Karl Hallowell comments on Stephen’s review of Iron Man:
Hmmm, this is pretty pro-transhumanist. The hero has an awesome robot suit, an interesting gadget built in his chest, and a friendly AI. He also has an intriguing collection of modern and near future technology. All of this is portrayed in a mostly positive light.
One of the played-to-death tropes of future disappointment is the lack of flying cars. I used to trade in that one myself, but I got tired of it. Part of what we do at The Speculist is attempt to develop new future-related tropes. I like to think of myself as a memetician, but I will quickly admit that I don’t have any academic credentials in the field. Anyhow, one trope that Stephen and I have been developing for some time is that, in the future, we will all be super-heroes. This started way back in ’05 with our second FastForward Radio, wherein I suggested that — in the future, we will all be Batman.
But it doesn’t stop there. As we noted in our most recent FFR, a Japanese company is now working to make us all Iron Man — or at least make those of us who want or need to be…
Nice! Now some will be happy to start at having a few gadgets (Batman) or maybe access to equipment that gives the impression of having advanced powers (Iron Man), but for others that won’t be enough. One of the more obscure comics that I enjoyed in my youth was OMAC: the One-Man Army Corps. Set in the “world thats coming,” OMAC definitely played with some transhumanist ideas, as detailed by Wikipedia:
One-Man Army Corps (OMAC) is a superhero comic book created by Jack Kirby and published by DC Comics. Set in the near future (“the world that’s coming”), OMAC is a corporate nobody named Buddy Blank who is changed by an A.I. satellite called Brother Eye into the super-powered OMAC.
OMAC works for the Global Peace Agency, a group of faceless people who police the entire world using pacifistic weapons. The world balance is too dangerous for large armies, so OMAC is used as the main field enforcement agent for the Global Peace Agency.
All kinda dumb, and it didn’t last, but one thing I remember Kirby writing in an editorial he provided in the first issue of OMAC was the idea that these kinds of things might really be on their way, that one day OMAC might be “just another Joe” and that Superman might be our ultimate dream come true.
So in the future, will we all wear a cape with matching boots? Probably not. I’m not even sure I can see the path forward that would get us to OMAC (much less Superman-level) abilities. I mean, we could probably do some astounding stuff with utility fog, but that would make us more like Green Lantern and his power ring than it would Superman…not that there’s anything wrong with that! GL is very cool! But ultimately even the power ring is just an extension of Bruce Wayne’s gadgets or Tony Stark’s exoskeleton. It is technology external to the individual using it, not a reflection of innate physical ability.
If it is our destiny to be Superman, it is probably not going to happen in this substrate. It’s a lot easier to be Superman in a virtual world than it is in this one. And, in fact, in Second Life, everyone can fly — it is one of the chief means of transportation. It’s also interesting to note that in Second Life, there is a functioning Green Lantern Corps — acting as a kind of virtual Guardian Angels to protect some virtual activities from being disrupted by virtual bad-guys. Nice!
The problem with being superman in the virtual world — or even up here in meatspace assuming the technology to get us there shows up eventually — is that it isn’t as big a deal if everyone else is Superman.