Elysium: Future Soldier Cyborgs? | S01E08 - Reality Check: The Science of Fiction

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Well, welcome back to the podcastwhere we discuss the plausibility of sci fi
concepts with experts. I'm your host, Heidi Coompo, and today we're going
to be exploring the science behind soldieraugmentation in the movie Elysia. Joining us
is doctor Justin Clifford, who isa tactical physical therapist working with military special
warfare operators. Stay with us tothe end when doctor Clifford tackles our burning

(00:22):
question will soldiers of tomorrow be humanor cyborg? So, without further ado,
let's be ready for another mind blowingepisode of reality Chat. All thanks
prepared for hypercrime activating Activity. Justa few in Contractor Bealey, you're late
for lightspeedlights met It's too slow,all right? Reality Chat by Sillians.

(00:43):
All. So, some of youhave probably seen the twenty thirteen dystopian sci
fi action thriller starring Matt David andJodie Foster. It is currently trending on
Netflix right now, and after youguys are tuning into this episode, you'll
have a good idea why, becausethere are lots of relevant things going on
in that movie that are I'm notgoing to get any spoilers, but let's

(01:07):
just say that this is going tobe one of those episodes that might be
bordering a little bit more on theplausibility scale. But before we dive into
all that, I am going togive you guys a disclaimer. I am
for those of you watching, Iam living in a holiday and express right
now, so there might be alittle bit of background noise, but I
am faithful and confident that my producerQ will be able to clean it up.

(01:30):
Before we jump into that, doyou actually want to hear the funny
story about how I sound by producer? Yeah, sure, go forth.
So I'm a big fan of theSpace Nuts podcast, and if you guys
haven't listened to it, it's superfun. So the Space Nuts, Space
Time, and Astronomy Daily are someof those ones that I've been listening to
a lot. And then when Iwas recently out at Kennedy Space Center for

(01:53):
the NASA cru seven latch of wearingmy NASA Crew seven T shirt, I
got invited to go out there andjust do some meat stuff for the launch.
I met Miss USA there, MissUnited States. She is beauty,
she is grace, she is MissUnited States. And while I was going
there, I posted on their Facebookpage. I was like, hey,
space Nuts, does anybody want meto ask any of these subject matter experts

(02:16):
or anybody anything on behalf of thespace nuts group, and they were like,
can you get someone famous to sayI'm a space nut? So I
had the c United States say I'ma space nut and they thought that was
the coolest thing ever. They werelike, that's so cool, like you're
the coolest person. And I waslike, so maybe you guys can give
my podcast to thumbs up and theywere like, we love your podcast idea.

(02:39):
And so that's how it all likehappened. So it's like kind of
really cool and serendipitous that a podcastthat I love to listen to, space
Nuts we sort of like became Iguess friends through this whole weird like space
NASA continuum and now they also producedmy show. So that's how I found
Q is his name. They're inAustralia with bytes dot com and that's the

(03:02):
story of how I got a producer. So that's that was kind of like
a little bit of a side questto start the show off with. But
let's let's welcome Justin to the show. So Justin, thank you so much
for coming onto reality check and I'mjust so excited to have you here today.
So tell me just kind of someof your initial thoughts with Elysium the

(03:25):
film itself. You know, it'scame over in the context, came around
popularity around the same time like JasonBorne, right, So I got the
impressions like, how can we haveJason Born white robots in space? Like
I feel like that was part ofthe pitch for this movie. But yeah,
it's it covers a lot of groundfrom a standpoint of like space travel,

(03:52):
social dystopia, whatever, but alsogetting into like some of these body
augmentation you're in, neuroprosthetic and othercomponents that they use as plot devices to
basically make super soldiers while also havingrobot super soldiers and space and so yeah,

(04:13):
there's there's a lot of stuff goingon. I'm not going to comment
on, like you know, plotwhere the holes thereof, but the suit,
in particular the exoskeleton that they hookup Matt Damien's character with, I
think was probably the biggest thing thatyou wanted to talk about on this feasibility
of what something like that would looklike for our future military. So yeah,

(04:39):
what what's uh? What questions doyou have on that topic? Oh?
Man, Well, I feel likewe've really come so far in human
history with prosthetics, and that's somethingI want to hear your your insight on.
But it's it's interesting to see,like what they did with Matt Damon's
character, because you know, Igive you know, these episodes are full

(05:01):
of spoilers, so it's like,if you haven't seen it yet, maybe
watched the shows before, you listento the podcast because we talk about everything.
But he goes through this accident whichweakens him and then he has to
get sort of souped up so thathe can go through and do this task
and fight the bad guys and savethe planet and everything. And I just

(05:23):
am really curious about I don't knowif you could tell me some of a
history of prosthetics and augmentation that sortof led up to where we're at now,
because I think the early days,it was just like you had a
peg leg and it wasn't even attachedto you in any way. And now
we've really evolved to things where there'sless of a gradient, there's more of

(05:46):
a gradient. It's harder to distinguishbetween machine and man. Yeah, So
as far as the history of broadstutics, I'm just speaking the fact that
I'm not a prosthetists, right,Like that's my job is not make prosthetics
for folks. But you can seeevidence of prosthetics going back. I want
to even back into like the Eachiand Egyptians, Like we found like you
know, prosthetic toe, you know, carved that wood that was like strapped

(06:10):
into a sandal for somebody, andyou can go mentally evil examples, or
they had like articulated hands, anda lot of those designs actually haven't changed
dramatically for the most part for genpop. Right, So if we're applying
this to most people who are justneeding these to get through with their day
to day life activities a daily living, a lot of the designs like they're

(06:33):
pretty clever and they haven't had tobe upgraded that much except from like a
material standpoint and maybe like a manufacturingstandpoint. So you know, like the
the clause that can open this wayas well as grisp grasp this way for
hand prosthetics, foot prosthetics. We'replaying around with materials to get like a
better elastic return out of the foot. If you've seen like you know,

(06:56):
Oscripistorius was recently released from prison.I think he was the blade runner,
you know, he had those carbonfiber blades that he was running on during
the Paralympics. Stuff like that isslowly becoming more mainstream within general population as
well. And where we've seen thebiggest changes recently is one in manufacturing.

(07:18):
So being able to like three Dprint stuff and make things on demand with
rapid adjustments is much more accessible thanit used to be. You know,
I saw the other day, likea guy like three D printed a Lego
hand for his his hand prosthetic.It was just a life sized Lego hand.
Many three D printed a Lego mug. It's just just you know,
just fun stuff. But you canalso take that the other direction and you

(07:40):
can make you know, articulated handsat home, which is pretty wild.
And then as far back as Iwant to say, the seventies or eighties,
we were looking at putting sensors onthe skin to detect nerve impulses to
help to control some of these functions, but also understanding that like mechanical items
wear out, our bodies at deskthe stresses that we placed on them thankfully,

(08:01):
so as we exercise. When wetrain, like our bodies can actually
you can get palaces on your hand, you can get bigger muscles, your
bond density can increase, and soon. And for the prosthetic that doesn't
happen, right, because they're notliving organisms. They are subject to mechanical
failure and wear and tear much moreso than the organic concloneness. And then

(08:24):
over the past decade or so,we've seen a lot more going on with
like brain computer interfaces, which Iam not an expert by any means,
but getting the central nervous system nowinstead of the peripheral nervous system using you
know, skin contact sensors, gettingthe central nervous system to interface with some

(08:46):
kind of system that can then translatethat into physic collection. Right, so
like you know, controlling a mousecursor with your brain and then okay,
well you're controlling a mouse cursor.Can you control a prosthetic art? Yeah?
Can you do that at a distanceacross the country. Yeah, Because
that kind of stuff is feasible andit's being developed and polished right now.
Yeah, And I have seen alittle bit of that technology. I don't

(09:11):
know how soon it's going to hitlike the general market, but I'm seeing
some celebrities kind of getting either likein like surgical implants or non invasive,
like I don't know how they evenwork, or if you know how they
work, but it's like I haveseen the ones where they can control a
mouse on a computer screen. Ijust think it's absolutely crazy that we're starting
to see the human and the machinesort of merging together. Yeah, and

(09:33):
I think I think we have togive a lot of credit to the nervous
system on these rests, because it'sit's pretty rare that it's just plug and
play where you just, you know, plug the thing in and then suddenly
you go like oftentimes there's a bitof a training or a calibration phase,
and a lot of that has todo with how much can the nervous system
learn to use the nerve prosthetic right? How much can it interface or how

(09:56):
much can it with whatever feedback you'regetting, can you can see the mouse
groser, you would be able totrain yourself to move the mouse groser right.
That kind of coordination and control wouldbe important, and that is something
that I think is getting further andfurther along. But then the question also

(10:16):
remains, like how do you getthat to interface physically with the human in
a way that is a meaningful Yeah, So tell me more about that,
because my you know, bachelor degreescience level understanding of how the nervous system
works as it works in binary justlike a computer. So our nervous system
impulses are similar to computer code.So do they have to like sync up

(10:39):
our organic electronic signals with a computerinterface, Like, do you know how
that process starts to work? Orat least could you break it down in
a digestible way for us. Yeah, I think the idea that the brain
and the nervous system kind of functionsas a computer. And again I'm not
a neurologist, I'm not an electricalengineer, so take this with a grain

(11:00):
of salt. But the idea thatour nervous is some kind of functions on
binary is based on the principle thata neuron when it depolarizes and sends a
signal and an action potential balance membran, and it either does it or it
doesn't. Either depolarizes entirely or itdoes not. People are as as a
result, You've got to get anon or off or a zero or a
one, right, but also thingstold as all of that kind of adds

(11:26):
up over time, you have summationof signals. You have that either happening
over a space, or we calledspatial summation where we're trying to activate like
a larger muscle group or something likethat, we're gonna have a lot of
neurons over in a large area ofthe brain going down and and stimulating a
muscle, or temporal summation where wehave things firing over and over and over

(11:46):
to build up a bigger signal andso on. And ultimately that turns into
my understanding, it's more actually moreof an analog signal that then has to
be processed using signal processing algorithms inthe computer and translated into the computer language.
Wow. But again, I'm notnot at all an expert on that.
I may have made like one hundreddifferent errors in the fifty words that
I said there, but it's it'sthe general summary. Yeah. So the

(12:11):
general summary is our brain sends asignal, it has to be translated through
the computer before the machine can interpretit. So it's like the computer is
almost working as sort of like alike a converter between the organic signals and
the machine signals, And the challengethen is to just sort of take these
two different command languages, the humanbrain which can send a signal, and

(12:35):
then the machine which is receiving thesignal, and get those signals to sync
up. So you mentioned something earlierabout the skin sensors, yeap, is
that something that we're using in prosthetics? Are we using skin sensors in like
if I have one of those skinsensors you mentioned, like on my hand,

(12:56):
is that something that we'd be usingin some kind of like an exosuit,
like a Tony Stark type thing.Potentially, But they're finicky. So
anytime you have a excuse me,anytime you have like an EMG sensor and
some kind of sensor on the skin, there's small shifts in where the tension
is on the skin can change thescent can change the signal going into the

(13:16):
sensor, And how sweaty you arecan change the signal going into sensor.
How much pressure there is on itcan change that. So if your muscles
underneath it are tighter versus loser,that can change the quality of the signal.
If you're wearing clothing and that pressesand rubs against it weird. So
there's there's a lot of just mechanicalconcerns and processing the signals and keeping them
clean can be quite a challenge,and I'm not sure exactly how well we've

(13:41):
been able to handle that, butfor the most part, it's one of
those things where it's like, yes, this can happen. We can use
these to control things. We've demonstratedthat for a couple of decades. But
keeping it robust enough that it's actuallystays functional and practical. And if we're
talking about military like field environments,yeah, probably not there yet, okay,
And that would probably be why,you know, circling it back to

(14:03):
Elysium. So Matt Damon's character hewas in he was in a simple exosuit
which was drilled into him and itwasn't something that he was He didn't have
any fancy skin sensors. It waskind of just plugged into his ZiT.
It was like a matrix kind oflike plug into the base of his brain.
There. Yeah, yeah, Iam totally having a brain fight right

(14:26):
now. But the base of thebrain is your or like is your muscle
functions in the front of your brainis your cognitive function? More so,
right to an extent. Yeah,frontal lobe is like executive function and planning,
and as it moves back, you'regoing to get into like some motor
planning. You do actually have themotor cortex. It kind of sits about
where my headphones are sitting right here. You have the sensory cortex, and
they kind of you have like amap of the body laid out right there.

(14:48):
And so from a standpoint of likecontrol and initiation of movement and feedback,
you're going to get a lot ofthat out of that pridal lobe.
Sarahbellum is going to be a lotmore that coordination kind of smoothing out the
signals so that you know, you'renot just like flailing around uncontrollably with much
too large. So it would makesense to have it plugged into that lower
kind of brainstem section. Yeah,and ultimately like that's that's that's where the

(15:11):
outflow is going to be. Right, So if you plug in right there,
and even if you're not disrupting thespinal cord proper, you can maybe
with this fancy future tech that canmonitor the signals going down and figure out
which tracks they're going to and andand play from there. So that's that's
kind of what I'm guessing there doing. Yeah. Yeah, so with current
physical therapy and just I guess eitherhuman augmentation or rehab. Where are these

(15:37):
brain chips being put right now inhumans? I remember about a decade ago
we started experimenting with spin off wordsstimulators, so lower landmark, you know,
we had to take some guys through. This is before I was a
PT. I was working in asa tech in a a spinal cord clinic.

(16:00):
But we had to take some patientsthrough extensive amounts of rehab because the
spinal cort has some of its own, like like motor programs. It has
what are called central pattern generators.It can reproduce like walking and stuff like
that. Right, It's like doctorEdgerton's famous flexing and severing the spinal quart
of a cat up in the neckand putting it on treadmill. I could
still by reflex generate the gate patternalong the treadmill because the spinal quart is

(16:22):
intact and spinal quarters where those reflexivepatterns you're stored. And so we had
to so we had to go throughthese processes of like okay, stimulate the
crap out of the periphery and seeif we can get those those reflexes central
pattern generators firing. And we basicallyhad to show like, yeah, no,
we're not making gags with this,and then that way when we put
an implant in there, not webut when you know, Susan Hart command

(16:45):
those guys uh in Kentucky put putthe implant in there, they could say
we any changes that happened were dueto the implant. And it was pretty
cool because we saw some guys withcomplete spinal cord injuries regain the ability to
stand, regain control of like boweland black or and some other cool stuff.
That was as ten or eleven years. Yeah, I was gonna say

(17:06):
that was about a decade ago.So it sounds like we've made some really
amazing advancements for people who have hadparalysis, either quadriplegic or paraplegic injuries.
Yeah, the trick is like there'sstill a really long way to go,
and because of the trauma of youknow, implanting something on somebody's nervous system,
like there's potentially to do damage eachtime you touch it. And so

(17:29):
if you want to hardware upgrades arenot one of those things where it's like,
hey, I'm just going to removethis. When I put a new
one, you're going to introduce scartissue. And you know, that's why
you haven't seen these rolled out topopulations in mass because there's still very much
in the testing paces trying to figureout, you know, what can we
really what gets us the best bangfor the buck, you know, ethically
as well as medically. And sothat's where you know, as we move

(17:55):
like further up the spok world,like up into the brain, like neuralink
implants on which I honestly know verylittle of out you know, I get
a little bit, not a littlebit, I get I get really disconcerted
when people start saying like, yeah, I'm just gonna go put micro chip
in my brain and you know,be some kind of superhuman. It's like

(18:15):
it's like injecting. I know,it's the dream. It's like we we
we were all raised on the matrixand it's like, I just want to
upload elite level come through skills intomy brain. Yeah, just elite at
least level elite level, Uh,just podcasting skills would probably be my go
to for this. So that's interesting. So so as far as the Matt

(18:38):
Damon suit. The we I mean, we kind of talked about his at
least the electronic interface a little bit. But as far as the rest of
the suit goes, are is thatit all feasible or realistic or similar to
what's going on right now? Arethey drilling in exo suits into bonds?
Are we utilizing exosuits much or area lot of our augmentation more inside the

(19:03):
body interior. As far as thatgoes, one of the things that that
gave me pause when I was lookingat the movie, you know, because
Matt Damon of course gets the getsthe exos suit, or gets the exoskeleton,
but he gets that because there's obviouslythere's a big bad right there's a
big bad guy and he's got asimilar one who's you know, some kind

(19:25):
of you know, Black Ops,special Forces kind of guy, and he's
got his own exoskeleton, and youknow, to the point where he's got
to wear this like giant Jedi robeto go on in public because otherwise he'd
have like, you know, metalapparatus sticking out all over the place.
Looks wonky as I'll get out.But what struck me is like, what
are the ethics of doing this toa human, you know, if we're

(19:47):
going to be drilling this this mechanicalapparatus into somebody's skeleton and then dealing with
the ramifications of that, Like youknow, my part of my job right
now is to make sure like,hey, we need to take care of
our people, right the humanuh,not just creating a you know, super
soldier, but actually taking care ofthem, because we we want to make

(20:08):
sure that we have good people,and people are more important than hardware ultimately,
is what it is what it boilsdown to. But in this case,
in the case of Elysium, thatthey're really focusing on the hardware and
the person is really just kind ofa mechanism, like a man in the
loop kind of thing, almost liketo interrupt the AI thing, which could
be a which I know you've covereda separate episode, but so the ethical

(20:32):
piece in Elysium actually kind of goesaway because they've got these you know,
these these magical uh fix all medicalbeds. You know, you lay down
in this bed, you know,you get your face blown off by a
grenade or whatever, somehow your brainis still intact and they just kind of
stitch it back together using you knowthis thing that's like almost like from the
fifth Element. I was just gonnasay, fit all of it, I
think. I think, I thinkthe developments that are better, but the

(20:57):
you know, the idea of likeusing these some of these beds for like
you know, like the cosmetic butscarification, like the tattoos and stuff that
they put on their bodies and kindof kind of highlights like some of the
some of the socioeconomic disparities in lesi. I'm a little bit better, just
kind of cool, kind of anice touch. But when you have something
like that, they can literally justlike heal anything, but only the elite

(21:18):
people have access to it. Theethical concerns of you know, screwing up
somebody's body permanently kind of go away, because you could just you know,
at the suit they gave Matt Damonstill had you know, still had bio
on it from the last person thatthey tore it out of, you know,
still had hair and guts and skinand stuff attached to it, and
you went into the chop Scheff.So from a standpoint of right now and

(21:42):
realism, right we don't have thosethose you know, magical beds that can
heal any condition. I think ethically, it gets gets you into a really
rocky place when you're looking at drillingsomething into somebody's skeleton when they don't have
like an amputation or some other majorsome of their major disability associated with that.

(22:07):
Because yeah, it is interesting though, because it's like, when you're
talking about quality of life for someonewho's paralyzed, it's not just the lack
of mobility, because if you do, you know, I don't know the
right install. If you do,like install something to the external of their
body that changes their entire life,from the clothes they wear, to their
ability to maneuver to just like youknow, just even the comfort of laying

(22:30):
next to the person they love.It changes, it changes everything about being
a human. So I could definitelysee that being a massive concern and that
would be a big decision and tradeoff for someone if they're like, hey,
you can get your mobility back,but now you have this thing attached
to you, right, and we'vechanged everything. We've seen that with with
things like diaformatic pacers. Right,It's like most people are familiar with pacemakers,

(22:51):
right. They can implant this thingunder your collar bone and it's got
some leads that go down and basicallyyour heart it's at a rhythmical shock,
it back into rhythm. Yeah,it's that, they say, why they're
fantastic. There is a device andI don't know where it stands in terms
of testing right now. My lastexposure to it was about ten years ago
as well, called a diafragmatic pacer, where you have somebody who has a
spinal cord injury above the level ofa frentic nerve which innervates the diaphragm,

(23:12):
so think like upper cervical spinal cordinjury and they can't breathe on their own,
and so they put this Basically theyput electrodes much like you would put
muscle stem on a muscle that you'rerehabbing. They put those electrodes on top
of the diaphragm to get the diaphramto contract so that you can not be
on a ventilator. Right, Soinstead of having a machine that breaths for

(23:33):
you through a tracheostomy, here likeyou can actually just take breaths by electrically
stimulating your diaphragm. But then youget into the control issue, right,
that interface of like okay, well, what if I'm swallowing something and I
don't want the machine to inhale forme. Right, So you get into
some similar issues there where Okay,the risk of aspiration goes up. Now

(23:56):
I've got something drilled into your body, risk of infection goes up. Right.
Osteomilises an innection inside of a boneis can be devastating and very very
hard to come back from that,and you lose not just a lot of
the bone mass, but you losea lot of conditioning as you're recovering,
and that kills people. So whenwe're talking about drilling things in there,

(24:18):
there are some there are some prostheticapproaches. There's something called osteo osteo integration
where they can actually take so ratherthan having just like a muscle and skin
flap on the bottom of stump andtypically the leg, they can have rawnod

(24:38):
bolted into the bone that sticks outpast that and that kind of clips into
the prosthetic and so you get amuch better mechanical interface. The energy transfer
isn't having to go through soft tissuelike like a normal socket would. That
can potentially make the wear a lotmore comfortable. And the problem with that

(24:59):
if you've ever like you know,if you've ever like debone a chicken or
something like that. If you takea bone and you kind of split it
lengthwise like a wedge, it's alot easier to break. It's a lot
of easier splay that open, andthat's a much harder injury to recover from
than a frank fractures. So whenwe're talking about screwing things into bones,
like we've got to be careful aboutwhat size of the screw, We're talking
about what angle it's going into,what forces are we exposing into during that

(25:22):
time, and so on. Wellthere's a lot going into it. Yeah,
yeah, And those are things thatI don't you know, the average
person isn't thinking about these things.The average person isn't thinking about the life
of somebody who has had one ofthese injuries and amputation or paralysis. And
it's so interesting to really just trulythink about the ethics of these and the

(25:45):
quality of life issues, not justfor you know, soldiers, because this
episode we are talking about the soldieraugmentation, but also just regular people and
improving their quality of line. Andsometimes there can be really amazing advancements that
do save your life. But it'slike kind of at what costs. And
the example I'm thinking of is whenI was in undergrad in the anatomy lab

(26:07):
and we had some heart to daversand we were looking at some early valve
replacement. So the earliest one,yeah, so it was like one was
like a yeah, oh yeah,yeah, University of Utah. Yeah.
What was his name? Nielsen?Mark Jilson. Yeah, yeah, oh
man, that guy you know.Shout out to you, Mark Nielsen.

(26:30):
I hope this episode gets back toyou. That guy was such a great
anatomy professed. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's actually one
of the highest break programs anyways.But yeah, so we we held that
same round old heart then. Butthe thing it had a little cage and
it looked like a like a metalbeary barbary yp yep, little bar bearing

(26:52):
in the little metal cage and thatworked as a valve. So this was
a replacement for a valve that thatno longer worked, and it was a
gravity assisted valves, so they couldn'tlay down and they had to stand up
all the time, and then theball would just slide up to close the
valve and down to open it.And it was that was the way that
the heart now worked. But fromwhat my memory serves me as is with

(27:15):
those types of valve replacements, suicideactually went really high with those patients because
for the rest of their life theyheard that valve click up, click down,
click up, click down, andyou heard and felt every single heartbeat
and it would drive them crazy.So when we're talking about, yay,
we saved their life, but atwhat costs? Those are interesting ethics to

(27:37):
consider. Yeah, really check comingback to Elysium, looking back at the
suit, and they bolted in themat damon Like it's actually kind of pretty
comprehensive, Like they bolted it downinto each of the fingers and these are
tiny, tiny bones, Like there'snot a lot of room for there's not
a lot of river hard wearing here. And there's a scene you know at
one point, because like why wouldyou wear a robot suit if you're not

(27:59):
going to rip a robot's head off, And so he's you know, he's
grabbing some robot's head and rips itshead off. But like if you've ever
torn your calusies and a deadlip,yes, right, there's there's there's not
much going on on the palm sideof the hands there from a prosthetic standpoints.
Yeah, the suit might take someof the brunt of that, but
like you're going to shear off allthe flesh on this other side, so

(28:19):
some of the interface stuff, youknow, at least some you know,
it takes some liberties. Where wedo see some interesting stuff is in like
early like limbs Salvade surgery, right, so like somebody gets a combat injury
or a traumatic injury and we're tryingto save the lamb that would otherwise be
imputated right to like lower extremity stuff, and they'll they can you know,

(28:45):
the centers for the intrepid down herein San Antonio's pioneered a lot of this
stuff. And this is also wherelike bf R tying your blood flo restriction
training came and came to the fore. Trying to work with these people to
save you know, modern medicines andsaving limbs rather than just like chopping them
off and giving everybody prosthetic all theproblems that come with prosthetics. But they
would they would bolt a cage aroundthe bones, trying to get bones to

(29:07):
kind of migrate and line back togetherso they could heal up. But we
also know the bones need a certainamount of load. And so you know,
you get some cowboy surgeons and ptsout there that are saying, okay,
well, you know, typically likeabout somebody like an RAF open reduction,
external fixed state or internal fixation oran external fixation in this case,

(29:27):
like, I'm not going to beputting much weay through that because I don't
want disrupt anything screwis in there.I don't want those to migrate out or
whatever. But they started loading thesepeople up while they had these pages around
their legs and seeing those bones actuallystart starting to together and become healthier as
a result. But that took time, right, Yeah, So I think
I think there is some possibility ofhaving a suit that or having some components

(29:51):
of your body that are actually drilledinto you that you are then able to
load and work with. But againthe interface of like, okay, how
do I know that hardware is interactingwith my hardware or the squishy stuff,
and then how do I know thatI'm controlling it appropriately and not overdoing things
in the world of Alicia, andyou can kind of cause over that.

(30:12):
You screw it up, you justthrow them in one of those magic beds
and heels everything. Yeah, inthese days it's yeah, we have that's
it. That's the lend. Oh. Man, I always think of this
is not a sci fi movie,so believe it or not, I actually
do watch other genres on occasion,and I'm just totally thinking of the amputation

(30:33):
scene on Master and Commander, whichis another amazing movie with the Yeah,
oh, such a great movie.But yeah, I'm just like, man,
that was that was life back then, and now it's just it's so
much different. We actually pick aboutgerms, yeah, and all those different
things. So, yeah, that'sso interesting. So is there in the

(30:55):
field of combat how because I'm justI'm still a little bit fixated on what
you said about ripping the head offand the skin in the calluses? Do
you deal much because the skin isthe biggest organ in the body. So
in the rehab world, are youmore focused on gelatal muscle or do you
go into a soft tissue like skin? Is that much a concern? Actually,

(31:18):
skin is a huge insurn. Yes, And it's honestly not that much
different than it was back in WorldWar One. Right, we're dealing with
trench foot, we're preventing it,really, So you're gonna have to tell
me what trench foot is I'm justguessing what it is. Yeah, So
you imagine trenches, right, it'slike gutters in a on a on a
road. They're going to accumulate waterany chance that they get same if you're
dealing with trenches in the in theenvironment. But if you're just rucking and

(31:41):
running and that kind of stuff,moving through mud and moisture, Like if
you get moisture in your boots andyou don't change your sock, you don't
keep them clean. The skin well, you know, just like you stay
in the bathtom too long with yourfingers kind of start to get you know
that that that that the wrinkles youget in your skin is actually a neural
response that's out a tsue level response. If you if you saver then nerve
to a finger, it's not goingto get that pruning. Oh okay,

(32:02):
okay. But if you oversoak it, right, like if you leave like
a waterproof band aid on or somethinglike, that skin will actually like turn
white. It's called maceration. Andthat that becomes now very very easy to
like floff off. And so ifyou do that same same thing in the
boot you're moving, you've get you'vegot a fifteen mile rock or something like
that. Yeah, that skin becomesa huge factor in some of our selection

(32:24):
courses. You know, you've seensome really seeing some really interesting and significant
levels of skin breakdown. Are callouses? Are callouses desirable to help protect the
foot in this scenario or calors?Do calluses make the foot more vulnerable because
I could see it getting maybe rippedoff easier up to a point. Yeah,

(32:45):
So it's it's kind of a it'san adaptive response. It's it's a
said principle, a specific specific annotationto impose demand. If you go in
with no callouses whatsoever, it's alot like more like you're going to get
blisters. But if you've got yourcalluses doing something similar to the activity that
you're doing, like oh sorry,the skin's gonna tell them and you're gonna
be okay. Kind of like youknow, if you just take care of

(33:05):
your hands and if you're doing alot of manual labor, the likely of
you tearing a callous if you actuallytake care of your caluis it's pretty slim.
Same with the feet. Yeah.So, because I do know a
lot of my listeners are athletes,because my background is in strength and conditioning
and strong man and whatnot. Thisis an interesting one. So let's kind
of circle back to that deadlift hand. Sure this sorry for those of your

(33:27):
squabish this is probably not the episodefor you, guys. We're talking about
all all the skin stuff. Iwas actually at a strong man competition with
Brenda Mine you may know Connor Gordon, and he dee gloved his palm on
a yeah, on a farmer carrywent to pick it up. It had
been in the hot sun all day. Was a really narrow handle. It
did deglove the entire hand. Itwas probably just like maybe mid palm through

(33:52):
the fingers. It ripped the wholecal it's off. So in that case,
he did build up those callouses throughdeadlifting, but it was the deadlift
basically that made that callus so vulnerableand rip the whole thing off. So
you said that the calluses can bereally helpful if it's built up in the
same form, but in this specificcase, it was not helpful for him

(34:15):
to have that big callous. Yeah, there's there's always a there's always a
threshold where tissue will fill right,and so if you combine heat and focus
right, it's like a really narrowhandle. Right. This kind of like
if you imagine like trying to drivea nailing backwards with the broad head,
you're not going to be able topenetrate as far into the wood. Whereas
you turn it around to get sharp, pointy end west surface area, you

(34:37):
could push in through that with thesame amount of force, same swing and
the hammer. If you can geta lot more damage into that wood,
you can drive that nail in further. Same kind of thing with with farmer's
carries or the deadlocks or something likethat. You know, we the Spokane
Highland Games, for example, therewas a there's a farmer's carry event where
you do it with tractor weights andit's just mac existence and the tractor weights

(34:59):
like the hand it was literally rebarand so it's you know, it's not
only very narrow, it's it's gotsome edges to it, right, that
further focus that pressure. You know, if we're talking about and protecting somebody
from a bullet, right, thebody armor's purpose is to spread out that
little teeny point that focuses all thatkinetic energy into a broader surface area.

(35:19):
So it's just a hit, right, it's less than one kill a calorie
of energy. From a from aseven to sixty two round. But you
know, you focus that on atiny, little, tiny little spot doing
very fast, you can cause alot of damage. So when we're training,
what we try to do, ifwe if we're interested in preventing injury,
we want to either increase capacity oror mitigate the load. And if

(35:43):
you're not doing one of those twothings, you're not doing anything to change
injury risk. The So yeah,that's that's really what it boils down to
if you take like one hundred thousandfoot view of injury. So in the
in the context of callousies and thatkind of stuff, you still need to
mitigate load to a certain extent,right, Like I'm not going to like

(36:04):
a callus is not going to makemy hand invincible to a chainsaw, you
know, as an extreme example.But if I don't have any callusies whatsoever,
going to go pick up a sharp, sharply neural deadlick park, then
yeah, I can tear my handopen pretty easily there. And it's a
matter of diminishing returns out to acertain point. So would it be advantageous
for soldiers or operators or anybody reallyeven firefighters, policemen, anybody who has

(36:28):
any level of technical job or contractingjob like construction workers, for them to
do their physical fitness training in thegear they would wear. So, for
example, if you are wearing combatboots in your job, would you want
to do your runs and your workoutswearing both same combat boots so the foot
and body is adapted to that.That's a very interesting question, and to

(36:50):
a certain extent, yes, notuniversally, because it depends on what you're
training for. So, if theintent of the training is to say,
boost aerobic conditioning, right, andyou happen to be in an environment like
San Antonio where it gets very hotand humid very quickly, if I'm doing
that in full gear, okay,I'm going to have the potential that a

(37:14):
lot of my guys are going togo down with the heat stroke as opposed
to being able to actually train theaerobic system. And so you have to
kind of just beet to kind ofparts out what is the intent of the
training and make sure that you're doingthings that support that intent rather than just
like making it close to operations,making it suck. You know, that
kind of stuff is a little bitmisguided. You need to be looking at

(37:36):
what system you're trying to cause theadaptation in and make sure that you're optimizing
that adaptation, because you can't doeverything once right, Like I can't you
know, I can't jump off forsplate and give them this sense for what
my aerobic conditioning is. It's justa different system. So if you have
a specific intent and you know exactlywhat kind of adaptations you're trying to elicit,

(37:58):
then yeah, you want to youwant to create as close to an
environment as you can it allows youto get that adaptation. There was a
study done, I want to sayit was by Robin or down in Australia.
They were looking at tactical police forces, specialist police forces and they had
him run in a like an obstaclecourse or anything like that. They hadn't
run it both in their kit andslick right, so no equipment, and

(38:20):
then wearing your typical mission guard.And then at the end of this,
you know, the pretty high aerobicload and at the end of this they
would shoot. And what they foundin this case was that though the workload
was higher obviously when they were wearingmore gear, it was of course they
were somewha familiar with So when theywere running it slick. I don't think
they were running it that much faster, right, because they kind of knew

(38:42):
the pace and they had to gothrough. But at the end of the
course without their kit, they wereless fatigued, heart rates were lower,
and so on. They actually shotworse when they were slick versus when they
were in their interest us from acontrol from coordination standpoint, going back to
this other piece, the specificity oftraining took over because they were accustomed to
having those shooting drills. Happened whenthey had this extra weight on them.

(39:02):
They could brace the weapons differently andso on. So there's a time and
a place, definitely, But ithas to do with the specific intent of
what you're trying to train. Wow, I and you know, it's like
it's a because this is something thatI have studied to a degree. It
makes so much sense and it's soobvious when you articulate it that way,

(39:23):
but it's it's really something that weshould be considering, not just for tactical
performance, but also for athletic performanceand just day to day people living their
lives. You know, if you'reyou know, doing literally anything, you
want to be able to do itwell, and you know, kind of

(39:43):
thinking about as we're advancing human augmentationin special warfare, I can really see
how maybe some of these potential adaptationscould actually backfire in a lot of ways,
because if we're thinking about augmenting ahuman in a non rehab way,
like if we're just trying to makethem sure, like even just thinking about

(40:07):
it in like a like a deadliftbelt, Like if you're wearing a belt
for deadlifts and squads, that's Iwould say that that's a form of augmentation.
External augmentation. You're able to giveyour abdominal wall something to brace against.
And I've used this example before justfor those of you listening. It
would be the equivalent of if you'retrying to move furniture in your house and
you're just pushing against a couch versusif you put your foot against a wall

(40:29):
and then you push the couch,like that belt gives you that abdominal wall
to something to brace against, saything with external new sleeves. So it's
like we're already doing this augmentation tosome degree, but if we are training
tactical soldiers with certain external augmentation,that can totally change their ability to perform

(40:49):
in a very intense setting. Isthat correct? Yeah, And so you
want to you want to train somewhathow you fight. But at the same
time, if you're trying to maximizethat for a given system, you want
to bias that system. Right,So if you're if your priority is say,
hey, let's get through the shootoutsfaster, let's let's work on our
shooting skills and our our team coordination, then yeah, you're going to want
to be kitted up. You wantto be able to coordinate and communicate with

(41:13):
your guys as well as you wouldin the field. If you're just looking
to increase, you know, aerobiccapacity, you might need to just keep
it very simple. You really don'tnecessarily need all the extra bells and whistles,
Like, you don't need to befully kitted up for every realm that
you go on. From a standpointof augmentationally, the examples that you brought

(41:34):
up knee sleeves in the bellot,you can always take those of right,
and you know, the suit that'sdrilled into your skeleton like Matt Damon had
here, Yeah, these days youcan't, right, Like we don't have
those those magic medical beds so Ithink where where we're seeing the trend now
is really keeping a man in theloop from a distance. So that's where
we're looking at drones for reconnaissance aswell as for warfare. We're seeing those

(41:59):
used extensively, and you crane firstperson video, one way munitions, and
lowder ammunitions, and now they're youknow, they're they're looking at you know,
loyal wingman AI powered drones that flyalongside fighters and bombers, and these
are considered more atriable. Right,we can sacrifice these, we can send

(42:20):
them on a suicide mission if wereally need to, because the human is
more important to the hardware, andif we're just losing hardware. Yeah,
we kept the operator absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I love that, and
I love that we're going there,that we're moving that direction, and that
our values are I mean, it'swar. War's never pretty or glamorous or

(42:40):
you know, I was going tosay good, but it's like sometimes I
feel like it, you know,it is necessary, but it's so nice
to see that we're really trying tominimize the lives loss or even limbs or
you know, just trauma to thehuman to the human. Because I was
going to ask you, So arewe seeing any kind of enhancements that are

(43:00):
removable, like any kind of humanaugmentation happening in warfare that they can put
on or take off, whether itbe neurological and exo suit one of sensors.
The most that I've seen on thatfront has really been like focused on
like trying to augment recovery. ButI think there's a lot to be said

(43:23):
for mastering the basics for a lotof this stuff, And that's where you
get into the fundamentals of sleep,nutrition, proper programming, stress management,
and that kind of stuff. Ifmaster those and then any other little thing,
you know, whether that's a whetherthat's a normatech or an icepath or
whatever, you know, getting acertain amount of sunlight at a certain hour
or whatever, like you're gonna thoseare going to make minuscule changes in combariss

(43:45):
into the big rocks. And Ithink part of the part of the problem
too, is that like this technologyhas come along so fast, right where
we're so reliant on you know,devices and all this other stuf. They
haven't this like this has not beenpart of my life, my entire life,
right, and I did not growup with it generation does you listening?

(44:07):
For those of you listening, he'sholding up a cell phone. Yeah,
yeah, sorry. So, youknow, when we're staring at screens
and we're interacted, you know,like like you and I are across you
know, a couple thousand miles,Like, how how much are we how
much have we adapted to being ableto handle that as a species, you
know, and how much of thatis getting in the way of some of

(44:29):
these fundamentals that we should be takingcare of otherwise, right, meaningful relationships,
sleep, sleep, hygiene, right, getting off screens before bedtime,
and quality nutrition and all of thatstuff, Like society has changed so much
like that we as humans are almoststruggling as human organisms, right, are
kind of struggling to kind of keepup with that, And that can be

(44:50):
a limit, a bigger limiting factorthan any of the fancy whiz bang stuff
can ever touch. And I'm soglad you mentioned that, because it is
really interesting how we we kind offorget that we do whole lot of these
I guess, for lack of abetter word, we do have a lot
of these advanced augmentations already built intous. I'm wearing my or ring,
super high tech advanced sleep tracker rightnow. But I also have this really

(45:12):
advanced bags under my eyes that showup when I've got low quality sleep.
So it's like, whoa, I'vedetected the quality sleep today. I'm bloodshot.
Yeah, I can't think. It'slike my mattress, my watch and
my phone track my sleep and it'skind of what I stopped paying attention to
it because for me, it's likeit's a it's a no ce bow right.
I might wake up feeling fine andmy you know, my watch and

(45:34):
my apps or whatever beaban at metelling me like, oh, your sleep
was awful. It's like, well, yeah, I feel good. I'm
still going to go train. I'mstill going to make the best of the
day. But if I, ifI, if I outsource all of my
personal judgment to devices into external features, then I'm gonna suffer as a result,
and I'm causing problems for myself.And I think that's where, you

(45:57):
know, if we look at needingthese mechanical enhancements to augmented soldiers, like
really, what we really need todo is give them a tool. We're
great at using tools, but Inever want to internalize what's going on on
the other side of a drone,right, I never want that entirely attached

(46:17):
to me or my guys. Iwant it out there somewhere that I can
use as a tool. It canprovide information and can provide intelligence. It
can you know, extend my reach, but it's never going to affect my
adaptation to what I'm training and whatI'm trying to do day to day.
That's said, there are some stillsome adopations, Like we see we know

(46:39):
interesting cases of PTSD in drone warfareoperators right very far away, like but
they've got eyes on close up ofsomebody that they're dropping a bomb on.
And you know that that comes witha certain psychological cost for each individual,
and we're still trying to come upwith the ramifications of that and not that's

(46:59):
likest, but it's something that wehave to factor into the whole picture of
the human organism and the warfighter.Well, you can even think back to
our Wargames episode with Noah Heally wherewe were talking about the opening scene in
the movie Wargames where they had toflip the switch for the nuclear bomb and
the one guy because the two manteam and the one guy was like,

(47:20):
I am not about to kill twentymillion people without a phone call and confirmation.
Like it's just like there is thatpsychological thing. He was in a
window list box. He couldn't seethem, but it's still just knowing the
implications, which is just kind ofthe beauty of humanity. I think that
I do believe that humans are inherentlygood, and that we do inherently have
compassion and empathy for each other,because if you really do look at humankind,

(47:45):
every single one of us is morelike than we are different, and
we can experience empathy and compassion forpeople who are very different from us,
even if they're on the other sideof the battlefield, And that's kind of
beautiful. But thinking about like outsourcesaying, are you know with my sleep
tracker, outsourcing it versus keeping itas yourself. I'm kind of even thinking

(48:05):
about just the quality of life forpeople who've experienced like paralysis or amputation and
thinking about outsourcing their care. It'slike, all right, we're going to
do all this rehab, but we'regoing to get you all these fancy new
limbs and tools and all these things. But it's when in reality, if
you think about just Mausow's hierarchy,of needs. A lot of people who've
experienced trauma the more so than losingtheir limb. One of the biggest things

(48:29):
they lose is their social equity andtheir ability to be who they are.
And so maybe instead of having themhave one hundred percent of the focus on
the leg that was lost, maybethere could be more of a reintegration of
them back into the person that they'vealways been. Think like adaptive adaptive sports.

(48:50):
You know we're seeing I think we'reseeing adaptive sports become a lot bigger
than they've ever bet. Oh yeah, wheelchair rugby and military basketball that are
awesome to watch, Like, gowatch murder ball. It's amazing about wheelchair
rug beats. It's it's it's it'simpressive. Put it that way. Oh
there, they are some of thecoolest athletes ever to watch. And I
appreciate Magnet for Magnus in for timeworld Strongest Man. He's he's used a

(49:14):
lot of his power and prestige toreally like he's put all of his focus
into adaptive strong man. So heruns the world's Strongest Disabled Man and you
see some of the most impressive featsof strength come out of that. Because
it's like this guy's got one arm, and he's doing way more than a
you know, able bodied guy supposedto be able to do. And I
think, just like psychologically, ifyou're able to keep that person just sort

(49:37):
of like emotionally and socially lifted upby their community, their ability to like
sort of like hypercompensate, they becomesuperhumans in so many ways. Yeah,
it's it's really a testament to thethe resilience of the human spirit when we
let the human spirit do its thing. One of the most impressive people and
I've ever met was a patient Iwas working with and well after an industrial

(50:00):
accident. So I was only workingwith them for more of a like like
an illness really and just kind ofhelping them with reconditioning. But they had
lost three limbs an industrial accident,both arms and one leg and suffered a
spinal cord injury all at once andmaintain an impressive amount of functioning independence.

(50:21):
But I had a supportive family,was able to have children and all this
other stuff, and just hearing abouthow rich this person's life was was just
astounding to me. And I saythat with you know, a certain amount
of respect, because when we dotalk about these topics and we bring up
these individuals who have gone through thesethings, it's very easy for us to

(50:42):
be like, wow, you're soinspirational. It's like, that's not their
job. Their job is not tobe an inspiration for us. Their job
is to make their lives as awesomeas it is for them. That's really
what it should be about. Wecan see that as an example of human
potential and that's awesome, but they'renot doing it for us, right,
so that in perspective, be happyfor them, but don't try to I'm

(51:06):
not sure what I'm trying to say, but don't don't try to make their
success about anything other than their success. It's not for you. It's it's
an example that you can take andgo do awesome stuff on your own.
But yeah, well it's it's similar. It's almost similar to the people who
film themselves giving the homeless food.It's just like people sometimes use charity and
passion to have things to it's justdon't do that. It's weird, yeah,

(51:30):
but it's I think it's important torecognize beauty and the humanity when we
and the wonders of humanity when wedo see it absolutely and you know,
sometimes if that involves ruby a robot'shead off. Awesome, Oh this is
so beautiful and cheesey look at usand that little I have to make this
our our Christmas episode. But no, it's uh, you know, it's

(51:52):
cool to think. And I don'tknow the soldier's name right now, but
his his quote has been popularized onmemes all over. But he lost both
legs in battle and people and he'syou know, very happy, very rich
life. And people ask him,how can you be so happy you lost
both your legs And he's like,how can you be so unhappy? You
have both of yours? And it'sjust a reminder that, just psychologically speaking,

(52:15):
that there's just so much life tolive. And I actually heard a
study. Can't quote it, don'tknow if it's even real. I heard
somebody else who I respected quote thisstudy to me that it was a happiness
study. And they tracked two differentpeople. They tracked amputees, and they
tracked lottery winners over I think itwas like a twenty or thirty year like

(52:37):
it was a long time timespan,and what happened is immediately quality of life
for the lottery winners. There arereports of happiness and quality of life went
way up, whereas the amputees theirreports went way down. But over the
twenty to thirty year span it actuallyinverted. In the people who were the
lottery winners, they reported a lowerquality of life than the mp ever did,

(53:00):
and the amputees reported a higher qualityof life than the lottery winners ever
did. And I just think thatthere's probably a lot there's a lot more
really interesting stuff behind that. AndI think that, you know, when
we're talking about like humans and cyborgsand human augmentation, it's like part of
the reason why I started this podcastis because I am very excited about the
future and all the things that wecan do to improve people's lives. But

(53:23):
what I'm learning episode after episode talkingto all my amazing guests is that,
you know, kind of the mostamazing parts of humanity are already with us.
I'd agree with that. Oh,this is totally going to be our
Christmas episode, sir, you know, get all the warm fuzzies. That's
the season too, be jolly andjoy Yes. So, you know,

(53:46):
I feel like we've really kind oftalked about a lot of the things that
I was curious about. Was thereany was there any other things that you
were kind of thinking that you wantedto bring up about this episode or this
topic that we haven't gotten to yet. I mean, I would I think
the biggest one. If people areinterested in the topic of exoskeletons or bioagmentation,

(54:09):
narrow prosthetics, whatever it might be, take a physics class would be
the biggest one. You know,whether you're wearing an iron mansuit and getting
hit by an anti tank shell orwhatever else, even if the suit blocks
it, Like, what's that goingto do to the squishy stuff inside?
Just the g horses? Right,Let's let's just talk Let's just talk acceleration

(54:30):
of matter, right, and andand the tensile or the elastic U forces
going on there. Just just takejust take some high just over over arching
physics lessons and figure out how thatthat would work out, and then look
at situations outside of the application you'rethinking about. Right, So we're talking,

(54:53):
you know, the initial context forthis is like warfare, right,
uh, super soulterature, you know, committed soldiers, and think about what
happens when there's no fighting happening,you still have a human attached. What
are you gonna do? Right?And you think about like Miamodu Musashi and
you know, being a renowned artist, not just the world's greatest samurai and

(55:15):
that kind of thing like the WarriorMonk trope. Like sounds cheesy, but
it's it's kind of it's kind ofcool. I think it's one of the
best ways to remain balanced as ahuman who's if you're training to do hard
stuff, is be able to appreciateor create beauty and personally up one one
in the beauty In physics too,just studying and dirting out about the universe,
science fiction and this kind of stuff. But there's there's a lot more

(55:37):
technical information out there that's available.I'm not publishing any of it myself.
I'm just nerding out about it whenI see it. But don't let any
of this discourage anybody from being aresearcher, Like there's there's still so much
that we don't know and so muchthat we can do better than we are
doing right now, and uh there'swe only make those changes if people investigate

(55:57):
them absolutely, and that's uh,you know, I think it's just a
really big call to action for eitherthe next generation of researchers and scientists or
people who are already involved to reallyjust remain excited about your field. Remain
excited about what you're doing, becauseeverything collectively that we're doing as humans,
we should be doing to improve thequality of life for a species as a

(56:22):
whole. And if you look atour my husband and I were watching Vikings
right now and it's like we're watchingsome episodes and we're like, their lives
were horrible back then, like who? And then you see like these Viking
bros in the gym, like,I want to be a Viking. I'm
like, do you do you?I don't. I want to be especially
as a woman. I'm like,I want to live in this century,
in this country that's that humanity's everhad it. Yeah, I like I

(56:46):
like, I like coffee. Ilike you know, it's like if you
look at my spice cabinet, Ilive better than any king that has ever
lived. I have cinnamon. Ihave a lot of cinnamon. Oh man,
I guess it's time for a realitycheck moment. So here we go.
So justin if we are talking aboutthe feasibility in Elysium of having a

(57:10):
human who is enhanced with a cyberneticexoskeleton that offers them superhuman strength and agility
from kind of a bio mechanic andprosthetic perspective. Where would you say that
our reality check scores on from ourone to five scale. As a reminder,
Oh, I was just going tosay, we've got pure fiction,

(57:31):
speculative science, fringe reality, emergingfact, and then science fact and justice.
Drum roll, I just hope youjustice justin justin drum roll, I'm
going to say the shoots and stufflike that, I'm going to call that
a fringe reality because we do havesome astious integration. We do have some

(57:51):
brain computer interfaces, we do havesome exoskeleton concepts, none of them refusing
together to make the what they're doingin Elysium, and I don't forget see
them doing that. But in theory, if you let ESX go completely,
that might be bostil If you letethics go, a lot of things can
happen. But we already talked aboutthe Nazis and the Dune episode, so

(58:15):
uh, you guys can circle backto that one if you want. So
that's that's so interesting. It's reallyit's like, conceptually, there's so much
that we're capable of. But youknow, like you said, earlier in
the episode, that's my dog.Everybody, he's like probably gonna want to
go for a walk scenes, Butthe ethics of it stand, it's like

(58:35):
we aren't going in that direction becausewe are moving more towards drones. We're
trying to protect the people and that'sreally cool. Yeah, all right,
perfect, Well, Justin, isthere any final thoughts that you want to
share with us? Uh? Yeah, I'm just if anybody's sitting on a
magic rehab in medical bed that healseverything, you know, just like share
that with everyone, that'd be cool, and don't put it up in a
space station where nobody else can getit. Yeah, so don't be rude.

(58:58):
Yeah, all right, Yeah,that's all I got. Perfect.
Well, thank you so much forcoming on. And this is actually,
you know what, this is goingto be our last episode of the year,
So thank you so much everybody fortuning in to our first calendar year
of Reality Check. And I guesswe're going to see everybody next year.
Real need to check any science fiction? Hey Reality Check fans. As we

(59:22):
wrap up the first calendar year ofour show, I wanted to take a
moment and say thank you for beinga listener. I felt moved by this
episode, and in the spirit ofgiving, I wanted to take a moment
and acknowledge disabled veterans. Without theirsacrifice, I wouldn't have the luxury to
ponder the future with you from thecomfort of my living room. If you
know a veteran, please reach outto them. Take a moment right now

(59:45):
to text them and let them knowthat you're thinking of them. If you
feel further compelled to support disabled veterans, please consider making a donation or volunteering
for an organization that supports veterans.I will leave a list of organized in
the comments. Thank you again forlistening to reality check the science of fiction.
I wish you all a happy holiday, Merry Christmas, a lovely winter,

(01:00:09):
and a great new Year.

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Elysium: Future Soldier Cyborgs? | S01E08

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Elysium: Future Soldier Cyborgs? | S01E08