Pop Bioethics

Why Mass Effect is the Most Important Science Fiction Universe of Our Generation

Kyle Munkittrick — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 20:50:38 +0000

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.

The Medium

Mass Effect is a video game. Specifically, a role-playing, third-person shooter hybrid, affectionally called an action-adventure game. If you’re not into video games, the idea is you run around talking to characters and exploring environments, uncovering the narrative layer by layer through dialogue, discoveries, and connecting seemingly unrelated events. There are also some parts that involve gun-fights, special powers, and explosions – hence action-adventure. As a vessel for an epic science fiction narrative, the medium of action-adventure game affords three immediate advantages – setting, casting, and emotional involvement.

The first advantage, setting, involves the portrayal of alien species and alien worlds with ease. Novels require descriptions, comics require painstaking drawings, films and television require either hours of expression deadening makeup or expensive CGI. In a video game, rendering an asari or a hanar requires the same amount of work as a human. Want a cast of thousands? No problem. Need a mob of hundreds of individuals representing fifteen different species rendered inside an colossal ancient space station? No sweat.

What does that mean for the story? That you believe that other races matter and are deeply intrenched in the galactic civilization. Because they are filmed with human actors, series like Star Trek and Star Wars leverage mostly human and very humanoid (vulcan, bajoran, betazoid) characters. Even though we are told humans are only one race among many, we somehow always end up running the galaxy and living everywhere. All the important characters who get the most screen time are human beings.

Sometimes there are a few aliens that look suspiciously similar to humans, save perhaps a few odd markings, ear shapes, or nose-ridges. True aliens, those with confusing cultures or bizarre rituals, are represented by a token character who acts as a stand in for the race (Spock, Worf, Quark).

Not so in Mass Effect. Run around the Citadel and you’ll be damned if you find more than two or three humans out of hundreds of citizens milling about, shopkeepers hawking their wares, and government officials eyeing you suspiciously. The entire government of the galaxy, known as the Council, is run by non-humans. The majority of characters on screen at any given time are alien. Being able to render any race with equal ease means that as a human, you truly feel like the minority species we are.

Second, the ability to customize the cast of Mass Effect is only possible with a video game. Commander Shepard’s crew on the SSV Normandy are, thanks to the ease with which non-humans can be rendered, preposterously diverse. As the crew of the Normandy change over the course of the narrative, there is no definitive count or diversity statistics, but if one plays as a female Shepard, the crew usually has about a 1:1 male to female ratio, a 1:1 alien to human ratio, a few cyborgs and synthetic life forms, and about eight different species. Based on the mission and player preference, one can choose among these various cast members for each episode.

The complexity of the supporting cast is matched by the amazing ability to create the main character – something only possible within a video game. I can’t very well rewatch all of Star Trek: The Next Generation with a female Picard of Middle Eastern descent who grew up on a space station. Mass Effect gives me that option with Shepard. Given that Jennifer Hale’s voicing of Commander Shepard is widely considered superior, one is actually inclined to cast the character who will lead galactic civilization in a fight for survival as a female. One can spend hours tweaking physical appearance (not mere a few options of “races”) to get a character of any ethnicity and build. Oh, and sexuality is an option too. Shepard is yours to design.

I don’t need to explain why the option to have a non-white, non-male, non-straight person as the main character of a blockbuster action science fiction story is important. The simple fact that for every fan, there is a different Shepard, is even more amazing. Only an action-adventure video game could begin to offer that level of customization.

Third, and for the sake of narrative, perhaps the most intriguing, is the player involvement in ethical decision making. RPGs and video games have had choice as an element of gameplay for some time. The critical difference is the duration and scale of the consequences of the decisions made in Mass Effect. First, decisions are not a function of gameplay but of narrative. Mission difficulty will often remain unaffected by choices, where as character reactions, relationships, and entire narrative arcs will be altered significantly by every choice. Second, decisions are persistent through each installment in the series. The combined decisions in Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 create over 1,000 variables to be imported into Mass Effect 3. The third element of decisions in Mass Effect is the scale of decisions. Choices to not research a given technology or to seek retribution against a helpless foe might result in the death of a major character or the addition of a new one. Further, each decision is clouded by an insufficient amount of information. Players often act in the dark, evaluating and analyzing the he-said-she-said of characters whose motivations are rarely selfless or noble.

Even the emotions one chooses to express are optional. BioWare’s Dialogue Wheel allows one to react naturally to a conversation, expressing disdain, excitement, stoicism, lust, or a host of other context appropriate emotions. A prime example is that even during rousing speeches, the player is able to make on-the-fly decisions that alter the pathos of Shepard’s rhetoric. Further, complex and intimate relationships with squad mates is possible, but as with reality, choosing one avenue often permanently closes another, potentially even damaging a friendship or alliance.

Mass Effect’s deep decision-making system is finely tuned to draw out realistic responses from players. During an interview I had with Daniel Erickson, lead writer for Star Wars: The Old Republic, he revealed two key elements of BioWare’s process that makes their games ideal for ethical exploration. The first is that quality voice acting triggers complex emotional responses in players. The second is that allowing players to choose their next line in conversation based on emotion, not the precise words written down, creates a huge level of investment by the player in the main character. Erickson mentioned that Mass Effect was the first time players had overwhelmingly identified the main character, Shepard, as their favorite character in an RPG. Caring about your character means you care how your character is perceived by others, you care how that character interacts with the world in relation to your value system, and you care about the same things and individuals as your character does.

Other media ask you to evaluate and observe the decisions of the main character. Mass Effect enables you to believe the world in which the story is told, to cast the major characters and to participate in the decisions and face the consequences of character choices. In short, one cannot help but become deeply invested in the universe and narrative Mass Effect builds.

The Message

The benefits reaped from making Mass Effect an action-adventure video game would be wasted if the message were not what it is. Mass Effect has a simple message: human beings are delusional about their importance in the grand scheme of things.

Mass Effect starts with humanity in the galaxy where it should have been in the United Federation of Planets: unnoticed among the other minor species struggling to prove to the Council why they add anything of value to the civilization that is Citadel Space. Such a message would be laughable were it made central to Star Wars or Star Trek, where nearly every important character is human. Star Wars and Star Trek start with the assumption that humans will be important in galactic civilization. Why? In part because the medium forced that decision, but more so because both universes assume that human beings add meaning to the universe. Mass Effect doesn’t make such an assumption. Mass Effect never lets you forget that we might not add one jot of meaning or benefit to intelligent life beyond our solar system.

Humanity’s minority and irrelevant status is underlined by the fact that on the Citadel we are not only new, but one among many second class species. In addition to the Council species (asari, turian, and salarian) there are four other Citadel member species in the same secondary status as human beings. There even a few other non-Citadel species with more respect than humans. Events that shaped the civilization of the galaxy, like the turians leveraging the krogan in the Rachni Wars (Enders Game meets Starship Troopers) and the quarian civil war with the geth (aka the Cylons won), were happening when humans still thought the Earth revolved around the Sun. The volus, a wheezing, whining race forced to live in pressure suits when off-world, have been petitioning for Council membership since the Ptolemaic Era. Galactic civilization is unimpressed by Earthlings.

Mass Effect is colored by this message in three distinct ways. First, the actions of many major human characters almost always have a subtle undercurrent of petulance or entitlement. Humanity’s representative to the Council, Ambassador Udina, is an ideal example. Udina, a consummate politician, serves more to impede Shepard’s efforts in the first Mass Effect as he attempts to placate the Council. Udina is supplicant humanity on a bent knee. Then there is Cerberus, the seemingly omniscient conspiratorial agency responsible for Shepard’s resurrection, that is, at its core, driven by the Illusive Man’s inability to accept that human beings are a middling species in the galaxy. Mass Effect portrays our species from the perspective of the established species in the universe: we are fumbling neophytes with FTL drives.

Second, the lowering of human status diffuses any xenophobic urges a player might have. Species one would normally be unlikely to care about, such as the brutish and belligerant krogan or gypsy-like quarian, are suddenly seen as kindred second-class spirits. The constant presence of other species on the Normandy, a human Alliance/Cerberus ship, is a perpetual reminder that we are out of our depth in the universe. No problem, no matter how much the player may want it to be, will be solved unilaterally by human gumption and know-how.

Remember how big a deal I said it was to be able to play as a female, racial and sexual minority Shepard? Ok, now imaging playing that character within a context whatever the player’s gender, race, or orientation, that the simple humanity of the player is subjected to believable and, within the Mass Effect universe, true prejudice, insults, and scrutiny. The impact of the message on the player’s interactions with other species is that, after facing what feels like unwarranted treatment, the player is forced to recognize the perspective of any species one might encounter along the way. Mass Effect makes you view the reflection of humanity in a mirror darkly.

Third, by undermining the player’s sense of pride in being human, Mass Effect also opens doors to what would likely be highly controversial discussions were humanity “in charge.” In fact, Star Trek provides the ideal contrast on the issues of genetic engineering, cyborgs, and artificial life are all addressed as ultimately threatening to humanity. In Star Trek (TOS, TNG, & DS9), those who are genetically engineered are seen as myopic elitists and supremacists, convinced of their own vaunted status, not wishing to allow their world to be “tainted” by those who are impure. In Mass Effect, Miranda and Grunt are rich and rounded characters who are genuinely superior in some aspects due to their modifications, but also reflect the increased self-awareness and contemplativeness we would hope to see in a superior being.

In Star Trek cyborgs (Borg) and androids (Data) are one of two things: a threat to humanity or desperate to emulate it. In Mass Effect, Shepard’s resurrection leaves her largely cybernetic while EDI, the ship AI, and Legion, an autonomous mobile geth platform, are more interested in helping and understanding humans than they are attempting to become or obliterate human beings. Legion even corrects a crew mate at one point, mentioning it does not see itself as artificial life, but as synthetic life – that is, not a mimic, but a new and equally valid form. Shepard’s constant discussions with, dependance upon, and similarities to her non-organic crew members is made more accessible to the player due to Mass Effect’s questioning of human exceptionalism.

Mass Effect’s message is designed to open up narrative complexity by destabilizing the player’s sense of confidence in his or her own skin. By undermining the value of being human, threatening and novel lifeforms become relatable, minority aliens become allies, and human intentions become questionable. As an action-adventure game, the player is more likely to become invested in the message because the setting, cast, and interactivity of Mass Effect creates a more visceral emotional connection to the narrative. All of which serves to enable Mass Effect’s philosophy.

The Philosophy

In nearly great popular science fiction universe, there is a flaw. Born of systemic bias, the flaw is one that fundamentally undermines the narrative that carves its way through the characters, species, technologies and worlds that populate any given sci-fi story. Our greatest stories set in space often reference the flaw with oblique references to a long forgotten species, cataclysmic events, or godlike entities. Something is wrong with the universe, but we cannot place it.

Consider the canon of epic science fiction universes. Like a black hole one can see the flaw by observing the light cast in those moments that confront it at its edges: the series finale of BSG, Q’s tests of Picard, the Butlerian Jihad, the Buggers, the Borg, the obliteration of Alderan by the Death Star. Yet ultimately each of these narratives turns away, unable or unwilling to withstand the abysmal gaze emanating from the depths of the universe. The flaw in every science fiction series is that they shy from the deep horror of the existence of intelligent life in infinite spacetime – save for two: the one that brought first brought it to our attention and the one that sees this horror as the framework for reality.

The flaw is a simple one: the assumption that life has meaning, that intelligent life has a purpose, and that humanity contributes anything to the universe. H.P. Lovecraft, a man “against the world, against life,” refused to assume the universe was good. Out of that refusal crawled the sublime philosophy of Cosmicism – defined thusly:

There is no recognizable divine presence, such as a god, in the universe, and humans are particularly insignificant in the larger scheme of intergalactic existence, and perhaps are just a small species projecting their own mental idolatries onto the vast cosmos, ever susceptible to being wiped from existence at any moment. This also suggests that the majority of undiscerning humanity are creatures with the same significance as insects in a much greater struggle between greater forces which, due to humanity’s small, visionless and unimportant nature, it does not recognize.

Cosmicism is not merely the idea that there is no meaning in the universe. It’s far worse. Instead, the argument is that there is meaning, but it is so far above and beyond human understanding that we can never attain meaningful existence. Despite writing at the turn of the last century, H.P. Lovecraft’s Cosmicism is something with which no major narrative of humanity’s journey through the stars has dealt. Until, that is, Mass Effect allowed Sovereign to utter the following sentences:

Organic life is nothing but a genetic mutation, an accident. Your lives are measured in years and decades. You wither and die. We are eternal. We are the pinnacle of evolution and existence. Before us, you are nothing . . . Your civilization is based on the technology of the mass relay, our technology. By using it, your society develops along the paths we desire. We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it. And you will end because we demand it.

In doing so, Mass Effect forces the observant player to ask, “Why fight for survival in a meaningless universe?” From the answer stems a story that demands the player confront the purpose of human beings in the galaxy at every level. To play Mass Effect is to consider the value of the lives of other species, the meaning of life on a cosmic scale, and the importance of individual relationships in the face of cataclysm.

The framework of Cosmicism allows Mass Effect to explore the progression of intelligent life in an incredible way. First, one must accept the premise that the technology to explore the universe is a trap and a structure that forces galactic civilization to follow an invariable path. Like Descartes’ mischievous demon or Hume’s apathetic creator, the universe is indeed the product of an intelligence, but a negligent one at best, a malicious one at worst.

From this antagonistic framework, we see a galactic civilization that is built on the worst case scenarios of the great science fiction stories. The quarians are an exploration of a species that creates intelligent machines, neglects them, and then loses the war (contra BSG). The drell and hanar explore the world-ending impacts of climate change and the need to evolve an entire species to survive on a new, alien planet. The krogan are a reptilian war society recruited to stop an intelligent insect invasion (a la Starship Troopers and Enders Game) at the behest of an amoral science-at-all-costs species, the salarians. When the krogans have finished their task the salarians release a genophage causing 99 out of 100 krogans to be stillborn – that is, one of the leading cultures of the galaxy committed reproductive genocide against the very species it uplifted. Cosmicism underpins Mass Effect’s ability to show the permutations of how the Drake Equation imagined intergalactic civilizations: warts and all.

Within the fear of the universe comes a liberation from biological normativity. The asari are a female only species with a thousand year life span. As the cultural leader of Citadel Space and most mature of galactic civilizations, the asari are a species evolved for interstellar life. As with the Xenogenesis series, the asari can utilize alien DNA in their reproductive processes, making them the potential partner of any species they encounter. But the result is not a hybrid creature, but an asari through-and-through. What initially seems to be a species designed for intergalactic community becomes a kind of consumptive force, slowly but surely perpetuating itself at the cost of another species’ offspring. The racial fear of being bred out of existence escalated to a new level.

Further, the fear associated with biological destiny translates to transcending the biological in both body and mind. Citadel Space is dominated by the same law as Dune’s planetary empire: a ban on artificial intelligence. The quarian war with the geth is not merely the victory of the cylons but also an allusion to the Bulterian Jihad. As a result even the friendly EDI, who never actually does anything to indicate she is a hyper-rational decision machine (i.e. HAL 9000), is viscerally feared by the Illusive Man, Joker, and Shepard herself. Legion’s playful mocking of biological limitations contains implications of organic obsolescence. Moreover, there are bountiful deviations from prosaic biology including: Jack’s biotic powers; the cybernetics of the Lazarus project that resurrected Shepard; the dexo-protein biology of quarians and turians; the human computer core of project Overlord; the eugenics inherent in the perfect Miranda and her equally designed sister; and the pure engineering of Okeer’s genetic manufacture of Grunt as a template for krogan clone warriors. The violations of biology and the disregard for the natural are no longer obvious evils in a universe in which the path of life and civilization itself is an artificial and designed construct. Cosmicism opens the value of “natural” up for critique.

Underneath it all, there is the Cosmic Horror of Sovereign, The Collectors, Saren’s indoctrination, and the Keepers. Mass Effect has not one but two entire species – the Keepers and the Collectors – that exist as mindless drones at the beck-and-call of the Reapers. It is herein that the great flaw of the universe so often unaddressed by science fiction is elevated and exposed by the narrative of Mass Effect. The Reapers are biomechanical equivalents of the Elder Gods of H.P. Lovecraft. If the xenomorphs in Alien had a deity, it would be a Reaper. Inconceivable, immortal, uninvolved super-beings that are not divinities per se, but so far beyond our realm of existence as to drive insane those who encounter and worship them. The seat of being, the mind, becomes rent apart and irredeemably misshapen to bend to the whims of a malevolent ancient life form.

The resulting slaves, the Keepers and Collectors, act without thought, remorse, or concern. And they become all the more horrible once they are fully revealed. The Keepers are thought to be beneficent until it is revealed they serve not the inhabitants of the Citadel, or even the Citadel itself, but the purpose of ensuring the Citadel will serve the cyclical apocalypse. The Collectors are revealed to be the remnants of the Protheans – the foundation species that was thought to be the galactic civilization in the wake of which Citadel Space had formed. Instead, Mass Effect exposes the very basis of intelligent exchange in the universe, the Mass Relays, to be a Trojan Horse. Reality is a ruse. Progress a lockstep, well-treaded path to oblivion.

The Reapers and their cyclical destruction of civilization represent one of the most nihilistic interpretation of intelligence in the universe ever presented. Mass Effect answers Fermi’s famous question, “Where is everyone?” with a matter-of-fact, “They have been consumed.”

So What?

Thus, we are forced with the question: Why does any of this matter? Why should we care that Mass Effect deals with any of these issues?

The reason is this: Mass Effect is the first blockbuster franchise in the postmodern era to directly confront a godless, meaningless universe indifferent to humanity. Amid the entertaining game play, the interspecies romance, and entertaining characters, cosmological questions about the value of existence influence every decision. The game is about justifying survival, not of mere intelligent life in the universe, the Reapers are that, but of a kind of intelligence. Therein the triple layered question – What value does galactic civilization bring to the universe; What value does humanity bring to galactic civilization, and What value do I bring to humanity – forces the player to recontextualize his or her participation in the experiment of existence.

I’m not saying that Mass Effect provides any answers. The value of Mass Effect as a science fiction universe is that it is a critical starting point for discussion about the purpose of humanity in a materialistic universe. Without an answer to that question, there is no real reason for Ender to defeat the Buggers, or for humanity to seek out new life and new civilizations, or for us to not let non-organic life be the torch bearer for intelligence in the universe. Mass Effect confronts us with a female hero of our own creating, with the deepest implications of diversity, with the most dramatic questioning of the value of what it means to be human. Whether you are a feminist, a transhumanist, a theologist, a proponent of space exploration, a pacifist, a human exceptionalist, a bioethicist, a scientist, or a philosopher, Mass Effect demands you rethink your world.

By exploring and expanding upon the big questions asked by the last century of science fiction, Mass Effect has become the standard bearer for the questions the next century of science fiction will seek to answer.

The Ethics of Zombie Killing

Kyle Munkittrick — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 22:19:28 +0000

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.

Neanderthals Are as Unprepared for Modernity as We Are

Kyle Munkittrick — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:03:21 +0000

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 Butler Will See You Now

Kyle Munkittrick — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:05:54 +0000

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?

Are Exoskeletons “Ableist?”

Kyle Munkittrick — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:10:48 +0000

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.

Cognitive Science Explains Why You’re A Terrible Lecturer

Kyle Munkittrick — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:44:57 +0000

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.

Forget Science Fiction, Let’s Talk Socio-Fiction

Kyle Munkittrick — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:30:54 +0000

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.

Pills That Tell Your Doctor If You’ve Taken Them

Kyle Munkittrick — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:22:12 +0000

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 Cybernetic Athlete

Kyle Munkittrick — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:34:18 +0000

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.

If Williamsburg Was Part of the Galactic Republic

Kyle Munkittrick — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:26:43 +0000

Yup.