From: Neal Marin (shikarivivasi@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Feb 09 2000 - 16:43:06 MST
--- Billy Brown <bbrown@transcient.com> wrote:
> Hey, what exactly is wrong with a man wanting there
> to be lots of beautiful
> women in the world? (Or vice versa, of course.)
What is this obsession with people's appearance?! I've
been noticing it in the media for quite some time, and
it's really *bugging* me.
> > (Now if you can also program them to tell you are
> the best lover in the
> > universe whether or not that's true....)
>
> How about if we combine the body mods with a little
> hedonic engineering, so
> that sex can actually be as good as we all wish it
> was?
Why don't we all just upload instead?
> > Ever hear of the Stepford Wives?
>
> Fictional treatments of this subject always assume
> that 1) the women are
> coerced, 2) the men are either scum or nitwits, 3)
> mental mods are only
> superficial, so the 'real you' is still in there
> somewhere, and 4) boring
> mediocrity is somehow better than ant fantasy. None
> of these assumptions
> are likely to hold in the real world. I'm not sure
> what the result will be,
> but I expect it will be far more complex (and
> interesting) than anything
> portrayed in fiction.
>
> several people wrote (paraphrasing):
> > Body mods! Eeek! Oh, no, everyone will become a
> soulless clone of the
> > latest trendy body style! Evil corporations will
> take over our bodies and
> > doom us to an eternity of bland sameness. The sky
> is falling! The sky is
> > falling!
>
> Get a grip, guys. This attitude is itself an
> example of mindless conformity
> to decades of bad science fiction and intellectual
> elitism. The only
> segment of society where the herd instinct is that
> strong is teenagers, and
> that is obviously a temporary phase.
*moos and stamps her feet* oh, I have *SUCH* a strong
desire to follow the crowd....*shakes her head* Okay,
I have to agree here...a lot of teenagers have an
overwhelming desire to follow the crowd. Being in high
school myself, I see examples of it every day. But
I've noticed similar among adult society
too...although perhaps not in as great a number....
> I'm sure most people will want to be good looking,
> but that does not imply
> they will all look the same. It is already possible
> to have yourself
> altered to look like an attractive celebrity, but
> virtually no one does.
> What most people want is to look like themselves,
> only better.
But for a while at least there will be fads like
that....especially when the surgeries, etc., are
cheaper and more accessible.
> So, the middle class gets in shape while the upper
> class goes looking for
> ways to stand out. Since exceptional beauty
> requires that you look
> different than everyone around you, that means a
> whole new branch of art
> will arise to fill the demand for unusual and
> esthetically pleasing bodies.
> And lets not forget that standards of beauty vary a
> great deal from person
> to person, let alone between different cultures.
>
> Meanwhile, we have lots of subcultures that will
> probably diverge from human
> norms. I predict that many Furries will actually
> become their favorite
> anthropomorphic form, many sci-fi and fantasy fans
> will want to look like
> humanoid aliens or fantasy races, and many
> fetishists will lavish great
> attention on whatever it is that they like. Throw
> in a scattering of purely
> functional enhancements that happen to have cosmetic
> side effects and you've
> got a recipe for an explosion of diversity in human
> appearance.
You have a point there, but I still quiver to think of
what cashier register magazines will be saying about
all of this. I think perhaps, that once I'm immortal,
I'll just retire to a little spot in the woods with my
computer and wait a few centuries for that to die down
a bit. *grin* hmmm...you've got me started on thinking
up another book plot.
-Neal
>
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