When can I realistically expect to start augmenting myself?

Talk about scientific and technological developments in the future
Albertc93
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Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2022 4:33 pm

When can I realistically expect to start augmenting myself?

Post by Albertc93 »

I'm interested in everything and anything related to augmentating myself. Whether it's my vision, strength, stamina, intelligence etc. As we all know in today's world I'm basically at the mercy of nature and what our current medicine/technology allows. But I'd like to become something more than what nature intended. Also think about everyone we could help that lacks even normalcy such as the disabled.

I imagine a scenario where in say 2040 I walk into an office and come out with augmentations that would be impossible to get today because it doesn't exist yet.
In particular I'm most interested in being able to reduce or even eliminate the need for sleeping and eating as those are biological functions that take considerable effort to meet on a daily basis.

Think about how much more life you'd be able to live if you never had to sleep again, think about what you could do if you never had to worry about eating and think about how that would change you as an individual as well as society at large. When you no longer have to be at the mercy of your biological nature, what possibilities does that open up for yourself in terms of what you're actually able to do in life?

At first I imagine these technologies to be extremely expensive thus reserved for the wealthier individuals at first, Until it eventually trickles down to the rest of us the same way other forms of technology has before. I'll be the first to admit I'm entirely open to the idea of upgrading and augmenting myself. To what end and how far I want to take it is still up to debate, as I'm not sure how I'll feel about it when I get there. But I'd like the option nonetheless.

In conclusion, I basically want sharper eyes to see, stronger muscles and to be able to change my appearance at will. All with an indefinite supply of youthful energy. Is it all a pipe dream or is it something that I can realistically look forward to within my lifetime, I'm 28 as of 2022...
Albertc93
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Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2022 4:33 pm

Re: When can I realistically expect to start augmenting myself?

Post by Albertc93 »

I'm sure this question has been asked a million times by now on here huh? Lol, after all this isn't your run of the mill forum. This is FT's forum! As such I'll look into the archive's to see if I can run into the information I'm looking for, regardless thank you all who read my post. I'm also gonna check out the timeline as I think I've seen stuff about this on there as well. You guys can probably tell I'm a fan of transhumanism hehe. What can I say? The idea of being a litteral super human is just too cool man! Plus I'd just like to stay healthy in general too!
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Yuli Ban
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Re: When can I realistically expect to start augmenting myself?

Post by Yuli Ban »

No, it hasn't been asked here before, at least not very often. It HAS been asked on the old FutureTimeline forum, and the answers are typically vague in that classic "we're just futurists throwing numbers and dreams out onto a screen." But you do have to remember that this iteration of the forum is not even a year old yet, whereas that one was a decade old and dates back to much more optimistic times at that.

I will say that I'll be damn surprised if such technology is around by 2040. It's easy to forget that dates like 2030 and 2040 aren't far-off anymore like they were in the past— 2040 is just 18 years away. As far to us as 2004 is in the past. And yes, there have been many technological changes since 2004, that I'm indeed aware of. Heck, I am writing this post on a PC that would have been the fourth most powerful supercomputer on Earth in 2004, and it only cost me a couple thousand dollars. I'm not saying NOTHING will change— there are certain trends that I know for a fact will wreak some real crazy changes just in the next decade, such as brain-computer interfaces and AI cognitive agents.

But transhumanism is a bit iffy in the minds of the public. I think external augmentations will go a very long way by then so that you could definitely wear a super-powered exoskeleton that gives you brain-computer interface tech, night vision, vastly expanded hearing, near-limitless stamina, and much greater strength, with a few invasive technologies like health monitors. But I don't foresee full-fledged posthumans walking about by then.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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MythOfProgress
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Re: When can I realistically expect to start augmenting myself?

Post by MythOfProgress »

Mostly a pipe dream, if there are any "enhancements" or "modifications" that technology is able to perform on humans, chances are it'll mostly be reserved for wealthy individuals, and stay expensive, trickle-down economics is a myth that should be dispelled by now. Regardless, i don't think changing anything about yourself genetically is the best idea, considering the amount of unknown variables that come with genetic editing technologies like CRISPR.
R.I.P Ziba.
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Cyber_Rebel
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Re: When can I realistically expect to start augmenting myself?

Post by Cyber_Rebel »

"Strength, stamina..."

If we're being honest with ourselves, steroids kinda already accomplish this, but I know you mean more like the guy in my avatar. As far as intelligence, memory, and the like goes there are projects about like Neuralink & Kernel , so I'd guess it depended on which experienced the best funding and breakthroughs going forward. Would love if it were this decade, but at this point I kinda doubt it...

What most can most definitely seem to look forwards to which your post references is the progress made on Bionic Eyes:
https://www.livescience.com/bionic-eye

Now for "stronger muscles" how about an exo-suit? These are some links & such which basically goes into what @Yuliban said:

Japanese workers are strapping on special muscle-enhancing exoskeletons in order to continue working well into old age.

I imagine that these could be more advanced and at least "streamlined" a bit in 20 years' time, especially if it helps stave off unemployment from the rising tide of automation. I can already see some modern cyberpunky farm story with the family doing daily chores via super suits, and agricultural drones tending the crops while living "off the grid" via solar. In fact, such a scenario is already becoming true: https://www.fastcompany.com/90692010/po ... the-future

I'm not sure about never again needing to eat or sleep, these are essential processes which will be much harder to update. Changing appearance at will, whether it be sex change, ethnicity, or what have you is also not easy and has the added difficulty of cultural abrasiveness towards these ideas. Honestly, I have much more hope for full dive Virtual Reality simply being able to replicate a good amount of what being "post-human" feels like than achieving the actual thing. At least there you technically aren't limited, it's just a matter of when this kind of VR will become available.
Jakob
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Re: When can I realistically expect to start augmenting myself?

Post by Jakob »

What if I told you we have already developed augmentations capable of vastly improving a baseline human's resistance to UV radiation, cold, pests, and damaging environmental factors? In fact, we did so around 100,000 years ago, enabling augmented humans to easily survive on every continent, whereas baseline humans would eventually freeze to death outside of the African savanna. In fact you're likely wearing some right now unless you're in the shower or a nudist or something. If you wanna look at more recent/high tech stuff, things like insulin pumps, pacemakers, and artificial hearts definitely qualify. Along with that tech that allows blind people to "see" using their touch receptors.
Tadasuke
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Re: When can I realistically expect to start augmenting myself?

Post by Tadasuke »

True augmentation of healthy individuals is at least 30 years away in my opinion, outside of a tiny minority. So nope, anytime soon. Progress in the last 12 years hasn't been exactly great. Bionic legs and arms are better, but similar to 2010. Neuralink kills monkeys.

Exoskeletons that people will wear in the 2030s, will not augment strength, but just take some of the burden. So carrying 20 kg things will not be as tiring or damaging, but it will not allow you to carry 200 kg like you would 5 kg. Wheelchair people will be able to slowly walk. 70 years olds will work physically with exoskeletons, but they won't be superhuman. Alternatively someone can just work out intensively and achieve a similar effect naturally. Superhuman things won't start before the 2050s.
Global economy doubles in product every 15-20 years. Computer performance at a constant price doubles nowadays every 4 years on average. Livestock-as-food will globally stop being a thing by ~2050 (precision fermentation and more). Human stupidity, pride and depravity are the biggest problems of our world.
Vakanai
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Re: When can I realistically expect to start augmenting myself?

Post by Vakanai »

Ugh, hate my tablet. Had a whole long post typed up, and just as I was about to hit send, my fat palm accidentally hit the back button. I'll try again.

Like others have said, you'll be needing to eat and sleep for decades to come, if not for the rest of your life. If you want to augment your strength in the next few decades, you should probably look into an exercise routine that you're willing to commit to. If you want to change your appearance at will, that depends on what's in your closet and whether you did the laundry recently. We're a long, long way away from our transhumanist dreams.

It's not all disappointing tho. You can augment your vision. Of course there's the usual sight enhancements we've had for decades - prescription glasses, reading glasses, binoculars, telescopes, microscopes, and the zoom function on your phone. But AR/MR glasses exist, with more on the way. Sure, they're bulky and have low battery life currently, but you can get map and compass (GPS) directions, and text translation in current models. Can't read Spanish or Chinese signs? You can now. In a new area? You'll never get lost. There's even working smart contacts in the prototype stages (google Mojo Vision). One thing they're working on is highlighting objects so people with vision problems can better make them out from the background. And they will get sleeker and get more battery life over time.

How about augmenting your hearing? There's a lot of interest in combining music earphones with hearing aids. There's earphones with noise reduction and cancellation technology built in, your voice assistant of choice baked in, that can make and take phone calls, read and dictate texts or memos, they're even getting close to real time audio/verbal translations. Sure, no device does all of these now, but they'll probably all get crammed into one set of earphones this decade.

So, you can already augment your sight and hearing with smart glasses and earphones. Sure, it'll cost you, they're not that practical just yet, and it'll be a while before they're stylish or go mainstream. But it's actual, feasible augmentations that exists now and will improve over the next several years. You may be stuck with the human need to eat and sleep for many, many years to come, and you won't be able to lift a car this decade, or likely the next, but you can sort of see and hear like a futuristic cyborg with a bit of work and cash. That's not nothing. And we might even get a noninvasive BCI this decade to allow us to control our smartphones or smart homes with our minds to some extent, maybe. So yeah, you can augment yourself now, just gotta set your sights on something more achievable.
Cocoonman
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Re: When can I realistically expect to start augmenting myself?

Post by Cocoonman »

Enhancements will slowly evolve out of prosthetics for the disabled, including mental augmentation via technologies like Neuralink. While the 'fit' and the 'normal' will harbor distaste and aversion towards the idea of enhancement, It is the suffering and the damaged, such as the war veterans that will stand first in line for the procedures to transcend the limits of the body and mind. This realization reminds me of the quote from Babylon Berlin series:

...science must now find a way into the future.
To lay the foundations for creating the
man of the 21st century.
A way which doesn't just heal
the injured body but makes it superior
to the uninjured body.
Only the invalid's body
presents an opportunity
for artificial body parts.
Only the gouged-out eye socket
has room for the camera eye.
Only the amputated arm gives us
the option of a steel hand.
The mind injured by war, however,
is the best foundation
for overcoming fear.
Only it knows the abysses
of the destroyed soul so profoundly
that it makes it unassailable.
This is the path we need to take now.
We'll create the new man.
We'll create the man-machine.
An android, free from pain and fear.
Hyndal_Halcyon
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Re: When can I realistically expect to start augmenting myself?

Post by Hyndal_Halcyon »

Hi there. Been gone a long time from this awesome place. I'm diving deep right into the details of your desires so apologies in advance for indulging in them. I'm only 24 as of this reply, and all I know so far is these.

1. Vision (sharper eyes to see). Currently, the only eyesight enhancements I know of are LASIK surgeries. My personal idea of enhanced eyesight is having some degree of control over the shape of my own lenses. Ability to recognize, record, and share the stuff you see are already possible but only with smartglasses. There may be some experimental cyborg eye implants but I'm not aware of any clinics/laboratories that perform those.

2. Strength

a. Strong muscles. Easisest and cheapest way for stronger muscles? Stop being lazy and stick to a gym routine. Easier but slightly costlier way is voluntary amputation and then signing-up for prosthetics beta-testing. My google news feed occassionally shows me the results of robotic arms with simple haptic feedbacks and controlled via rudimentary BCI. The future is here, for those who badly need it and those who work hard to afford it.

b. Changing appearance at will. Just get a good make-up artist. Even Sacha Baron Cohen got to look like Donald Trump without the much-advanced technology you're prolly thinking of. Also, hygiene and a bit of cosmetics knowledge will save you a long way towards being content with what you look like now. In the long run, many people will want to change their appearance at will when they can, and your face might just be one of the free trials they want to copy.

4. Stamina (Indefinite supply of youthful energy) For now, just exercise. Indefinite supply of youthful energy not only depends on age, but in mindset. My grandfathers' brothers are turning 70 this decade, but they give off a vibe that makes me think they're still in their thirty's. On the technological side of things, our best (or worse) bet is a cure for senescence. Might be a long shot, but I think I already invested in a company that does anti-aging research.

3. Intelligence Wanted to put something about brain supplements and the neuralink project, but I'm no longer up-to-date with both. Just that I used to search for piracetam dealers online. Combining the willingness to learn and following a ready-made curriculum for a topic you want to appear Intelligent in, is still the best available intelligence enhancers we have for now.

Conclusions. From what I can read between the lines, you seem to be looking for shortcuts to being superhuman. Stuff like commercial cyborg eye implants, brain implants, prosthetic limbs, and many of the good stuff will always be a decade away, so I'm going out of my way to speak a hard-learned truth I realized during the time I was off this amazing website. After I graduated in 2015 and there are still no Mammoths around, I stopped believing blindly in futurism and started working towards helping create the future I wanna be part of.

You and I both can expect to start "cheaply" augmenting ourselves probably in our 40's at the earliest. But it doesn't hurt to try what's already here right now. At least when smart glasses becomes smart contact lenses, when brain implants become one-time pills with smart nanocomputer mesh, when amputees can get stronger arms than normal meatbags, when holographic face projector merges with wearable technology, and when the first people to receive anti-aging serum become the first bicentenarians, then maybe we wouldn't be left that far behind as the early adopters of the current and near-future business model.
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