The Post Social Age

There’s a great video put out by BBC Channel 4, who will be broadcasting the Paralympics. Annoyingly, I can’t embed the video here but you should go watch it and then read the story behind it. 

I find this really interesting. And yes, I’m kind of obsessing about the genetic aspects of this summer’s games. First I wrote about cyborgs and then horse clones. I know most of my colleagues are fascinated with this being the first ever social media Olympics, but I’m more interested in the implications on the future. 

We are at a stage where we are augmenting athletes with prosthetic devices that are on the verge of allowing athletes to preform better than their non-prosthetic wearing counterparts. 

We’re now cloning the genetically best horses and allowing them to compete along side non-cloned horses. 

I’m not making a moral statement about any of the above changes. I don’t think it’s wrong to augment disabled athletes, but I am interested in where does that lead. If we’re already calling them superhuman, what are we saying? I get that right now we are saying that these athletes have overcome amazing challenges in order to compete at the level and that makes them super. 

But as someone trained in communication, sociology and anthropology, I also know what effect language has on people. How long before we’re creating real superhuman athletes? How long before we’re genetically manipulating those clones? 

Again, not saying that we should or shouldn’t but we do need be cognizant of what we’re doing? This moment is a tipping point that will have bigger ramifications than most of us realize.