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[kaijyuu]

To that I answer: Men can't bare children.

Yet. Give it another generation or two, if that. Medical science, for all the problems it has, is pretty goddamn incredible in many areas, and there's actually a fair amount of money being thrown at that problem.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That's a horrifying thought.

The less biological dependancies we have, the better prepared for certain sorts of hardships our species is.

...are you planning something?

[MaximumZero]

That, and women whose bodies reject pregnancies due to rh factor or whatever will still be able to bear children. Also, gay couples.

[penguinofhonor]

You are now entering:
Brave New World

[kaijyuu]

Yeah, if we can make synthetic uteruses (uterii?), why go through the hassle of pregnancy at all? Not exactly a comfortable process. Forgo sticking it inside someone, and use a glass tube instead.

I'd be totally for it if we come up with something like that, Brave New World be damned. I'm just not sure impregnating men is really all that viable. And as for people who want kids but can't for whatever reason, I'm always advocating adoption. Blood relation is overrated.

[Frumple]

...are you planning something?

Planning for, yes

Also definite proponent for off world colonization. It's simply safer to have the option, just in case. More options we have to deal with potential existential curve balls, the better *sage nod*

Also what MZ said, and M->F transgendered. Then there's just plain heterosexual males that believe it would be for the better if they could experience the process, as well. There's plenty of good reasons to have access to such a possibility. Some bad ones, too, but considerably less people actually back those.

[Tabbyman]

To that I answer: Men can't bare children.

Yet. Give it another generation or two, if that. Medical science, for all the problems it has, is pretty goddamn incredible in many areas, and there's actually a fair amount of money being thrown at that problem.

Personally can't wait until we have viable iron wombs, m'self, and a solid way to maintain genetic viability without the Y chromosome. The less biological dependancies we have, the better prepared for certain sorts of hardships our species is.

Have you ever read the Aldous Huxley book, Brave New World by any chance?

[Darvi]

I can't give the name of a single person who has. It was also mandatory to read during high school. :V

But yeah, that could go into all the wrong, squicky directions.

[MaximumZero]

I can't give the name of a single person who has. It was also mandatory to read during high school. :V

It's free through Project Gutenberg. No excuses.

[Frumple]

I can't give the name of a single person who has. It was also mandatory to read during high school. :V

It's free through Project Gutenberg. No excuses.

Other than not wanting to read it

More generally, I've never read it... I think. If I have, I forgot about it. Reading through the wikipedia page, it doesn't look like something I'd be terribly interested in reading. Main down points seem to be the caste-system stuff (which we already social engineer to a sickening degree ) and the distraction point, which... bread and circus isn't exactly a new concept, heh. Maybe the one-world-government thing. Some other stuff too, of course, but skimming seemed to point those as the larger ones.

Dystopian fiction needs some GAR or something to be readable -- it's much faster and less malaise inducing to just read an essay a fraction of the size expressing the same points just as eloquently if you're looking for social commentary, heh.

It's a fair take on the possible direction of a post-scarcity society, though. Which... really, it's better than extinction. Dystopia, of course, but still. Which was my derail point, mostly. I'd rather have the option for th'species to survive via dystopia (assuming there's not a better option, of course!) than not have it, yeh. The chances that we'd be stuck on a single planet if we actually got together a function one world government are bloody small, anyway That opens up a lot more possibilities~

[Tabbyman]

I can't give the name of a single person who has. It was also mandatory to read during high school. :V

But yeah, that could go into all the wrong, squicky directions.

I never had to read it in school, so when someone told me they had to read it for school I was shocked and amazed.

A book written by a promoter of psychedelic drugs, taught in schools everywhere. Sometimes it's weird how unlikely influences sneak into the education system despite its efforts to stamp out certain kinds of thinking (like free thinking for example).

[Realmfighter]

I literally just read it a week ago, out of school and with 1984 right after it.

[Leafsnail]

Personally can't wait until we have viable iron wombs, m'self, and a solid way to maintain genetic viability without the Y chromosome. The less biological dependancies we have, the better prepared for certain sorts of hardships our species is.

Surely the solid way to remove the need for a Y chromosone would be to just have women and artificially produced sperm (producing sperm from a woman's DNA looks a lot closer than a method of men or an incubator carrying children).  Of course that'd mean just having women and no men (although you could later reintroduce men if you kept a decent (male) sperm bank beforehand).

Yeah, if we can make synthetic uteruses (uterii?), why go through the hassle of pregnancy at all? Not exactly a comfortable process. Forgo sticking it inside someone, and use a glass tube instead.

Giving birth does have some health benefits though, and gives you the feeling of having created life.  I guess some people capable of healthy birth would opt for artificial wombs but not all.

[lorb]

He's saying there is no border between masculinity and femininity.
To that I answer: Men can't bare children.

That's no good answer. It has several problems:
a) What about those you would consider woman but can't bare children? How do you distinguish them from those you consider men?
b) If you have the ability to bare children as requirement for being female you run inti trouble with point a. If you do not have it as requirement why can't there be someone how can bare children fitting the definition of men? (by: men=not women)
c) Assigning sex/gender by biological features is not without problems either: intersex/transsex are just the start of it
d) It is a fact that in at least 99% of all cases when we meet a stranger we have no doubt about his/her sex/gender but a lot of those we take for granted to be male can indeed bare children. (also, how do we know with so much certainty who we are talking with when we can't even see their genitalia because usually people don't show them off to everyone?)

edit: a link to read for starters (for those who actually care about this stuff) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_assignment

[Alastar]

Different selection pressures to which both biology and society will adapt (with reasonable but certainly not universal consequences):

Women...
know who their kids are (more interest in own children than the larger group)
need to make a considerable investment to have a kid (pickier in partners, even for short-term liaisons)
aren't expendable in large numbers (less expectations to do dangerous things en masse)
are limited in how many kids they can have (reducing some forms of competitiveness)

People won't just ditch unneeded evolutionary/cultural ballast just because they can't procreate. Looking at men and women as groups, there will be major differences beyond the obvious... and that probably won't change in the forseeable future without irresponsible invasive surgery and psychological conditioning.
It just shouldn't be a big deal whether an individual is typical for their sex or not.