{"id":5497,"date":"2013-10-11T11:49:13","date_gmt":"2013-10-11T15:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=5497"},"modified":"2013-10-11T11:49:13","modified_gmt":"2013-10-11T15:49:13","slug":"creepy-cybercrawlies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=5497","title":{"rendered":"Creepy cybercrawlies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/news.sciencemag.org\/brain-behavior\/2013\/10\/cyborg-cockroach-sparks-ethics-debate\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-5498\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/cybercrawl.jpg\" width=\"444\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/cybercrawl.jpg 444w, https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/cybercrawl-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 444px) 100vw, 444px\" \/><\/a>Is this a worthy <a href=\"http:\/\/news.sciencemag.org\/brain-behavior\/2013\/10\/cyborg-cockroach-sparks-ethics-debate\">do-it-yourself neuroscience experiment<\/a>, or an example of a technology gone berserk, foreshadowing a bleak future?<\/p>\n<p>A US company is planning to ship $99 kits this fall, allowing anyone to turn a cockroach into a remote controlled cyborg. Educational? Or more like the stuff of bad dreams?<\/p>\n<p>For me, it&#8217;s the latter. Perhaps it doesn&#8217;t help that I am halfway through reading Margaret Atwood&#8217;s <em>The Year of the Flood<\/em>, sequel to <em>Oryx and Crake<\/em>, a dystopian science fiction novel set in a bleak future in which humanity destroys itself through the reckless use of biotech and related technologies.<\/p>\n<p>A cockroach may not be a beloved animal. Its nervous system may be too small, too simple for it to feel real pain. Nonetheless, I feel there is something deeply disturbing and fundamentally unethical about the idea of turning a living animal into a remote control toy.<\/p>\n<p>To put it more simply: it creeps the hell out of me.<\/p>\n<fb:like href='https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=5497' send='true' layout='standard' show_faces='true' width='450' height='65' action='like' colorscheme='light' font='lucida grande'><\/fb:like>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is this a worthy do-it-yourself neuroscience experiment, or an example of a technology gone berserk, foreshadowing a bleak future? A US company is planning to ship $99 kits this fall, allowing anyone to turn a cockroach into a remote controlled cyborg. Educational? Or more like the stuff of bad dreams? For me, it&#8217;s the latter. <a href='https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=5497' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biology","category-cybernetics","category-55-id","category-58-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5497"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5500,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5497\/revisions\/5500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}