TRANSHUMANISM, NANOTECHNOLOGY, AND VIDEO GAMES

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL NEED TO REPRESENT THE FUTURE

Abstract

Video games inspired by transhumanism, its technologies and sciences, are increasingly widespread and have reached high sales rates over the last decades. The gamers get a precise message about this movement in their interaction with transhumanist titles, usually focused on making visible the advantages and disadvantages of the use of technology and science to improve the human species. What is more, in doing so, they find answers to the questions about the destiny of humanity under the transhumanist prism, as well as relief regarding the fears that this awakens. The cultural product that is the video game, through the proposal of a transhumanist narrative, calms a need for an experience of the unknown that lies in transhumanism, one that the developers are aware of when creating their titles, and one of which they take advantage smartly to get to be in the highest positions of the sales rankings. This essay revolves around these ideas and takes the video games whose narratives are based on the use of nanotechnology as a case study.