So, there's a video of a furry dressed like a sabretooth tiger lecturing at Berkeley making the rounds on social media today.
I can't say that I'm surprised, being Berkeley and all.
The title of the lecture was "Furries, Neurodivergence, and STEM: Finding Your Path from Zero to One to One Billion."
Oh good grief!
What do furries have to do with STEM?
Well, this particular furry apparently has quite a bit to do with the field.
Meet, Dr. David "Spottacus" Benaron.
That vitals monitor on your smartwatch or other smart wearable: he's the guy who invented it.
Spottacus is an inventor, entrepreneur, biochemist, a founding editorial board member of the Journal of Biomedical Optics, and a former professor at Stanford University. Among his achievements are the invention of the green light heart sensor, the first in vivo imaging of light-emitting genes, and the multispectral wearable optical sensor for tracking hemoglobin and hydration levels.
He also owns like 40 fur suits and wears them everywhere, and he started in the 1990s, making his own suits by himself. In other words, he was not socially influenced to be a furry, but is part of the original contagion.
This is Silicon Valley. I fursuit at work. Sometimes when I [fur]suit at work, no one even comments. I do think it adds street cred, because it is seen as edgy.
As a Silicon Valley executive, I used to take my work team out to upscale restaurants in-fursuit. I've even raised venture capital in-fursuit.
Can you imagine those meetings?
A lot of the lecture and questions were focused on the STEM side of things, and you can see that whole video here, if you‘re really interested in how Big Tech is collecting that biometric data.
And more importantly, how they're using it. What Benaron said about the furry world in this lecture and other interviews is almost as fascinating as it is scary. You can watch for yourself.
What he's said in previous interviews about being a furry is also pretty interesting.
I suspect that VR and AR will now draw much of the non-furry world into the furry experience, so I think technology is already there for full transformation.
Now, what about genes? Genes don't exist in a vacuum. We form and become real after a number of genes have interacted over time to grow us into a species. Yet, we know certain animals are capable of organ or limb regeneration. Others are capable of full transformation, such as when a caterpillar liquefies to rearrange and reform organs to become a moth.
So many, if not all, of the genes and mechanisms are already there. It is therefore just a matter of time until direct evolution allows us to intentionally grow tails or fur. It will just take some time for us to get there, so we don't accidentally introduce unhealthy mutations or cancer, but it is coming.
Ah, transhumanism: The devil's plaything.
It's a lot like the gender fluid folks. As the online community become a part of these people's identity, they want the same experience in the real world that they have in their little digital bubbles.
And like the gender fluid folks, the furries are interested in making real world body modifications, even genetically.
This "professor" is excited about it, and that might be the most terrifying thing of all.
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