confrontations+definitions of humanity

Calvin's most recent post brought to mind my conception of how the progression of technology alters our definitions of humanity. We've come a long way from Plato, but the minds that have progressed are, genetically speaking, nearly identical. If anything, it has been the technology around us that has reshaped our knowledge and understanding of our place of the universe.

For instance: during the mechanical+industrial revolutions of the 19th and 20th century, the focus was on humans as tool-users; we walked upright and used our opposable thumbs to create advanced tools to kill prey, sow crops, and build homes + granaries.

Now one of the predominant lines of thinking in terms of human evolution is our social development + communication technologies (Miller, Jolly, Zimmer, et al). Does this not parallel the information+technology explosion of the late 20th-early 21st century?

If technologies (religious, political, communicative, etc.) shape our ideas and conceptions of humanity, what happens when these technologies define human life as expendable (or to use your phrase, obsolete)? I am thinking here specifically of the holocaust & the military mechanisms of the two World Wars.

Advanced technologies like nanotechnology aren't necessary to reach this point because it's already been reached. This informs a lot of the confrontations with nihilism+meaninglessness found in the filth + the ticket that exploded.

I'm done with trying to come up with blanket definitions of humanity. I'm more interested in the individual and their ideological and philosophical liberation. There is so much out there that wants to define your life to suit the limited purposes of a given agenda: including this class, including plurk, including your own limited ego perspective. Who to trust? Perhaps that, outside you, which gives your life meaning + significance.

And if that's technology, plurk, blogging, etc. then all the better. I'm just not sure yet.