Human rights require a tech refresh.
“This revolution will only take effect when all women become fully aware of their deplorable condition, and of the rights, they have lost in society” – Olympe de Gouges, 1791
Without a tech refresh, human rights are obsolete. Political revolution is fomented when obsolescence yields to fury transformed from futility. And as obsolescence through irrelevancy has always been the case made by those who are excluded by rights work, the work is inevitably a continuing project that must be informed by and adapted to cultural shifts and the resultant awakenings, insights, and critiques of cultural subgroups inadvertently or intentionally short shrifted.
But why a tech refresh? The need for a human rights update from a technological perspective, albeit any kind of update, is evidenced by the historically changing rights landscape. No sooner than the ink had dried on Lafayette’s Rights of Man, did de Gouges immediately call for a revision to include the Rights of Women. And one hundred fifty years later, after our shockingly inhuman treatment of one another, the newly formed United Nations responded by promulgating an urgent re-expression of the definition of humanity by newly reinforcing old conceptions dating back to the political and civil models of the French Revolution while simultaneously introducing relatively modern concepts acknowledging human-defining economic, social, and cultural rights.
But again, why a tech refresh specifically, and why now? A tech refresh is needed now more than ever because the technical definition of mankind may be changing as we introduce more technology into the creation and composition of human beings. Previously, the ageless arguments of “what is human?” “what is natural?” and “what is normal?” has allowed some humans in power to perpetrate atrocities by declaring others as sub-human, providing a rationale for oppression, slavery or extermination. Similarly, certain human behaviors and practices are often marginalized as decidedly unnatural, non-normal, or un-human, again providing a rationale for the self-proclaimed normal humans to exclude, discriminate, and oppress those they deem as the non-normal deviants with aberrant behavior. The answers to these vexingly mortal questions are being tested once again with the awakening of the cyborg sub-culture.
The cyborg awakening describes the birth and coalescence of an emergent identity shared by seemingly disparate sub-groups discovering they have more in common than they realize. These commonalities will transform from physical and emotional differentiation to cultural and political factionalization. Generally, cyborgs are drawn to or are involuntarily placed in one or more of four of the following identity groups—augmentation, enhancement, modification, and wearables. Augmentation includes prosthetics, orthotics, transplants, and implants. Enhancement refers to improving performance through physical, pharmaceutical, nutritional, or other means. Some augmentation is reparative, but some can be enhancing. A prosthetic leg could simply help someone walk again, while a specialized model could help an athlete excel in Olympic-class competition. Enhancement technology is far more controversial than therapeutic technology as evidenced by the cultural acceptance of Viagra, caffeine, and Adderall versus the athletic use of steroids and EPOs. Body modification refers to physical changes to the body that aren’t necessarily augmentive or enhancing, but rather motivated by stylistic, artistic, professional, cultural, religious, political, or otherwise personal reasons. And finally, wearables refer to tightly integrated technological accessories historically dating back to the innovation of clothing as protective wear, eyes glasses as augmentive and enhancing devices, to the modern, always-at-hand mobile phone.
Clearly, not everyone described by one of these classifications identifies with being a cyborg, but that does not preclude them from someday being involuntarily classified, as has often been the case of oppressed peoples. Is it far-fetched to believe that sympathy for today’s disabilities will transform into jealousy or fear of the advantages of tomorrow’s super-abilities? Are we certain that we are prepared for the politics of neo-eugenics brought forth by advancements in stem cell research and gene editing? And what is the fate of humans who did not choose their cyborg identity but rather had it foisted upon them through accident, injury, disease, war, or even birth? And why should their involuntary cyborg origin distinguish them from those who elect to embrace a vision of a technologically evolving human species?
Because I expect these questions to arise and that history has proven to be mortally dangerous whenever humanity is called into question (de Gouges was executed for her part), I have proposed a Cyborg Bill of Rights to aid us as we grapple with the next refresh of our understanding of what is it to be human.