POST-HUMANISM IN SOUTH AFRICA - 26306868

POST-HUMANISM IN SOUTH AFRICA
CHRISTIE V.D MERWE
26306868
BLOG 2

Post-humanism is technology. It is the “cross-fertilization process where post-humanity is becoming a reality.” This is because in post-humanism machines become more humanlike and humans become more computer like. Technology simulates humanity and humanity simulates technology.

Post-humanism has many different aspects and gains more and more aspects daily, due to the latest developments. Post-humanism aspects vary from life-extention to cloning to cryonics and many more. Life-extention is one of the most important aspects as post-humanists strive to find ways to make people live longer or even to prevent them from dying. Post-humanism makes the impossible possible.

In order for a country to have all the latest post-humanistic aspects it has to be highly developed regarding technology. Due to the fact that South Africa is a mixture of first and third world cultures, South Africa is not so highly developed, and is all of the post-humanistic aspects therefore not that freely available and neither implemented in South Africa as yet. When Steve Harris writes about cryonics, he writes from a North American point of view because there is no cryonic centres available in South Africa. “The down set to post-humanism in South Africa is that South Africa is a third world country whereas North America and the rest of the world have the financial aid as well as technology aid to develop programs to research gene-mapping, cloning and cryonics.”

South Africa’s technology is not developed enough for the process of cryonics just yet. Though most of the world is living in a post-humanism era, some countries, like South Africa for instance, just does not use all of the post-humanistic aspects as a result of poor technology. One of the most frequently used and well known post-humanistic aspect used in South Africa is body changes (post-human bodies), which resulted in plastic surgery, where a person can now change his or her appearance and even change their gender.

Looking from a post-human perspective it really seems that the whole world is entering an era where absolutely everything is subject to change. With so many possibilities and so many goals still to be achieved by mankind in the post-humanism sphere, it is obvious that an interesting future is lying ahead of us!