I honestly haven’t paid a lot of attention to Haraway since The Cyborg Manifesto many years ago. On the one hand, I think that at this point, humanity is already cyborgs. We offload a lot of who and what we are into our technology. Whether that’s cognitive load, automation of tasks, physical work, etc. So it was nice to read (and hear) a contemporary perspective from Haraway.
Haraway’s outlook has been one of the more relatable ones for me. Maybe because it resonates, oddly enough, with some of the Nihilistic texts I’ve been reading. The idea that what we are in now, is a boundary (vs an epoch), and the way out is just further down into the breach. That idea of working with the unhuman, of thinking about how we’re all basically compost, and how futures could be more livable. How to work with our damaged, tired planet. Because it really is home.
Its weird to look back on “futures” and sci-fi and realize how much of it is about trying not to die. But an organism in death is one in equilibrium with everything. But then a lot of it was written at a time when Climate Change was Future You’s problem, and now, its one of the most looking issues we face.
I think the idea of making Kin and not babies should be practiced and taken to heart. Anyways, here’s the new game Everything by David O’Reilly, which I feel really speaks to some of these ideas.