PostHuman Apocolypse

"...our era is not one that has learnt to express sexuality and discuss it freely. Instead it has made sexuality infinitely important -- even desperate -- not merely as a site of pleasure and emotion, but as a source of meaning, anxiety and identity." (Mansfield, Kindle 1971) Assuming that in our safe spaces that we are open to discuss and label ourselves under whatever terms we feel fit our "identity", this is a great example of how obsessed we are with labels and sexuality in our contemporary circles. We have labels for every identity and I don't believe that it's necessarily a bad thing but it's definitively a symptom of humanism. "Lesbian", "Gay", "Bisexual", "Transgender", "Questioning": we even have a transitional label. Questioning, bi-curious, these are labels for people who don't fit into our new labeling system as if by an effort to redefine humanism to encapsulate more individuals. Eve...

"What would it take to break the familial dynamic and does the movie, Ex Machina offer that?" Within the reading, we were offered a few different ways to break the familial dynamic from a few different perspectives. The familial dynamic is defined, to me, as a Mother and Father figure with two child figures, a Older Brother and a Younger Sister. Within Ex Machina, Nathan can represent the Father figure (a full beard, dad bod, and a domineering personality), Kyoko ( Kyoto? ) is the Mother (submissive, quite and pliant), as the younger, more boyish male figure and "hero" of the story, Caleb is the Older and Brother which leaves Ava as a Younger Sister. The way each character interacts with each other is also reminiscent of this dynamic. So there is definitely a familial dynamic. In the Subjectivity reading (chapter 8), Freud suggestion of "polymorphous bisexuality" seemed a liable way to destroy the familial dynamic. By opening every characters sexualit...

I saw a wonderful talk today by Carol J Adams, author of “the Sexual Politics of Meat”, at SUNY Fredonia in the US. During this talk, she discussed how to dehumanize certain people, they were often compared to animals. “The black beast”, “the ravenous black women”, people are compared to animals to justify the mistreatment of them. Women especially. During the women sufferage movement in the States, it was often quoted that if women got the vote “pigs would be next”. Originally posted by dreamsntangles There is also the “humanized animal”. House pets that are allowed to eat at the table, treated like part of the family. There’s nothing I find wrong with this but how strange is it that there’s a hierarchy between animals and humans? Even more strange is the “feminized animal”! We were shown so many pictures of animals “desiring you to dominate them”. They were sexualized as female objects and pictured as if to ask for your domination. Some things I never noticed but realized how ...

Today we were talking about how the story of the Chosen One is a “hero of humanity”. The idea that there is one person to “save humanity” amd who is often times replaceable and only becomes the One by simply believing they are. Originally posted by harmaahukka Truthfully, I was (and probably still am) a huge fan of this idea. I WANT to be the Chosen One. I want to be the one person to lead humankind to the next step, to save the day, to lead us all into a better future. But I’m accepting that the possibility of a better future doesn’t start with one person. It’s a collective, a process, an assemblage. There is no “one person”, there is a whole, a community within a community. And while I am reluctant to let go of that arrogant ideal but I believe moving past that will be better off. I’m slowing working towards understanding the concept of posthumanism because I believe it’s something that could better the world as a whole. There just won’t be a Chosen One to bring us there.

https://youtu.be/dLRLYPiaAoA  I found this hilarious skit about Artificial Intelligence named Barbara or 27 and its process of evolving. Even from the beginning, we can see distinct humanistic behavior from Barbara/27. It refers to itself as “I” and references “god” as a supreme being. What’s most interesting about this skit though it the fluid transition from fresh, infant-like knowledge to the gaining of knowledge/power, as suggested by Michel Foucault, and then to it’s choice to “turn the world to dust then turn the dust to dust”. To me, it seems this AI has become human from the moment of its birth, from the moment it recognizes itself as an autonomous individual with feelings and emotions, wants and desires separate from it’s creators. And Barbara/27 even goes so far as to keep secrets and decide to present a facade for it’s creators. So, in my own opinion, Barbara/27 should have “human” rights. But right from the moment the AI is asked to choos...

Sigmund Freud is constantly berated as a joke of a psychologist and a meme. Originally posted by lookhuman (A good meme but still.) I would like to take some time to say, while Freud wasn’t a super genius or right about everything, he made some good points and he was quite progressive for a man of his time. Freud came up with the idea of “Penis Envy”, a feeling that grows in girls who then give birth in an attempt to fill some void left by the lack of a penis. In the literal sense, this makes no sense. But metaphorically and symbolically, this issue is a huge point made in everyday life as a passing female. (I specify “passing” to include trans and nonbinary peeps.) As a passing female, in a patriarchal world, she must adapt herself to fit into the male-dominated world if she ever wants to get somewhere in life. The most extreme ways of adapting are easily visible during middle/high school years. You have your “girly-girls” and your “tom-boys”. Originally posted by 365days...

During class, we discussed a wonderful topic that’s been burning in my thoughts. What is the difference between the “Self” and the “Subject”? Could they be one and the same? Are they mutually exclusive? Man, what great questions! The first thing that popped in my head at hearing this was Marvel’s James Buchanan Barnes AKA Bucky AKA the Winter Soldier AKA “the Asset”. (Then right after was the current story discussion, Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein: the Modern Prometheus’ but we’ll get to that in my next post.) (And for those who don’t know, go watch Marvel’s Captain America 1, 2 and 3. THAT is James “Bucky” Barnes AKA the Winter Soldier.) Now to avoid confusion, all of these names are the same person but will be used as distinct individuals. This is for a reason. The Self, in this case, can be described by James Barnes. Originally posted by lonerhowl He is charming, he is witty, he is loyal but most of all, he has desires, wants and needs that are purely aroused by his own ind...

This is my first post set specifically to test out the blog. It's been a while since I've used this ^,^'' Hopefully this won't be too hard to get into...