It is a staple of communist literature to call the worker—or at the very least, their labor—a commodity. And with that, there is talk of the way that human workers are treated like machines—that, with the rise of automation in capitalism, humans are expected to perform at the same rate as machines. That’s true.

But the problem is that I wish I could be a machine, or at the very least, exchange my body for a mechanical one. I want a body that is near infinitely repairable and transferable—one that may need to sleep, but that is not so profoundly nonlinear. I have been chronically ill for years, I want a body that I myself designed—one where I can know all the principles of operation within it. Biology is so hard to change, and it’s fickle too—cells give way to cancers, brains wither to Alzheimer’s—but the machine, precisely and purposefully engineered—a beautiful product of science and technology—is changeable.

Machines aren’t without issue, of course. Parts break down, become obsolete. Metal rusts, NAND chips leak, and ferromagnetics lose their magnetization—the machine, in parts, can die. But with that, machines can be repaired or replaced. Computer systems from the 60s can still run like new with a little bit of tender love and care; cars from 1910 can run with maintenance; trains from the 1860s can function with repairs.

Can we say the same about our human bodies? No. Does this mean I want to give up my mind? God no—I wouldn’t want that at all. I’d rather be in a human body, with a human mind, than a pure machine.

I have been sick for years, and it seems like the only antidote is to integrate myself with a machine. The problem—like with so many things in life—is that the technology does not exist for that—and with today’s political climate, and with the dominance of capitalism, such technology would do more harm than good.

That’s the central problem of it all—I would be happier being in a mechanical body, but the world—in its self-imposed death-spiral—denies me anything like that.

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