I'm having a hard time parsing this article, since there's no link to the Kaspersky report. As Yes Minister demonstrated, the wording of preceding questions can affect how respondents perceive subsequent questions. That said, if we assume the survey was conducted in the manner, then the cultural differences between France and Italy are interesting.
As we stand on the precipice of science fiction into science fact, people say: Hell yeah, I want to augment my eyesight!
Dude. Imagine, like, if you had – bear with me – a smartphone, right? But, like, in your HEAD?! Disregard the fact we already have nature's most powerful known computer sitting inside our noggins, with processing power that not even a million Arm cores running in parallel can replicate, a study from Kaspersky suggests folk are …
COMMENTS
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Friday 18th September 2020 09:02 GMT Giles C
Synthetic parts are commonplace already.
Cataracts
Heart valves
Pacemakers
Teeth (fillings and false)
Hip replacements
Just a few, but none of those improve on the original design they just replace the bits that have failed.
Now actual improvements are harder to quantify do you look at the blades amputee runners use and say are they better than the original limbs. What about if someone comes up with a Star Wars type artificial hand should it perform as the original or should it be stronger?
That is the sort of thing when the technology is working that people will have to decide for themselves.
I am very colour blind do I want the ability to see a normal colour range - well having lived in the world I perceive for 47 years I don’t honestly know, unless I was going blind then probably not, but different people will have their own views.
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Friday 18th September 2020 14:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
Far sightedness will remain, but at some point you will need glasses for the shortsightedness like I do now. But hey, I was one of the early ones to have it done (Optimax was still running DOS programs to book appointments, just to give you an idea) and I'm astonished to note how long ago that was - best decision ever.
Moving from -5 to zero took a weight of me - mainly off my nose :)
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Friday 18th September 2020 09:19 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Interestingly with the blades that paralympic sprinters use - there's already controversy about augmentation. The longer your blades, the bouncier they are, the longer the stride-length, the faster you're likely to be able to go.
So say I lose my legs in a car accident. I've got a known height, strap on appropriate sized blades, Bob's your uncle, go off and sprint. What if I lie about my pre-injury height? Is there reliable data to check?
What if I was born without legs - so an original height can't be known?
Hence there are all sorts of rules comparing to arm span, which is usually similar to height - and trying to come up with reasonable compromises and approximations.
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Friday 18th September 2020 10:58 GMT Dave 126
Re: lenses
> You didn't augment your vision, you just corrected it.
For sure. The reason I choose cataracts as my example is that these days artificial corneas are available which are tuned to the patient to correct not just cataracts, but the myopia and astigmatism.
The definition of augmentation is why I was curious as to how the respondents were questioned.
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Saturday 19th September 2020 13:53 GMT Jan 0
Re: lenses
> artificial corneas are available which are tuned to the patient to correct not just cataracts, but the myopia and astigmatism
Although artificial corneas are a thing, cataracts are cured by replacing the natural cloudy lens with an artificial lens. That same lens can be shaped to correct astigmatism. If the artificial lens is flexible, it may be possible to re-employ your ciliary muscle to deform the lens to allow accommodation. (Search for: accommodating intraocular lens implant")
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Friday 18th September 2020 13:12 GMT Jellied Eel
Pull my finger!
I've had a spinal fusion and it certainly didn't turn me in to Wolverine.
I'm not sure I'd want to be Wolverine. Or have Molly fingers. 4cm monoblades under the fingernails could be one way to stop people picking their noses, and may even have been something Dr Kellog would have approved of. But snag to me is having to fuse distal & intermediate phalanges to fit a rigid blade, let alone Wolverine sized blades. Those would be a rather extreme form of carpal tunnelling syndrome I guess.
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Friday 18th September 2020 21:26 GMT Jellied Eel
Re: Pull my finger!
Also a bit limiting. With 10 fingers I want the full Swiss army knife, including a multi-bit screwdriver with torx bits
This is why we were designed to be tool users rather than risking obsolesence due to having the wrong tool for the job. It may also explain why our evolution both began, and ended with an apple..
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Monday 21st September 2020 09:53 GMT Intractable Potsherd
I have continually painful joints in my legs, feet and hands. Whilst I don't think I'd like to have prosthetic hands, if there were good enough prosthetic legs* I would definitely consider them just so I could reliably walk down the road without risking falling.
My eyes have always been a weak point - very short-sighted, and getting worse. Now presbyopia has set in (I'm just about to go and get my first pair of varifocals), things are even worse. If there were reliable eye-replacements, especially if they could enhance my colour perception** and spectral range (a bit more UV and IR perception), I'd be in the market for those.
I have had tinnitus since I was a child - it would be good to lose it and have clear hearing.
However, none of these things are likely to happen, so I'll remain content with having the use of legs, eyes, and ears that I have. However, do let me know when I can upload into a complete cyborg body!
*at an affordable price, of course.
**Mrs IP is tetrachromic - our visual worlds don't even come close!
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Tuesday 22nd September 2020 03:59 GMT mjflory
Tetrachromicity
Mr IP, you have my sympathies for your nearsightedness, sore joints, and tinnitus. (Mine come from genes, arthritis, and friends in rock bands, respectively.) But I especially share your enthusiasm for widened color perception! I've read of some tetrachromatic women in Denmark and seen some colorful canvases by a tetrachromatic painter trying to convey her vision of the world, but -- alas -- it would take some serious genetic engineering to allow a man to see four primary colors. (Conceivably we could train ourselves to distinguish extra colors with notch-filtered lenses, perhaps a different one on each eye, but I'm sure it wouldn't be the same.) How was Mrs IP's gift discovered? I recall reading that some tetrachromats were unaware until they were tested.
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Tuesday 22nd September 2020 15:32 GMT Intractable Potsherd
Re: Tetrachromicity
Sorry to read you can share my life-experiences - whilst I cope well with the hand I've been dealt overall, I don't want anyone else to experience it.
Mrs IP's tetrachromia - one of her Bachelor degrees is in History of Modern Art (or something like that!) Apparently, whilst in a tutorial, someone noticed that something she was describing was very unusual, and suggested she trot down speak to one of the professors who was doing research into colour perception. A few test later, and she was a research guinea-pig!
My thoughts about extending visual range were more silicon technological than biotech. Since I read some stories by - I think - Edmund Cooper* many, many years ago, I have had a dream of bionic eyes. I do agree that gene-therapy is a "better" way forward (it is unlikely that implants will actually be better in use than biological solutions), I still have those science-fiction dreams of being a cyborg :-)
* A bit of DDG-ing makes me think it was indeed Cooper, writing as Richard Avery. The "Expendables" series.
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Thursday 24th September 2020 01:21 GMT mjflory
Re: Tetrachromicity
I'll have to look up Cooper a.k.a. Avery. I wonder if implants couldn't improve upon our original design. (They might be biological implants, after all.) An eagle's resolution, a cat's night vision, an insect's UV perception... or are there contradictiory requirements there?
Best wishes re: your joints, ears, and all. I probably made my ailments sound far worse than they are. The arthritis has just started in a couple of joints, and my corrected vision is as good as ever. You'll get used to the omnifocals (or varifocals, I presume they're the same) and the formulae have actually improved in recent years. But do be careful walking, as the distance to the ground can be distorted a bit by them.
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Friday 18th September 2020 09:10 GMT Pascal Monett
"testing the limits of what's possible"
I'm sorry, but I don't see that there is all that much that is possible for the general public right now. Apart from laser eye surgery, there is nothing high-tech that anyone can have implemented which will improve their eyesight or hearing (there are no hearing aids implanted in the ear), much less their strength.
And as for improving one's strength, how could that possibly work via implant ? What would you implant ? I know of nothing that could even begin to do that. Improving strength is via exoskeletons at this point in time and that's all we've got (and we don't have too much of it either).
There are lab experiments trying to allow control of a mouse via thought, but I haven't heard that they're ready for market yet.
Anyone know of some implantable thingy that actually enhances a human being ? Beyond an RFID chip that allows you to open a door, I mean.
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Friday 18th September 2020 09:28 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: "testing the limits of what's possible"
Pascal Monett,
There are hearing aids implanted in the ear. They're called cochlear implants, and have been around for a couple of decades now.
There have been several experimental eye implants as well, I remember reading about one guy who went from total blindness to monochrom vision at a resolution of something quite a lot less than VGA. But I've not seen much about it since. Maybe they're still trying to find enough Matrox Millenium cards on eBay?
In principal I could imagine an implant that would pump glycogen directly into your muscles - which wouldn't give you more strength - but would give you more endurance - so you could say sprint over longer distances.
But the standard medical implants are things like insulin pumps, pacemakers and the like.
Though in the more science fiction realms - some artificial limbs are now radio operated. Because the nerves in the amputation site tend to be damaged as well - it's much harder to make a standard operation that utilises them. So instead you chop some nerves that don't do much around the side of the ribs and implant a radio transmitter that they can control. Then do excercises to retrain the brain to use those to control arm muscles instaead, then have a radio controlled robot arm.
Or there's a Parkinson's Disease thing where you have electrodes into the relevant bits of the brain. Feed current in from an external battery pack and hey presto! Full muscle control. Watching a guy on telly switch that box on and off again 15 years ago totally blew my mind.
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Friday 18th September 2020 11:02 GMT Dave 126
Re: "testing the limits of what's possible"
Nothing. Though we suspect there's something wrong with him.
Actually, in recent years quite a few people (dozens, maybe) have had little RFID chips implanted in their hands for using public transport. It's no bigger than the contraceptive implant that many women have in their arms these days.
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Friday 18th September 2020 11:55 GMT Kubla Cant
Re: "testing the limits of what's possible"
There are lab experiments trying to allow control of a mouse via thought, but I haven't heard that they're ready for market yet
I wondered why you would want to control a mouse by thought. It's not like it's a big enough animal to do anything useful for you. In my house they're mostly controlled by mousetraps.
Then I realised that you might mean a computer mouse. I still can't see any advantage. It would be far more useful to cut out the intermediary and control the screen cursor by thought.
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Friday 18th September 2020 09:18 GMT David Lewis 2
Yes, but No.
While the concept is not new in the realm of science fiction, has many possible benefits and is probably inevitable, I foresee a huge problem in a real world implementation.
With embedded augmented reality, this will just mean <$enter ad-flinger of choice> will be able to deliver advertisements directly to your retina.
Or is this a sales pitch by Kaspersky for a new opportunity for an ad-blocker?
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Friday 18th September 2020 09:32 GMT Homeboy
If it can be done, it probably will be done.
The idea of not just repairing but improving/augmenting our bodies is being research in way too many places for it now not to happen. Whether we ever get as far as some of the SF scenarios of the far distant future is debatable. But there will be folk walking this earth with improved bits and pieces in the fairly close future. Not radical upgrades at first, but that is only a matter of R&D once the problems of integration with the Mark 1 human body have been solved.
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Friday 18th September 2020 11:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: the Mark 1 human body
As an amusing bit of pedantry, one might claim the the Mk1 human body originated with genus homo about 2 million years ago, and that each subsequent generation produced new versions. Assuming a 25 year generation (well, I have to assume something), that would suggest we're on about Mark 80k :-)
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Friday 18th September 2020 18:19 GMT Anonymous Coward
CSIR Mk 1
I was born in the year that Australia's CSIR Mk 1 computer was first operational. But besides having vague memories of an Mk 1 computer, I had to search to find the details.
If I could have my brain augmented to improve my memory I'd do it (as long as it supported an ad blocker). I suspect many aging technophiles would as well.
I also suspect that I'll be long dead before it's an option.
What the topic again?
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Saturday 19th September 2020 17:36 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: CSIR Mk 1
"If I could have my brain augmented to improve my memory I'd do it (as long as it supported an ad blocker). I suspect many aging technophiles would as well."
Ageing technophiles are the least likely to consider it, I'd have thought, without being sure proper safeguards are in place. Looking at the internet nowadays, implementing and using those safeguards might negate the advantages. Young technophiles, on the other hand....
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Friday 18th September 2020 09:41 GMT Androgynous Cupboard
Why bother?
Improving my eyesight would only give me a better view of the misery squalor and degradation that is modern britain, as we plunge headlong into the bleak winter with our international trade ruined, national health service stretched to breaking, food shortages likely, on a train driven blind by the least capable political leadership in living memory. Improved eyesight? All I can see is death. Death death death.
Have a super day.
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Friday 18th September 2020 11:08 GMT Dave 126
Re: Why bother?
Go for a walk in the countryside and try to forget about things for a while. Before it pisses down next week.
Heck, even a walk in a downpour can be a lovely sensual experience if your boots and jacket are up to the task. You can perhaps feel even more insulated from the horrible wider world than you would on a sunny day. (Waterproof and breathable jacket. Not a cheap one from Mountain Warehouse. Clothing, our species original augmented skin.)
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Friday 18th September 2020 16:22 GMT Shadow Systems
Re: Why bother?
"All I can see is death. Death death death."
Damn you optimists & your shiny happy personalities!
*Shakes a palsied fist*
Don't make me call Marvin the Paranoid Android on your butt!
=-)P
*Hands you an extra tall tankard of something yummy to drink*
Drink up. It's not so bad out there. Why, the Vogons aren't due to erase this place for at least a-
*No Carrier*
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Friday 18th September 2020 10:00 GMT Big_Boomer
"No vacuum cleaner should give a human being a double polaroid!"
"Well, uh, when I was a mechanoid, the right nipple-nut was used to, uh, regulate body temperature, while the left nipple-nut was used mainly to, uh, pick up shortwave radio transmissions. Now, what I'm saying is, no matter how hard I twiddle it, I can't seem to pick up Jazz FM." <LOL>
I'll agree to getting "enhanced" when they can guarantee, on penalty of THEIR death in case of failure, that what is implanted cannot be hacked, pwned, or otherwise interfered with without my permission. What's that you say? Not a fat chance in hell of that ever happening! Guess I'm going to the grave un- enhanced then. I'll leave the enhancing to those who have a fervent desire to become part of the Borg.
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Friday 18th September 2020 10:14 GMT David Roberts
Pancreas?
Nobody so far has mentioned the work towards creating an artificial pancreas.
So far, insulin pumps linked to blood glucose monitors with some open source software to do the clever bits.
Each generation should be smaller, cheaper, smarter.
Permanent implant to cure T1 diabetes would be a major step forward.
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Friday 18th September 2020 10:56 GMT Eclectic Man
Pedant Alert
The article states the humans have the most powerful computers on the planet in their heads.
However, the average volume of an adult human brain is about 1260 cc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_size
The average volume of an adult sperm whale brain is 8000 cc.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/news-blog/are-whales-smarter-than-we-are/
There are of course considerations of brain size to body size ratios and folding of the neocortex etc. to be considered, but the Scientific American article shows it is quite a complicated issue, and we simply do not yet know who is the smartest species of them all.
All I know is that it is Friday, I'm TIRED of Brexit and Covid-19 and my personal brain hurts, and is not feeling very clever at the moment.
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Friday 18th September 2020 11:22 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Pedant Alert
Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time.
But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.
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Friday 18th September 2020 11:00 GMT Eclectic Man
On second thoughts...
The article finishes with "Anyway, when and if we get there, I'll have the one with the extendable [that's quite enough of that – ed]. How about you? "
Now if we could fit each politician on standing for office with a nose that extends when they lie, that would be a great boon to democracy.
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Friday 18th September 2020 16:14 GMT eldakka
Re: On second thoughts...
Now if we could fit each politician on standing for office with a nose that extends when they lie, that would be a great boon to democracy.
I don't know, it would certainly end up in piercing injuries to the press during press conferences as the nose extends to many metres nearly instantaneously, spearing the journo's asking the questions.
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Sunday 20th September 2020 03:33 GMT skeptical i
Re: On second thoughts...
So, when elections are deemed too close to call, would the contestants settle the matter by engaging in "swordfights" using the weapons-grade schnozzes grown during the campaign? A "I have consistently ..." here, a "On day one, I will ..." there, and sooner or later we're talking duelling narwhals.
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Friday 18th September 2020 21:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Now if we could fit each politician on standing for office with a nose that extends
I'm afraid you still live in the times long past. These days, the non-augmented reality is that politicians are no longer ashamed, or even in the slightest embarrassed about lying in public, and / or being caught lying in public. Then they just grin (think Boris-grin), mumble-mumble something irrelevant, visually shrug and continue, nose or no nose.
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Friday 18th September 2020 14:59 GMT Wellyboot
Re: Health? Huh!
Combine a health correction implant with nanobots to pick the physical pollutants1 out of the bloodstream and many decades of carefree enjoyment and good health await. All pangs of guilt about that last slice of pizza vanish as the automated system effortlessly works to keep you the size you wish to be.
Al this is yours for a low monthly payment, and there's more, every month you'll receive an updated report showing how well the implant has improved your life and personal offers from selected partners.
1wifi access required for monthly activation license update, body odour, bad breath, alcohol and other stimulants are addon elements at additional cost, see website for details
There's far more money to be made from the lazy & indulgent.
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Friday 18th September 2020 17:16 GMT Dave 126
Re: BSOD ready
A few friends if mine have it. One, in the 1990s, carried for a few weeks a Walkman-sized device on his belt to collect data from skull electrodes to better help diagnosis.
Another passed away in the mid 2000s. He could have been saved if he hadn't been home alone at the time - the living situation was his deliberate choice to strike out on his own in the big city and away from family. If dogs can spot an oncoming epilepsy attack in their owners before the human does, then it's not inconceivable that a properly tuned device on the skull might - and mere seconds might allow a person to adopt a recovery position or get off a ladder. Even if not, it seems a trivial task for a smart watch to detect an epileptic fit in progress and summon help - which would also boost chances of survival significantly.
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Friday 18th September 2020 11:23 GMT Sgt_Oddball
With regards to getting hacked..
I'd also be worried about strong magnetic fields. It'd be somewhat irritating having an MRI scan without your eyes, and down right dangerous if stray EM fields could cause interference whilst say driving or operating heavy machinery.
It would be interesting to see what sort of japes you could get upto shining various light sources, frequencies, colours and patterns to cause issues for the poor optically enhanced recipient.
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Friday 18th September 2020 12:19 GMT MJI
Fixing
I have decided brand snob is valid on glasses.
My current pair are not a patch optically on my previous worn out pair.
I think I will splurge out on another pair with Nikons
Teeth, I really want 3 more crowns minimum, 1 cracked, 1 exploded, 1 tatty, OK I really want all 6 lower full molars done, one done.
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Friday 18th September 2020 13:12 GMT Cynic_999
Difficult to know what "augmentation" means
We have augmented our bodies in all sorts of ways for centuries using external devices. Shovels allow us to dig faster than we could using our hands and feet. Telescopes augment our eye sight. etc. Putting the tools/machines inside our body rather than having them external is not such a huge leap.
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Friday 18th September 2020 15:04 GMT Anonymous Coward
The generic issue is integration
The problem with any augmentation is that is must interface and interact with the rest of your body, and therein lies the challenge. We only have a rudimentary idea of how camera signals are supplied to the brain (let alone processed), for instance, so augmentation ought to start with being as good as the original, and that is still a long way off, silicon-equipped pre-bacon notwithstanding.
Then you have the strengthening of limbs, but there too you need to take care of the whole skeletal mechanics. There's no point fitting an arm with 1000 kg lifting capacity if it snaps the legs on use..
I am certain that it will be possible at some point and there is already plenty of SF that has looked at the issues and consequences of enhancement, but I think there's still a long way to go, even on just the engineering side of things. Don't get me wrong, I'm in awe of what we can do already, especially when using it to assist someone who had to do without, but I don't think we've even reached the "as good as" point yet other than maybe the blades (but there too is the question what it does to knees and hip joints)..
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Friday 18th September 2020 16:58 GMT amanfromMars 1
The New AI Deal ..... with Virtual Bridges and Stealthy Surreal Bridgeheads*
"But people are right to be wary. Augmentation enthusiasts are already testing the limits of what's possible, but we need commonly agreed standards to ensure augmentation reaches its full potential while minimising the risks."
Other Augmentation Enthusiasts are excited by what is discovered to be imminent beyond the bounds of the impossible and certain surely to be presented as a future resourceful force to be enamoured of, as in friendly with. :-) ....... lest one deny oneself the pleasures of treasuring novel virgin discoveries.
Self doubt and disbelief is such a downer and is an endless source of constant grief and overwhelming inactivity/relentless personal petrification, and that which may currently be confronting you, and causing some exciting consternation if you be really lucky and/or fortunate and/or gifted too.
* You'll not get many offers like that in a lifetime, of that you can be surely certain.
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Friday 18th September 2020 18:02 GMT DS999
I'd be willing to consider this when I'm old
If age and decrepitude is making it difficult to walk, having some technology that helps so you don't need to be confined to a wheelchair would be welcome.
But as long as I'm healthy I don't want anything that requires power to upgrade me. I'd consider replacing my natural lenses with the type of lenses they give cataract patients when they are accommodative so I can have both close and far vision in 20/20 or better (this is being worked on and will probably become a reality before too long) Can't really think of anything else I'd upgrade, it isn't like I want better hearing or sense of smell than I currently have - in fact having better hearing or sense of smell might even be a curse as it would be harder to escape annoying noises and smells!
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Friday 18th September 2020 19:57 GMT MJI
Re: I'd be willing to consider this when I'm old
One thing you don't want better taste.
That leads to overload and not able to eat many foods or drink quite a few drinks.
Imagine being in a world where tonic water is disgusting, coffee is completely undrinkable, some wines are too, stout just no. Where all I can drink is tea, cider, water, and sweet wines.
But at I can eat white chocolate but not dark.
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