Re: is marriage extropic?

From: GBurch1@aol.com
Date: Fri Nov 10 2000 - 17:34:05 MST


In a message dated 11/10/00 2:56:58 PM Central Standard Time, jr@shasta.com
writes:

> It seems to me the most extropic people have either avoided marriage,
> tolerated it as a necessary evil, or abandoned it.
>
> I'm thinking of Socrates, Turing, Galileo, Oscar Wilde, Siddhartha, and
> others.

Oops -- didn't see JR had started a thread for this . . .

Consider the specific life-circumstances of some of the folks on your list.
Two (Turing and Wilde) were gay in times and places when homosexuality was
discouraged. Siddhartha was explicitly following a path of development and
exploration that was inconsistent with just about any "long-term
relationship" for most of his life. Socrates lived in a time and place that
had a rather atypical attitutde toward heterosexual marriage (and it seems
that Socrates may well have expended a lot of energy in pursuit of Eros,
anyway -- consider Alcibiades). I realize I'm not aware of the details of
this part of Galileo's biography (a shameful shortcoming for me, considering
his importance).

I can think of a lot of "extropic" people who HAVE maintained long-term
stable pair-bonds: Einstein (albeit after one failed try, and then in a
fairly ideosyncratic way) comes readily to mind, as well as Salvador Dali,
Thomas Jefferson (until his wife died), Eric Drexler . . . just to name three
other random examples . . .

       Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
      Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
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        "We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
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