And why do you think that is inevitable?

Here, let me pare it down even further: if one cyborg can obsolete ten floors of normal people nattering away at 90-100 WPM in cubicles, exactly how many corporations do you think are going to skip the opportunity to shrink their workforce?

1. You're assuming that such Cyborgs would be feasible in the first place when in fact there is no such guarantee.

2. You're assuming that you can't get a similar improvement in productivity by simply improving the tools normal people have available.

1. Who gives a shit? This is totally irrelevant to the core premise of my statement.

2. Uh, hello, if I can think up a powerpoint production in literally two seconds flat, I would obsolete the entire American military industrial complex. If cybernetics develop to the point where people really can just imagine what the want and piece it together by daydreaming, unless your tools are mind reading personal computers you can fit in your back pocket no tool will be able to compete. And if you did have mind reading personal computers that fit in your back pocket you'd be pretty transhuman anyway.

Uh, dude, so is your "magically increase productivity with better tools". At least Ford can give a simple reason why cyborging can be used to increase productivity. I doubt that you can give one that wouldn't be made better with cybernetics.

An augmentation that allows for the increases in productivity that Ford describes would require a lot of computing power, which means in the absence of magic, it will create heat. So unless you want wear a beer helmet filled with liquid nitrogen to prevent your brain from frying, you're likely better off keeping the techno-magic on the outside.

How about a guy with a combine harvester versus a guy with a sickle? The guy in the harvester is orders of magnitude more productive than the guy with the sickle without a single piece of cyberware.

There's no magic to tools increasing productivity, that's been well demonstrated in history and is not likely to change. The problem with cybernetics is that they are not likely to be cost effective. An augmentation that allows for the increases in productivity that Ford describes would require a lot of computing power, which means in the absence of magic, it will create heat. So unless you want wear a beer helmet filled with liquid nitrogen to prevent your brain from frying, you're likely better off keeping the techno-magic on the outside.

The fact is, like Tasoth just pointed out, an AI could likely do the cyborg's job better and more cost-effectively.

Here, let me pare it down even further: if one cyborg can obsolete ten floors of normal people nattering away at 90-100 WPM in cubicles, exactly how many corporations do you think are going to skip the opportunity to shrink their workforce?

2. Uh, hello, if I can think up a powerpoint production in literally two seconds flat, I would obsolete the entire American military industrial complex. If cybernetics develop to the point where people really can just imagine what the want and piece it together by daydreaming, unless your tools are mind reading personal computers you can fit in your back pocket no tool will be able to compete. And if you did have mind reading personal computers that fit in your back pocket you'd be pretty transhuman anyway.

The only way, i see, that would work like many transhumanist people imagine is if these changes are appealing to many people. If for example a nanotech-implant is available that gives you the power to increase the speed of thinking for a limited time and if it is not only reasonably prices but also requires minimal brain surgery, i think many people would consider getting one.

If it's cheaper to hire and equip those "ten floors" of meat people than to successfully cyborg one human corporations are likely to stick with meat people, or only hire only pre-cyborged people. If the cost of cyborging is way high, very few individuals will be able to afford it.

The cognitively enhanced networked cyborgs will have iBrains capable of megamultitasking so while their consciousness is playing WOW all day, their consciousness is simultaneously doing multi-macroterabyte computational processes required in actual work. Those with the latest models of iBrains can do this with multithreading technologies that use cerebral graphics cards to render the cyber-WOW in better-than-real graphics while also using processing power from the subconsciousness to maintain the stability of the core architecture of work-related programs.

To facilitate the optimization of this process, you need to have an updated Johnson & Johnson or Pfhizer artificial endocrine system to regulate the hormonal bioelectrical signals and monitor the metabolic systems of your body and ensure proper heat redistribution. A General Electric designed respiratory system will be capable of venting out heated air and cycling in cool air very efficiently.

Cooling won't be a problem for people who are playing WOW in their mind, while doing real work, underwater. Their dimpled shark-skin epidermis manufactured by Speedo is both extremely hydrodynamic and designed also to facilitate the radiation of body heat into the surrounding water to reduce the human being's infrared signatures while allowing him to glide through the water seamlessly. General Electric can provide rebreather systems for superior underwater respiration.

Of course, if you want to use your new Ford or GMC artificial musculature systems to run ten marathons in a day, your General Motors cardiovascular system will have to divert the bloodflow and coolant circulation and oil/lubricants from your iBrain and to your enhanced micro-servohydraulic and synthetic muscles. So if you want to bench press ten tons, your cerebral performance might decrease as energy is shunted towards your physical systems.

Or you could have an enhanced gastrointestinal system that has optimized nutrition uptake, and you could eat the latest posthuman-foods provided by Gerber or Nestle or whatever, which concentrates ten times more nutrients into a single protein pill than an entire thanksgiving turkey. With this kind of nutritional intake, you could use both your artificial muscles and your enhanced brains at full capacity simultaneously.



Naturally, every single cell in your body will be marked by the various company brand logos of the constituent corporations that have patented the designs of your anatomy. You'll have factory warranties so if in case of any defects, you can get replacement kidneys, unless the warranty runs out or unless you do something against the contract which voids that warranty.

If you simply want to turn off the information flow into your brain, the iBrain can easily decrease the multi-terabyte datastreaming of the modem built into the base of your spinal chord.

Or, if you just want a good's night sleep, you can turn HALF of your iBrain off while the other half stays conscious and continues on working, while you alternate the sleep cycles of your brains' hemispheres. Post-people will do that all the time so they can continue working, or playing WOW, in the workplace or at home without having to literally go to bed and shut off their stream of consciousness.

For any issues, you can download software and wetware and brainware patches for your cybernetic brains.

There is planned obsolescence though, in a couple of years the latest iBrain you bought will be laughably obsolete and people will mock you and think you're cheap and outdated, so you better buy the latest model whenever it comes out!

The cognitively enhanced networked cyborgs will have iBrains capable of megamultitasking so while their consciousness is playing WOW all day, their consciousness is simultaneously doing multi-macroterabyte computational processes required in actual work. Those with the latest models of iBrains can do this with multithreading technologies that use cerebral graphics cards to render the cyber-WOW in better-than-real graphics while also using processing power from the subconsciousness to maintain the stability of the core architecture of work-related programs.

To facilitate the optimization of this process, you need to have an updated Johnson & Johnson or Pfhizer artificial endocrine system to regulate the hormonal bioelectrical signals and monitor the metabolic systems of your body and ensure proper heat redistribution. A General Electric designed respiratory system will be capable of venting out heated air and cycling in cool air very efficiently.

Cooling won't be a problem for people who are playing WOW in their mind, while doing real work, underwater. Their dimpled shark-skin epidermis manufactured by Speedo is both extremely hydrodynamic and designed also to facilitate the radiation of body heat into the surrounding water to reduce the human being's infrared signatures while allowing him to glide through the water seamlessly. General Electric can provide rebreather systems for superior underwater respiration.

Of course, if you want to use your new Ford or GMC artificial musculature systems to run ten marathons in a day, your General Motors cardiovascular system will have to divert the bloodflow and coolant circulation and oil/lubricants from your iBrain and to your enhanced micro-servohydraulic and synthetic muscles. So if you want to bench press ten tons, your cerebral performance might decrease as energy is shunted towards your physical systems.

Or you could have an enhanced gastrointestinal system that has optimized nutrition uptake, and you could eat the latest posthuman-foods provided by Gerber or Nestle or whatever, which concentrates ten times more nutrients into a single protein pill than an entire thanksgiving turkey. With this kind of nutritional intake, you could use both your artificial muscles and your enhanced brains at full capacity simultaneously.



Naturally, every single cell in your body will be marked by the various company brand logos of the constituent corporations that have patented the designs of your anatomy. You'll have factory warranties so if in case of any defects, you can get replacement kidneys, unless the warranty runs out or unless you do something against the contract which voids that warranty.

If you simply want to turn off the information flow into your brain, the iBrain can easily decrease the multi-terabyte datastreaming of the modem built into the base of your spinal chord.

Or, if you just want a good's night sleep, you can turn HALF of your iBrain off while the other half stays conscious and continues on working, while you alternate the sleep cycles of your brains' hemispheres. Post-people will do that all the time so they can continue working, or playing WOW, in the workplace or at home without having to literally go to bed and shut off their stream of consciousness.

For any issues, you can download software and wetware and brainware patches for your cybernetic brains.

There is planned obsolescence though, in a couple of years the latest iBrain you bought will be laughably obsolete and people will mock you and think you're cheap and outdated, so you better buy the latest model whenever it comes out!

Imagine a genetic modification that removed the need for sleep. Wouldn't you want that? Wouldn't you want it for your children, if you knew it was safe? How much happier, or more productive, or both could you be if you never got sleepy?
[...]
And yet that might well be a more solvable challenge than, say, threading nanotech through the brain without damaging it.

The other issue with using nanotech is that there are some not inconsiderable engineering issues you would have to resolve before you could expect a nanite to function in an environment like the human body, let alone start to rebuild it. Specifically you would have to find a way to have tiny machines with minimal heat tolerance operate in the 38 degree centigrade of the human body.

They have those now. They're called enzymes.

Enzymes just catalyze chemical reactions, the nanites I was referring to are the cliched self-replicated robots that build things from the molecular level. An Enzymes are pretty sensitive to changes in the body's temperature and chemical makeup, anyway.

Saying that enzymes just catalyze chemical reactions is an interesting way of downplaying the real example of living cells, which fit the definition of self-replicating molecular machinery.