From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Wed May 30 2001 - 04:37:00 MDT
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> It's the monkey DNA, I'm afraid. It's embedded in every system. It will
> take decades to purge it.
>
> Will people want to suppress their sexuality even when it becomes obsolete?
It depends on whether I can get those things I most prize from
it in different ways as or more fully. On the other side of
sex programs we get to think about what we really do and do not
want and whether sex gets us more or less of it and act
accordingly.
> Sex is too much fun.
What do you mean by "fun" outside of biological imperatives and
conditionings that make it extremely pleasurable?
> Will people want to suppress their anger? Or will
> they always feel justified when they are angry?
"Suppress" is not the right word necessarily. Many people today
learn to catch their anger before it reaches its peak, much less
expression and decide consciously what to do with whatever the
underlying upset is. This is a very useful ability and I would
expect to see it increase.
> Would people want to remove
> their fear of death? Would that make suicide or apathy too easy?
>
Doesn't that depend on what the fear does and does not lead to?
It is possible to remove much of the effects of the fear without
removing the undesirability of death.
> It may be that we discover that necessity is the mother of invention, and
> that only tortured souls strive to produce art, seek news worlds to explore,
> or fight for our own space.
And it may not. We want know until we try it.
> I do want to purge myself of the monkey-DNA,
> because it controls so much of my behavior.
Sure, why would you want to remain a monkey robot?
> But I may find that it also
> controls my goals, and that without my neurosis, my love of life, quest for
> knowledge, or abhorrence of the mundane may also be cured.
>
I sincerely doubt it.
> It was my fear of death that got me signed up for cryonics and onto a
> life-extension diet. It was my fear of loneliness that got me to seek out
> my partner. It was my fear of bad politicians that got me to start paying
> attention to politics. It was my fear of poverty that got me to start my
> own business.
>
You could cast each of the above in positive terms just as
easily and as truthfully.
> I know it is a design flaw, but I find that:
>
> When I have it good, I enjoy the good life, but when I have it bad, I
> struggle to make things better!
But we all have it bad the way that we are now and some of us
have it horrendously bad. So we do struggle for better. But
keeping better doens't require we keep all the bad.
- samantha
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