lzollicoffer – The Cyborg Apocalypse

Saving the Environment through VR

Users will interactively explore 3 of the most polluted and destroyed environments in the world, before and after they were ruined by human interaction; the Citarum River, Linfen, China, and Radonia Brazil. They will see how difficult it is to fix what has been destroyed and hopefully as a result learn steps for the future that could avoid this from worsening or happening again.

The Citarium River- Indonesia
1. Students will explore the most polluted river in the world for what it was before all of the pollution and see a slow progression that occurred over time of the trash and pollution buildup. They will stand in this progression and watch through time how the destruction ocurred (people dumping waste and chemicals into the river, etc.) Students will experience what it is like to be a part of clean-up efforts as they travel on a row boat through the river and see all the dead wildlife and garbage as they try to clean the trash and witness the extent of how nearly impossible it is to make a dent in the mess.
Linfen, China
1. Students will explore what linfen, the city with the most polluted air in the world looked like with clean air. Students will then experience a time-lapse leading to what Linfen looks like now (foggy, dirty, people wearing masks, etc.) Students will be able to explore various mines and see the impact shutting them down has on the air quality.
Randonia, Brazil
1. Students will walk around the most deforested area of the Amazon rainforest before deforestation and see the forest rich with greenery and life. They will then witness around them the slow progression around them as the area is deforested by trucks until they are immersed in what the area looks like now that the trees have been torn down. In the VR world students will plant a tree to contribute to forest regrowth.

Visual aid:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1macgpPu0Tx6dmeSKsxH6-eAeVwqEfGtEM9ZYJo0PQcA/edit?usp=sharing

Cybernetic Bodies Comparison

Cybernetic bodies are essentially humanoid machines created to resemble natural born human beings. In the movie Stepford Wives, the TV show Black Mirror, and the play Rossum’s Universal Robots there are cybernetic bodies that are portrayed in a very similar way. In R.U.R. and the episode of Black Mirror called “Be Right Back” the reason for the creation of these robots was to satisfy a human need for labor or companionship. The cyborgs in these works were meant to be slaves to human needs and desires. These two texts also reflect a very male-dominated society in which women are complacent and placed in stereotypical roles. The similar themes in these texts make it easier for a viewer/reader to analyze a common theme that is predicting what it may be like if cybernetic bodies were to be mass produced in our world.

In Black Mirror a woman creates a cybernetic body of her deceased partner in an attempt to ease her own grieving. This cyborg was created solely for the purpose of fulfilling her every need. It wanted to do anything she wanted in order to please her. The cyborg meant to resemble Martha’s partner, Ash, constantly asks her questions to measure how much he is pleasing her and serving her the way he was made to. He says things like “does this bother you?” 0r “is this something [Ash] would say?” in order to ensure that he is fulfilling his purpose, which was ultimately to replace Martha’s missing lover. This is very similar to the cyborgs that were created in the movie Stepford Wives who were also created to please their husbands. In Stepford Wives the robot women are meant to replace the men’s initial wives and be a more perfect carbon copy of them. They cooked, cleaned, dressed modestly, took care of the children, and did anything that their husbands wanted them to do. They even had bodies that were altered to be more perfect, just like in Black Mirror. “You look like him, on a good day,” is the way that Martha described her cyborg Ash. To parallel these two works, the play R.U.R. also emphasizes that the ultimate purpose of robots is labor. The robots in this text were all created to serve as cheap laborers as a replacement to humans in the workforce. In the play, Domin states “[…] within the next ten years, Rossum’s Universal Robots will produce so much wheat, so much cloth, so much everything that things will no longer have any value. Everyone will be able to take as much as he needs. There’ll be no more poverty. Yes, people will be out of work, but by then there’ll be no work left to be done. Everything will be done by living machines. People will do only what they enjoy. They will live only to perfect themselves. (prologue.317). The robots in all three of these stories have been created to serve the needs of humans. This is thought provoking because it is a realistic view on why we as a human society would want to create cybernetic bodies.

Gender stereotypes and sexism are also very evident in R.U.R. and Stepford Wives. The main characters of the play consist of mostly men, with only two women out of all of the characters. The women in this play are looked down upon, in fact the main female lead Helena seems to only be viewed as a potential wife to all the men in the play. The other female character, Nana, is also overlooked although she seems to be one of the most logical and intelligent characters as she is right about many tragedies and mistakes that occur throughout the story. None of the men in the play listen to the women and they are very overshadowed, almost an afterthought. At a point along the play Helena even says “why don’t you ever let me finish my sentences?” (prolougue.31) to Domin which emphasizes the fact that these men never let her get a word or thought in. Even the way the characters are named is sexist in some way. The name Domin can be viewed to mean “dominant,” as he is the figure in the play that is constantly attempting to be dominant over Helena. The character name “Nana” is also very significant as this is one of two female characters in a play and she is named in a way that makes her seem like a maid or servant. These same sexist undertones are present in Stepford Wives as the men of Stepford have basically decided that the ideal woman is one that performs domestic duties and lives to please her husband. The men in this text recreate their women to have ideal flawless bodies, faces, and manners. The cyborg women are not dominant or in powerful positions in society. It is interesting to contrast the sexist undertones and gender roles present in these two works when cybernetic bodies get involved. They raise the question of whether the creation of cyborgs could lead to a gender divide among society that is even deeper and more severe than it is right now.

Empathy, Human vs. Machine

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, a novel by Philip K. Dick demonstrates a dystopian society in which humans and machines are indistinguishable due to a lack of empathy shown by the main human characters in the book. The main theme in the novel regards empathy, and how that emotion makes us human, and what we are without it. It focuses on empathy, the ability to sympathize with and understand the pain and suffering of others as the most basic and vital of human feelings. The society displayed in the novel has many similarities to the society we live in today for multiple reasons; the lack of empathy displayed by the human characters in the books are often displayed by people in today’s young American society, and the constant rapid advancement of technology in the 21st century is also a very familiar reality to those living in this current time period. Androids or robots that look and feel very “human” have already been created, it is very possible that in the near future they will be mass produced for profit. The events that have occurred recently and throughout human history have also created many people who do not feel very empathetic during tragedies or the struggles of others. Social injustices, natural disasters, and acts of terrorism have all become so constant in our society that a majority of people have become unempathetic when these situations arise.

In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep there the society displayed demonstrates a contrast between human beings and their feelings vs. the lack of feelings that androids have. A few characters in the novel do not seem to have any empathy at all, even a few androids seem to have a higher capacity for that emotion than their human counterparts. For example, Pris shows an admiration and care for John’s safety although she is an android. Similarly, Roy also seems to have certain human affections towards another android although he is a machine as well. Then there are human characters such as Phil and Rick who do not seem to show empathy at all towards androids, they kill them throughout the story uncaringly as if they were insects. This pattern of a lack of empathy is also displayed in our society today in many contexts. Should those who do not react to tragedies with emotion be considered less human? For example, recently an extreme hurricane tore through the Caribbean islands, all but destroying some. Very little Americans reacted to this news with sadness or empathy to the situation. The average person you knew did not create any fundraisers, or donate money to any of the Caribbean islands to help them rebuild. The president of America, Donald Trump has even spoken words condemning Puerto Rico, pointing out that they owe the US government money and the hurricane that hit the island is costing the government even more. In his Fox News interview he states how important it is that the debt in Puerto Rico be “wiped out.” It has been a topic that has been overall ignored by the general population in America. Is this because those in the Caribbean our not considered our fellow countrymen? Is it acceptable for people to not empathize and desire to help with such a tragedy just because those affected are not native to their home country? Many say that the damage done by the hurricanes are not as tragic because it happened in the Caribbean which is expected. Is it acceptable that some people believe that places where tragedy is expected or unsurprising that those affected by these tragedies deserve a less empathetic response from others? Overall, the destruction that was inflicted on the Caribbean was not given much attention by your average American apart from a few words of acknowledgement. This lack of caring is directly relatable to the society depicted in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, where massive environmental destruction was caused by uncaring humans.

In the article “Empathizing 101,” Allie Grasgreen argues the change in emotion in those living in the 21st century describe the exact phenomenon of lack of empathy as time passes for humans. She discusses how the new generation of “millenials” is said to be the “least empathetic generation yet.” It is stated in the article that “College students today are 40 percent less empathetic than those who graduated two or three decades ago” (Grasgreen). As time passes, it seems that generations are growing less and less empathetic. This could be due to the fact that we have become numb to tragedy; we are now too used to hearing and seeing about bad things that happen around the world and to other people. The advances in media may have contributed to this as well. The news is now rolling 24/7 on TV, the negative stories get higher views and ratings. Death, tragedy, and social turmoil are regular topics on news networks. Social media makes videos of many tragedies readily available for viewing within minutes of them occurring. Shootings can be live streamed, natural disasters as well. Movies and video games are now saturated with violence and violent topics. It is nearly impossible to watch a movie or play a video game that does not involve some type of violence, blood shed, and especially death. All of these factors that involve advancement in technology could very well contribute to the way that millennials have become numb to tragedy. When something is displayed or seen too much, it becomes the norm and it is harder to feel emotion towards something that is or seems so common. In terms of the context of the novel, this makes us seem a lot like how we would consider machines or “androids” to behave.

In the article “What Becomes of Empathy,” by Tim Recuber it is discussed how empathy can also have a negative impact in today’s society and Recuber provides examples of this. He discusses how we are unable to have true empathy for anyone who is not like us, or who we cannot relate to in some way. This ties back to what was discussed earlier, as many Americans did not empathize with hurricane victims in the Caribbean because they are not necessarily Americans like them. Recuber calls this the “empathy gap,” which describes the difference in reactions that people have when someone like them is going through a tragedy or hardship than when someone who is different or unrelatable is going through the same type of tragedy or hardship. The latter always gets less to no empathetic response. “This same empathy gap has also been used to describe the relatively low level of public attention paid to the recent terror attack in Istanbul, compared with the dramatic outpouring of emotion in the West devoted to last year’s attacks in Paris” (Recuber). This is one of many examples that show that there may be certain limitations to empathy and how much/when humans can genuinely experience the emotion for the suffering of others. Why would a reaction to terrorism in Paris be greater than a reaction to the same occurrences in a non-western country? It is not that the people in Istanbul are less human, it is that people are often unable to deeply sympathize with the suffering of those unlike them, living in a place unlike theirs. It could be argued that empathy is a selfish emotion that can only occur when people can relate suffering to themselves. If it can happen to people like you in a place like yours, who is to say it won’t happen to you yourself? It is these questions that seem to spark an empathetic response in humans overall. Every emotion is often driven by self-preservation and safety concerns more than an actual passion for others. This is once again a common theme in Philip K. Dick’s novel. The humans in the novel are unable to empathize with the androids, and vice versa. The two are just too different from one another to relate to the tragedy of loss on one side.

The mass advancement of technology today also makes the mass production of ultra-realistic humanoid machines very possible, as a few robots comparable to this description have been created already. It is very possible that Philip K. Dick’s interpretation of society could have been a peek into the future, as we are very close to a reality such as this. Even the post-apocalyptic feel of the novel with the earth being destroyed by human weapons and irresponsibility is a possible outcome of the future at the rate we are moving as a human race. Weapons of mass destruction exist and are in the hands of opposing countries who constantly use them to threaten one another regardless of their knowledge of what it would do to the environment if used. The novel is not that far from a very real reality/future that humans may have to face in the near future.

Overall, the novel and the two articles are an arguable description of today’s society or a possible future society for many reasons. A lack of basic human emotion is becoming increasingly severe as tragedies become more and more common and available for viewing in the world. Rapid advancements in technology are also starting to make it seem as if a robot species will also be possible very soon. These articles and this novel could very well be used as a warning sign to the human society as to what direction we are headed in if we keep up at the rate we are with our technology, entertainment, and news outlets. This empathy gap can easily be reversed if we made sure the media takes a more sensitive approach when discussing topics of suffering such as death, natural disaster, and violence. Although it should not be sensored, this content should be circulated differently and less. We also must be careful of who we elect to be our leaders. If those who lead us do not show empathy, how can we?

Works Cited

Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Doubleday, 1968.

Fox News. 4 Oct. 2017, www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/10/03/
trump-on-puerto-ricos-debt-were-going-to-have-to-wipe-that-out.html.

Recuber, Tim. “What Becomes of Empathy.” Cyborgology, 20 July 2016, thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/
2016/07/20/what-becomes-of-empathy/.

Grasgreen, Allie. “Empathizing 101.” Inside Higher Ed, 24 Nov. 2010, www.insidehighered.com/news/
2010/11/24/empathy.