Reddit reviews Rise of the Machines: A Cybernetic History

I see it as a symbolic act above everything else. I've been reading this fascinating book lately about cybernetics called Rise of the Machines: A Cybernetic History which delves into the cybernetics movement of the 40s-70s and the fucking amazing philosophy behind it that at one point nearly saw a Vietnam War fought by quadruped mechs which enabled the pilot to move 500kg as if it was 30kg with ten hours of training and a Chile whose leaders would have accurate real-time information about every aspect of society two decades before the internet would enable a less-direct route to the same.

Nature made man and man made machine. Just as humans are necessary to correct some defects in nature, machines are necessary to correct some defects in us. There are areas where biology has failed us as an operating system- genetic disorders and injuries and organ malfunctions and illnesses. There are areas where it could be vastly improved mechanically - photosynthetic or vitamin-synthesising skin, intestines with managed microbial ecologies instead of ones which frequently fail to dangerous bacteria and parasites, limbs that are stronger and faster than muscles will allow us to go, eyes that see better in more ways and record or interact with external cameras, hell even an insulin pump or a pacemaker is covering basic areas where man's marriage with machine is the obvious next stage to protect ourselves.

Privacy is a concern of course, but if someone has reason to find or kill you there are a myriad of ways they could do so already and any one of your organs could fail at any second randomly just because shit happens. The direct combination of brain and machine is where we exit alpha testing and enter our beta.