Jamie Lorriman/Alamy Stock Photo
I don’t have any tattoos. When I was at university, most of my friends got inked. Although I regularly considered it and dabbled with designs on napkins, I was too aware of my fickle tastes, and the likely disapproval from my future self, to take the plunge.
In 2017, I started to think about body modification again. There are many more options available today. At a conference last month, futurist Anders Sandberg from the University of Oxford spoke about three different motivations for altering your body: existential reasons, enhancing your senses and improving your cognitive functions.
A few years ago, a colleague hacked his hearing aids to allow him to hear Wi-Fi signals. Sandberg also mentions how modifying your eyesight might allow you to see beyond the visible spectrum of light, making infrared frequencies and gamma rays visible, for example.
Still, most people are likely