GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: MercatorNet: Delivery drones. Inequality and consumerism.

jueves, 31 de marzo de 2016

MercatorNet: Delivery drones. Inequality and consumerism.

This morning a man in a van delivered a package to my door; this time next year my internet order might arrive by drone. If you find this difficult to imagine, read Karl Stephan’s account of what is happening on the unmanned flying objects front. It certainly is one way to reduce road traffic madness, although when the likes of Amazon and Wal-Mart get going, the space above our heads could become quite menacing.

However, drones seem innocent and even tame beside another technological trend – the bodyhacking that Heather Zeiger describes. They may be just a weird little group so far – numbering hundreds rather than thousands, to judge by a recent conference – but the fact that there is anyone at all implanting things like lightbulbs or cameras in their body is disturbing.

Putting a pacemaker into someone’s heart to keep them alive is assisting a natural function; but sticking bits of hardware into the body to make it do things it was never meant to do is an offence against nature and a form of madness, in my opinion. Then again, if a surgeon is praised for reshaping a male body into a female look-alike, why should we look askance at a “grinder”? Evidently, it's all about identity.