chart without her glasses. She did need reading glasses a few years after surgery though which is why I've never looked into it, I'd rather not play the "where are my reading glasses?" game.

I'd be like Mr. T in space. You'd never get me onto one of those transporters unless I was dragged there while unconscious.

Chop me up, doc. I'm ready to live life by the hot wire.

I've been fixing machines long enough to know I don't want to. Flesh is weak, but flesh adapts. It also doesn't get an internet connection, which means I get to sleep at night.

Edit: Thought about this a little more. I think a better frame for this question is whether or not you're comfortable accepting the flaws and limitations inherent in our bodies as they are. Obviously I, as an able-bodied person, am more comfortable accepting that my body isn't perfect. Someone with significant disabilities wouldn't hesitate to fix what causes them pain, discomfort, or applies cruel limits to the life they want to live.

I can accept that other people would choose to change, and their reasons are their own. I have no right to force them to accept a body that they hate, for the same reason no one should force me to accept a body that I hate. The Deaf community has had years and years to debate the ethics of cochlear implants, and their impact on their community's cultural values. I'm not Deaf, just a little HoH, but I try to pay attention to what they're talking about for reasons like this.

But as a trans person, I can accept that my body isn't ideal. There are things I would happily change, for the sake of personal comfort. But having put a great deal of thought into it, I would be much happier to live in a society that understood and respected how I perceive myself, and how I want to be perceived. It would render the desire for those aesthetic changes a point of preference, rather than emotional necessity. An accepting culture has been better for my dysphoria than an acceptable body.

It is a complicated philosophical question. I think the right answer is that people should have the freedom to make that choice, and it shouldn't be mandatory, dangerous, or open a path to exploitation.

Watch the black mirror episode on that

like the borg?

The default MO for large tech companies is they are trying to screw me out of as much money as possible with each product I buy. In this current world, you'd have to be crazy to justify implanted tech. Maybe in a different world where consumers have more power, all tech products have laws similar to car lemon laws, and where open standards dominate over proprietary tech, it could be reasonable.

My shoulder is busted so yes please I would like a robot arm 🦾

I used to be of the purely meat/unwired crowd, but that was a younger me. Now that I’m aging, I think I’d take my chrome and never look back.

meatman gets no upgrades

Yes. I mean I have ink all over that resembles this so most def I would get a real one.

Only if the software stack was GPLv3 licensed (or whichever was the most aggressive version of the license) and the computational hardware was reasonably open as well, preferably completely open like RISC and maybe a fully open UEFI.

I need to trust anything that is going to become part of me.

I feel like... cybernetic implants will be here in a few years. They'll be designed by AI and incomprehensible to any human. They'll also be unaffordable to you, or anyone close to your age, allowing boomers and billionaires to outlive the children whose future they stole, again.

Oh, sorry, would I? Nah, I'd never be able to afford it.

If it meant I could download language packs, likely yes. Otherwise probably not. And not in the current setup where some company could likely turn off your brain if you missed a payment.

No, because then it'd be like in the Genetic Opera where we don't own the parts we need to keep us alive. We'd have to pay those too, in absurd amounts. And if we don't, we'll just die. It's already looking like that anyways with the "Pay or Die" system we have in healthcare.

Crack my skull and spine open, pull out my brain and nervous system and put it in the robot.

If you're going to trust a corporation to casually touch your brain, you're not using it, so you should do it!

As much as the weakness of flesh disgusts me, I wouldn't touch cybernetics with a ten foot pole, unless they corrected a major disability/were lifesaving.

How would you feel about your continuity if more than one robot copy/replacement is made? (at the same time all based on the meat version I mean, not as future replacement/upgrade bodies)

Only if they're open source, and even then its a big if.

It would need to have a firewall, only allowing outgoing requests

I remember a thought from CGP Grey that went along the lines of..

At some point cybernetics will be like smart phones; people look at you weird if you don't have one.

I'd be cool with it as long as they're all autonomous. From my sense of continuity I continue to exist and there are other copies who share my experiences as meatman up to the point in time where we received our respective robot bodies. It'd be like gaining siblings. From their point of view they continue to exist and there are other copies like myself out there as well.

I'm also okay if I woke up in my robot body and found out I'm not the first copy. Knowing myself it would be more of a "fun fact" that someone is the original rather than something that carries any sort of weight.

Tail.

He also said self driving cars where "here" in 2014. Not sure he's that prophetic.

Any mechanical only part without software. Nothing from head or spine.

Which robot would be you and which would be "the other copies"?
I would imagine that from the descendants' pov they're all "you", but I wonder if you would identify yourself with one over the rest 🤔

If the descendants continue to collaborate in perpetuity, maybe "you" is the swarm.

Absolutely not

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60416058

These people permanently changed their bodies in ways that will have lifelong impacts (as one example they can never have an MRI) just to be abandoned.

No way. If RoboCop or Cyberpunk is anything to go off of, trusting a company to supply parts for your own body is not a good idea.

Besides, I've always liked my equipment in stock form, to really appreciate it for what it is at its core.

I think we'd just view it as a matter of perspective. To me, I'm me and they're them. To them, they're me and I'm them. We'd each identify ourselves as me.

But we would probably also enjoy being considered a swarm, I know I would.

My brain immediately went to cybernetic titties and I got lost thinking about what they might do.

I refer to my CGM as "my cybernetic implant", so I guess I already have one?

Frylock: Low voice c'mon, he heard you, Shake.

louder Be-because Meatwad is already top of the line! He needs no upgrades!

Meatwad: Yea! Meatwad's number one!

Shake: Oh-hoh, it's not like he doesn't know he's awful.

Meatwad: I do? I'm not--

Shake: You're not stupid, are you? I mean, we all know Meatwad is pretty dumb but you're not so dumb that you don't even realize that you were fished out of the bottom of the bargain bin.

Frylock: Shake--

Meatwad: I'm not stupid!

Shake: So you know, then.

Meatwad: Yeah! Wait...

Shake: I knew it! Meatwad is the worst.

Frylock: Shake, enough! You're going to make him cry!

Meatwad: sniffs

Shake: Oooh, fine, ya crybaby. Frylock has your upgrades that will make you almost as good as normal--

Frylock: Shake!

Meatwad: I'm getting upgraded?

Shake: --but he refuses to even admit he has it because he's jealous! Of how great you'll be!

Meatwad: Frylock...

Shake: The ultimate betrayal! He can't handle being #3 so he's keeping you down!

Frylock: Meatwad, you don't believe I'd do that to you--

Meatwad: I thought we were friends.

Shake: Always competing for that #2 spot, it's despicable!

Meatwad: Frylock!

Frylock: There IS NO UPGRADE. How do you upgrade a wad of meat anyways? Shake is just--

Shake: SEE!? Even Frylock agrees you can't get better and that you're the worst.

Frylock: eyes glowing Ok fine. Meatwad, how would you like an upgrade? I'll give you a straw, how does that sound?

Shake: glowing, rising into the air Woah, wait! No, no, I was just kidding! Meatwad, you don't want a straw, do you?

Meatwad: You know, a straw would be pretty cool.

Shake: Nononono, don't--just think about how dumb you'd look with a straw just sticking out! Maybe you'd prefer a fry!? glowing intensifies AH!

Meatwad: Yeah, you're right, that would look pretty dumb.

Shake: relaxes Oh thank you, Meatwad, you're a good buddy.

Meatwad: Frylock, could I have a lid, too, maybe? Then my straw won't look so dumb?

I get a kind of chafe, like that of clothes that don't fit, for the normal function of my own body. Like some other arm I've never used is tied behind my back. So yes, but the cost matters more.

If I die younger for it, not worth it. If I give up my sovereignty to an amoral entity for it, not worth it.

So no hack jobs and no corporate bs, but non-invasive opensource projects like openbci and openmuscle? Awesome!

For it to be more mainstream I'd really support a well ran cooperative that supports these opensource projects and customers that have them.

Have you seen the people that use high powered LEDs on silicon implant to turn them into a light show?

Oh man, I just wish I had an eye based blocker right now. These political ads in the states are bleeding into my no ad watching life