{"id":778,"date":"2005-03-14T20:49:02","date_gmt":"2005-03-14T20:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=778"},"modified":"2005-03-14T20:49:02","modified_gmt":"2005-03-14T20:49:02","slug":"more_than_human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=778","title":{"rendered":"More Than Human"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NPR has a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=4533546\">profile of one of the first people with quadriplegia to receive one of the neural implants<\/a> that I&#8217;ve discussed from time to time.  However, the story seems to be not so much about the effects of the implant as about the reporter&#8217;s concerns that we&#8217;re standing on the precipice of some weird Matrix-like world where everyone has a network jack drilled into their skulls.  Fair enough.  But I don&#8217;t think the machines are going to rise up and turn us into human batteries just yet.  I don&#8217;t see much difference between a neural implant and a pacemaker.  But because it&#8217;s the brain, people get all skittish and freaked out.  I&#8217;m still dubious about the long-term prospects of this technology, but the analogies to SF films are overwrought and a bit hysterical.<br \/>\nI&#8217;m a student in this leadership development course sponsored by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.civicsinc.org\/\">Civics Incorporated<\/a>.  One of the Humphrey Fellows hooked me up with the opportunity.  Most of the students are in their 20s and 30s.  I&#8217;m enjoying these opportunities to expand my circle of friends and colleagues.  Not too long ago, it felt like my circle of friends had constricted to a relatively small group.  I haven&#8217;t felt that way over these last few months.  But this new class also has homework assignments, which I should get to now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NPR has a profile of one of the first people with quadriplegia to receive one of the neural implants that I&#8217;ve discussed from time to time. However, the story seems to be not so much about the effects of the implant as about the reporter&#8217;s concerns that we&#8217;re standing on the precipice of some weird <a href='https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=778' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-1-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Iwau-cy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}