I hereby declare you company and wife

Sat, 2011-01-29 19:32

#2

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

some corporation might have an A(G)I front. Like Nomic or my own character's company, POLUX. that brings another possibility: a sentient meme (wouldn't that qualify as a God, really?) or a construct made of deltaforks overy single employee's egoes that's a very creepy and interresting prospect

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Sat, 2011-01-29 19:59

#3

Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

The very definition of marriage is that it is for reproduction. The word itself is derived from the term matrimony, which means mother-making. It's a religious institution, one that had no place ever being moved into the legal domain. That aside, it needs to be said that social contracts are a very variable, mutable thing, so, yes, in Eclipse Phase and even the modern day, it would be a very interesting sort of array of contracts for those who wish to join themselves financially and legally.

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Sat, 2011-01-29 23:25

#4

Draconis

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

Marriage is a legal agreement and nothing more despite all the mysticism people try and attach to it. Forget corporations, the fact you can marry uplifts amuses and pleases me greatly.

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Sun, 2011-01-30 02:20

#5

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

Following, a few testimonies: Megumi, a housewife married to an uplifted Octopus "I can have my tentacle hentai AND fulfill my marital duty! At the same time!" *masked for anonymity* a geeky psychosurgeon woman married to an uplifted Gorilla "We met in a Comic Con Simspace. He was Gorillah Grod and I was that scientist woman, and we spend the whole weekend replaying that old 2D Justice League Unlimited Episode. So, yeah, Flash was right: it was a net romance at first!" Jenny, a professional Z-Ball player married to a neo-avian: *flips her red hair* "Ginny Weasley. Fawkes. Headmasker's desk. Nuff' said!" Isaac, a techie married to an informorph exsurgent infected Gamma-fork of his genehacker wife: *he weeps* She had, basically, basilisk hacked my brain, so that even after her death, she keeps apparating to me in my endoscope, and calling my name! All the time! And that freak out any possible girlfriend I could get! Kendra, Lexine, Rin, Isabel, Alexis -tho good riddance on that one!- and when that does work she tricks some psycho to disfigure the stubborn one! Like Ellie! Now she's rep-suing ME to get another eye! Leave me aloooooone, already!"

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Sun, 2011-01-30 07:10

#6

Draconis

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

Yes, yes, the jokes write themselves. That's what I love about this place. I don't have to say much as someone else will fill in the blanks as it where. You forgot the dolphins and unicorns though. }; )

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Sun, 2011-01-30 08:29

#7

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

Draconis wrote:
You forgot the dolphins and unicorns though. }; )

Well, unicorns are only interested in the "nothing before marriage part" anyway. http://dcisgoingtohell.com/205-off-leash-unicorn-park-part-x/ And we all know about dolphin sexuality... Sure Shot Tim, Autonomous Satellite Defence System: "Well, my hubby John and me have an amazing relationship. He is the C3I AGI of our defence grid. My motivation system maps the chain of command loyalty interfaces onto love and affection. His motivation system maps efficient resource usage and response readiness onto love. So it was just natural that we married. I love working with him, and he loves the response readiness this produces. The fact that he is married to all the other satellites doesn't annoy me, we just have a friendly competition for his affection - which he of course loves. I know some of the officers do not understand our relation and are concerned that John might not be willing to risk us in battle, but they are of course wrong. We would love to die for him, and that makes him more willing to use us. Just try invading our home!"

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Sun, 2011-01-30 12:16

#8

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

But did you know these two, John and Tim, had released a song on the media market? it's a cover of an old, old song from a forgotten -and forgettable!- movie the lyrics were modified, of course, and the chorus goes like that: [i]It's a good day to die when you know the reasons why Direct Action We fight what is right A noble sacrifice, When duty calls you pay the price For Planetary Consortium, I would give my life[/i]

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Sun, 2011-01-30 14:09

#9

Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

Draconis wrote:
Marriage is a legal agreement and nothing more despite all the mysticism people try and attach to it.

No, that's what marriage has become. Marriage had no place becoming a legal agreement, though. Even the definition that a married couple became capable of being recognized as a single legal entity (for property sharing and such) is derived from the Biblical tradition that man and wife literally became one being. Marriage is a religious affair. It is not something that should've ever been made into a legal agreement and has no place being one, straight, gay, corporate, or otherwise. I'm all for civil unions, though, if people want to go that route.

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Sun, 2011-01-30 17:23

#10

icekatze

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

hi hi Marriage predates the bible. It has been practiced worldwide across numerous cultures, with different traditions and expectations. And more to the topic at hand: who's to say that a corporation couldn't raise kids?

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Sun, 2011-01-30 18:14

#11

root

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

root@I hereby declare you company and wife [hr]

icekatze wrote:
And more to the topic at hand: who's to say that a corporation couldn't raise kids?

The biggest problem with this would be the corporation would only be interested in how well the child was behaved at the end of any quarter when the investors came to look at how well the child was growing. If the child starts to show a decline in profit at the end of any given quarter, they might lobby to have the corporation sell that asset off to some other company that thinks it can whip the child into shape by the end of the next financial quarter.

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Sun, 2011-01-30 20:48

#12

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

Marriages are as far as I know a human universal: people observe rites when couples become recognized by the community. It creates kinship in the sociological sense, and has a lot to do with sexual access rights, legitimacy of children and formal status. The religious part is often present, but it is present in nearly *all* human rites.

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Sun, 2011-01-30 21:27

#13

Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

You're all correct that human societies all practice some degree of ceremony to represent the binding of a couple or several people. None of these is marriage. Marriage is Christian as the very term itself was pretty much invented by the Catholic Church to describe the ceremony. It didn't exist much before that in the Abrahamic tradition; men took wives, with or without ceremony. Even the Bible itself states that marriage is unnecessary; according to Genesis, sex is the only thing needed to consider humans to be "one flesh". Marriage was created by the Catholic Church. Pairbonding and religious rituals for such are universal and ancient beyond Christianity, but marriage, the very definition and word, is a reference to the Christian, originally Catholic, tradition of a man and woman coming together for the purpose of producing children. That is the very origin and meaning of the word. I'm not against people creating such pairbonds, I'm just arguing that it's the wrong word, and a stupid idea to bring an ultimately private religious ceremony into something as stupid as government contracts. Frankly, it confuses the daylights out of me when people all for the separation of Church and State are so vehement about giving everyone access to marriage contracts when they should be eager to erase the entire thing from legislature and put civil unions in its place.

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Sun, 2011-01-30 23:38

#14

root

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

root@I hereby declare you company and wife [hr]

Arenamontanus wrote:
sexual access rights

What a perfectly horrible phrase. The mind boggles at the implicit assumptions that go behind making that into a sterile academic phrasing for sexual relationships. It describes perfectly how we interact with each other in society, and makes it unflinchingly clear how ugly that interaction is.

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Mon, 2011-01-31 05:54

#15

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

Axel the Chimeric wrote:
Y None of these is marriage. Marriage is Christian as the very term itself was pretty much invented by the Catholic Church to describe the ceremony. It didn't exist much before that in the Abrahamic tradition; men took wives, with or without ceremony. Even the Bible itself states that marriage is unnecessary; according to Genesis, sex is the only thing needed to consider humans to be "one flesh".

Sorry, but that is wrong. Consider the Hindu marriage rites, based on Vedic fire-sacrifices and older than monotheism. The Aztecs had religious ceremonies at marriage. And yes, the term marriage is used by sociologists and comparative theologians to denote the ritual pair bonding in non-Christian societies. However, in ancient Greece marriages were a purely civil affair (although there was a sacrifice and other rituals to ensure divine favour), as might have been the case in ancient Egypt (scholars are apparently uncertain about exactly what went on there). In general the part of marriage being about joining families and creating kinship bonds is the universal part (and yes, this includes the children bit), while religion may or may not be an element.

Quote:
Marriage was created by the Catholic Church. Pairbonding and religious rituals for such are universal and ancient beyond Christianity, but marriage, the very definition and word, is a reference to the Christian, originally Catholic, tradition of a man and woman coming together for the purpose of producing children. That is the very origin and meaning of the word.

Actually, the word marriage is etymologically descended from Latin marītāre, "to marry". Which was used long before the cults of the eastern part of the empire became successful. Saying the Catholic church invented it is like saying Madonna invented sex.

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Mon, 2011-01-31 12:46

#16

Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

Arenamontanus wrote:
Sorry, but that is wrong. Consider the Hindu marriage rites, based on Vedic fire-sacrifices and older than monotheism. The Aztecs had religious ceremonies at marriage. And yes, the term marriage is used by sociologists and comparative theologians to denote the ritual pair bonding in non-Christian societies. However, in ancient Greece marriages were a purely civil affair (although there was a sacrifice and other rituals to ensure divine favour), as might have been the case in ancient Egypt (scholars are apparently uncertain about exactly what went on there). In general the part of marriage being about joining families and creating kinship bonds is the universal part (and yes, this includes the children bit), while religion may or may not be an element.

I'm not talking about the pair-bonding religious ritual, though this does further my point that such things are ultimately religious and should not be a part of legal discussions.

Arenamontanus wrote:
Actually, the word marriage is etymologically descended from Latin marītāre, "to marry". Which was used long before the cults of the eastern part of the empire became successful.

Mea culpa. Perhaps I was thinking of the term Matrimony... In either case, I'm wrong there. My point remains unchanged, though. Religious rituals have no place in litigation.

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Mon, 2011-01-31 14:11

#17

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

the Christian concept of the marriage is mostly a political and moralist creation, to control libidinous activities of people by restraining intercources in the strict circle of the couple, under penalty of torture, or even death. on the subject of marriage with uplifts and AGI, what is the public view of it?

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Mon, 2011-01-31 15:56

#18

Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

Yeah, it was stupid to have it in the law then, it's just as stupid now. At the end of the day, it's a means of social engineering and political control, as well as religious control to a lesser extent. Marriage, wherever you care to name it being from or whatever kind, shouldn't be a government contract. As for uplifts and AGIs, I figure like anything there's places it's accepted, places it's frowned upon, and everyone in the Junta hates it, in a generalized sense. Most likely far more accepted on Venus and in the Outer System, and it's probably not even blinked at on Scum Barges and Extropia.

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Tue, 2011-02-01 00:43

#19

Thantrax

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

icekatze wrote:
And more to the topic at hand: who's to say that a corporation couldn't raise kids?

At this point, public opinion. The last time a corporation tried to raise kids, Cognite and Hanto Genomics turned the idea of corporate child rearing into the greatest PR blunder since the Fall.

Tue, 2011-02-01 09:17

#20

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

I think you're cherry-picking there. There are plenty of examples of corporations raising children and doing a fine job at it. Most children from corporate upbringing end up with more job-enhancing skills, stronger work ethic, greater cultural adaptability, and the confidence of having a pre-established career ladder waiting for them, when compared with children of communes, traditional families, or teaching environments.

Tue, 2011-02-01 11:30

#21

King Shere King Shere's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

It could be a non religious form of nuns, nunneries and replace "recruitment" . With artificial insemination possible, corporate nuns could birth & foster children into eventually running the family business. It also expands on how one would interpret what someone else meant when mentioning "family business".

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Tue, 2011-02-01 12:20

#22

Thantrax

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
I think you're cherry-picking there. There are plenty of examples of corporations raising children . . .

I fully agree that I'm cherry picking, Nezumi, but I am cherry picking the only example I've noticed thus far. If you've got any other cases to reference, I'd love to read them. It would be very interesting to see. Plus, you've got to admit, the Futura project made quite the meteoric impact on the population. Cognite is still limping from the disaster that was their foray.

Wed, 2011-02-02 13:37

#23

The Doctor The Doctor's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

Quincey Forder wrote:
that brings another possibility: a sentient meme (wouldn't that qualify as a God, really?) or a construct made of deltaforks overy single employee's egoes

What if a sentient meme was implemented as an AI which included a gnostic overlay function for some of its processes and a polite request to take up residence within the mesh inserts of a character?

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Wed, 2011-02-02 14:18

#24

root

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

root@I hereby declare you company and wife [hr]

The Doctor wrote:
a gnostic overlay function

What would a gnostic overlay function be?

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Wed, 2011-02-02 14:55

#25

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

It displays lines from the Testament of Saint Thomas?

Wed, 2011-02-02 17:29

#26

root

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

root@I hereby declare you company and wife [hr]

Wikipedia wrote:
Gnosis (from one of the Greek words for knowledge, γνῶσις) is the spiritual knowledge of a saint[1] or mystically enlightened human being. Within the cultures of the term's provenance (Byzantine and Hellenic) Gnosis was a knowledge or insight into the infinite, divine and uncreated in all and above all,[2] rather than knowledge strictly into the finite, natural or material world.[3]

A gnostic interface being something that gives a AGI a spiritual knowledge. It must affect the temporal lobe analogue in the AGI's architecture.

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Wed, 2011-02-02 17:31

#27

root

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

root@I hereby declare you company and wife [hr] So can corporations marry? How would it be different from a merger?

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Wed, 2011-02-02 19:46

#28

Draconis

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

Yes. It's called a strategic partnership.

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Sat, 2011-02-05 15:16

#29

Yerameyahu Yerameyahu's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

I have a barely-related question, and I don't want to make a new thread in case it's stupid or has already been answered. :) What's the deal with reproduction in EP? Even if you're not in a synthetic morph, you still don't have your own DNA (rare exceptions). I know that hyperelites do have families of some kind, and I know that there's a blurb about 'rules constraining Uplift reproduction rights'. So… do people have children at all? How? If so, why, given that everyone's already immortal and dupe-able. :) Off the cuff, I can imagine 'genetic' data algorithms to produce ego-children in a sort of direct way, or archival DNA sequences of someone's 'original' body (if they even had one, and why would they even want that?), or randomized semi-clones (the book mentions that even normal manufacturing uses a 'unique-ifier' system), or maybe there are just breeding colonies of flats and splicers out there somewhere? *shrug*

Sat, 2011-02-05 20:10

#30

Draconis

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

Actually it has come up at least twice before. It's the sex/reproduction question. Mind you I don't mind such topics coming up again, one of my favorites actually. First check out: http://www.eclipsephase.com/reproduction-do-hypercorps-own-copyright-you... http://www.eclipsephase.com/new-equipment-transhuman-reproduction Feel free to add your thoughts or comments on any of those. The short answer by the way is "yes". Which is incredibly vague but covers it nicely. Any way you can think of reproduction is probably going on. From completely natural, (flats, my own dracomorphs, anything with an "unrestricted or unlocked" reproductive system), to exowombs, clone farms, you name it. Welcome to the Forum. }; )

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Sat, 2011-02-05 20:38

#31

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

now I'm curious to see what the wedding night of two corporations look like! (I know I have a pervy mind! and I love it!) on the reproductions, I would think it's natural for most people, who have flats or Splicers. However, richer people with design morph styles, like Exalt, Olympians and the like, would have to resort to exowombs reproduction, because their morph would be sterile until they purchase an extra licence and receive an injection that renders their morphs fertile for a while, and have to pay again for another child other morphs lines like Furies, Hibernoids, Bouncers would be completely barren by design. Either by military corporate rules or because it's highly hazardous to have a child on a ship during a trip. Not to mention that people abord light hugger ships would have to watch their children grow old while they age slower because of the speed they travel at and even so how could they keep in touch with loved ones as they travel further and further away. a good exemple would be the animated movie "Voice of a Distant Star" now back to the topic, I could see some hypercorps demanding that high level employee to actually marry the corporation (like nuns marry the Christ/Church) to insure their loyalty and aviability. No need for them to ask days off because they're going on an anniversary trip. No pregnancy leaves to pay for and finding temporary replacement... it's also a good way to give heir to the company, someone who'll carry on. Someone who won't want to do anything else because he or she wouldn't have known anything else his or her entire life, or grew up in such an awful place, unloved and abused, that he or she would do anything for his or her benevolent corporate savior and readily become molded into the company's creed. I call this the Dumbledore Protocol.

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Sun, 2011-02-06 00:39

#32

Yerameyahu Yerameyahu's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

Thanks, Draconis. I knew it was too obvious a question not to have been mentioned at least once.

Sun, 2011-02-06 01:17

#33

Draconis

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

Yerameyahu wrote:
Thanks, Draconis. I knew it was too obvious a question not to have been mentioned at least once.

My pleasure. Don't forget to share your ideas with us. }; ) Yes, yes, I'm looking for an excuse to keep that topic going. If I recall correctly it was the first topic I posted on. It got me to unlurk as I couldn't resist.

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Mon, 2011-02-07 16:02

#34

The Doctor The Doctor's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

root wrote:
What would a gnostic overlay function be?

A neural interface function which makes some kind of information instantly available to the mind it is running on, so that it could be accessed in the same manner as long-term memory without having to actually store the information into long term memory. As far as the brain was concerned, the information would always have been there (even though its access routines would be transparently intercepted and rerouted to the mesh inserts).

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Sat, 2011-02-12 08:05

#35

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

I think this one belongs in this thread: http://uk.io9.com/#!robosexualnews/5757229 An old conservative argument against gay marriage: if we allow it, then people will start marrying AIs. Of course, by now inter-kingdom marriages have been done for a generation or so, and most people realize that they aren't that bad.

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Fri, 2011-02-18 17:12

#36

Decivre

Re: I hereby declare you company and wife

Quincey Forder wrote:
the Christian concept of the marriage is mostly a political and moralist creation, to control libidinous activities of people by restraining intercources in the strict circle of the couple, under penalty of torture, or even death. on the subject of marriage with uplifts and AGI, what is the public view of it?

Sort of. Most scholars agree that the most likely reason for the creation of the concept of marriage was simply for the purpose of authenticating paternity. A woman who was legally bound to sleep with only one man meant that her husband knew that her children would be paternally his. Since paternity is a key element in human society for the purpose of heritage, it has largely maintained a necessary role. This is also why adultery was such a serious crime in the past: the knowledge that even one child with your wife wasn't yours called into question the possibility that every prior child wasn't yours, leaving the status of your material possessions after your death in question. Bloodline was (and still is) an important element of family. As for Christianity and marriage, the truth is that the early Christian churches (pre-Catholicism) did their best to get marriage socially banned. Most of them promoted Paul's doctrines of celibacy and chastity. The earliest recorded Christian marriages didn't occur until the 9th century. Ironically, the one invention (albeit accidental) that early Christians might have had for marriage was the idea that marriage should be exclusively for love, and never for political purposes. This went ignored by aristocracy for years, but was the only sort of marriage that the Church would sanction (officially). Axel is correct that marriage originated likely with various religions, but incorrect that it isn't tied to government. The fact is that religion and government have been tied since either one's inception. The idea of a secular governing body is fairly recent, and only explicitly surfaced with the writing of the United States Constitution (there have been a few implicit secular governments, most notably the first Mongolian Empire). For the most part, the possibility for marriage to be legal without being religious, or religious without being legal, has only existed for a little over 200 years. Marriage has existed long before that.

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