75 Years of Cyberware, by Tsutomu Takahashi

INTRODUCTION

A century ago, losing a limb meant tragedy. It meant living with permanent disability, with severely reduced physical capability, and often with chronic pain. What's more, people with disabilities frequently suffered from widespread discrimination, both active (e.g. employment bias) and passive or unconscious (e.g. poor infrastructural inaccessibility). Today, assuming the dismemberment victim is financially stable, loss of limb amounts to little more than a minor inconvenience.

A century ago, employers could impose specific dress codes, hairstyle regulations, and piercing and tattoo bans. Many even pressed their employees to maximize productivity often in violation of the law, such as through anti-pregnancy policies. At the time, however, deeper involvement with employees' bodies was simply impossible, legal or otherwise. But, with the advent of cyberware, employers in the second half of the twenty-first century have imposed requirements for skin, bone, muscle, organ and eye replacements in order to improve performance and workplace effectiveness. In extreme cases, security sector employees are commonly urged to undergo so-called full body conversions, or full cyborgization.

Much has changed over the past seventy-five years from when cybernetic implants first hit the mass market. Many in the field of history of technology have argued cyberware is a positive force for progress, and many have argued the opposite. This book attempts to describe and contextualize the changes – for better or worse – that it has introduced to our professional and personal lives. How has cyberware led us to where we are today, and where is it taking us next?