I posted a few weeks ago suggesting that one of the big -isms of this century would be transhumanism, or the idea that humans can ‘evolve’ to higher beings through the use of technology.
On that theme, I’ve been digging the news story recently about the legal battle by Oscar Pistorius, also known as the Blade Runner, to be allowed to compete in the Beijing Olympics this year.
Pistorius had both legs amputated when he was 11 months old, but didn’t let this get in the way of his love of sports. In 2004, he teamed up with the Icelandic design company Ossur, who designed him special carbon fibre artificial limbs, that sort of look like two bendy metal threshers with spikes on the bottom.
He never looked back, winning the Para-Olympics medals for the 100m, 200m and 400m, and setting the world record in all these events.
Last year, he started competing in athletic competitions against able-bodied athletes. He was beginning to do well in these races, when the International Association of Athletics Federation ruled that he actually had an unfair advantage over able-bodied athletes. Quite a turn-around – from being allowed to compete in the patronizing side-event of the Para-Olympcs, to being forbidden to compete in the actual Olympics because you might win!
He’s appealing the IAAF’s decision now, and the case is going to court. It should be an interesting court case. If we allow the Blade Runner to compete in the Olympics, then why should transhuman advances in athletics stop there? Will we have athletes amputating their own limbs in order to fit them with faster prosthetics?
In the words of the film Robocop:
– We saved the left arm.
– What? We agreed on total body prosthesis. Now lose the arm.
