MUST. MATE. WITH. ROBOT.



Nebula RCW120
NASA Spitzer Telescope
Think Long Term
Wait. Mate with machines? Sure, we’ve all had our little flings with humans, but we have to think long term here. We evolved into blog readers because our ancestors mated with the healthy, smart, and useful. We’re the lucky survivors. So, what's that got to do with mating with robots? Let's jump into the past for a sec and I’ll show you.
Star Dust
Human Cell
DrimaFilm @ Shutterstock
We began in the stars, right? Earth’s primordial soup was suffused with the stuff created in supernovas. And one evening, in a gentle pool somewhere, a membrane formed around some salty stardust water and, voila, a cell was born. I mean, wow.

Regardless of which God you pray to, admit that the creation of a single cell with protected cytoplasm inside was heavenly. Talk about an evolution high point. You can bet the single cells partied. “We’re the tip of the evolved world and always will be!” Imagine a plasma membrane doing a fist pump.
We Divide
Human Cell Division
Andrii Vodolazhskyi @ Shutterstock
Not so fast. A few hundred million years later, another cell got so evolved it divided in two. Then again, and again. Dividing, multiplying, and hanging out together. And hooking up. And ruling the Earth. Like followed like, gender was selected, and species followed species. 
That's what we do. We seek to mate with the best adapted. You can macro-identify the best adapted, because they’re breathing. We current breathers result from our ancestors mating with the most usefully adapted. Ones who: 1) Invented cell membranes, 2) Invented cell division, 3) Invented the accretion of similar cells and, 4) Adapted to light with vision, then added smell, hearing, and taste to become better able to sense predators.
We Crawl
Ambystoma Amphibian
Spok83 @ Shutterstock
Before long, following the plants by 30 million years, something fishy crawled out of the ocean. Just imagine the party: “Hey, check it out, everybody, I can breathe!”
OK, we weren't pretty, but still... We kept evolving. Those of us inoculated by the mixing of male/female DNA got a great head start on the bacteria and viruses who were madly evolving, too. Let’s hear it for the great invention of mixing DNA.

Sure, cloning would have been safer, without the risks of hooking up with other amphibians on Zoosk, but the mixing of our DNA allowed a critically needed experimentation to evolve with every new generation. We got Mom and Dad’s proven, hardy DNA, and we were born with future-oriented starness.
We Walk, We Write Books
Neanderthal Male
Vazha Isakov @ Flickr
We eventually left our tails in the womb when we stood up and began dragging our knuckles. One day, Ooga, wife of Dorg, sketched a bird doodle onto a rock. She gave it to her Neanderthal hubby, saying, “See? Bird.”

Dorg took it over to his buddy, Murb, and showed him. Murb said, “Birrrrd!” Dorg slapped what passed for his forehead and said, “Wife Ooga invent book. Me like her on Facebook someday!”
Sapiens
Sasin Tipchai @ Pixabay
The Neanderthals weren't total dummies. Sure, they laughed at us. “Homo sapiens, think they smart. OK, OK, so they are, but we club them if try to take over.”

 But we Sapiens were bulking up on brain cells and growing foreheads. Our species whispered, "You know, the Neanders are total losers. They can’t put a decent sentence together. Nobody who's anybody mates with them anymore. Lack of usefulness." Cruel, maybe, but we did what we still do best. We mated with the future. That’s why we’re sitting here reading this. 
Back to the Future
Amputee Runner
sportpoint @ Pixabay
Today, things that used to kill us now strengthen us mentally. We extended our life span and our mating capacity. Now we pack the shelves with replacement parts: pacemakers, artificial knees, and pancreases. We transplant hearts and lungs. We're using stem cells to grow cerebral organoids that self-organize themselves into neurons.

The holy grail won’t be long in arriving. Somebody will be the first to tolerate the renewing of telomerase at our chromosome tips without the cancerous side effects and we’ll reverse ageing and live forever, barring the odd choking on a loaf of focaccia.
Hardware or Software?
Illustration: Exploding Sun
LoganArt @ Pixabay
So. Which is more useful? Robots or humans? Hardware or squishy parts? Here on Earth, squishy has worked best, for sure. But remember, we're thinking long term. In five billion years, our sun's gonna blow. Then what?

Will squishy parts be the most useful on an interstellar voyage lasting centuries? Where we live in vast, rotating city cylinders and give birth to generations of hopeful humans on the way? I have no idea. I'm like the first amphibian trying to imagine a rocket ship to the moon.

But somehow, in some form, we’ll eventually have our homecoming with the stars. Maybe we won't even be mating, exactly. Maybe we’ll be wiring up with whatever hardware/software that’s the most useful. It'll be like singles night in every city on good old Earth. Kind of.


Getting Wired
Mis-Wired Human
artyom kin-uydt @ Unsplash
It'll be awkward at first, I imagine. There'll be mis-wired failures, as always with evolution. But we’ll slowly emerge as super beings, with so many newly made parts that we’ll hardly be recognizable to our original selves.


Female Robot
franck-v @ Unsplash
If we mechanize ourselves on the way to the stars, great. We'll be designing our own evolution. As for robots, I’m thinking we won't have to mate with them because, by then, we'll have merged with them anyway, one piece at a time. Taking parts off the shelf is easier, less expensive, less risky. And if we can live for ages, who are you calling a robot?
The Stars
Triff @ Shutterstock
OK, time to hit the clubs. Excuse me while I take my tongue out of my cheek and change this face for my carbon fiber one. It’s got those chiseled features that are such a hit with the other mechs.
If you're still a human and reading this, we highly recommend our books, Prostate Chronicles and Letters In a Helmet:



Stay Tuned: Ron

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