Deep Dive: Androids & Cyborgs as Our Mirror — What “Near-Humans” Reveal About Us
Why do stories keep returning to androids and cyborgs?
Because they’re the closest mirror we have: a “near-human” other that forces the question—
If it looks like us, speaks like us, feels like us… what do we owe it? And what do we owe each other?
In this deep dive, I connect five works as one map for “post-human” thinking:
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
Core thread (spoiler-light):
1) Innocence — when desire turns intimacy into a product, ethics arrives “too late.”
A line that still stings: “Kids… aren’t dolls.”
2) Ghost in the Shell — once bodies are networked, identity becomes permissions, protocols, and control.
Not “freedom first,” but “governance first.”
3) NieR:Automata — control isn’t only systems. It’s stories.
A myth can fuel labor, war, and even grief.
4) Time of Eve — coexistence isn’t a slogan; it’s a practice.
“Don’t distinguish humans and robots” becomes daily discipline: gaze, tone, restraint.
5) The Gene of AI — coexistence begins where care is real and costly: the consultation room.
The hard part is not arguing about borders, but learning “response”—what do we do for the being in front of us?
I use Donna Haraway’s cyborg as a compass here—not as utopia, but as a tool for living together after boundaries break.
More details + full write-up (with official sources) are on my blog → please check my pinned post.
Question for you:
Which story hit you hardest—surveillance, myths that control people, or the quiet everyday difficulty of “coexisting”?
