Men and women are physically equal

... I think it's awfully telling of the dangerous fanaticism people have about equality when wanting something so fundamental as genetics changed to fit this. You really should be more careful what you wish for.

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

Genetic engineering should not be used for genetic egalitarianism. However, I also think that should we delve into germline genetic engineering, that the sexual differences will decrease to nothing anyway. I mean, people aren't going to go "Gee I want my kid to be weaker because she is female", that would be idiotic.

However, because strength doesn't matter, it might be that people tend to ignore that (though for military purposes, I would expect countries to maximise physical capabilities of their population for both men and women). Also, most of the military examples being used appears to be based on the US military, which is by far, more sexist than any military I've ever seen from China to Russia to Europe to Canada. So could we use a military that is actually egalitarian about the sexes? Because you know, culture matters a lot too. Barkey talked about a woman has to be "one of the guys", but if the culture is that (whether intentional or not) geared toward excluding women, women will have a tough time being "one of the guys" versus a military culture that is more inclusive.

The idea that Strength doesn't matter is one I see thrown around a lot. It matters less than it used to, but there are plenty of places where it is still important. Any job with a significant physical component cares about strength. If you spend your life sitting at a computer strength doesn't matter, but that's less of the population than the internet generally assumes.

Also, using gene therapy to make everyone equal (clones? or just within a certain range in some respects, free on others? this gets real complicated real fast) has a direct conflict with freedom. You're telling people that they can't have their natural born children. There are many people (non trivial number, minority) who understand this and still want to have their own genetic children (I'm one of them). I'm not ok with this idea even if it was well understood and safe, and this is something I would seriously fight for.

Sex, Drugs, and Rationality

This. Obviously internet users aren't going to have a representative sample of the world as a whole in mind anyway.

The whole thing just strikes me as a big sidestep.

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

Why hello thar Gattaca world.

So what if genetics are fundamental? There would be a wide range of arguments why gene therapy just wouldn't work for genetic egalitarism, but really the "You can't play god" argument? That's irrelevant and completely besides the point!

Actually I don't think anybody here has advocated mandatory gene therapies. Though it's an interesting question, because surely the child's rights stand above the parents' rights...

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

Not so much about not wanting to play god as about how dangerous it is to open up such a can of worms.

Though I think even if hypothetically we could avoid all possible dangerous effects of this, something about changing the rules on such a whole new scale simply does not seem worth it. Of course, I am speaking from an intuitive perspective, but I do not think such intuition should be ignored. (Actually, I think I have said intuition because of the aforementioned dangerousness of such ideas.)

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

Egalitarianism, as far as the rights of citizens go, is almost undeniably a good thing, and I would assume that most people can agree on this point. Distributive egalitarianism, that is, forcing equality of outcome, is certainly a more divisive concept, and personally I find it to be rather unpalatable because it runs contradictory to that idea of fundamental, rights-based egalitarianism. But the idea of manipulating the genetic material within society to some kind of "egalitarian" end... Well, ignoring the potential for catastrophe on a biological level, and all sorts of questions regarding what's ideal and who's decision it is, and whatever cultural impact it might have, it seems to have precious little to do with any sort of benevolent thought regarding equality. I guess it'd have something to do with taking the denial of "separate but equal" well beyond any sort of logical limits - as if even the most basic individuality that stems from separation of genetic stock is incompatible with equality. Never mind nurture...

Every new science is dangerous at first. Yes, cue mad scientist cackle, etc etc I know But it's still true. If we remain closed to every advancement that is possibly dangerous, we won't advance at all.

And oh yes, that would change the rules quite fiercely. Should we master full-scale genetic engineering it would change everything, way more than FTL travel or whatever ever could. (That's the funny thing about conventional sci-fi, which ignores such things). But so what? I place no intrinsic value on the status quo.

But surely giving everybody the same fundamental base from which they then can compete is a form of equality of rights, not equality of outcome?

And most of the thread is about how physical differences to cause problems for equality. So if this could be fixed (btw, this wouldn't necessitate making everybody the same strength - but if you vary strength levels widely across the spectrum for every individual, then strengthd ifferences between the genders would become irrelevant, too) then it would be beneifical to equality.

And I absolutely reject that individuality is born out of group differences. It's the same silly argument for keeping cultural norms even when they restrict individuals. Individuality is bon solely out of individual differences.

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

Inequality is not just out of physical differences, but also psychological differences, etc... all things that are a key part of human nature and we have no idea of the implications of getting rid of them.

We humans are used to knowing we are different; apart from how questionable erasing these differences is on its own merits, what if removing them causes serious side-effects?

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

Not really. Faster-Than-Light Travel completely changes our view of life, the universe, and everything in the literal sense. Our current understanding of physics forbids FTL Travel. (And recently we've had evidence suggesting our entire conclusion regarding physics is wrong.)

Genetic engineering means we can incorporate anything seen in nature on Earth into our own sort of like the Zerg. But we're still limited to this mudball, still limited to the same 8 planets and 5+ dwarf planets, still limited to one Sun. FTL Travel takes us across the Universe where we may find other worlds where not only may biology may be completely different than we know but so might be other things. The possibilities for discovery with FTL Travel is rather limitless.

Well, way I see it it wouldn't be erasing each and every difference. That is, not erasing differences between individuals. What it would be is erasing differences between groups - i.e., just because you're East Asian doesn't mean you'll be short, just because you're female doesn't mean you'll be weak, just because you're North Alpine European doesn't mean you'll burn in the sun, etc etc. It would be egalitarian in that just because you're a member of group xyz won't mean you'll be disadvantaged on issue abc.

Well, yeah, there is no FTL travel. I just brought it up to mock regular sci-fi (not that I'm averse to it, mind, but it is a shortcoming).

Still, the point remains valid concerning the effects of genetic engineering and FTL travel. I mean, for argument's sake let's do imagine a world with FTL travel but no genetic engineering and one where it is vice versa.

Now, in the former case - what difference does location make? It wouldn't change society it wouldn't change how we live. It would just be spreading the same society and culture everywhere. Which would be good, but it wouldn't be a rules breaker on the same level.

On the other hand, in the second case, everything changes because everybody changes. There would not even be concepts of races and species anymore. And it wouldn't be limited to just what we have at hand on Earth - genes are just very complex chemistry, after all, our whole bodies are, so eventually we would be able to create completely artifical genes. It would totally change how we live.

That is why transhumanist sci-fi, in comparison to regular sci-fi is so weird - and yet, in a manner of speaking, more realist.

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

The transhumanist stuff also just keeps hammering how we humans Suck with no chance of redemption, advancement or even being considered above dirt, that transhumanism is the only path. (Unless the transhumanist work in question scorns transhumanism.)

At least in traditional Sci-Fi we get a variety of stuff.

In what parallel universe is all that set in stone, anyway?

Enjoy the Inferno...

Well, everything is relative. Modified humans and high-level AIs would function better than unmodified humans. That's the entire point of them, no? And give it enough time, then even the suckiest high-level AI will be better than the best human, because while the AIs advance, themselves that is, humans don't. So that's not a morality tale, it just is a portrayal of facts.

Besides, either way, the point remains that genetic engineering would (or rather, will) change society radically more than any hypothetical FTL travel.

In this, at least concerning the last sentence. Certain genetic disadvantages due to belonging to a certain group do exist, at least on the statistical level (though unlike the gender divide, the differences between different genetic heritages are minimal, with far larger intra-group than inter-group differences).

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

I know it's kind of cheap to mention Gattaca again, but the problem with genetic engineering of humans is that it can only be done with people who have no say in the matter (because they won't have been born yet), and that once a person is born they can't change the cards they've been dealt (so a naturally born person would be stuck at a disadvantage their entire life).

It would be even worse than the modern divide between haves and have-nots; unlike the poor (who are just unlikely to gain more money), it's impossible for an "invalid" (to use the movie's term) to get better genes.

edited 26th Nov '11 6:06:29 PM by RTaco

Just a quick side note (but not totally off-topic): the bodybuilder analogy really isn't effective because bodybuilders generally train to achieve aesthetic qualities related to the human form, not performance qualities. The added strength gained from the muscle mass is just a beneficial side-effect of that style of training. Do some Google searches on pictures of bodybuidlers and powerlifters, and you will see a clear difference in physical shape. Additionally, we have to be careful not to confuse muscle mass with muscular endurance.

It's worth noting that certain body types yield to desirable results based on the goal to be achieved. The military example has been used ad naseum in a time where technology is gradually and surely reducing the importance of physical fitness standards. Those PT standards are indeed important and tell many tales about physical performance differences between men and women, but military operations are largely based on factors outside of the physical operating capacity of the individual ground combatant. This really hasn't been all that relevant since the Industrial Revolution, but that's a different argument altogether.

Genetic engineering has been mentioned several times, and it's not without its justifications. Someone mentioned a new specialization of labor in society that will reflect this genetic engineering. We've seen this before in works of fiction where special humans are bred for harsh conditions in extraterrestrial environments, and it's fairly plausible to see this in men and women.

There are tons of factors, some seen and some unforeseen, that indicate a shift in biomechanical performance standards between the sexes. Women generally have a lower center of gravity that lends itself well to situations that require extensive use of hip maneuvers. Ruck marching was mentioned earlier and can be highly applicable in this regard (you save energy by keeping your gear as close to your center of gravity as possible). Weight was also mentioned. Men are generally bigger than women, but they are also heavier. More power is needed to control that weight, so it becomes a double-edged sword in terms of energy efficiency.

It was said by another poster than humans are becoming weaker, and I can support this notion. Evolution is fundamentally and ecologically conservative. Our biosphere encourages us to weed out characteristics that aren't useful, and it's not necessary to repeat what others have said about the physical size difference between a pre-modern-human woman and a modern homo sapien.

I've presented some issues that are facts, but a lot of what I'm saying is speculation. Personally, I don't think it's a tremendous issue in terms of what it means for actual contemporary gender norms because those norms are outside the societal framework of survivability, including but not limited to physical strength characteristics.

@ Octo

I get the idea of the elimination of genetic differences being an "egalitarian" project, but I just don't see how it's supposed to work. The point of egalitarianism, at least for me (and I assume many others, too), is that people be treated and regarded equally despite their advantages and disadvantages - something which would come about as a change in thought and consciousness. But without embracing egalitarianism on an intellectual level, genetic engineering is going to be futile - there will be differences between groups until they cease being distinct groups, and there will be difference between individuals until they cease being distinct individuals. And difference can always be painted as advantage or disadvantage, as good or bad, as right or wrong.

The solution? Well, ultimately, we either go the whole way with genetic engineering, and stamp out every difference, but again, there are matters of nurture, some of which are fundamentally impossible to avoid - "You're a different sex/live in a different country/are wearing different shoes than I am, so I am better than you (even though we're exactly the same in every other respect)" - and when you get rid of every substantial difference, people are only left with the trivialities like this to pick on, which is exactly what they will do unless they're recognising others as equals despite their differences - and it's the fact that this concept is central, with or without reduction of differences to trivialities, which renders the genetic engineering option, as far as I'm concerned, absolutely meaningless.

edited 26th Nov '11 7:42:14 PM by ekuseruekuseru

On the one hand, we are plenty comfortable with other, (almost) entirely binary differences between men and women. Like penis vs. vagina. It's not like we want to treat men and women equally because they're identical; we would like to treat them equally because even though we know they're not identical at the outset they have equal moral worth by any measure we'd care to come up with.

On the other hand, I can kind of understand being uncomfortable with one sex being actually superior to the other in ANYTHING, even if it's just on average. Penises aren't superior to vaginas (or vice versa); physical strength, while not terribly useful past a certain point nowadays, is still not entirely trivial.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

Most jobs require physical strength still. You don't need to be an Olympian in the dead lift but you still need strength. Welders, construction, custodial, stocking, warehouse workers, dock workers, luggage movers for airplanes and many many more jobs all require significant physical strength.

Automation and mechanical have merely assisted in doing the job not replaced physical strength entirely in industry. Really the only job that doesn't require strength of any kind is being a fucking secretary.

You missed the part where Black Humor said "is still not entirely trivial".

The Olympic records in weightlifting support the idea that women's lifting weight caps at a little less than 2/3 of a man's of the same body weight. (Or, really, one extra body weight; the ratio hovers around 5x body weight for men and 4x body weight for women.)

Now, except in those situations that require every ounce of strength, when is the extra going to be necessary? For most occupations you need to be able to lift a certain amount of weight over and over, not the ability to, say, drive a spear as DEEPLY AS POSSIBLE into someone. Which is exactly what I said (raw strength doesn't matter past a certain point) with the addendum that that amount of strength is quite possible to achieve for both men and women, on average.

EDIT: Let's put some numbers to this:

A Google search of "must be able to lift * pounds" gave nothing greater than 75. Here's how much an average man can lift. A little (very much non-scientific) calculation suggests that an average 90-pound woman should be able to lift that with training (an average 170-pound woman without training). And this is using the squat lift numbers; the dead lift numbers are even better.

So again, besides those areas where marginal strength counts (special forces and such), there's nothing physical a trained man could do that a trained woman could not do.

edited 26th Nov '11 9:57:52 PM by BlackHumor

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

And that is different to how it is the natural way how exactly?

Ah, now, that's a valid argument. However, it seems to me it comes more about because of alredy existing economical divide lines in society rather than genetic engineering.

Oh I agree that this is how egalitarism is supposed to be. But that's on a rather intellectual, abstract level. On the ground, so to speak, most people are willing to assume a certain equality, and yet physical differences still pose a problem to that. You cannot simply say in a black-and-white manner that equality has to be either this or that. In reality, it's more gradual. So, while, yes, people should simply assume equality regardless, it would really help if we could do something about the preset physical differences between some groups.

But if every individual is so different to each other that the notion of groups becomes irrelevant (genetic post-modernism, if you will) then people will have to judge other people based on their individual merits, instead of group affiliations. And I think that would be a step towards more equality.

Now, of course I don't propose genetic engineering as a grand solution. I'm not a Utopia Justifies the Means Well-Intentioned Extremist mad scientist super villain after all But I do think that genetic engineering will come, and that it will be helpful in this regard.

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

At the very least, there are several degrees of separation between "this gender has one advantage" and "this gender is superior." Each gender has various different averages in different traits; the extent of each is a matter of often-disputed assumption, and on top of that, which differences matter more is a matter of opinion.

In light of this, anyone who would strawman talk of gender differences as gender superiority is either a liar or a fool.

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

This. People talk about individuality, yet get so bent out of shape if their "team" (race, gender, etc) is reported to have less of a particular trait (in aggregate).

Enjoy the Inferno...