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
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
ICQ # 61112550
"We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
-- Desmond Morris
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