Mass Effect is epic. It’s the product of the best parts of Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and more with a protagonist who could be the love-child of Picard, Skywalker, and Starbuck. It’s one of the most important pieces of science fiction narrative of our generation. Mass Effect goes so far beyond other fictional universes in ways that you may not have yet realized. It is cosmic in scope and scale.
Sci-fi nerds have long debated over which fictional universe is the best. The Star Trek vs Star Wars contest is infamous into banality, with lesser skirmishes among fans of shows and books like Battlestar Galactica, Enders Game, Xenogenesis, Farscape, Dune, Firefly, Stargate, and others fleshing out the field. Don’t mistake this piece as another pointless kerfuffle among obsessive basement dwellers. Mass Effect matters because of its ability to reflect on our society as a whole.
Science fiction is one of the best forms of social satire and critique. Want to sneak in some absolutely scandalous social more, like, say, oh, I don’t know, a black woman into a position of power in the ‘60s? Put her on a starship command deck.
Most science fiction, even the epic universes in Star Wars and Star Trek, pick only two or three issues to investigate in depth. Sure, an episode here or a character there might nod to other concepts worthy of investigation, but the scope of the series often prevents the narrative from mining the idea for what it’s worth.
Mass Effect can and does take ideas to a new plane of existence. Think of the Big Issues in your favorite series. Whether it is realistic science explaining humanoid life throughout the galaxy, or dealing with FTL travel, or the ethical ambiguity of progress, or even the very purpose of the human race in our universe, Mass Effect has got it. By virtue of three simple traits – its medium, its message, and its philosophy – Mass Effect eclipses and engulfs all of science fiction’s greatest universes. Let me show you how.
Zombies are a strange source of ethical inspiration, but as I mentioned to io9′s Lauren Davis, if academic ethicists get to spend all day talking about trolleys, I see no reason we can’t banter about the ethics of the undead.
Lauren posed the following query: When is it ok to kill a zombie? Should zombies be killed on sight, or quarantined as sick humans? As an answer, she has an excellent post up that has a some other cool responses to the questions and is worth a full read.
I responded as follows:
To answer your question, I think there are some things we simply can’t know in a realistic situation, so we have to make a couple assumptions for the sake of argument.
Assumption 1: We live in a materialistic universe. Zombies, therefore, are not the result of necromancy, demons, possession, or souls escaping from hell.
Assumption 2: We are discussing “classic” zombies – seek flesh, stimulus-response function, and the condition is communicable through bodily fluids (i.e. saliva to blood).
Both assumptions allow us to discuss most zombies, including those from The Walking Dead, 28 Days Later, and World War Z.
There are three criteria for ethical zombie killing to consider: dignity of the body, state of the infection, and potential for recovering consciousness.
A) Dignity of the Body: For those who don’t think it is possible to “desecrate a corpse” in a morally repugnant fashion, this point is moot. Whether you’re a consequentialist arguing the social impacts of disregarding the emotions of kin or a Kantian arguing the inherent dignity of the human form, there is a strong case that a human body deserves respect. The question as to what one can do to a zombified body are then called into question. I shouldn’t mutilate a corpse, therefore I shouldn’t damage an animated corpse, which is a problem when that corpse wants to gobble my brains.
The resolution is acknowledging that being zombified is itself a desecration of a corpse. I use the ideal of an open-casket funeral to judge whether or not a certain behavior reduces the dignity of a corpse. A moaning, mindless meat-seeking monster attempting to escape the coffin to disembowel those come to mourn it would reduce the dignity of said corpse. Thus, any action necessary to de-animate the corpse is an effort to return its dignity and, therefore, it is acceptable to lobotomize, ignite, and/or puree the zombie without violating your Kantian commitment to the dignity of the body.
B) The state of the infection: How infected is this person? Just bitten? How long until the shambling starts? There are three possible states that are ethically relevant: 1) Bitten Person knows they are infected and others know as well, but there are no signs yet 2) Bitten Person is in transition thru death – fever, shakes, morbidity – but not dead/undead 3) Bitten Person is reanimated. These states parallel the conditions of many illnesses and thus we can apply the general rules for informed consent and euthanasia.
The resolution is that for those who know they are infected, an honest discussion about how they wish to die before infection sets in is had. Mourning, goodbyes and choice of euthanasia are allowed as the situation permits (we are presuming an ideal here, not under constant assault by a shuffling hoard). In this instance, the amount of pain likely caused by transition makes “letting die” an immoral and impermissible decision, thus “active killing” becomes the moral action.
For those who are infected and in transition to the point of having lost lucidity, the moral action is immediate death. Whether you are considering the later possible harms of the zombie, the current harms of pain to the individual, or the dignity of the person being robbed by the transition, the lack of reasonable thought means that person’s protests and pleading are to be ignored. All thought is now the result of infection madness, through a haze of blinding pain, or the manifestation of the zombie micro-organism’s self-preservation function and are not to be considered in the way the pleading of a lucid person would be.
It is possible that the 28 Days Later rage zombies actually exist in this category, in that they are not “dead” per se, but reduced to madness. Criterion C may come into play, but in a state of anarchy, it is ethically permissible to terminate anyone infected with rage because of 1) the extremely high potential for harm to others 2) the strong possibility of current harm to the individual (presuming a nugget of preserved consciousness likely experiencing nothing but pain and fear) 3) and the fact that involuntary rage behavior violates Criterion A.
Finally, for the reanimated, see Criterion A.
C) The potential for recovering consciousness: If zombification is irreversible and incurable, the potential is zero and this point is moot. If zombification is preventable only through vaccination, the potential once infected is still zero. Considering stage 2 of infection, however, whether that is in the process of transition or in a non-mobid form of zombification like rage, there seems the potential for a cure. Presumption of destroying the micro-organism does not guarantee or even create a likelihood of a return to former consciousness undamaged. Based on the degradation of behavior and the nature of zombification (either reanimative or rage) a baseline assumption of severe brain-damage seems reasonable. The diseases effectively necessitate demolition of the pre-frontal cortex and all brain function outside of vulgar sensation for food-seeking and cerebellar activity necessary for locomotion. There is also the real chance that the disease constructs temporary ad-hoc networks to overcome the colossal damage to the original brain function. Terminate the disease, the networks collapses and the zombie deanimates or the rage fades and the body is left in a persistent vegetative state.
Thus, the resolution is that, should a cure become available, it comes with the presumption that active killing may still be necessary to prevent further suffering. Delivering the cure during the transition of an individual may result in recovery with none, minor, significant, severe, or mortal brain damage. Based on the individual and the decisions of trusted surrogates, it may be necessary to euthanize anyone with significant or worse brain damage. To persist in such a state is undignified and violates Criteria A.
So, to answer your initial question: I would need to know the state of the infection and the possibility of recovering full consciousness based on the criteria of preserving a person’s dignity.
Lauren Davis reopens the debate started by Zach Zorich at Archeology and continued by yours truly over whether or not we should clone a Neanderthal. She does a nice job compiling a list of yays and nays, including this gem I hadn’t much considered:
Neanderthals might not be built for modern life. The last recognizably Neanderthal human died out tens of thousands of years ago. Since then, modern humans have moved into cities and proven, to varying degrees, our ability to live in modern society. It’s entirely possible that a Neanderthal would adjust to modern life as easily as any other child. But we won’t know for sure until we clone one.
What caught me here is that as I read it I said aloud, “humans aren’t built for modern life!” I think of all the diets and exercise routines and explanations for ailments that stem from the idea that humans have changed our world faster than our body can evolve. As a result, an animal that evolved to live in small social groups (< 150) on savannah and to eat mostly vegetables with occasional meat acquired by long-distance running now spends most of its time socializing with thousands of different individuals in overwhelmingly urban environments with a meat, dairy, and grain-based diet spending large amounts of time sitting.
We, Homo sapiens sapiens, are not built for the world we’ve built ourselves.
So we’ll have to change the world some more, to bring things back into balance. Or maybe we’ll turn inward and change ourselves. Both seem to be in order. Either way, the Neanderthal stands as much a fighting chance as we do. I still think cloning a Neanderthal and raising her while allowing her to be observed and studied can be done ethically.
The other two “cons” Davis points out, “You would be creating a person just for them to be studied,” and “She would have no peers” are both non-starters.
The former is an appeal to a Kantian “mere means” critique of cloning. The Neanderthal clone would not be created just for study any more than a parent has a second child to give the first a playmate. You can create a person with a goal without dehumanizing that person. To want to give a Neanderthal the chance to walk this Earth again is reason enough for her to be. She would be as valuable as any other person. That she would be studied is secondary to her reason for being.
The latter, that she would have no peers, is without impact. There have always been firsts, originals, and peerless individuals among human beings. That she might be mocked or ridiculed is why it would be critical to ensure she had a supportive and nurturing family environment. Beyond that, there is no reason anyone else should know she is a Neanderthal. Like adoption, it should be something the family shares together, but needn’t broadcast to the world.
Without the label, I doubt anyone would be able to differentiate her from us. I suspect the differences would be so minimal as to upset human exceptionalists everywhere. Given safe methods, a proper foster family, strict guidelines for study, adequate privacy, and full human rights, I can see no reason cloning a Neanderthal would be unethical.
The best hospitals are now competing not only to have the best medical teams, but the best amenities:
The younger Mr. Frehse contrasted the unit’s mouth-watering menu with the “inedible food” his father faced when he was treated on the non-elite second floor. “Here he has mushroom risotto with heirloom tomatoes,” he said.
The hospital said in a statement: “NewYork-Presbyterian is dedicated to providing a single standard of high quality care to all of our patients.”
At Mount Sinai Medical Center, where the aesthetic of the Eleven West wing is antique mahogany rather than contemporary sleek, and the best room costs $1,600, William Duffy, the hospital’s director of hospitality, said his favorite entree was Colorado rack of lamb, adding, “We pride ourselves on getting anything the patient wants. If they have a craving for lobster tails and we don’t have them on the menu, we’ll go out and get them.”
The 19-room unit, which opened 18 years ago but received a recent face-lift, takes in $3.5 million a year, Mr. Duffy said, estimating that 30 percent of its clientele comes from abroad. If the emergency room is backed up, a regular patient may be upgraded, he added: “Bump ’em up to Business, as we say.”
The question of why this arms race of elite catering seems to have an obvious answer: the rich are richer and can afford it. But there have always been the super wealthy and yet . . . something has changed. Is it that we are staying longer in hospitals over all? Is it that the idea of “in home stay” with a visiting doctor isn’t feasible? Or are these ultra wealthy starting to discover that health care is about more than the most advanced body mechanic checking in on you once an hour. Are theses 1%ers groping towards the next big breakthrough in health care?
When every I watch old movies, there are two options for health care: either a kindly old doctor with a black bag who comes to the house or a traumatic, horrifying hostile hospital in which patients are treated like diseased cattle inside a THX-1138 style sterile environment. Is it really so unbelievable that where you receive your health care and what surrounds you during that treatment affects how you heal?
In a word, no.
Over at Cyborgology (a blog I am amazed I didn’t discover sooner, given its sister site is Sociological Images) Jenny Davis attempts to figure out if the assistive devices built by Ekso Bionics are “ableist” or if they represent genuine progress. She makes a pretty good case:
Less straightforward is the argument that Ekso represents a step backwards, a move towards the further denigration of physically impaired bodies. Here we have a product made to improve the lives of those with spinal cord injuries, and yet, it implies that walking, rather than wheeling, is necessarily the preferable state of mobility. I must point out here that a body in a wheelchair is already an augmented body. The technology of the chair, whether manual or electric, grants the mobility that is organically restricted. A practiced wheelchair user can indeed often move more quickly than a person relying on leg muscles alone. When in a wheelchair facilitating space, a wheeler can maneuver quite easily, accomplishing necessary tasks and acting independently. The problem, of course, is that many places and spaces do not facilitate such free use of a wheelchair. I wrote about this more extensively in an earlier post. With this in mind, I will now elaborate on is the difference between disability and physical impairment. It is in this difference, I argue, that we see the ableism that is built into the Ekso.
According to the social model of disability (as opposed to the medical model), an impairment is simply a physical condition. The legs are immobile. The eyes do not see. The ears do not hear. These conditions are inherently value neutral. They do not, in any essential way, hinder the extent to which a person can engage as an active member of society. These impairments become disabling, however, when experienced within an environment that fails to accommodate the spectrum of physical and mental states. Sight-only crosswalks are disabling for those with vision impairments. Public speeches without sign-language interpreters are disabling for those with hearing impairments. Buildings without ramps and/or elevators are disabling to those with mobility impairments.The technology of the Ekso assumes able-bodied advantage, and so works to fit the impaired body into an ableist environment. The impaired body is, by implication, devalued.
She had me until the section I’ve underlined (bold is the author’s). The problem? Davis conflates using wheelchairs with those who have mobility impairments. They are not the same.
The default state of a person who has mobility impairments is limping, stumbling, crawling or not moving at all. A cane might be all that is needed. Or crutches. Or a wheelchair. Or a power chair. There is a vast spectrum of mobility impairment and to imply that the manual wheelchair holds some sort of privileged status such that it is representative of all who have mobility impairments is faulty logic. Often these discussions tailspin into some “you’re more biased” than I, but that’s not where I’d like to go. Davis’ struggle is an intellectually honest one and she makes a reasoned effort to connect Ekso’s wonderful progress with her desire to prevent the otherizing and devaluing of those who wheel to get about. What her logic misses, however, is that the chair is merely a cruder version of Ekso. They are both mobility assistive devices, but one doesn’t require environmental modification.
Yes, our society is built around those who are able. That is, in large part, due to the fact that the vast majority of people are able-bodied. Ableist privilege can be framed as, “you’re disabled? It’s not worth the effort to change things for you.” Ableism dismisses the need for ramps and elevators or blind-accessible buildings and applications or deaf-accessible speeches and television. But we must also acknowledge what all of these things are: attempts to enable individuals when medical science cannot. We build ramps because we couldn’t come up with something better than a wheelchair. So our innovation turned to the environment, to make it wheelchair friendly. Then Ekso came along and reinvented the wheelchair.
When a person wants to build a tool to make the disabilities of others less disabling, they are not devaluing those with that disability. In a sense, our current effort to recognize the needs of the disabled is by making the man-made environment itself a tool to make a person’s disability less disabling. Any structure or system that makes the life of a person with a disability easier is an act of recognition that those with disabilities have immense value. The Ekso is not a privileged device that says those who wheel are inferior because this isn’t a discussion about those in wheelchairs, it’s a discussion about those who cannot walk. Ekso is a device that is designed to give those who cannot walk another option for mobility. A person who cannot ambulate as an able-bodied person must use an assistive device for mobility. Some of these devices are limited in their abilities and require modifications to the environment to allow the people who use them achieve mobility parity with the people who do not require assistive devices. The Ekso attempts to circumvent that and provide full mobility to those who are disabled without the need to modify the environment.
Technology is reaching a point where those who have been disabled can be re-enabled. We do not say we devalue the disabled when we cast a broken bone or do rehabilitative therapy to ensure someone is able to heal properly and walk again. Thus, those who focus on disability rights must begin coming to terms with the simple fact that options for the disabled will increasingly include a return to being able-bodied. Be it by direct healing of the injury, by-passing the disabled nerves, or by augmenting the body with cybernetics, those who are disabled will have more choices about how they want to be enabled. And that is a great thing. Ekso’s test-pilots seem to think so too.
Related: Exoskeletons Will Be the Eyeglasses of the 21st Century | The Crux …
In short, because everyone is a terrible lecturer. And there is proof from cognitive science studies:
In these test settings, various science curricula were revamped to get them to jibe with the latest cognitive science research on effective learning, which points to more interactive approaches that include immediately and repeatedly putting new information to use. Students in science courses were continually peppered with questions that they all had to answer via wireless handheld clickers. The students were frequently broken into small work groups to try their hands at solving problems using the material they had just learned, and they took at least two midterms each class.
The results have been eye opening. In a study published in the journal Science, one section of a University of British Columbia physics course about electromagnetic waves was taught by the cognitive approach, while another section was taught by the standard course lecture. The first group scored an average of 74 percent when tested on the material, while the second group scored only 41 percent. “We’ve been able to clearly demonstrate how much better we can do in teaching students,” Gilbert says.
Jamais Cascio points out that our vision of the future of technology is the same as it was twenty years ago. But our ability to predict social and cultural change is becoming more and more important, and that is way harder. Why?:
Some of it comes from a long-standing habit in the world of futurism to focus on technologies. Tech is easy to describe, generally follows widely-understood physical laws, offers a bit of spectacle (people don’t ask about “jet packs” because they think they’re a practical transit option!), and — most importantly — is a subject about which businesses are willing to pay for insights. Most foresight work is done as a commercial function, even if done by non-profit organizations. Futurists have to pay the rent and buy groceries like everyone else. If technology forecasts are what the clients want to buy, technology forecasts will be what the foresight consultants are going to sell.
Another big reason is that, simply put, cultural/political/social futures are messy, extremely unpredictable, and partisan in ways that make both practitioners and clients extremely vulnerable to accusations of bias. We’re far more likely to make someone angry or unhappy talking about changing political dynamics or cultural norms than we are talking about new mobile phone technologies; we’re far more likely to be influenced by our own political or cultural beliefs than by our preferences for operating systems. One standard motto for foresight workers (I believe IFTF’s Bob Johansen first said this, but I could be wrong) is that we should have “strong opinions, weakly held” — that is, we should not be locked into unchanging perspectives on the future. Again, this is relatively easy to abide by when it comes to technological paradigms, and much harder when it comes to issues around human rights, economic justice, and environmental risks.
Lastly, there’s a strong argument to be made that futurism as practiced (both the the West and, from what I’ve seen, in Asia) has a strong connection to the topics of interest to politically-dominant males. It would be too easy to caricature this as “boys with toys,” but we have to recognize that much of mainstream futures work over the past fifty years (certainly since Herman Kahn’s “thinking the unthinkable”) has focused on tools of expressing power, and has been performed by men. This is changing; the Institute for the Future employs more women than men, for example. In many respects, futurism in the early 21st century seems very similar to historiography in the post-WW2 era: still dominated by traditional stories of power, but slowly beginning to realize that there’s more to the world.
Data driven health care gets a new input source:
For the system, Proteus has designed sensors called ‘ingestible event markers’, which can be taken with pills or incorporated directly into medicines as part of the manufacturing process. In this system, the sensors will be embedded in a placebo to be taken alongside a medicine. Lloydspharmacy hopes to make the system, which will be marketed to people with chronic conditions, available from September.
[The sensors] are activated by stomach acid and are powered much like ‘potato batteries’, in which two different metals generate a current when inserted into the vegetable.
Each sensor contains a tiny amount of copper and magnesium, says Thompson. “If you swallow one of these devices, you are the potato that creates a voltage, and we use that to power the device that creates the signal”.
The digital signal, he adds, cannot be detected except by a device that attaches to the patient’s skin, much like a bandage. This device also monitors heart rate, respiration and temperature, showing how the patient responds to the medication. These data can then be relayed to a patient’s mobile telephone and shared with whomever the patient chooses.
The Society Pages’ Cyborgology dives into our weird relationship with the otherness of the disabled body. While the piece opens with the predictable discussion of Mullins and Pistorius, I was floored by Sarah Wanenchak’s use of Olympic speed skater Apollo Ohno:
Like the images of Mullins and Pistorius, Ohno’s body is explicitly being presented here as an attractive object. By most standards, Ohno is as able-bodied as one can get. But as I pointed out to my students, he manages this on the back of technology – on specially designed skates, in special aerodynamic suits, with the help of carefully balanced exercise and nutrition plans; almost no athlete is really “natural” anymore. But at least in part because of the closeness of his body to an able-bodied ideal, this presents no explicit threat to our categories. Ohno fits the accepted model of “human”. Who would look at him and doubt it? And if Mullins and Pistorius are perhaps not as close to that ideal, they at least fall into line with it, by virtue of the fact that they don’t explicitly question its legitimacy as an ideal – unless they seek to transcend it.
My point, in short, is this: we are uncomfortable with disabled bodies that question or trouble our accepted, hierarchical categories of abled and disabled, of human and non-human, of organic and machine. We are far more comfortable with them when they perform in such a way that they reinforce the supremacy of those categories. They become acceptable to us.
Ohno literally cannot compete without his equipment. About the only sport that had remained un-cyborgized was swimming (forgiving goggles, swim-caps, shaving, and that it takes place in a pool not open water) until the shark suit. To “disqualify” Mullins and Pistorius because they possess a mechanical advantage (or in the case of Caster Semenya, an unclear biological sex) underlines our poor understanding of sport as a celebration of physical achievement.
The discussion is akin to a question of the land speed record. We have records within circumscribed limits. The fastest km/h for a human, for any living organism (again, on land, ruling out swimming or flying), for a wheel-driven vehicle, and for any vehicle that does not take flight. These records measure different things, such as the athletic determination and dedication of a person mixed with genetics or the sheer engineering marvel necessary to make something break the sound-barrier without leaving the ground. If we simply want to see how fast we can go, Apollo 10 holds the record for manned flight and the Helios probes hold the record speed for any man-made object (faster than Voyager 1! I can’t believe it).
The point here is that as we continue to argue the “authenticity” of an achievement on steroids, or with aluminum bats, or what have you, it’s worth noting that all competitions are only relevant within their context and limitations that we’ve set to make them special.
