RE: Computer/Upload sex [was Interesting Idea]

jmcasey@pacific.net.sg
Tue, 17 Aug 1999 12:34 +0000

>If I recall my psychology classes, rats will stimulate their pleasure centers,
>forgetting to eat or drink. I wonder if humans will do the same thing?

Is there any doubt at all? That's all most people ever do, once they're through working -- things that stimulate adrenaline or serotonin or beta-endorphine production vicariously.

If so

>we probably get some rapid selection for those people who have no interest in sex.
>Its either that or mandatory (state?) adjustment of those parts of the brain so
>(a) you have long refractory periods and (b) can't self-edit.

I have a different theory: those will succeed who can learn to associate pleasure, perhaps even sexual pleasure, to tribe dominance inside the virtual community -- just the same as happens out here.

>We would probably get new laws that include restrictions such as a maximum
>daily orgasm quota and a huge black market for software that can reset the
>counters.

There was a movie about 15 years ago called Brainstorm I think, Natalie Wood's last film, in which a device had been invented which could record a person's experience and play it back to someone later. One guy, of course, got hold of a tape of a person having wild sex, and, of course, cut the tape so it played in a loop. When they found this guy after about eight hours, he was a gibbering idiot.