From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Fri Sep 03 1999 - 10:55:18 MDT
On Fri, 3 Sep 1999, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> Individuals can always rise above the predispositions of their
> genetic heritage,
Absolutely false. I will never be a basketball player and am
extremely unlikely to be a football player. Anyone over the
age of 30, who did not start a sports "career" as a teenager,
is unlikely to be involved in any professional sport due to
the genetic heritage known as "aging". People to a large
degree (we will say ~50%) their genes and there are many
situations where even a superhuman effort will not allow
them to "rise above" that. In thinking about this, I believe
that in *most* situations, there exist individuals who would
never be able to master the situation because of their
genetic heritage. Genetic equality is a fantasy.
[If people don't flame that, I'll be surprised.]
I think it is a question of trying to reach the point, that during
the conversation, the significance of the other person's sex should
be at the same level of "background noise" as their height. When I
speak with Greg, I don't get a little stool, so I can talk with him
eye-level to eye-level. I also don't start thinking about whether or
not he seems to be in a bad mood is because had a terrible flight to
the conference because the airlines keep making the coach seat distances
smaller, and he is suffering from a situation we would call
altitude-advantaged, etc.
The problem is that height does not generally activate a "survival
program" (except to basketball players trying to figure out how to
play someone 8 inches taller than they are), while knowledge about
the other person's gender may significantly affect how you relate
to them and how they relate to you.
I would agree that the facelessness of the lists does make it
easier to concentrate on the content rather than the speaker.
Perhaps I should join the transhuman mailing list as Roberta
just to see what kind of difference it makes...
Robert
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