I was watching something on the Discovery channel about robotics and robotics leads to prosthetics and prosthetics means they had to talk a little bit about Oscar Pistorius, and I said “Ah-hah, this program was obviously made before February 14th of this year.”
It’s very easy to remember the day that Oscar Pistorius shot his girlfriend dead, with lots of bullets, through their bathroom door, because it was Valentine’s Day and that forms a part of the narrative.
But it was kind of nostalgic, and weird, like watching O.J. Simpson in Capricorn One. There was a time when everybody liked Oscar Pistorius, when he was the poster boy for prosthetics, a brave and determined young man and a hopeful sign of a better future for the handicapped.
Now, it’s hard to even say when his trial will be. I don’t get that. How long should it take? Once the police have charged him, why doesn’t the trial begin the next day? Things are still fresh and you are never more likely to get the truth than when things are fresh. Delay just gives the defense time for the event to fade from the public memory so that when they quietly make a deal, everybody will have forgotten about it as, it seems, most people have.
But I don’t want to belabor the weaknesses of the South African court system, or a male and money dominated culture, which allows rich and famous people to murder their girlfriends more or less with impunity. I want to write tonight about the prosthetics thing.
I saw an article a couple of days ago (I’d link to it but I can’t find it again) about how butterflies have more “cones” in their eyes than people, and it is these cone cells which are responsible for color, so butterflies actually see colors we can’t imagine. We see more colors than dogs, but butterflies have us beat. Well, someday scientists will invent an artificial eye, which they can just plug right into the old eye socket and blindness will be cured. Looking at the incredible pace of improvements in cameras, and in biotech, I expect it within 10 years but OI think, almost definitely, within the lifetimes of many blind people who are alive today. When they get those eyes, why won’t they just add a few cones so those people can have butterfly vision, or perhaps people will want Hawk’s Eyes, to spot small things at a great distance, or cat’s eyes might be valuable for somebody who works a lot at night, like a cop or a thief, for example.
It Would Be Weirder Than This, Because There Would Be Colors We Can’t Imagine
Likewise hearing. Artificial ears are already a reality, or nearly. Surely, some people will be outfitted with super hearing. And there will be runners with faster legs and prosthetic arms that work like sledgehammers, or like Edward Scissorhands.
People will have superpowers. Some of them will choose to be superheroes, because some people are just the hero type. I see the future, and the future will be cool.
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