Ghost In The Shell

I watched a few of the Ghost In The Shell films and was frankly blown away. Aside from the incredible art and quality of animation, the stories are deep and thoughtful. It's a provocative commentary on what it means to be human. At what point does a cyborg become a robot – no longer human? It also blends human and machine issues in a way that is very contemporary. People are becoming more and more digital. As in Ghost In The Shell, people almost have completely digital brains. People's accounts get hacked, and it feels like a personal attack. It becomes an attack on you, your person, rather than some objective thing on the internet. Scott McCloud says something similar in his book Understanding Comics. McCloud describes that when people ride or drive a vehicle, the car becomes an extension of themselves, rather than a separate object. If you hit something with your car, you're likely to say something like, "I can't believe I hit that thing," not "I can't believe the car hit that thing!" Ghost In The Shell is set in a world wherein people's brains are more computer than organic material, so peoples' brains can get "hacked" in a situation that I think is similar to what our society is growing into now. Our lives can essentially be hacked. Life is getting eerily close to Ghost In The Shell.