Human Attraction To 'More Than Merely Human' By Rebecca Gibson

The Human Attraction to non-human Things

The goal of Rebecca Gibson’s article, “More than merely human: How science fiction pop-culture influences our desires for the cybernetic.” is to explore the relations between science fiction stories and our own humanly desires. Gibson investigates why people are looking for non-human companions, if it has to do with gender, and the influence of different pop-culture technology from the media. Throughout the article, Gibson uses various stories made in pop-culture to back up her argument which allows her to understand the changes in human desires.

To further her explanation of common themes in science fiction stories, Rebecca Gibson tells how these stories are created and by whom. She says that most science fiction is based on a dystopian or

She writes an effective article as she dives deeply into each story and how the attraction to non-human things is related. There are a lot of reasons found for this human attraction to androids other than the story sparking an interest in people. Gibson describes the portrayal of an android named Data in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. There is a conversation between Data and a character named Yar. Yar goes on to tell Data about how she was abandoned, and Data comforts her. Yar then says, “What I want now is gentleness. And joy... and love. From you, Data; you are fully functional, aren’t you?” (Gibson 232). After further explanation, Gibson goes on to say, “we can see that Data’s non-humanness appeals to her. He is incapable of being sexually violent, because sexual violence requires very human motivations” (Gibson 32). This quote is a great example of one’s personal experience and emotions influencing them in their search for an android to replace human