Today’s Bionic Life

January 17th, 2008 by balam | Posted in Sci-Fi, Science |

One of the reasons the for the mainstream acceptance of geek culture is that advances in technology have made the modern world look increasingly like one we used to see only in science fiction and comic books: with new generation cell phones and wireless devices, the Internet has become a portable gateway into something resembling a cyberpunk-like virtual reality; the body-armor and special equipment of our soldiers and SWAT police have geared them up almost to the level of a sci-fi space marine; medical science has reached the point where drugs can be carefully designed to work on a genetic level to combat a specific disease.

In the news recently, there have been a number of stories which really drive this home, by showing how close we are to realizing the fiction of the bionic man. In case you missed them, here are a few.

• Double-amputee disqualified from the Olympics because his prosthetics are better than real legs.
• Bionic arm to be powered by tiny, internal rockets.
• Bionic arm sent back to the drawing board because it’s dangerously strong and fast.
• MIT developing microchip to replace a damaged retina, restoring sight to the blind.
• University of Washington working on display-screen contact lenses for HUD, VR use
• Military exoskeletons, for real.

I believe that the closer fiction is to reality, the easier it is for the general population to accept it as entertainment; with advances like these, the bionic heroes or soldiers of science fiction aren’t as far-fetched as they used to be. Our population has been inoculated by real-life advanced technology, making the suspension of disbelief easier for instances of fictional technology.

This has been going on for a while. When Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers came out in 1997, Heinlein’s armored suits were dropped in favor of a merely near-futuristic warrior kit which would be easier for non-geeks to identify with. Now that our real soldiers have equipment that’s better than the movie’s fictional ones, I wonder if the space-armor might have been included?

May’s release of Iron Man makes me think that it would be; after all, I’ve loved Iron Man as a kid (he was my second favorite comic book hero, after Doctor Strange), so I’m naturally ready to accept the technology of this movie, but I haven’t heard a peep from non-geeks about it being unrealistic or dorky in any way.

Anyway, this is the point… today, we are on the verge of bringing scifi right through the wall between fiction and real life. We have the technology. We have the capability to build a bionic man. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.

The world is starting to admit that the nerds were right about the future all along. Doesn’t that feel great?

Edit: Dave at forevergeek.com wonders, “if modified humans almost need their own version of the Olympics, one that would allow us to see how far humans can be pushed through technology.” That’s such a delightful idea that I had to share it here.

Edit 2: Techdirt has picked up this idea as well. Seriously, this reminds me of some of the characters in the Deathstalker series by Simon Green.

[Special bonus points if you know what the picture attached to this post is all about.]