Author Description

The growing synergy of humans and technology - from dialysis to genetically altered foods to PET scans - is transforming how we view our minds and our bodies. But how has it changed the body politic? How can we forge a society that protects the rights of human and cyborg alike? Chris Hables Gray now offers the first guide to "posthuman" politics, framing the key issues that could threaten or brighten our technological future. For good or ill, politics has already been cyborged in ways that touch us all. Cyberdemocracy is changing mainstream politics. Wars are being fought with cyborg soldiers and illusions of virtuality. Biotechnological advances - cloning, sexual prostheses, gene patents - are redefining life and the family in ways that strain the social contract. Even death itself is being reconfigured. Only with a broad, historically rich, and ethically grounded understanding of these issues, Gray argues, can we combat the threats to our freedom and even our survival. A work of vision and imagination, Cyborg Citizen lays the groundwork for the participatory evolution of our society.