TWENTY-ONE
Cyborg Future and Homo Electrus
“In days gone by, surgery was all about blood and guts. In the
future, surgery will be about bits and bytes.”
—Bleeding Edge“The robot will see you now.”
—Bleeding EdgeI am running late on my way to class here in my second year of medical
school. Having moved from a suburban apartment to a three-bedroom
bungalow in a tumbledown neighborhood close to the medical center, I can
easily walk to my morning lecture along cracked and uneven sidewalks.
Backpack slung over my shoulder (following convention of only one
shoulder strap and avoiding Poindexter associations of using both straps),
I am preoccupied with thoughts of my upcoming bacteriology exam, the
infamous ultimate flunk-out challenge in my school.
And now I encounter an unusual scene—an elderly couple standing on
the curb in the middle of the block, hand in hand. They are facing the road,
motionless, and appear to be waiting for something. I slow down, glancing
across the street to see where they are looking. It then dawns on me that
they are blind, as their heads are cocked slightly downward and their
gazes are unfocused. I come to a stop, realizing that they are aiming to
cross the street, and I surmise that they are listening for traffic on this
one-way street.
My block is precisely lined with two- and three-bedroom craftsman
bungalow houses built in the 1930s, where most of the front yards are