How do you represent Gender and Sexuality in Eclipse Phase

Fri, 2014-06-27 10:10

#52

otohime1978 otohime1978's picture

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:
I can't see this. I mean, having your gender reassigned in a Vat doesn't require you to make alienation tests, not does having extra limbs grafted on. On the other hand, resleeving into a new morph which is the twin of the one you were in does entail alienation. The ego quite simply doesn't give a flying fruitloop what gender the morph is, or even if it has one, unless you're talking about specific exceptions such as the fury.

It really should. People after getting plastic surgery on their face often times do not recognize their own reflection in the mirror for a few years. It takes time for their body image to change to its current form in dreams. Late transitioning transsexuals often report it takes a few years for their own self image in dreams to shift as well. Mayhaps it was an oversight by the PS+ crew? Of course, you could just handwave it all away by saying psychesurgery is included with the modifications and sleeving... but, if that were the case, then why are there alienation tests in eclipse phase [i]at all?[/i]

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:

Lorsa wrote:
However, gender will most likely still be important to people.
Again, why? Physically, all it takes to change is a couple of days in a tank of goo. The only real "gender" that matters is emotional, and what does that even mean? Where you fall on a scale rating how important social ques are to your emotional wellbeing? It's easy to say it's "how you view the world", but that's completely subjective. I can say I see the world as a male, but that just means that I expect other males to see the world the same way as I do.

But clearly men do see the world in similar ways. As much as I [i]really hate[/i] to bring up universalism in the Humanist sense (I hate Humanism), there is an underlying similarity behind those of a particular gender. That's not to say that all men are the same, but in a way, you really are. Male and female dogs act and react differently to the opposite sex, and tend to react similarly as others in the same sex. I know we aren't exactly dogs, but the emotional drives behind specific genders are usually rather similar to each other with a bit of variation. [size=3]And I am half expecting most of the people here to write this off as just plain sexism.[/size]

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Fri, 2014-06-27 16:54

#53

Lorsa

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:Lorsa

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:
Lorsa wrote:
However, gender will most likely still be important to people.
Again, why? Physically, all it takes to change is a couple of days in a tank of goo. The only real "gender" that matters is emotional, and what does that even mean? Where you fall on a scale rating how important social ques are to your emotional wellbeing? It's easy to say it's "how you view the world", but that's completely subjective. I can say I see the world as a male, but that just means that I expect other males to see the world the same way as I do.

First off, let's not confuse sex with gender. Most people feel best when they match but they're not identical. Yes, in a transhuman future changing your sex to fit with your own body image and limit body dysphoria is easy to do. Does that mean that the concept of gender will suddenly stop being important and that people will cease to care which pronouns are used to describe them? I don't think so, but if you can provide sufficient psychological research that points to gender being completely irrelevant for people's self image I'll be happy to change my mind. You are right that the concept of the gender is an emotional/mental thing. It's not so much "how you view the world" but rather how you view yourself and want others to view you. There are people and places that can explain it far better than I can though. But considering how important it is to people today I hardly think it's going to go away.

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Mon, 2014-06-30 15:42

#54

Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture

I just have to say that, in

I just have to say that, in my experiences, gender isn't really an issue, but, then, I've mostly played with players and characters where this hasn't been an issue. I've run a Lost who had an exceptionally androgynous body but had no personal concept of gender, and his approach to sexuality was "Do I want to fuck it?", so the ground there wasn't exactly fertile to explore. As a general rule, gender and sexuality don't usually come up in my games that much, though, save as background material. Most people are more or less typical and reasonably laissez-faire in the transhuman future. Outside of the most conservative habitats, people don't mind if you're transsexual or genderqueer or what have you, as long as it doesn't impact their interactions with you. What people DO mind is if you look different. Looking outside the norm is what gets people on edge. Human beings are programmed to look for differences, that's where the Uncanny Valley effect comes from, so people who look far outside the norm are going to get ostracized, no matter their race, sex, or gender. On Mars, you aren't rising the corporate ladder unless you look conventionally attractive and wear the slickest business suits imaginable. In anarchist habs, people don't really give a damn. That's my take on it, at least. Luna is still reasonably religious, as are the Jovians, so they're both exceptions, but that's my usual take just about everywhere.

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Wed, 2014-07-02 00:50

#55

Blue Screen of Death Blue Screen of Death's picture

I thought I would wade into

I thought I would wade into this pool As I see it, gender has to be less important in EP as there are so many more differences of species and physical nature than any one gender can relate to. Does any infomorph, AGI or octopus really care (or even fully grok) if their human partner sees themselves as male or female regarding gender? Do gender roles even exist in EP? What is [i]masculine[/i] if the most capable warriors are female furies? What is [i]feminine[/i] if the few kids are grown in exowombs and raised by an ayah au pair? The only difference between male and female may actually be just the plumbing Likely almost any ego has experienced what it is like to be other genders, even if they weren't particularly curious. Imagine a Firewall sentinel who is reviewing the previous XP recordings of a now missing comrade for clues. She may not be particular interested in her comrade's life but she is essentially living his life in review; at that moment tripping through a man's life and thoughts as a man. I would guess in EP, the question about which sex enjoys sex more has been answered. It seems that gender would have no professional or civil bearing. Likely gender would only come into play when dating, and it would be a different answer for each ego. At that point, the only real genders might be; compatible and incompatible. I think that for most morphs, their sex is really neuter (they can't have children) that is best described as masculine or feminine (or openly neuter or herm). This isn't infertility but closer to the more honest winterists (who can share sensual play but still cannot have kids without technological intervention). I welcome your thoughts.

Wed, 2014-07-02 02:18

#56

Googleshng Googleshng's picture

As has been covered, I would

As has been covered, I would think the possibility of being sleeved into a morph of the opposite sex, and suddenly having to deal with the effect your new brain structure, hormone balance, and particularly with uplift morphs, new instinctual responses are something that would be hugely significant to anyone who did so, at least the first few times they ended up doing so. This would lead to a very different sort of discussion on the matter than if you're talking about it here in the pass, but there's still conversations that are going to come up. More importantly though...

Blue Screen of Death wrote:
What is [i]feminine[/i] if the few kids are grown in exowombs and raised by an ayah au pair? ... I think that for most morphs, their sex is really neuter (they can't have children) that is best described as masculine or feminine (or openly neuter or herm). This isn't infertility but closer to the more honest winterists (who can share sensual play but still cannot have kids without technological intervention).

Where the heck are you getting that notion from? I mean, sure, fertility isn't a thing if you're just referring to how most of the population is sleeved into synthmorphs and pods (although some pods are exceptions, going by Transhuman p. 216). All biomorphs though are absolutely fertile, and while options exist to skip over the whole thing, I would assume the vast majority of people inclined to have children and lucky enough to be sleeved appropriately would opt to conceive and carry children the old fashioned way. By most accounts I've heard, pregnancy is a generally enjoyable experience for a good chunk of the duration, and would probably be even more enjoyable in low-G environments as you'd avoid a lot of the usual problems the whole bipedal structure brings to the equation. Conception by most accounts is also rather enjoyable. Plus, it's a conceit of the setting that there is an unservably huge demand for new biomorphs, between the 90% of the population still waiting to get one back, and crazy firewall bastards and self-obsessed celebrities constantly needing clones grown so they can resleeve into something familiar or trade-up. Just making new people from scratch seems like the sort of outrageously selfish use of machine time that'd cost a pretty penny. Honestly, there's a huge topic here worth exploring that sourcebooks have largely shied away from. Trace that last line of thought to the nastiest possible conclusion and you can easily base quite a number of different nasty little horror scenarios around a hab and/or cult where those in charge institute a policy that no viable womb should go to waste. Or how about female octomorphs? Has their instinct to personally guard them until they die of starvation been removed? Are they prone to just... laying huge clutches of eggs in closets now and then? If so, how do habs supporting a finite population deal with the explosive population growth? Are there constant debates over their reproductive rights on either front? Are there concerns about uplifts "destroying democracy" by outbreeding humans? How about AGIs looking for ways to expand their numbers and diversity? These are all really sensitive topics it'd be tricky to officially address without a ton of controversy, but in-setting I'd imagine they'd be very hotly debated, particularly in the wake of the fall.

Wed, 2014-07-02 13:20

#57

Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture

Googleshng wrote:As has been

Googleshng wrote:
As has been covered, I would think the possibility of being sleeved into a morph of the opposite sex, and suddenly having to deal with the effect your new brain structure, hormone balance, and particularly with uplift morphs, new instinctual responses are something that would be hugely significant to anyone who did so, at least the first few times they ended up doing so.

What's worth noting is what was being referred to by Blue; even if people don't resleeve, they can still experience other bodies, perspectives, etc., through VR and XP. In the case of the latter, you can opt to feel their instinctual responses, emotions, etc. In short, while resleeving is always a big deal, as are the associated mental fluctuations that come with it, the idea of having a body with different bits is probably not as tremendously outlandish to transhumans as you may be thinking. Anyone who plays full-immersion VR sims, after all, has experienced what it is to have a different body, a different face, etc.

Googleshng wrote:
All biomorphs though are absolutely fertile, and while options exist to skip over the whole thing, I would assume the vast majority of people inclined to have children and lucky enough to be sleeved appropriately would opt to conceive and carry children the old fashioned way.

I have to disagree, there. Biomorphs are NOT absolutely fertile, or, at least, are not absolutely compatible. Most biomorphs are genetweaked and heavily modified and, in many cases, may even include proprietary genes. In the PC, this is a big issue, where people have to buy license fees to have children. This is all assuming that your genetics are even compatible, or that genes from your gene line are able to actually form a normal fetus without outside assistance. If your body has genes in it that give it chameleon skin, and you pass that on, how do you know you're going to give your child the proper essential nutrients they'll need in the right quantities for those genes not to drain resources from elsewhere and cause their diaphragm to develop with a crippling weakness? Not to mention the safety risks. People have cortical stacks for a reason; the world's dangerous. You don't have a back-up of your baby, though. If you're carrying a fetus and you get in a car crash, they're gone. If something happens and your medichines attack it as a foreign invader, it's dead. This is before noting all the other possible risks to yourself and the child. An exowomb is safe. It's secure. It's in a remote medical facility, away from most dangers, and it has experts monitoring it 24/7. All the nutrients are provided, all the care you could hope for is there. Your baby is safe, it's secure, you can visit it and see it developing, you can check on it wirelessly, but you never need worry about slowing down or the indignity of shitting yourself in the delivery room nine months later. Suffice to say, I doubt the vast majority, especially on the sunward side of the Main Belt, are going the "old fashioned" route.

Googleshng wrote:
By most accounts I've heard, pregnancy is a generally enjoyable experience for a good chunk of the duration, and would probably be even more enjoyable in low-G environments as you'd avoid a lot of the usual problems the whole bipedal structure brings to the equation. Conception by most accounts is also rather enjoyable.

I don't speak from experience here, but pregnancy is, by many accounts an experience; something wonderful and strange and sometimes horrifying and deadly, and all the other things you may put on a Hallmark card. In low-G environments, though, it's problematic. The human body relies on gravity a great deal for its development. In micrograv, our hearts become borderline spherical. It's entirely possible that pregnancy may not even be able to happen in micrograv environments, and the radiation hazards of deep space likely play havoc with conception. Again, the exowomb is your friend, since it can spend the requisite months inside a nice, radiation-shielded hab segment, while its parents can go wandering outside to play Space Basketball or what have you. Plus, all the stuff noted above applies. Why take unnecessary risks with something that precious?

Googleshng wrote:
Plus, it's a conceit of the setting that there is an unservably huge demand for new biomorphs, between the 90% of the population still waiting to get one back, and crazy firewall bastards and self-obsessed celebrities constantly needing clones grown so they can resleeve into something familiar or trade-up. Just making new people from scratch seems like the sort of outrageously selfish use of machine time that'd cost a pretty penny.

If this were true, I doubt you'd see indentures in the PC or people having any sort of luxuries on Titan. Truth is, people don't just align their activities with what might be considered the maximum human good. This isn't a total war situation. Resources exist and are allocated for other purposes. Exowombs are hardly the grandest iniquity.

Googleshng wrote:
Or how about female octomorphs? Has their instinct to personally guard them until they die of starvation been removed? Are they prone to just... laying huge clutches of eggs in closets now and then? If so, how do habs supporting a finite population deal with the explosive population growth? Are there constant debates over their reproductive rights on either front? Are there concerns about uplifts "destroying democracy" by outbreeding humans? How about AGIs looking for ways to expand their numbers and diversity? These are all really sensitive topics it'd be tricky to officially address without a ton of controversy, but in-setting I'd imagine they'd be very hotly debated, particularly in the wake of the fall.

Yes, probably not, not likely an issue, yes, yes, yes. That's my take, at least.

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Wed, 2014-07-02 13:36

#58

Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture

Googleshng wrote:As has been

Edit: Double-post

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Wed, 2014-07-02 16:45

#59

Googleshng Googleshng's picture

Axel the Chimeric wrote:If

Axel the Chimeric wrote:
If your body has genes in it that give it chameleon skin, and you pass that on, how do you know you're going to give your child the proper essential nutrients they'll need in the right quantities for those genes not to drain resources from elsewhere and cause their diaphragm to develop with a crippling weakness?

Going about the whole thing in a 100% natural fashion is something you'd probably only see only see amongst Jovians and fringe-ier weirdos, yes. The fact that splicer morphs are more or less the default suggests that anyone having children in any fashion are going to book a few appointments to tweak things genetically, and monitor development, most likely in really obsessive fashion ("let's just set a few cameras up in there"). That said, I doubt there's enough differences between most different (human) morph lines for them to be incompatible, and I'd think tossing two randomized half-sets of chromosomes at each other is still going to be step 1 in the process. Most of the eugenics groundwork has already been done, getting the really undesirable genes out of the pool entirely, and you want some degree of randomization in there for genetic diversity's sake. Although on the other hand, it's entirely possible people might be largely over the whole notion of making sure their kids share their DNA, particularly if they don't happen to be in a relationship with a genetically compatible member of the same species who they want to have kids with, or they've long-since abandoned their original morph. Probably plenty of single mothers, single fathers, collections of cases pods and so forth who just say "Wouldn't it be cool to have a little bouncer around? Let's have one cooked up." I would imagine though that the whole notion of "hey, my morph comes pre-equipped with a factory that can design and produce new people with very little oversight, and I am going to take advantage of that" is something an overwhelming percentage of the population is going to totally disregard, particularly when it's largely hardwired into the behavior of all life ever.

Quote:
Not to mention the safety risks. People have cortical stacks for a reason; the world's dangerous. You don't have a back-up of your baby, though. If you're carrying a fetus and you get in a car crash, they're gone. If something happens and your medichines attack it as a foreign invader, it's dead. This is before noting all the other possible risks to yourself and the child. An exowomb is safe. It's secure. It's in a remote medical facility, away from most dangers, and it has experts monitoring it 24/7. All the nutrients are provided, all the care you could hope for is there. Your baby is safe, it's secure, you can visit it and see it developing, you can check on it wirelessly, but you never need worry about slowing down or the indignity of shitting yourself in the delivery room nine months later.

On the other side of that coin, you're not actually there, which would likely leave you constantly worried if basic biomods weren't calming you down. You're missing out on that direct feedback of having a weird little semi-formed human kicking you in the gut from the wrong side, generating weird cravings, triggering the release of all kinds of weird hormones, etc. There's a degree of modern precedent here. Women who have difficulty conceiving and carrying children have a number of options on their plate, including adoption (which is essentially what you'd be doing if you did the exo-womb thing and were ordering up a little mention baby or whatever, without contributing your own DNA), or using a surrogate (basically the same principle as an exo-womb), but everyone I've ever known who has been in that position treats those options as a last resort. Plan A is still to use every trick in the book to get their personal reproductive system to quit jerking them around and do its job. Now again, that's obviously not how everyone is wired, but I'm pretty sure it's the majority opinion for reproduction-inclined women.

Quote:
In low-G environments, though, it's problematic. The human body relies on gravity a great deal for its development. In micrograv, our hearts become borderline spherical.

I'm kinda curious how that would play out honestly. I could swear there's been some experimentation done along these lines already (obviously not with humans)... quick research break! Apparently it's not that big a deal. Lower successful fertilization rate, and if you gestate in a micrograv womb, you apparently don't develop the ability to properly orient yourself in a gravity well, but end up incredibly well-adapted to a micrograv environment. This is actually a pretty cool read: http://www.indiana.edu/~rcapub/v27n1/rats.shtml So, assuming your kid isn't going to take their own personal morph into an environment with higher gravity later in life, which given the nature of the setting really isn't generally a concern you need to consider, it's a non-issue. Radiation I'd hope would be a solved problem in any stable hab. The real nasty issues would be in post-natal development. Lack of gravity pulling down on you constantly potentially messing with your internal organs somewhat, possibly stretching your whole body out Integral Trees style, but that's not relevant to the exo-womb vs. natural pregnancy discussion.

Wed, 2014-07-02 17:20

#60

Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture

Googleshng wrote:

Googleshng wrote:
That said, I doubt there's enough differences between most different (human) morph lines for them to be incompatible, and I'd think tossing two randomized half-sets of chromosomes at each other is still going to be step 1 in the process.

On Mars and Luna, that is almost certainly not the case save for a very select few; the PC doesn't really want people just making new potential morphs to go around that use their proprietary genes. Most Martians likely have the human equivalent of terminator genes; perhaps a gene that's shut-off to prevent sperm production or the ova from fertilizing/implanting. People need to pay licensing fees if they want children. As for incompatibility, it may be more likely than you think. Many genetic augmentations may involve the addition of extra (rather small) chromosomes entirely, rather than integrating it too deeply into the morph's genetic code. There's reasons to do it either way, but a separate instance may allow for greater artificial control by separating the genes on it from production by the body's existing regulatory mechanisms. The list of potential genetic disorders are pretty big here. Conception via sex seems like it would be a foreign concept to transhumans, all things considered. As a fun note, Titan may be an exception to this, simply because Titanians are grown en masse from the same sort of gene-banks to be simple and cheap. However, at the same time, it also probably has strict "You must demonstrate your capacity to raise a child and explain why you should be granted one" type laws.

Googleshng wrote:
I would imagine though that the whole notion of "hey, my morph comes pre-equipped with a factory that can design and produce new people with very little oversight, and I am going to take advantage of that" is something an overwhelming percentage of the population is going to totally disregard, particularly when it's largely hardwired into the behavior of all life ever.

See above. If you think that sort of thing would go unnoticed and unregulated in this sort of setting...

Googleshng wrote:
On the other side of that coin, you're not actually there, which would likely leave you constantly worried if basic biomods weren't calming you down. You're missing out on that direct feedback of having a weird little semi-formed human kicking you in the gut from the wrong side, generating weird cravings, triggering the release of all kinds of weird hormones, etc.

For many people, that's a bonus. Even if it isn't, they'd still be likely to go exowomb, as I'll explain below.

Googleshng wrote:
There's a degree of modern precedent here. Women who have difficulty conceiving and carrying children have a number of options on their plate, including adoption (which is essentially what you'd be doing if you did the exo-womb thing and were ordering up a little mention baby or whatever, without contributing your own DNA), or using a surrogate (basically the same principle as an exo-womb), but everyone I've ever known who has been in that position treats those options as a last resort. Plan A is still to use every trick in the book to get their personal reproductive system to quit jerking them around and do its job. Now again, that's obviously not how everyone is wired, but I'm pretty sure it's the majority opinion for reproduction-inclined women.

Of course it is, because wanting to produce offspring is a natural human urge and, at present, options like adoption or surrogacy don't actually produce the same results as producing your own child. Exowombs aren't comparable, though. Exowombs aren't equivalent to producing your own child elsewhere, they're [i]better[/i]. They provide better care, less risk, and the loss of intimacy can be made up for through various creative means. They're objectively healthier, safer means to develop a child in. Yet if this were the only issue, I'd still probably agree with you; people like the intimacy, they feel the urge, they want to fulfill it. The problem isn't that, it's the proprietary and potentially incompatible genetics that could cause severe developmental problems. Even if you didn't have to worry about terminator genes, you do have to worry about developmental necessities that are much easier and better provided in a controlled environment than someone's body.

Googleshng wrote:
Apparently it's not that big a deal. Lower successful fertilization rate, and if you gestate in a micrograv womb, you apparently don't develop the ability to properly orient yourself in a gravity well, but end up incredibly well-adapted to a micrograv environment. This is actually a pretty cool read: http://www.indiana.edu/~rcapub/v27n1/rats.shtml

These were rats in space for a period of a few weeks, not humans there for nine months, whose lifespans and general personality/intelligence weren't likely monitored long thereafter. It's interesting, but not exactly comparable.

Googleshng wrote:
The real nasty issues would be in post-natal development. Lack of gravity pulling down on you constantly potentially messing with your internal organs somewhat, possibly stretching your whole body out Integral Trees style, but that's not relevant to the exo-womb vs. natural pregnancy discussion.

Actually, it kind of is; these problems might appear throughout development. An exowomb lab could act as a creche, too, with infants being counter-rotated in two internal rings, ensuring that they always have artificial gravity during development. Exowombs make sense for a lot of reasons.

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Wed, 2014-07-02 17:48

#61

Lorsa

This thread certainly took on

This thread certainly took on a new direction. No matter how much I like to see it active, a deep investigation on pregnancy in Eclipse Phase and the various problems it might have in all kinds of gravity environments might warrant its own thread. If nothing else because people who might be interested in that might not know to look in [i]this[/i] thread as while procreation can be a result of sexuality it's not always the case.

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Wed, 2014-07-02 18:50

#62

Urthdigger Urthdigger's picture

Well, on a semi-related

Well, on a semi-related subject and one dear to my heart, let's discuss pods and sex. Googleshng, you mentioned one exception to pods being infertile in Transhuman. I assume you're talking about the mention of scurriers having heat cycles? I don't necessarily think that means fertility, simply that they have the urges and equipment, which it's fair to assume pods have. We know pleasure pods do, biological things are assumed to be gendered (sexed? What's the trans-friendly term to say they have male and female parts and physical organs are actually what matter here?), and to get meta-gamey any pod can take the sex switch mod, which assumes genitals. So, it's probably safe to say pods can have sex, but it's explicitly stated they can't reproduce. Why? I imagine this is more than just a matter of being genefixed that way like uplifts are, otherwise they too would likely have genehackers removing that. My own personal take is that due to their partly synthetic nature, their DNA just doesn't create enough to live without the machines. They can be grown in a lab, but a womb just isn't enough life support (alternatively, their organ failure causes them death after birth?) However, I'm not sure all pods are synthetic enough for that to be the case. Scurriers for example seem entirely biological aside from the tail and cyberbrain (and I'm pretty sure it's stated pods are grown with underdeveloped brains that are replaced with cyberbrains, so they wouldn't be brainless. So yeah, started rambling there, but I'm curious how others interpret pod infertility.

Wed, 2014-07-02 21:56

#63

Erulastant Erulastant's picture

Urthdigger wrote:

Urthdigger wrote:
...biological things are assumed to be gendered (sexed? What's the trans-friendly term to say they have male and female parts and physical organs are actually what matter here?)...

I usually just use sex to refer to biology. Alternately, just say what you mean, for example: "We know pleasure pods do, biological things are assumed to have genitals". Minimizes confusion.

Quote:
I imagine this is more than just a matter of being genefixed that way like uplifts are, otherwise they too would likely have genehackers removing that. My own personal take is that due to their partly synthetic nature, their DNA just doesn't create enough to live without the machines. They can be grown in a lab, but a womb just isn't enough life support (alternatively, their organ failure causes them death after birth?) However, I'm not sure all pods are synthetic enough for that to be the case. Scurriers for example seem entirely biological aside from the tail and cyberbrain (and I'm pretty sure it's stated pods are grown with underdeveloped brains that are replaced with cyberbrains, so they wouldn't be brainless.

I usually interpret it as being due to the half-synth nature as well, but in a different way. Why bother to stick a real uterus in the pod, when it's basically just a liability? (Seriously. 99% of transhumans aren't going to want to be able to get pregnant, and given the choice I think most who prefer female biology would probably opt out of the periods. So why go to all the effort to add those in?) Of course, this doesn't hold water as well with the morphs with penises, because the penis-testicle system is relatively simple, and you probably want the whole thing to be made of flesh rather than metal, since most customers choose pods in order to get something more like a biomorph. It is my understanding that most pod tissue is not that different from similar biomorph tissue. The DNA is also very similar. It's not like they deliberately had significant parts of their DNA removed--That doesn't accomplish anything for the pod-makers, and it takes time and investment--They just weren't grown as a single organism, and the tissues that take longer to grow are made synthetically instead. (I'd actually say that some pods, like the scurriers, might be able to reproduce, unless specifically designed to be infertile.)

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You, too, were made by humans. The methods used were just cruder, imprecise. I guess that explains a lot.

Wed, 2014-07-02 22:57

#64

Googleshng Googleshng's picture

Lorsa wrote:a deep

Lorsa wrote:
a deep investigation on pregnancy in Eclipse Phase and the various problems it might have in all kinds of gravity environments might warrant its own thread.

Noted. Let's send this derail over here: http://eclipsephase.com/where-do-little-morphs-come-and-related-discussion

Fri, 2014-07-04 09:17

#65

ThatWhichNeverWas ThatWhichNeverWas's picture

Sorry about the delay. Life keeps getting in my way.

otohime1978 wrote:
People after getting plastic surgery on their face often times do not recognize their own reflection in the mirror for a few years. It takes time for their body image to change to its current form in dreams.

Looking like yourself in dreams is a thing? Huh. Live and learn, I guess.

otohime1978 wrote:
Mayhaps it was an oversight by the PS+ crew?

It's only an oversight if integration/alienation means something as mundane as physical self-image. I read it more as the existential problems from inhabiting a new body, with the implicit questioning of whether you are a real person or a simple copy of another person who is now dead and what does it even mean to be alive and so forth. Integration, on the other hand, seems to be more... literal... as in failing means that there's a software conflict in your head and you're trying to breath with your kidneys. As an aside, there's an interesting question – does your “physical” self-image even come with you when you resleeve, or is that part of the brain simply left behind, so it automatically switches to the new morph. It makes sense to me, considering that anyone who sleeves into an octomorph can instantly use the excess limbs without to much trouble.

otohime1978 wrote:
But clearly men do see the world in similar ways.

Not really. Check out the Gender Similarities Hypothesis. The best you can really say is that those who identify as male/female have a slightly greater chance of possessing a specific behavioral trait.

Lorsa wrote:
You are right that the concept of the gender is an emotional/mental thing. It's not so much "how you view the world" but rather how you view yourself and want others to view you.

This is kinda my point. Once you have removed physical gender and bigotry from the equation, then what's left? Gender is important today because of reasons. If those reasons disappear; if gender no longer effects your options, nor how other people treat you... then it's no longer a meaningful quality.

—

In the past we've had to compensate for weaknesses, finding quick solutions that only benefit a few. But what if we never need to feel weak or morally conflicted again?

Fri, 2014-07-04 10:36

#66

otohime1978 otohime1978's picture

BS

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:
Not really. Check out the Gender Similarities Hypothesis. The best you can really say is that those who identify as male/female have a slightly greater chance of possessing a specific behavioral trait.

It's full of shit and a gross misunderstanding of gender, along with the things it are trying to refute. It's all shit. Every single bit of it. Neurology takes a big hit at it. Gender studies are full of shit in general. There are differences. They're just not what everyone seems to think they are; and the differences everyone seems to think they are are actually just social and complex manifestations of these differences.

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:
Looking like yourself in dreams is a thing? Huh. Live and learn, I guess.

I rarely see myself or even feature in the dreams I remember, personally. I'm usually a disembodied viewer of events involving others. When I do feature in my own dreams, I either have no reflection in mirrors, or what I see isn't even me and it's some twisted nightmarish horror. My voice is consistent, though, and the main constant in my dreams.

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:
This is kinda my point. Once you have removed physical gender and bigotry from the equation, then what's left?

I exist. I'm intersexed. I don't have a physical gender in the traditional sense. Yet I still internally see myself as female regardless of what life has handed me and how various people have treated me and tried to raise me as. It was a big contentious fight with my parents since before I can remember and there still is an undercurrent of it with my mother. And bigotry and prejudice will never go away. People will treat you differently based off how you are seen and how they make first impressions off of you. It is simply a manifestation of sapience and recognition of patterns, and it is unavoidable. This is why I hate discussing stuff like this with you people. It's all disembodied theory to you. You don't actually live it.

—

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Fri, 2014-07-04 11:29

#67

Erulastant Erulastant's picture

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:
It's only an oversight if integration/alienation means something as mundane as physical self-image. I read it more as the existential problems from inhabiting a new body, with the implicit questioning of whether you are a real person or a simple copy of another person who is now dead and what does it even mean to be alive and so forth. Integration, on the other hand, seems to be more... literal... as in failing means that there's a software conflict in your head and you're trying to breath with your kidneys. As an aside, there's an interesting question – does your “physical” self-image even come with you when you resleeve, or is that part of the brain simply left behind, so it automatically switches to the new morph. It makes sense to me, considering that anyone who sleeves into an octomorph can instantly use the excess limbs without to much trouble.

What you're thinking of for the Alienation test is covered by the Continuity test, but I agree with your assessment of the Integration test. I really don't like the current Alienation mechanics, because I have life experience that could very well be described as a failed alienation test, and it's significantly different than the listed effects of failed tests. (A one-time gift of stress points does [i]not[/i] do a good job of representing this in my mind.)

otohime1978 wrote:
This is why I hate discussing stuff like this with you people. It's all disembodied theory to you. You don't actually live it.

I'm with you on this point. It can be really frustrating to see people trying to explain what gender is and why it's important/not important, and dismissing others/our very real life experiences to do so.

Quote:
And bigotry and prejudice will never go away. People will treat you differently based off how you are seen and how they make first impressions off of you. It is simply a manifestation of sapience and recognition of patterns, and it is unavoidable.

I'm not sure, but I think some of the people saying gender-based discrimination will be gone are saying that the bigotry will have shifted to other axes. Which is plausible. (I'd be surprised though, unless by gender-based discrimination they mean cis male/cis female discrimination in which case, sure, that will probably be significantly lessened, but you're [i]missing the point[/i].)

—

You, too, were made by humans. The methods used were just cruder, imprecise. I guess that explains a lot.

Fri, 2014-07-04 15:56

#68

Lorsa

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:
Gender is important today because of reasons. If those reasons disappear; if gender no longer effects your options, nor how other people treat you... then it's no longer a meaningful quality.

I think you're mistaken in your belief of why gender is important and for what reasons. I am 100% certain that in the Eclipse Phase world there's a habitat where everyone is treated as completely androgynous and where the aim is to get rid of the usual concept of gender. There might even be such descriptions in the books and I just haven't seen it (I've not read everything after all). Interestingly enough that sort of habitat just proves that gender IS important and it would attract the sort of people that already identifies as being androgynous. Some people would be terrified at the thought of living in such a place whereas others would welcome it. Because gender is important. Do you really think people in Eclipse Phase would be so far removed from us as to being indifferent to the whole idea (which is what is required for gender to be meaningless)?

otohime1978 wrote:
There are differences. They're just not what everyone seems to think they are; and the differences everyone seems to think they are are actually just social and complex manifestations of these differences.

I've tried to find quality sources that can describe [i]actual[/i] gender-based differences and it's been extremely hard to find. If you happen to have any real info I'd be very happy to read it.

Erulastant wrote:
I really don't like the current Alienation mechanics, because I have life experience that could very well be described as a failed alienation test, and it's significantly different than the listed effects of failed tests. (A one-time gift of stress points does not do a good job of representing this in my mind.)

I don't like it either. I've always thought it would be some sort of continuous form of stress, like a d10 per month or something similar or perhaps Margin of Failure stress per month. In any case a one-time (very low) gift doesn't really cut it at all. Hell, I can suffer alienation problems just by getting a severly different haircut.

otohime1978 wrote:
And bigotry and prejudice will never go away. People will treat you differently based off how you are seen and how they make first impressions off of you. It is simply a manifestation of sapience and recognition of patterns, and it is unavoidable.

And I will do my very best to work against it. I really really hope that bigotry and prejudice isn't unavoidable and that people will come to realise it's based on faulty thinking (conclusions based on unrelated data) and just stop doing it. But then again I'm known for being a hopeless idealist.

—

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Fri, 2014-07-04 18:27

#69

Urthdigger Urthdigger's picture

otohime1978 wrote:

otohime1978 wrote:
This is why I hate discussing stuff like this with you people. It's all disembodied theory to you. You don't actually live it.

Then explain it so we can somewhat understand it. Disembodied theory may not accomplish much, but neither does stating a problem exists without clarifying the problem further or presenting possible solutions. I've heard you state plenty of times on the forums that you face discrimination, can't trust anyone, and in general have a bad life, but I think this is the first time you've even mentioned what's causing the problem (Being born intersexed). I was born a CIS white male, but issues of gender/race issues fascinate me BECAUSE I wasn't born that way, and open my eyes to other problems that must be solved. Just because someone doesn't share your struggle doesn't make them an indifferent and callous individual who hates you. It simply makes them ignorant and in need of teaching.

Fri, 2014-07-04 19:02

#70

Lorsa

Urthdigger wrote:Then explain

Urthdigger wrote:
Then explain it so we can somewhat understand it. Disembodied theory may not accomplish much, but neither does stating a problem exists without clarifying the problem further or presenting possible solutions. I've heard you state plenty of times on the forums that you face discrimination, can't trust anyone, and in general have a bad life, but I think this is the first time you've even mentioned what's causing the problem (Being born intersexed). I was born a CIS white male, but issues of gender/race issues fascinate me BECAUSE I wasn't born that way, and open my eyes to other problems that must be solved. Just because someone doesn't share your struggle doesn't make them an indifferent and callous individual who hates you. It simply makes them ignorant and in need of teaching.

I would like to point out that although nice when it happens, it really shouldn't be the burden of people struggling with these issues to educate others. It sometimes often ends up being that way, which just makes the problem even harder because not only do you struggle with your own self-image and society's rejection, you [i]also[/i] have to educate ignoran people. That's at the very [i]least[/i] two struggles too many. However, you looking for information and insight IS a good thing and luckily there's plenty of information out there, both people sharing their life story to more clinical information. If you want, feel free to PM some of your questions and I'll do my very best to answer them.

—

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Fri, 2014-07-04 21:31

#71

Urthdigger Urthdigger's picture

My issue is that their

My issue is that their comment implied the burden of explaining DOES fall to the people suffering, as they basically said "You shouldn't discuss this unless you personally suffer from it." Which does make me wonder what they want. Should the majority just ignore them and pretend there is no problem?

Fri, 2014-07-04 21:31

#72

Urthdigger Urthdigger's picture

My issue is that their

Double post

Fri, 2014-07-04 23:16

#73

kindalas

I know I...

I know I commented earlier in the thread. But now I am going to have to recuse myself from it. [color=red]I'm watching this thread.[/color] I can see emotions and tempers starting to flare. But I also see a lot of excellent discussion here. Please play nice. Kindalas

—

I am a Moderator of this Forum [color=red]My mod voice is red.[/color] The Eclipse Phase Character sheet is downloadable here: [url=http://sites.google.com/site/eclipsephases/home/cabinet] Get it here![/url]

Sat, 2014-07-05 22:44

#74

Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:This

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:
This is kinda my point. Once you have removed physical gender and bigotry from the equation, then what's left?

Self-image, societal organization, etc. Bigotry is a strong word with strong, reflexive connotations. While outward manifestations of it in the stronger sense may diminish, the smaller ones likely never will, because bigotry is a result of generalizations and generalizations are necessary for how humans function. We can't possibly recognize every individual entity in our surroundings as unique, we have to build up simple rules for understanding them. This goes back to something I mentioned earlier in the thread: I don't think that, in the transhuman future, people would be discriminating against gays or lesbians or what might be called "common" transgender people (i.e. those who use different gender pronouns than their biological sex, or who were born one sex and prefer another, and, for sensitivities sake, I use the word common purely because it's the most well-known public conception), because they're something they understand now. They're a part of society, a part of the background noise, and the mesh makes identifying such things [i]easy[/i]. In other words, as long as people are willing to put themselves in the neat little boxes society has allotted for them, people will probably treat them as normal and socially acceptable. People who go outside those easily defined boxes, though, are different. Someone whose status as what gender they prefer changes daily is going to confuse and annoy people. Someone who refuses to include these sorts of details in their mesh ID, the same. Others still who make themselves true hermaphrodites (biological term here) are going to likely also cause upset. People want neat little boxes they can stuff others into. So long as there are non-conformists who do not fit broad definitions, there will always be tutting and lack of social accommodation, at the very least. Similarly, self-image is important. We attach a lot to notions of masculinity/femininity. Our bodies inform that. Even if we abandon the notions of masculine/feminine, other aspects still remain important in regards to our biology and our social status, especially in a society that HASN'T abandoned these things. A lot of transhumans are still going to run along notions of masculine/feminine gender, and, unless you live in a really isolated colony that doesn't speak to anyone, where no-one has a gender, you have to at least define yourself by refusal. Its presence imposes itself. I babbled on for way longer than I intended to here, but... I felt like taking a shot at an answer here.

—

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Tue, 2014-07-08 08:56

#75

ThatWhichNeverWas ThatWhichNeverWas's picture

I see the light at the end of the Carpal-Tunnel...

otohime1978 wrote:
Gender studies are full of shit in general.

*Sigh* Fine. But that means all we have is anecdotal evidence, which means we're in a “Yes they are/No they're not” situation. I use the GSH because it's a metastudy, which tend to be more reliable, and it lines up with my personal experiences.

otohime1978 wrote:
I exist. I'm intersexed. I don't have a physical gender in the traditional sense. Yet I still internally see myself as female regardless of what life has handed me and how various people have treated me and tried to raise me as. … This is why I hate discussing stuff like this with you people. It's all disembodied theory to you. You don't actually live it.

This isn't an issue that's confined to any specific group, it's applicable to anyone who has gender, regardless of specifics. Otherwise I wouldn't be weighing in at all. You're female, but that's a singularly unhelpful fact without you telling us what that means for you. The fact that you're intersexed is largely irrelevant. I'll answer these two comments at once:

Erulastant wrote:
I'm not sure, but I think some of the people saying gender-based discrimination will be gone are saying that the bigotry will have shifted to other axes.

Lorsa wrote:
Do you really think people in Eclipse Phase would be so far removed from us as to being indifferent to the whole idea (which is what is required for gender to be meaningless)?

I think that in EP gender-bias is simply no longer possible, and without it gender is no longer of consequence. Imagine that morph-swapping becomes a reality. Suddenly you can no longer tell (guess) what gender an individual is simply by looking. So you try and work it out from how they act... and that fails hard. The only way to tell someone's gender is if they tell you. The thing is... pretty quickly, people are going to stop saying what gender they are, or actively lying about it, because that way they can avoid discrimination. Without having a public gender to define what activities they should be ashamed of doing, they can indulge all their interests equally, no longer having to hide those parts of themselves that don't gel with the stereotype. Likewise, they can apply for the jobs they want, and expect truly equal treatment. Companies may try to force employees to reveal their gender, but as this information can only be used for discriminatory purposes, a lawsuit or two should kill that pretty quickly. So there we have a world without gender bias, because you can't tell who to be biased towards. After that gender simply ceases to be a feature in people's lives. They think about it less and less, until at some point they simply can't remember any more. This doesn't mean treating everybody as though they were androgynous. It means that if you see an [Insert Appropriately Sexed Morph Here] at a bar, who you can talk to for hours and can make you laugh until beer shoots through your nose and floats across the room (“Microgravity! It's disgusting!”), and has a body to die for... you won't waste time wondering if the ego was originally sleeved as a male/female/neuter/hermaphrodite/octopus/spacewhale/not having a body at all, actually a planetary defence array that ran off to become a surfer. Maybe bias in general is endemic to humanity, and we'll have to wait to become posthuman to eliminate it utterly, but gender doesn't need to be a factor. There are many other things to be biased against. Like happy-morning-people. Or Gnomes. ... I hate them so much.

Lorsa wrote:
I would like to point out that although nice when it happens, it really shouldn't be the burden of people struggling with these issues to educate others.

It kinda has to be, because no-one else can. It's not just with gender, but any issue that goes beyond the experience of the average individual. Yes, I have experience with this. No, I will not go into it here.

—

In the past we've had to compensate for weaknesses, finding quick solutions that only benefit a few. But what if we never need to feel weak or morally conflicted again?

Tue, 2014-07-08 10:28

#76

otohime1978 otohime1978's picture

But it is

...but being intersexed is relevant as I know what it is like to have people place gender expectations upon you in random ways. Even when my parents would tell people I was a boy and dressed me as such, people always thought I was a girl by how I talked and moved. And even though I was asigned male at birth, [i]I still knew otherwise.[/i] If gender was irrelevant and artificial as you say, then why would I feel these things? Why would people like me, David Reimer, and transsexuals exist? Fuck, [url=http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/how-male-female-brains-differ?page... [url=http://www.bbc.com/news/health-25198063]has shown[/url] that there are differences between the sexes; and [url=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7477289]transsexuals[/url] and intersexed people tend to have brains that match up with what they report. There is a lot more, but I am lazy. Be sure to read the sample methods, they can be really gross in attempting sample bias before testing. Even when swapping bodies, people will probably try to go out of their way to get one which matches up with their gender. I mean, sure, everyone will try another gender's body for shits and giggles, but I doubt most of them will keep with it. You are going to have a hard time finding someone in a biomorph or morph that looks human whose body doesn't match their gender, considering how cheap and easy it is to rectify that issue. Gender roles might shift and change. But gender is pretty innate. Sorry, but neuroscience is agreeing with the gender essentialists and laughing in the face of modern "post gender" feminism. Unless, of course, they modify your ego to align with the sex of the morph you sleeve into. That has all kinds of squick considerations. If you are your ego, but that along with everything that makes you [i]you[/i] can be changed at a whim from an outside source as a course of daily measure, then who are you really? How can you trust anything you experience, assuming it is even you experiencing these things and just not someone else being tricked into believing they are you. Congrats on failing your continuity checks due to memories not lining up with your current self.

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:
There are many other things to be biased against. Like happy-morning-people.

I'm one of those people. Sun comes up, and I'm like a bouncing puppy.

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:
Or Gnomes. ... I hate them so much.

Gnomes! [color=red]D:<[/color]

—

[size=6][i]...your vision / a homunculus on borrowed time Katya Bio: http://eclipsephase.com/comment/46253#comment-46253

Tue, 2014-07-08 10:44

#77

ShadowDragon8685 ShadowDragon8685's picture

Honestly, I'd just assume

Honestly, I'd just assume that as part of those "Patches" applied to people's egoes to make them better able to sleeve into a new morph, it would include the necessary alterations to make them not have an immediate visceral freak-out at waking up with a vagina where they expected a penis. Any horror arising from that, or from the tomato in the mirror effect, would be purely intellectual, not instinctual. Not saying that intellectual horror can't be bad, but I imagine it would be something you could get over with time and practice, like overcoming an intense dislike of vegetables common to practically every youngster ever.

—

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Tue, 2014-07-08 10:54

#78

otohime1978 otohime1978's picture

Patches

But then it'd turn into Ghost in the Shell where everyone is the major. She acts cool and collected, but on the inside, she is terrified, resigning solemnly to her fate. This might be why most scum and the like party so hard. In the back of their minds, they know. The party is merely a distraction. EDIT: Manga and Movie GitS. Not SAC.

—

[size=6][i]...your vision / a homunculus on borrowed time Katya Bio: http://eclipsephase.com/comment/46253#comment-46253

Tue, 2014-07-08 12:32

#79

Panoptic

Not having run or played EP

Not having run or played EP yet, I'll talk in theoreticals. I don't see a huge emphasis on gender and sexuality as something that would improve the quality of an EP campaign I'd be likely to run. Sure, there will be people in my take on the solar system for whom it will be a big deal, but I'm more interested in focusing on other aspects of the setting.

—

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Tue, 2014-07-08 16:41

#80

Googleshng Googleshng's picture

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:The

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:
The thing is... pretty quickly, people are going to stop saying what gender they are, or actively lying about it, because that way they can avoid discrimination. Without having a public gender to define what activities they should be ashamed of doing, they can indulge all their interests equally, no longer having to hide those parts of themselves that don't gel with the stereotype. Likewise, they can apply for the jobs they want, and expect truly equal treatment. Companies may try to force employees to reveal their gender, but as this information can only be used for discriminatory purposes, a lawsuit or two should kill that pretty quickly. So there we have a world without gender bias, because you can't tell who to be biased towards. After that gender simply ceases to be a feature in people's lives. They think about it less and less, until at some point they simply can't remember any more. This doesn't mean treating everybody as though they were androgynous. It means that if you see an [Insert Appropriately Sexed Morph Here] at a bar, who you can talk to for hours and can make you laugh until beer shoots through your nose and floats across the room (“Microgravity! It's disgusting!”), and has a body to die for... you won't waste time wondering if the ego was originally sleeved as a male/female/neuter/hermaphrodite/octopus/spacewhale/not having a body at all, actually a planetary defence array that ran off to become a surfer.

You kinda seem to be blurring some important lines here. Most of this relates to sexism a lot more than it relates to gender identity issues, and even there, the root causes of some of these issues don't seem to be addressed. Starting off with the bar bit- If you're the transphobic sort, you're totally going to wonder if anyone who strikes you as attractive has always been the sex they currently appear to be. People already do that plenty often now, and it's much harder now to change that. The one thing that is true here is that it's a safe bet anyone with a choice in the matter is going to have a morph that fully matches their gender identity, so our flirty transphobe there isn't likely to spot some sort of obvious sign that his virile instincts have steered him wrong and caused him to compromise his masculinity by hitting on some sort of "untrue" woman. He's only likely to end up in that sort of "crisis" if he later discovers something he missed on an examination of the flirtee's romantic history via the mesh, or if someone is actively messing with him about his weird hang-ups. There's a potential issue on the other side of that though. Let's say you were born with a male morph, stuck with it for a good 25, 30 years, ignoring certain things, then finally admit to yourself one day that you're really a woman. Not a big deal on a lot of fronts, because hey, you can totally make your morph match... but in this setting, nobody has any real privacy at all. There will be records of what you used to look like that anyone can pull up with no real effort, and you're going to have to deal with all the associated judgements and "it's probably just a phase" talk from people. Which, again, present day is a pretty severe problem, that causes a lot of trans people to have to completely abandon their life, move across the country, and change their name to avoid, and then you still see stuff about reporters digging into their personal history, finding the identity change moment, and then blabbing about it because "what a scoop!" Now, on the work front. Honestly, I'm not really sure what your logic is here, in terms of what sort of jobs one couldn't currently get in the real world based on their sex or gender identity. Well, can think of a couple examples. If you're a man who for some reason really wants to work as a Hooters waitress, or you're a woman who wants to be treated with respect in any of the STEM fields. In either of those cases, sure, you'd have the option of changing your sex to better fit in, although you'd have to really want the job to go against your own gender idenity for it. Still, it's doable... ... and because it's doable, a lot of anti-discrimination laws may well fall off the books. Right now, if you run an organization that only hires men "because we don't want to be distracted by a bunch of women running around" or a restaurant that only hires incredibly busty redheads, hey, people are going to object pretty strongly to that, because you're refusing to hire them for superficial reasons outside of their control. But when anyone (who can afford it) has the ability to change anything about their body, suddenly you're just enforcing a dress code. Again, in most cases it just isn't going to be worth it, but you know it's going to come up for some really prestigious high paying jobs here and there, because bigshot CEOs with more money than they know what to do with love arbitrary exercises of power for power's sake. You want to work on my personal security staff? You're going to have to sleeve into a fury designed to conform precisely to my tastes, and sign this waver against any sexual harassment claims. You want to be head of marketing? You better prove it by walking in here with a smokin' hot sylph morph. And remember, 6 out of 10 companies we regularly deal with have a thing for blondes with southeast Asian bonestructure. Now, say you're one of these people. The male Hooters waitress, the female brogrammer, someone high up in the company from that last example, or you just farcasted in and due to a shortage, you're stuck with a morph of the wrong sex. You had a hard day at work and just want to go relax at some bar. Well now, you're very attractive, and you're drinking alone, and surrounded by a ton of people who are just naturally going to assume you're totally content with that morph of yours because the vast majority of people are, and you wouldn't come into a bar by yourself if you weren't interested in hooking up with someone, so, there's something you're going to have to deal with all night. Plus appearances alone are going to subject you to plenty of sexist treatment. You can use any MUD or MMO as a case study there. Everyone is free to pick a male or female avatar, and there's no particular reason to assume someone's male or female based on it, but if you pick female, you're going to get a lot of creepy flirting and harassment, along with people constantly assuming you don't really know what you're doing no matter how much progress you've managed to make. I could only imagine that being worse in the real world, where sexist types can then pile on a bunch of crazy talk about how anyone who didn't want someone to take care of them and make all the important decisions wouldn't be voluntarily walking around in some "weak helpless" morph that's "just designed to be attractive." Of course, there's also totally something to be said for running a campaign on the assumption that all these depressingly common hang-ups and prejudices have somehow managed to disappear, because hey, it's bad enough having to deal with all that in the real world, let's just have some fun confident empowered characters running around doing crazy stuff to relax when we're sitting down with an RPG.

Tue, 2014-07-08 19:01

#81

otohime1978 otohime1978's picture

At least someone in here gets

At least someone in here gets it.

Panoptic wrote:
I don't see a huge emphasis on gender and sexuality as something that would improve the quality of an EP campaign I'd be likely to run. Sure, there will be people in my take on the solar system for whom it will be a big deal, but I'm more interested in focusing on other aspects of the setting.

Yeah, this would be subsumed under alienation and existential crisis in general.

—

[size=6][i]...your vision / a homunculus on borrowed time Katya Bio: http://eclipsephase.com/comment/46253#comment-46253

Mon, 2014-07-14 11:44

#82

ThatWhichNeverWas ThatWhichNeverWas's picture

I really need to set aside more time for the internet.

otohime1978 wrote:
...but being intersexed is relevant as I know what it is like to have people place gender expectations upon you in random ways. Even when my parents would tell people I was a boy and dressed me as such, people always thought I was a girl by how I talked and moved. And even though I was asigned male at birth, [i]I still knew otherwise.[/i] If gender was irrelevant and artificial as you say, then why would I feel these things? Why would people like me, David Reimer, and transsexuals exist?

Googleshng wrote:
You kinda seem to be blurring some important lines here. Most of this relates to sexism a lot more than it relates to gender identity issues, and even there, the root causes of some of these issues don't seem to be addressed.

Gender is important today, and that's because of sexism. To have gender is to be judged by a code of conduct – one that we are trained in from birth. There are ways that people of a given gender are “supposed” to act – how to dress, how to talk, what to like, how to move - and if they don't then they're punished, from mild mockery all the way up to physical assault, rape and murder, depending upon the level of the transgression. If you find yourself not acting or feeling the way you think you “should”,then it's one of the worst feelings in the world. You ask yourself whether there's something wrong with you; whether you're broken, perverse or even just plain evil. It's a torturous and self-destructive way to live. Remove that judgement... if you can act, dress and speak the way you want to without censure... then gender is no longer an issue, and transsexuals are simply people who were tragically born with the wrong sexual organs/body format – a medical issue, not one of society or identity.

otohime1978 wrote:
Fuck, [url=http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/how-male-female-brains-differ?page... [url=http://www.bbc.com/news/health-25198063]has shown[/url] that there are differences between the sexes; and [url=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7477289]transsexuals[/url] and intersexed people tend to have brains that match up with what they report.

I'm aware, and that's why I said in my first post that your gender defined by the neurology of the morph you're currently wearing. It's kinda the whole point.

otohime1978 wrote:
Unless, of course, they modify your ego to align with the sex of the morph you sleeve into.

This is close to what I've been arguing all along, except the gender of the ego isn't changed; the gender specific components aren't uploaded in the first place. Download into a morph with a male neural architecture and you gain all the instincts, reflexes and assorted neural foibles associated with being male.

otohime1978 wrote:
If you are your ego, but that along with everything that makes you [i]you[/i] can be changed at a whim from an outside source as a course of daily measure, then who are you really? How can you trust anything you experience, assuming it is even you experiencing these things and just not someone else being tricked into believing they are you.

And that is exactly what the Alienation check is. Except you wrote the questions much better than I did. Hell, from a morph-centric point of view, tricking someone into believing they're you is exactly what resleeving is.

otohime1978 wrote:
This might be why most scum and the like party so hard. In the back of their minds, they know. The party is merely a distraction.

I like to think of the scum as the teens in every horror movie who think that the appropriate response to being hunted by a serial killer/alien/demon/shark/demonic-alien-shark is to, as they say in home country, “get bangin'”.

Googleshng wrote:
...our flirty transphobe there isn't likely to spot some sort of obvious sign that his virile instincts have steered him wrong and caused him to compromise his masculinity by hitting on some sort of "untrue" woman. He's only likely to end up in that sort of "crisis" if he later discovers something he missed on an examination of the flirtee's romantic history via the mesh, or if someone is actively messing with him about his weird hang-ups.

This is a good example of what I was talking about above; he's worrying about performing an act that is contrary to how “men should act”. It's also kind of odd; somehow he's avoided resleeving into anything other than a male morph his entire life – he hasn't even been an infomorph after the fall. That said, this guy must be really frustrated. Even if he's found someone born into, and currently inhabiting a female morph, it's a near certainty that she's at the very least been completely genderless, if not actually a man at, some point in her life if only because she had to wait for a vat for reassignment to be free after resleeving. Even worse, even if she's always been female, there's a solid chance that the morph she's wearing hasn't. Unless he's fine with getting groinal with a morph that used to be male. In which case he is a very specific kind of transphobe. True, he can look up her history on the mesh, but he's going to have to look up all of it to be sure, including forks both public and private, and digging that deeply and with that much detail into someone's past would probably raise some warning flags. With “Identity Theft” written on them in large, friendly letters.

Googleshng wrote:
There's a potential issue on the other side of that though. Let's say you were born with a male morph, stuck with it for a good 25, 30 years, ignoring certain things, then finally admit to yourself one day that you're really a woman. Not a big deal on a lot of fronts, because hey, you can totally make your morph match... but in this setting, nobody has any real privacy at all. There will be records of what you used to look like that anyone can pull up with no real effort, and you're going to have to deal with all the associated judgements and "it's probably just a phase" talk from people. Which, again, present day is a pretty severe problem, that causes a lot of trans people to have to completely abandon their life, move across the country, and change their name to avoid, and then you still see stuff about reporters digging into their personal history, finding the identity change moment, and then blabbing about it because "what a scoop!"

Present day, yes, it is absolutely shitty the lengths trans people (is there a better, snappier word for that? It's awkward to keep using trans-[noun] in sentences) have to go too to find some measure of acceptance. On the other hand, in EP, the guy has realized that his morph has a female neural architecture. So he spends 3 days in a tank getting everything sorted, and finds the results to her liking. She then goes on with her life as normal, because nothing significant has changed, except one of her co-workers asks her out on a date, and Sarah from accounting asks who she got the design from, because she's going to have to take a trip to a habitat to deliver some items, and she wants to be male for the weeks it'll take because it makes using the microgravity bathroom easier.

Googleshng wrote:
Now, on the work front. Honestly, I'm not really sure what your logic is here, in terms of what sort of jobs one couldn't currently get in the real world based on their sex or gender identity.

I didn't just mean those jobs that physically require a specific gender, I mean as a way to avoid stuff like hiring tendencies, glass ceilings, unequal pay, and unconscious discrimination. So yes, hooters waitresses, but also scientist, engineers, lawyers, programmers, professional athletes, managers, salespeople, butlers, maids.... you get the idea.

Googleshng wrote:
But when anyone (who can afford it) has the ability to change anything about their body, suddenly you're just enforcing a dress code.

Which I actually acknowledged in an earlier post. This would totally be a thing, regardless of the nature of gender.

Googleshng wrote:
Now, say you're one of these people. The male Hooters waitress, the female brogrammer, someone high up in the company from that last example, or you just farcasted in and due to a shortage, you're stuck with a morph of the wrong sex. You had a hard day at work and just want to go relax at some bar. Well now, you're very attractive, and you're drinking alone, and surrounded by a ton of people who are just naturally going to assume you're totally content with that morph of yours because the vast majority of people are, and you wouldn't come into a bar by yourself if you weren't interested in hooking up with someone, so, there's something you're going to have to deal with all night

Again, unwanted come-ons are a problem regardless of the nature of gender, or if the morph your in is to your preference or a job requirement. That's what mesh profiles and muses are for. Set your muse to auto-deny prospective suitors or set your physical gender flag to neutral, and you're free to enjoy your evening alone. On the other hand, you could just rent (or own if you've got enough money) an appropriately configured pod or masked synth, and use the puppet sock to jam it. Conversely, you could have your own morph but have to jam the company's when you're at work.

Googleshng wrote:
I could only imagine that being worse in the real world, where sexist types can then pile on a bunch of crazy talk about how anyone who didn't want someone to take care of them and make all the important decisions wouldn't be voluntarily walking around in some "weak helpless" morph that's "just designed to be attractive."

Also known as “Social Stigma (Pleasure Pod)”. Sorry about using so many quote boxes, but I couldn't figure out how to answer the relevant points more concisely.

—

In the past we've had to compensate for weaknesses, finding quick solutions that only benefit a few. But what if we never need to feel weak or morally conflicted again?

Mon, 2014-07-14 12:20

#83

otohime1978 otohime1978's picture

I still think you're talking

I still think you're talking over people who know more about this stuff than you, confusing issues, and not really getting it. I hate repeating myself too.

—

[size=6][i]...your vision / a homunculus on borrowed time Katya Bio: http://eclipsephase.com/comment/46253#comment-46253

Mon, 2014-07-14 14:25

#84

Smokeskin

Googleshng wrote:

Googleshng wrote:
Now, on the work front. Honestly, I'm not really sure what your logic is here, in terms of what sort of jobs one couldn't currently get in the real world based on their sex or gender identity. Well, can think of a couple examples. If you're a man who for some reason really wants to work as a Hooters waitress, or you're a woman who wants to be treated with respect in any of the STEM fields. In either of those cases, sure, you'd have the option of changing your sex to better fit in, although you'd have to really want the job to go against your own gender idenity for it. Still, it's doable...

I'm not really following your examples here. The Hooters waitress, that's a gender-specific job that can't be filled by a man, just like women can't be male strippers or be cast as Bill Clinton for a movie part. Mentioning that in the same sentence as needing to be a man to be treated with respect in STEM, what's that about? Aren't there are many respected female scientists?

Quote:
Plus appearances alone are going to subject you to plenty of sexist treatment. You can use any MUD or MMO as a case study there. Everyone is free to pick a male or female avatar, and there's no particular reason to assume someone's male or female based on it, but if you pick female, you're going to get a lot of creepy flirting and harassment, along with people constantly assuming you don't really know what you're doing no matter how much progress you've managed to make.

That's just plain false. I always play female avatars and try to make them look attractive. I don't remember ever getting any creepy comments. In WoW, I was in a top tier progression guild and for a long period I was the mentor of the rogue class, checking their performance and instructing those who needed it, without any problems. In SWTOR when our guild leader stopped playing I was selected as new guild leader. I have never had any problems like you mention from having a female avatar, over many years of play. The only issue is that some people with a limited theory of mind who personally like to identify with their avatar and don't understand why you'd play a female avatar, if they ask why we tell them that it is because we'd rather look at a female. And then they tend to get really defensive because they think we imply that they're homosexual.

Quote:
I could only imagine that being worse in the real world, where sexist types can then pile on a bunch of crazy talk about how anyone who didn't want someone to take care of them and make all the important decisions wouldn't be voluntarily walking around in some "weak helpless" morph that's "just designed to be attractive."

That comment "just to be attractive" has always struck me as so strange. It is obviously a HUGE advantage to be attractive and many people spend a lot of time and effort towards it - and then some people come along and call it "just to be attractive", like it's a minor thing?? That's some seriously poor observation skills...

Mon, 2014-07-14 16:41

#85

Erulastant Erulastant's picture

Smokeskin wrote:

Smokeskin wrote:
Mentioning that in the same sentence as needing to be a man to be treated with respect in STEM, what's that about? Aren't there are many respected female scientists?

Ahahahahahahahahahaha. ha. Yes there are. There are a great many respected women in STEM fields. There are a great many *more* respected men. And the big names that everyone hears about are all men. (Contemporaries like NDG Tyson or Bill Nye, and historical figures like Einstein, Pauli, Fermi, Bohr, Heisenberg, Feynman, etc.) But don't take my word for it. Pick a major university. Find their physics department webpage. (Or CS or engineering or chemistry or what have you). Look at the faculty list. For example, my university's physics department has 60 men and 5 women as faculty.

—

You, too, were made by humans. The methods used were just cruder, imprecise. I guess that explains a lot.

Mon, 2014-07-14 17:38

#86

Smokeskin

Erulastant wrote:Smokeskin

Erulastant wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:
Mentioning that in the same sentence as needing to be a man to be treated with respect in STEM, what's that about? Aren't there are many respected female scientists?
Ahahahahahahahahahaha. ha. Yes there are. There are a great many respected women in STEM fields. There are a great many *more* respected men. And the big names that everyone hears about are all men. (Contemporaries like NDG Tyson or Bill Nye, and historical figures like Einstein, Pauli, Fermi, Bohr, Heisenberg, Feynman, etc.) But don't take my word for it. Pick a major university. Find their physics department webpage. (Or CS or engineering or chemistry or what have you). Look at the faculty list. For example, my university's physics department has 60 men and 5 women as faculty.

I recently saw Cosmos, that new science show. Several episodes featured prominent female scientists. As to the ratio of men to women in a physics department, who says that has anything to do with a lack of respect for women? There are several factors you'd have to account for, like far fewer women seek natural science careers, women are less likely to go an a career track, and at the high end of intelligence men are overrepresented*. Let's not begin to see discrimination anywhere there isn't a 50:50 ratio. * please, don't get mad at me for that last part before actually looking at the studies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligence#Current_res... .

Mon, 2014-07-14 19:33

#87

Googleshng Googleshng's picture

Wow, that's a lot of stuff with my name in it there.

I don't want to make a big ol' all-encompassing wall of text reply here, but just addressing a few points from all that... Hypothetical bigots "must be really frustrated" as the pool of people they find acceptable shrinks more and more: Yes. That's pretty much bigotry works. The assumption that the average person is constantly going to be resleeving and sex-switching repeatedly over their lifetime: I'm not seeing it. I'm sure if you took an informal poll in this thread, it would back that notion up, but there's some serious sampling bias when everyone you're surveying is in a thread specifically about issues from swapping your sex around in an RPG where you're constantly swapping bodies around. My guess on how things would actually play out is something like this. Pre-fall, there is no real reason for anyone to be stuck with a morph whose sex they didn't ask for. There's no shortage of morphs to go around, nor much of any need to replace them. You can stick with what you started with, or have something custom tailored. The only time you might possibly not be able to be picky is if you're farcasting somewhere for a vacation or a business trip, but even then, I can't see anyone's pool of loaner morphs having a shortfall on one sex or the other. So, the only real reasons one would be doing the sex changing thing would be if they were transgender (currently less than 1% of the population, and in a pretty hefty chunk of those cases, it can be traced back to the sort of pre-natal irregularities that just aren't going to happen in a society that's doing the eugenics thing), you have to deal with an odd dress code issue like those examples I gave before (again, not at all a significant portion of the population), or you're doing the whole self-discovery experimentation thing. That one strikes me as likely to encompass a significant chunk of the population, although I'm not going to guess at the exact number. Still, you're going to have enormous social pressure coming from various places not to try it (probably with more acceptance of women taking a spin as a man than vice versa because that's how society tends to roll), so not everyone who's curious is going to really go for it, and I'd think most people would pretty quickly revert after sating their curiosity. So I don't so much see this suddenly genderfluid society with no concept of sexism cropping up, but I can totally see hitting a point where everyone who's reasonably open-minded has a friend or two who spent a month or two in college they spent genderbending. Probably a lot of associated teasing there too. Post-Fall, the situation changes a bit, but not enough time has really gone by there to fully shake things out. It tends to take more than 10 years for society as a whole to really change their perspective on something in the first place, and even then, getting sleeved into whatever morph you can get your hands on really isn't something most of the population is going to deal with. The vast majority of the population just plain doesn't have a morph, and while there's a lot to freak out about when you're just a big file on a server somewhere, gender identity wise you're still pretty much in the same boat as you were pre-fall. Then there's the clanking masses, who have a lot of issues to suddenly deal with, which include being suddenly sexless, but if you can afford a synth, cosmetically at least you have a sex of your own choosing, and if you're stuck with a case, it's just an issue of having nothing to reinforce your gender identity, not having something that conflicts with it. Most biomorphs though are still going to be the property of people who already had them pre-fall. The vast majority in fact, I would imagine. Anything that was previously around just for rentals or trading up suddenly has all these refugees from earth snatching it up, so sure, you have to get used to one out of every ten people you meet (maybe more, depends on the hab) suddenly being one of these immigrants who just took the first body they could afford, and even then, there should be about a 50/50 gender split between people suddenly in the market for a morph, and morphs available on the market. If sex is your top priority, you shouldn't have any problem getting the one you want. If you're really desperate for a particular morph type that's in short supply, in a particular hab, there's a chance the only one left in stock is the wrong sex, but again, not an issue for the bulk of the population, so it's not something you can expect Joe Martian and Jane Venusian to have a lot of firsthand experience dealing with. Not getting hit on in a bar because you throw up a big Not Interested flag via the mesh: That isn't going to do any good against the sort of creeps who troll bars looking for one night stands, and your muse can't shield you from cat calls, butt slaps, or people just sitting uncomfortably close. The premise that looking into someone's history via the mesh would "raise some warning flags. With 'Identity Theft' written on them in large, friendly letters" with regards to seeing if this is the sex they've always had: No it wouldn't. It is a fundamental assumption of the setting that nobody has any sort of privacy in that regard. Even less so than people have today, and that's already something that can be really trivially researched without making any sort of special requests for private records. Having one morph for your job with sexist requirements and another for going out on the town: This is totally not going to be an option if you're taking the job out of desperation. It's totally an option with the corrupt CEO wanting nothing but hot gals working directly under him, but you're still going to have to deal with all the sexual harassment at work. Not personally dealing with creeps in MMOs: There's a lot of potential for variation here depending what you're playing and how well you're selling the false identity. If people are asking you why you're playing a female character, it's reasonable to assume those people believe you to be male. To really make a proper social experiment out of it, you'd want to try this with some new game, ideally one that encourages actual roleplaying, bonus points if it's text based and you don't have that staring-at-your-character's-butt logic in play, and throw in with a party of strangers. "Just designed to be attractive" morphs: It's not a question of attractiveness not having obvious perks. It's a question of people taking this attitude that you are making yourself look attractive (regardless of how much effort actually being spent on it) to manipulate people into constantly giving you free stuff and various other perks, while the people making these comments have to seriously work and personally earn anything they want. A lot of it is really a projection thing about being too easily swayed by a pretty face and a lot of it is this weird sort of "I'm awesome, so whatever physical and mental traits I believe myself to excel with are clearly better than the ones I come up short on." STEM sexism: I'm just going to cut this response out to a separate post so it's easier to delete entirely if it turns out to be contentious.

Mon, 2014-07-14 19:41

#88

Googleshng Googleshng's picture

And yeah, the STEM thing

There is this seriously ugly situation in the world today where these sorts of careers are pretty much a boy's club, and very resistant to changing that. Hard to say how it started. Could be that these are traditionally "really nerdy" jobs where upper management still has a bunch of holdovers from when there was a weird divide in what sort of higher level education was available to men and women, a lot of people currently working in the field definitely come from that last generation to really absorb a ton of weird media portrayals of "nerds" as uniformly male and rejected by women, with the same sort of weird resulting baggage that leads to comic con witch hunts for "fake geek girls." A big part of it involves taking those studies about male and female brains being better suited to math and verbal problem solving and ludicrously exaggerating them to the point where they convince themselves women just flat out can't comprehend higher level math or truly engage in rational thought. Programmers in particular have this weird sense of pride about basically living at the office, putting in huge amounts of overtime, and have a fair deal of difficulty picturing women with that same unhealthy level of dedication. It's all pretty firmly entrenched though, to the point where college professors will just blatantly tell women they're wasting time in their classes and should switch majors, and I've seen articles by trans people in these fields talking about the profound, instantaneous effect changing their names had on their peers taking their work seriously (in both directions). There's a lot of groups out there just actively bending over backwards to get some women into those industries and hopefully tip the scales back some. Then of course there's the subset of the programming field dedicated to developing videogames, where there's just so much raw naked misogyny in the pot you don't even need to work in the industry to see it bubbling over constantly. Seriously. You've got big international companies really taking it on the chin, as they not only refuse to hire any women, but stubbornly ignore the possibilities that any of their customers might be women, and if you ever try to call them out on it, you'd better be prepared to drop off the face of the earth for a month or two, because boy are there ever a lot of people in that neck of the woods who can't handle anyone questioning their status quo.

Mon, 2014-07-14 20:06

#89

Smokeskin

Well, if there's something

Well, if there's something driving women away from programming, at least here in Denmark it starts way before the workplace, and even before college/university. I studied comp science and math and iirc we started with 7 girls out of 130 students in my year. All the natural science departments were like that except for biology and environmental. I doubt it has changed much since I went there. About the dedication and working hours, iirc the US has the highest ratio of women executives in the world and Denmark is very far down the list. So there are probably differences. But do you have any data on it? The stuff I've seen for Denmark show very large differences in work hours between the genders. I'm playing WildStar (a new MMO) currently, I'll make a thread on the forums about it. I've always been very active in the communities and forums in the MMOs I've played and I've never heard of anything like what you describe. I seriously doubt it is something that happens. It also sounds very strange that people would assume that female avatars have female players - chances are there's a man behind a female avatar and afaik most people know it.

Mon, 2014-07-14 22:54

#90

Erulastant Erulastant's picture

Smokeskin wrote:

Smokeskin wrote:
Well, if there's something driving women away from programming, at least here in Denmark it starts way before the workplace, and even before college/university. I studied comp science and math and iirc we started with 7 girls out of 130 students in my year. All the natural science departments were like that except for biology and environmental. I doubt it has changed much since I went there.

Yes. Yes it does. It happens as kids, when boys are encouraged to be scientists and girls are not. It happens in high school when girls are encouraged to study

Smokeskin wrote:
As to the ratio of men to women in a physics department, who says that has anything to do with a lack of respect for women? There are several factors you'd have to account for, like far fewer women seek natural science careers, women are less likely to go an a career track, and at the high end of intelligence men are overrepresented*. Let's not begin to see discrimination anywhere there isn't a 50:50 ratio.

First: Why do you think fewer women seek natural science/comp sci/engineering careers? It's largely because a) They have fewer role models because female scientists are not given the publicity of male ones (And are scarcer, hooray for positive feedback loops), b) They are generally conditioned from a young age to pursue other careers, and c) The ones smart enough to reach the top of their field are also smart enough to recognize the sexism present and may be driven off by that. Second: This isn't "[seeing] discrimination anywhere there isn't a 50:50 ratio", this is seeing a [b][i]12:1[/b][/i] ratio and figuring, hey, maybe sexism's at fault here. (And as for lack of respect, as if only getting 8% of the positions wasn't an indicator, name some respected, famous female scientists? For example, almost nobody has heard of Emmy Noether, who discovered a massively important theorem in advanced physics and who Einstein said was possibly the most brilliant and influential mathematician of their era.)

Smokeskin wrote:
* please, don't get mad at me for that last part before actually looking at the studies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligence#Current_res... .

You mean these studies?

The Wikipedia article you linked wrote:
Several meta-studies by Richard Lynn between 1994 and 2005 found mean IQ of men exceeding that of women by a range of 3–5 points.[17][18][19][20] Lynn's findings were debated in a series of articles for Nature.[21][22] Jackson and Rushton found males aged 17–18 years had average of 3.63 IQ points in excess of their female equivalents.[23] A 2005 study by Helmuth Nyborg found an average advantage for males of 3.8 IQ points.[24] One study concluded that after controlling for sociodemographic and health variables, "gender differences tended to disappear on tests for which there was a male advantage and to magnify on tests for which there was a female advantage."[25] A study from 2007 found a 2-4 IQ point advantage for females in later life.[26] One study investigated the differences in IQ between the sexes in relation to age, finding that girls do better at younger ages but that their performance declines relative to boys with age.[27] Colom et al. (2002) found 3.16 higher IQ points for males but no difference on the general intelligence factor (g) and therefore explained the differences as due to non-g factors such as specific group factors and test specificity.[15] A study conducted by Jim Flynn and Lilia Rossi-Case (2011) found that men and women achieved roughly equal IQ scores on Raven's Progressive Matrices after reviewing recent standardization samples in five modernized nations.[28] Irwing (2012) found a 3 point IQ advantage for males in g from subjects aged 16–89 in the United States.[29]

Because that looks pretty inconclusive to me. Four favoring men, three favoring women (Including the only one listed as controlling for sociodemographics), and one which was neutral? That doesn't really suggest to me that you find more men in the upper echelons of intellect. (And you don't even need to be that high up to have a successful career in the natural sciences)

Smokeskin wrote:
I recently saw Cosmos, that new science show. Several episodes featured prominent female scientists.

Are you really using a show that explicitly criticized and pointed out sexism in science...to prove that there's no sexism in science? The fact that some people are trying to counteract this sexism [i]does not mean it doesn't exist[/i]. (Here's the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKAQDLdGLEE#t=62 )

—

You, too, were made by humans. The methods used were just cruder, imprecise. I guess that explains a lot.

Tue, 2014-07-15 02:45

#91

Smokeskin

Erulastant wrote:

Erulastant wrote:
Yes. Yes it does. It happens as kids, when boys are encouraged to be scientists and girls are not. It happens in high school when girls are encouraged to study [...] First: Why do you think fewer women seek natural science/comp sci/engineering careers? It's largely because a) They have fewer role models because female scientists are not given the publicity of male ones (And are scarcer, hooray for positive feedback loops), b) They are generally conditioned from a young age to pursue other careers, and c) The ones smart enough to reach the top of their field are also smart enough to recognize the sexism present and may be driven off by that. Second: This isn't "[seeing] discrimination anywhere there isn't a 50:50 ratio", this is seeing a [b][i]12:1[/b][/i] ratio and figuring, hey, maybe sexism's at fault here.

Whatever the reasons for women not pursuing a physics or programming career, as long as they don't do it, then a skewed ratio is not an indication of having to be a man to get respect. You can blame the ratio on how we raise kids and what high school teachers say, but that has nothing to do with the culture in STEM. Also, there are women employed, and in top research positions, which indicates that you don't have to be a man to get respect. What do you think the ratio should be?

Quote:
(And as for lack of respect, as if only getting 8% of the positions wasn't an indicator, name some respected, famous female scientists? For example, almost nobody has heard of Emmy Noether, who discovered a massively important theorem in advanced physics and who Einstein said was possibly the most brilliant and influential mathematician of their era.)

I don't really see what this demonstrates, but: Madame Curie? Ada Lovelace? Lene Hau? Cecilia Payne?

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
* please, don't get mad at me for that last part before actually looking at the studies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligence#Current_res... .
You mean these studies? Because that looks pretty inconclusive to me. Four favoring men, three favoring women (Including the only one listed as controlling for sociodemographics), and one which was neutral? That doesn't really suggest to me that you find more men in the upper echelons of intellect. (And you don't even need to be that high up to have a successful career in the natural sciences)

No, those are the ones on the average. Further down are the ones on variance. Men show a larger variance in intelligence and are overrepresented at both ends of the scale and underrepresented in the middle. When we're looking at the very stupid or the very smart, there are more men.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
I recently saw Cosmos, that new science show. Several episodes featured prominent female scientists.
Are you really using a show that explicitly criticized and pointed out sexism in science...to prove that there's no sexism in science? The fact that some people are trying to counteract this sexism [i]does not mean it doesn't exist[/i]. (Here's the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKAQDLdGLEE#t=62 )

I think you're shifting goalposts from "you have to be a man to get respect" to "there has never been sexism". Of course there have been sexism, it was rampant in the past, and not just in science, it was everywhere. Are we entirely free from sexism today? Probably not. But to say that you have to be a man to get respect in STEM fields just strike me as obviously counterfactual, and Cosmos gave several examples of women getting respect and even in times of history when sexism was much, much more prevalent than today.

Tue, 2014-07-15 09:46

#92

Erulastant Erulastant's picture

Smokeskin wrote:

Smokeskin wrote:
I think you're shifting goalposts from "you have to be a man to get respect" to "there has never been sexism". Of course there have been sexism, it was rampant in the past, and not just in science, it was everywhere. Are we entirely free from sexism today? Probably not. But to say that you have to be a man to get respect in STEM fields just strike me as obviously counterfactual, and Cosmos gave several examples of women getting respect and even in times of history when sexism was much, much more prevalent than today.

Well, what I'm actually saying is that men in the STEM fields get a lot more respect than women in the same fields, not that women cannot get any respect at all. If that's all you're concerned with, then fine, we're done, but I think women getting less respect is a bad thing when it functionally excludes them from these fields. (Yes I think the field being 92% men is functionally excluding women)

Smokeskin wrote:
Whatever the reasons for women not pursuing a physics or programming career, as long as they don't do it, then a skewed ratio is not an indication of having to be a man to get respect. You can blame the ratio on how we raise kids and what high school teachers say, but that has nothing to do with the culture in STEM.

The reasons are the same sexist attitudes that exist inside STEM fields applied earlier in life. It has *everything* to do with the culture in STEM because STEM is not some magical bubble land with its own culture completely segregated from everyone else's. Wider cultural attitudes about STEM fields and women (Which drive women away from STEM) are also present [i]in STEM fields[/i].

Smokeskin wrote:
Also, there are women employed, and in top research positions, which indicates that you don't have to be a man to get respect.

Yep. 8%. Maybe higher in some places, but I wouldn't wager on it going above 17%. And... you don't think this is a problem? But of course, if a man outside of STEM fields does not see sexism in STEM fields, well, of course it must not exist! *eyeroll* Unless you show me some studies or actual evidence to make your claims more than just an outsider's opinion, I'm done.

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You, too, were made by humans. The methods used were just cruder, imprecise. I guess that explains a lot.

Tue, 2014-07-15 12:12

#93

Leng Plateau Leng Plateau's picture

Perhaps

Perhaps we're wandering off topic here? The current subject sounds more like a thread for the off topic area I'm thinking.

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At least with Lovecraft, nobody pretends the gods are nice. And wherever you end up, there is guaranteed to be tentacles.

Tue, 2014-07-15 12:39

#94

kindalas

I agree.

I agree. [color=red]Start a new thread in the off topic forum.[/color] This one has drifted far away from discussion pertinent to Eclipse Phase.

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How do you represent Gender and Sexuality in Eclipse Phase

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