From: Delvieron@aol.com
Date: Sat Feb 12 2000 - 08:36:28 MST
> I HOPE TO GOD modifications will be adopted to make people *more* of an
> individual and not bring even more soulless clones into existance. Fish
eyes
> and feathers, bring it on....
> But more bland female model types, and isipid GQ types and we can all
> ...CONFORM!! CONFORM!!! More more : Monotony, tedium, banality.
> (end)
Brian: You're all individuals
Crowd: Yes we're all individuals
Lone voice: I'm not!>>
Personally, I'm not fond of conformity for the sake of conformity, but
neither am I a fan of being different simply to be different. I want my
physical appearance to be what I like, what I want. If that happens to be
what ninety percent of the population wants, hey, I can't fault their good
taste! And if it happens to be what only one percent of the population
likes, then that's fine too, to each their own. Now then, having said that,
there are a few other issues that come into the determination of my own
personal style, such as quality, functionality, access, ease, and
communications. I want my material self to be durable and to allow me to do
the things I wish to. Currently, I tend to limit myself to things I can find
without extra-ordinary effort or investment. I want something that doesn't
take hours to arrange to my satisfation (seconds would be preferable<G>).
And I want my physical appearance to send only those messages I intend it to.
For example, I might like the whole idea of a cloak, but in daily life it
would make people uneasy, which is not a message I normally wish to send. So
instead I wear my labcoat open so I get that nice flapping in the breaze
effect as I rush to a code, and when I go outside I like to wear a long black
coat, again open if it isn't too cold (and if it is, then close it up to
restore full functionality, which in my book trumps appearance). My personal
asthetics remain, but I adapt them for the setting. I imagine I will do much
the same in a bod mod future, and highly recommend the approach to others.
Remember, though, as in the Life of Brian comment above, the rush to be
"different" can be just as slavish to outside forces as the rush to "fit in".
Having said all this, I imagine the look of the future population will be
more heterogeneous, but with an overall retention of guassian distributions
within the same environments, though we may see several multi-modal
distributions when humanity's descendants are taken as a whole due to
adaptations to local conditions (that's one of the reasons for businessmen
wearing chinos in California and suits in New York).
Glen Finney
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