I've run into the problem of not knowing what to call something

I've run into the problem of not knowing what to call something.

In my setting, transhumanism is illegal and rare, and I need some slang to refer to them, as "transhuman" is kind of a mouthfull.

To detail what is counted as a transhuman in my setting, having your body be more than a third machine makes you one, but having any kind of mechanical augmentations for non-medical purposes also makes you count as a transhuman. Being a designer baby or having received genetical manipulations also makes you a transhuman. Cloning is kind of a grey zone, but is also looked down upon. The hate runs deep enough that bodymodding can get you accused of being a transhuman.

As you can see, I need some shorthand for transhumans, because calling them transhumans is clunky, and using "trans" and similar can be offensive to other groups that begin with "trans-" but are not transhuman. Which is a big deal when you have one at your table.

Also, discuss fictional slang in general.

Other urls found in this thread:

williamgibsonbooks.com/archive/2003_01_28_archive.asp
gladwell.com/java-man/
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

A term used for that kind of thing is 'Human Plus', often abbreviated to H+

Why are transhumans hated? What kind of stereotypes exist in your world about transhumans? A lot of derogatory terms in the real world rely on stereotypes, even if they're nonsensical, stupid and not really offensive when detached from the hatred that is commonly coupled with them.

Since they're 'Modified humans' terms derived from that such as Mods, Modders or like wise could work.

Not OP, but think of the hate athletes who get caught doping get, then apply it to Transhumans.

I'm trying to think of something cruder than that. Something that points to a common feature of transhumans and desecrates it. Calling a white person "whitie" isn't as offensive and divisive as "cracker", I think calling someone a "modder" works as somewhat respectful slang but not as an insult. Maybe something like "wireball" or something idk.

Oh and I am also not OP, I am the person you were replying to

The goal of transhumanism is arguably posthumanism... so posters, posties.

Clanks for cybernetically or machine uploaded, Slicks or Slimes for mainly biologically remade ones.

Mistakes. Wastes. Throwaways. Faulties.

Off-brands or copies, fakes, fakers etc for people who consider humanity to be the true original. Furthering on the commodity angle: bargain-bins, cheaps, sellouts.

At first, it was merely "envious hate" of the sort mentions, but the current trend was triggered by war.
They became heavily associated with a world war which involved augmented combatants, and the popular view has conflated genetic engineering and eugenics, which was one of the driving forces of the conflict.

They are seen as generally antisocial, due to rejecting the social values of the purity of the human body. Cyborgs are also seen as warmongering, violent, etc due to the war, and sometimes even nihilistic due to their forsaking of the frail human body. Genetically engineered ones are seen as contemptuous misanthropes who believe themselves to be the pinnacle of evolution.

Also, there's an AI developpement ban for the same reasons.

Honestly, to me Mods are pic related. But it's a good start.

I'm not this annon, but our interests seem to match.

"FAKING CLANK"

Lessflesh
dollpeople

Transhuman...

Tranny?

Off-brands, fakers and the like sound very good with that not-so-evident but perfectly logical explanation.

Perfect but off-putting like dolls, right? Lessfelsh sounds really venomous.

Have a (you) for your trouble, annon.

Evos shortened from evolution.

Exs like Ex-Human.

Test Tube.

Just call them augmented humans, augs for short.

Monster, if he aren't already using that for something.

>scarries
>people who undergo trans-humanistic experiments are performing scarification, hence "scarries" for short

Some of the suggestions seem so obvious when spelled out... Truly the proto-collective mind we have here in Veeky Forums will warant us some specialized slang.
We might be bol/tg/uts or al/tg/enes in the future.

Transhuman is such a broad concept. The defining characteristic of transhumanism is that it changes the definition of human, meaning it applies to a lot of things other than cybernetics and genetics. Extensive social media use is a kind of transhumanism (making us cyborgs/infomorphs). Pharmaceuticals are a kind of transhumanism. Watching TV and drinking coffee are a kind of transhumanism (look up the essays "Googling the Cyborg" by William Gibson and "Java Man" by Malcolm Gladwell, respectively).

Because change is the common feature, and because it's very unlikely they'll be called trans (not because it's "offensive" but because that word already has a specific meaning - it's already "owned"), you might just look for other symbols connected to change.

You could call them Deltas, for example - the Greek letter delta is used to denote a changeable quantity in mathematics, and has a nice futurist/scientific ring to it.

And then of course every sub-group will have their own designations - any trend that develops a sort of identity (either on their own or by having it applied to them by outsiders) will have a name, probably multiple. What they call themselves (and alternatives that some people think work better or denote sub-sub-cultures), the derogatory term(s) for them, legally-defined terms, etc.

>To detail what is counted as a transhuman in my setting, having your body be more than a third machine makes you one, but having any kind of mechanical augmentations for non-medical purposes also makes you count as a transhuman. Being a designer baby or having received genetical manipulations also makes you a transhuman.

So is it intentional that they count nay kind of upgrade to your human form as going above and beyond human capacity to the point where you're basically not human at all any more, or is it just your grip on transhumanism that's a bit shaky?

Words don't really bring with them their meanings, they have the meaning we give them. Racial slur becomes nasty words because that's how they're used, more than by being nasty. Just look at how any word for people with something wrong in their head rapidly becomes an insult, even when the word or phrase was specifically intended to be the opposite (special kids).

You're not going to find a suitably charged, ready made word for this. You have to charge it yourself.

Scarification was actually the trendy thing shortly after the war, before it got lumped with transhumanism along with bodymod.

[spoilers] You one of my players? [/spoiler]

That was my point in the post I made before that one.

>A lot of derogatory terms in the real world rely on stereotypes, even if they're nonsensical, stupid and not really offensive when detached from the hatred that is commonly coupled with them.

So the cruder and sillier it is, pretty much the better, because stereotypes exist to simplify complexity and appeal to dumb people.

Nope. I don't play tabletop games. I only come here for lore and ideas.

just call them "chips" it's short and snappy and every slur needs to roll off the tongue in less than two syllables

They just narrow down the definition of transhuman to not being "truly human" by the planetary government's legal definition of humanity, while making a exception clause for medical applications. Application of medical sciences to cure diseases, as long as it doesn't involve replacing too much of the body with artificial components, isn't seen as transhumannism.
In the wake of massive eugenic cleansings, the recoil is pretty much causing another kind of "cleansing", it's that sort of word.

The access to internet and other networks, as long as the interface is outside the body, isn't seen as transhumanism as it's deeply incrustated in society.

Though I must admit my grip on some of the concepts is shaky. I would really appreciate being able to increase my knowledge on the matter.

Eclipse Phase has Exhuman as a word for those who push too far past the societal norm for transhumanism. Ex's would be okay for short.

How do people hate modified humans? Are there KKK-analogues with future guns? Pogroms? Or is it a simple problem of segregation and hatred?
Anyway, since most procedures used to modify someone involve quite a bit of cuts, calling them "cutters", "scalpels", or "bisturi" might sound good. For biological ones, "Chems", "Frankenstein", or "Glands" could be appropriate.
Or maybe "mishmash". "Put-apart". "Mutie". "Slopers" because they've fallen off the slippery slope. But a simple "Freak" or "Abomination" always work.
Deus Ex?

>"Googling the Cyborg" by William Gibson
>"Java Man" by Malcolm Gladwell
Are you refering to these? Just to make sure I've found the right articles.

williamgibsonbooks.com/archive/2003_01_28_archive.asp

gladwell.com/java-man/

...

Yep, bingo.

Also I remembered I have a .pdf of the Gibson essay (for educational purposes) - might be easier to read than the online version.

In places where law is at it's strongest, they are shot on sight. People from the central cities hate transhumanism as a norm, but they flip their shit if they actually find themselves before a sloper. They get hysteric, suposing they actually realise the person is one, given that only non-obvious ones could go around the central cities.

In the average city or large town, people can go from apathy to mob lynching, but usually law enforcement just takes them to "quarantine facilities", where they are put to labour in menial but important tasks (under surveilance) or just shot on the spot. The average citizen has a more level head than a centraller about tubees and clankies. Most evos can get by in these places by being cautious.

The outlying settlements can be practically lawless and people don't really care about scarries. However, it's not murder if it's against a scalpel or a chem, so crimes against them are more common than against humans. Modders might have an easier time living in these parts, but it's still risky.

The witch hunt against off-brands is strong enough that attempts to build human plus-only communities have so far been thwarted.

Thank you, kind annon.

Gibson has another essay called "Will We Have Computer Chips in Our Heads?" that together with the one I posted make a pretty convincing argument that 1. the meat-metal hybrid image of the cyborg is an outdated symbol of the/a future (like Dr. Satan or Bender-style robots) and 2. that near-future cyborgs will most likely have little to no need for actual hardware implants, as it wont actually provide any benefit.

It also has the cool idea of, instead of implanting silicon in the brain, we might take a cell culture, grow it in a petri dish, apply some smart biocomputing technologies to it, and implant it back into the brain as a living organ/growth. Bioborgs.

Cyber nigger.

'Postal.'

Keeps the roots of someone or something being dangerous and has a nod to the term post-humanism: being beyond human.

"Freak" or "monster" or "mutant" or "abomination"

The average person probably isn't going to know enough about what transhumanism IS to come up with half the names suggested in this thread.

"They're different, strange, dangerous, and think they're better than me" is all the average chucklefuck knows about genetic engineering or voluntary limb replacement or neural implants.

There will be staunch religious objection from essentially all sides. People who believe they were made in their creator's image will be deeply offended by human changes, others will be disgusted by the idea of "playing god". There will even be divides within the informed community, not everyone will be okay with brain chips or animal splicing or the longterm social impacts of designer babies

"merch"

(I've only found a summary of that article)

I would argue that the sort of transhumanism that comes from the technologies we do not apply to our bodies (such as those computers that make brain implants irrelevant) wouldn't be seen as transhumanism by most people.

For civilian cyborgs, I would agree that there is little need to use hardware implants as protheses, given that vat-grown organs just blend better with the body. I would also argue that while making a human-strength machine is harder than making an industrial-strength machine (figuratively), you would need to remplace far more than a third of your body to have benefits, lest your shiny cybernetical arms come off while lifting a crate.

>wouldn't be seen as transhumanism by most people.

That's kind of Gibson's point. The layman's understanding of the word "transhuman" is flawed. The man-machine hybrid as a symbol for the cyborg is already obsolete; most of the people living in developed countries are cyborgs already.

Gibson as a writer places a lot of emphasis on the idea that the futures we imagine have already arrived by the time we imagine them - but they don't arrive evenly, and we often don't notice their arrival because we're waiting for a previous generation's futurist symbols like Dr. Satan's robots or Star Trek's Borg, which are never accurate because they were constructed in our past.

>I would agree that there is little need to use hardware implants as protheses, given that vat-grown organs just blend better with the body.

Most likely we won't need ANYTHING implanted into our body because our networked smart appliances will be doing all the monitoring/thinking/communicating/working on their own. There's no component that we could stick in our body that wouldn't be better served as a physically separate gadget. Why rebuild our bodies to do heavy-lifting when we can just build intelligent machines to do it for us?

Hey baby, can I tough That Identical whatever?

Digi-digi.

>due to rejecting the social values of the purity of the human body
Hmmm, you could work on the angle that since they have given up their human "purity", that they are filth or degenerate in someway, or subhuman. Take what they were trying to do (become better than human) and turn it around to generate an insult.

Normal people call them freaks.
Learned scholars call them adds.

For the latter point, I was thinking about medical protheses rather than transhumanism, but yes, I see your point. Transhumanism through robot labour, as we could put it.

Any additional ressources to better educate my understanding of the fascinating world of transhumanism?