Since man has learned to walk on two legs he has been
hacking himself.
The
machines we call our
bodies are exceedingly hard to
reverse engineer, but
we’re getting better at it.
Psychology
You can alter your firmware. Some use discipline, some use hypnosis, some like
religion, some just know how. Your mind is more malleable than any other thing
you will encounter in your world, and as a consequence you can flip it like
a switch.
I maintain that I am God of my world, and you of yours. Perception is everything,
hack your perception. Take a cue from Pavlov and his Dog, make the world something
you want to salivate over.
Sex
The ancient Egyptians used a sheath filled with crocodile dung as birth control.
They had a good idea, but not very pleasant. Flash forward several thousand
years to the latex condom, and female birth control pills... Make the female
body think it’s pregnant when it’s not. It’s brilliant!
As far as I’m concerned this is the ultimate hack so far. Years and years
of evolution made sex pleasurable so we’d procreate. A small circumvention
and we can get all the fun without the catch. Think of all the resources freed
up and quality of life improved by eliminating unwanted pregnancy. Soon there
will be male birth control pills… now if we could only find a sexual anti-virus
program a new sexual revolution would be born.
Chemistry
In ancient man’s cave dwellings in Europe, psilocybin mushrooms have
been found. Drugs are the oldest hack, effective but blunt. It seems as soon
as all other human needs are met, man seeks drugs. Prozac, Opiates &
MDMA make you happy. Viagra makes you horny. Caffeine perks you up. Alcohol
and Marijuana bring you down. Pills that hack the body are too numerous to mention.
While drugs usually meet their aims, screwing with the body’s chemistry
can have other unintended effects. This is still by large the most common hack,
people are trying their hardest to fulfill the Hedonistic Imperative all over
the world as I type.
Cybernetics
Want to own your root? Today the cycle is speeding up. We have artificial hearts
and hips and simple eyes. You can expect to live longer today than in any other
time in human history thanks to our grandiose technology.
The law of accelerating returns (like Moore’s law but on a grander scale)
dictates that within the next century we will have the technology to upgrade
ourselves to fantastical meta-human levels. This will cause us to move forward
faster than evolution ever could push us. If you could get a brain that never
forgets, limbs that never get tired, and complete control over all of your mental
faculties, would you turn it down?
I strongly recommend hacking yourself. If you're stuck in this body you might
as well push it as far as you can.