As a mid-century mod girl, my eyes were always focused on the future. From the Jetsons to the Six Million Dollar Man to the Bionic Woman, everything sci-fi about the future was fascinating to me. I wasn’t as passionate as I am today about the whole tech era and didn’t understand then exactly how a cyborg (or loose variation) actually could exist.
However, I do remember the first show, starring Lee Majors (as Steve Austin), who was considered a cool guy with leading man good looks. It also helped that he was married to a world famous actress/pin up superstar, Farrah Fawcett (one of my idols at the time). With the reality of space travel in the mass consciousness, the plot of superhero astronaut, Steve Austin, was fascinating. He was radically injured when his spaceship crashes and the government rebuilds several of Steve’s body parts with machine parts (Completing his quasi-cyborg transition) With a complete recovery, his machine parts enable him to have superhuman strength and speed, as well as other powers. With these powers, Steve goes to work for the Office of Scientific Information, fighting the forces of evil.
This brings to mind the whole concept of transhumanism that seemed so far into the future, beyond my comprehension, but would never be a reality in my life time. However we are now in the twenty first century and so many aspects of futurology are actually becoming a reality.
There are so many aspects of futurology that precluded the boomer generation’s obsession with life extension, becoming ageless, and the whole concept of a finite humanity are being challenged. Visionaries such as Ray Kurzweil have been leading the way in discovering radical life extension with radical life enhancement. He claims to “know that 20 to 25 years from now, we will have millions of blood-cell sized devices, known as nanobots, inside our bodies fighting against diseases, improving our memory, and cognitive abilities.”
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