Throughout reading this article I couldn't help but laugh at the dramatic irony of our experience as students in 2017 reading Bush's predictions for the future of mechanics and technology in 1991. He speaks with a bit of wonderment, obviously trying to shock the reader with ideas considered fantastical at the time and then undermining them as "not so fantastic;" the joke of course being that even his most fantastic ideas seem rudimentary to us. That is, until I reached this part of the article, where Bush's predictions seem to have closely aligned with those of our own in the modern era. In this quote he seems to suggest a total departure from the tactile, oral, visual, and so on. Whether explicitly or not, Bush is referencing transcendence of machine (mechanical or digital) which, when you think about it, is a "fantastic" notion even by our standards of technology in 2017.

Except mind altering drugs often affect more than the individual themselves. Autonomy out to give way, in instances like these, to the greater public good/safety. Our choices always affect more than just ourselves.

Except states regularly infringe upon these rights and/or limit/remove the means of exercising such rights

This is false. For instance, there are countless documented cases in which the state has forcibly sterilized prisoners or used unwilling sterilization as a means of obtaining early parole for segments of the population deemed lesser (i.e., women of color, poor people, etc.)

Except not really. Social institutions like school, religion, saluting the flag, etc. socialize us into acceptable thought/behavior. We are free, to an extent, to rebel against these socializations, but rarely without backlash from friends, family, community, etc. See also: Red Scare

This is an interesting concept, particularly with regards to writing, because many people, myself included, think as they write. I often times do not even really know what I think about a topic until I start writing about it. Essays, for example, are usually difficult to start, but I end up figuring out what my argument is by the end because the process of writing itself has allowed me to think through the subject in a way normal biological cognition would not normally allow me to.

In this statement, our narrator explains to us the premise of his novel. I picked this statement in particular because it represents the casually slippery slope of transhumanism. Here, he says that his novel was ultimately supposed to be its own science fiction alternative universe, when really he was hiding little pieces of his personal experience with the changing roles of humans and machines through a fictional world. He then says he wished to create a utopian society where they assumably functioned together harmoniously, while trailing off an unable to imagine or comprehend a vision of what the future holds for a transhuman relationships.

This certain statement is really interesting because it takes you into the mind of a machine acknowledging trans-humanism. Hal is acknowledging that he has conscious capabilities, but for a purpose, that of his creators, and that he does his best to serve the wishes of his creators while still taking advantage of his consciousness example. This is a wonderful conceptual space between man and machine. Man acknowledges his creation has a colossal intellect, and seeks to test if something with awareness, has happiness and satisfaction. Which nearly anything that is not human would not. Testing the boundaries of transhumanism [2017-F-OCC-102-109-McCoy] #respectbetweenpeopleandmachines #satisfaction #consciousenity