Literature essay: Biohacking in the United States of America
To get it started the term “biohacking” is nothing new, it startd being used in America
scince the year 1988, but it has gained social reknown scince the year 2005, this
term involbes the topic in bio-engineering. It focus on the idea that the human can
evolve with the help of technology via body modifications. In this essay we will see
how this could improve our day to day life and how is this happening in the United
States of America, lets move on to some historical background.
Historical background
As it was already said this idea was originated on the year 1988 with the
transhumanist movement, this movement was all about groups of people including
philosophers, dreamers, and technophiles, who thought that the human could go
further beyond evolution with the recent technological advances, but then in 1998
the first major “biohack” was successfully accomplished when the cybernetics
profesor Kevin Warwick surgically implanted a radio-frequency identification
transmitter in his upper left arm, the chip itself did not do a lot but the point was that
it was functional and also was tha start of a whole new biohacking era, all of this by
the name of “Project Cyborg”. And because it did not required a lot of technoligical
knowledge in the year 2005 at the “Super Happy Dev House” peolple started
showing their own homemade biohacks wich went from little gold plated rare-earth
magnets to complete devices that readed their body status. Moving on to 2008 the
first organization focused on this topic was created: the DIYbio, this organization had
the mision of establishing a vibrant, productive and safe espace for biohackers to
work. All of it ruled by the thought that biotechnology has the power to Benefit the
human race; but not everything was rianbows and appines scince not all of the
people involved did not worked with the required medical instruments causing from
superficial injuries to even deaths. But now lets see how is this going in the present.
Body
In the present this topic is much more common than past, but here in the present
how is this going in the United Sates of America?, well according to
DIYbiosphere.com there are more than 12 certified biolabs, and between this labs
there are some open one just prepared with tuition and specialized equipment one
example is “Genspace”. But after talking this much of this there has to be a space to
talk about somo of the most common and the most impressive modifications that
biohackers have done and their benefits in day to day life. To get started lets talk
about the most common one; the magnets, this modifications are implanted usually
on the tips of the fingers, it has two main uses the first being the ability to feel
electromagnetic fields and the second one is using the to hold small metalic objects
like screws, bolts, coins and much more. The next modification is a temporal one
being nigth vision eye drops, this eye drops are posible because a chmical called
Chlorin e6 this eye drops grant an improved visibility on dark places for four to five
hours, the uses for this one are pretty wide ranged scince it could be used from
actions like a night jog to military operations. Moving on to the we have radio
frequency identification transmitters, it consists in a thin card that can be readed by
other devices making the uses for this one almost unlimited going from secuirity to
social activities, and after giving more details about some of the modifications lets
talk about security.
Security is always important and more when we are talkin of a surgical operation
and the question is are bio modification safe? The answer is yes an at the same time
no, why yes and no because even if bioacking is in an early state it also depends a
lot on the user because it is not posible to just go to a doctor and ask if they can
implant a chip in your arm, or maybe it could be posible but the user is puting its
healt on risk, or even its life the best option rigth now is to wait for the biohacking to
evolve a little more or visiting specialized places for implanting this modifications.
Also, can you support the biohacking community in other ways that are not buying
or implanting this modifications? The answer is an absolute yes as an early state
project you can donate via PayPal through pages like DIYbio or the already
mentioned Gene Space, or you could even support the creators and engineers by
giving them feedback or ideas trough their websites beacuse there are such great
minds and projects they just need a helping hand. Now lets hear what experts say
about the biohacking.
Support
Ron Shigeta runs Berkeley Biolabs, a biohacking site in Berkeley, California. He says
Biohacking is “a freedom to explore biology, kind of like you would explore good
fiction.”, he also considers that “The whole idea of biohacking is that people feel
entitled, they feel the ability to just follow their curiosity — where it should go — and
really get to the bottom of something they want to understand.” What we cold extract
from this phrases is that even the experts think its in a very early state and the whole
idea of this is to make people’s life better while at the same time letting teir science
fiction dreams become a real life thing, but if this is not enough lets hear the words
from the director of the Virtual Futures organisation: Luke Robert Mason "we are a
long way from radically altering the human body in the sorts of ways they
evangelise". This is telling us that the biohacking is its actual state is not able to
completly change the life of a human but it is slowly advancing to improve our lifes
in ways we could have never imagined.
Conclusion
But at the end of all what can we reasamble from all this information is biohacking
the future of the human race or Will it be the doom of it to determine that lets give a
little summary of the topic, the biohacking has been improved scince the year 1988
and the uses for day to day life are almost unlimited and could make our lifes much
more productive and easier and in the case of security it could improve if all of us
would have an radio frequency
identification transmitter for all of our devices
because it Will be unique and the thieves Will not be able to steal it like regular keys
or credit cards so to finalize we can agree tha the implementation of biohacking and
bio modifications in our day to day could make of our life, home, and world not just
a better place but a more productive and safe place to live
Oremus, W. (2013, March 14). Cyborgs, grinders and body hacers. Retrieved June
20,2019,from
https://slate.com/gdpr?redirect_uri=%2Ftechnology%2F2013%2F03%2Fcyborgsgrinders-and-body-hackers-diy-tools-for-adding-sensory
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