He is referring here partly to the very obvious threats of massive destruction posed by quasi-autonomous weapon systems, media-savvy terrorism and the ecological degradation that flows from industrial capitalism, and also to the possibility that developments in genetic manipulation and nanotechnologies may lead humanity at some point in the near future simply to upgrade itself out of existence. But there is an important philosophical sense in which it seems quite redundant to deliver humankind a collective memento mori of this kind, since according to Stiegler’s logic our pure or originary
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