All hail the robot

The perils of disembodiment

Photo by Andrew Le on Unsplash

Social and sexual distancing began long before Covid.

From an article by Eliza Mondegreen ‘What’s changed are the ideas and expectations that we’ve raised children on and the way we’ve turned them loose in an online world whose terrain no one has mapped. Many of these children have grown up with extended experiences of online disembodiment. They may not be free to run around outside with their friends but they’re free to roam the darkest corners of the Internet. Who knows what strangers and strange ideas they encounter there.

These children have grown up hearing a very new and confusing set of fairy tales about gendered souls that can end up in the ‘wrong bodies’. Adults who should know better — adults who do know better — have made these children impossible promises.’

People, formerly known as children, are allowed to freely roam around the global digital village, that we all to some extent live in, as disembodied entities. Unlike those of us who grew up without the internet, children now develop psyches that are formed with less of the vital information that our bodies give us; smell, pheromones, hormones, body language, energetic signals and physical contact. These sensory cues enable us to develop trust and relationships. No wonder children, and adults, are confused, lonely and suicidal.

The effects of the technology are the real problem. Our minds are dismembered from the rest of us. We are not in our bodies at all; let alone the ‘wrong’ ones.

In 2020 were we weakened and numbed enough by the robot for the 24/7 propaganda of Covid to take hold of us, to destroy our small businesses, prevent us from engaging in life-enhancing live music, group dancing, sport, theatre or just going into work, school or down the pub. To make us think that to remain healthy we must be altered and augmented. To make us think that there was something inherently wrong with our bodies.

We have hardly any common sense left at all.

The best way to protect ourselves and each other?

Get our heads out of our phones.

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