Re: META: Neanderthal attitudes

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Fri, 03 Sep 1999 11:56:23 -0500

Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>
> > As to discussions of non-sexual type, sexual equipment is irrelevant.
> > Those who assert the opposite remind me of the religious types who assert
> > that their god demands that their church indoctrinators possess a willie.
>
> Those who constantly avoid acknowledging the obvious undeniable reality
> that men and women are different kinds of beings mentally and emotionally
> as well as physically deserve equal ridicule. Individuals can always
> rise above the predispositions of their genetic heritage, but when
> dealing with groups of people /as a group/, it is most rational to know
> and understand what generalizations about them are true and which are
> just cultural stereotypes. There are generalizations that are true;
> knowing and understanding these will help you interact with people more
> effectively.

True. On the other hand, I think it deserves to be pointed out that here, on Extropians, which is concentrated on one end of the bell curve, the generalizations are less true, on the personality level, than in other places. I think that almost all of us try to be more self-aware and transcend those parts of ourselves we don't like. Just as (these are guesses) rather more than 6% of Extropians have political persuasions that differ from their parents, and just as we're less likely agree with the conventional opinion in our native culture for almost any given subject, I imagine that the effect of gender differences is also diminished. Because we're rational people, we converge to rational personalities, regardless of our initial state.

Of course, somebody ought to verify all that and publish it in the Journal of Transhumanism, but it seems like a good bet. (If anyone wants to dispute this, we can take it to the Foresight Exchange.)

-- 
           sentience@pobox.com          Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
        http://pobox.com/~sentience/tmol-faq/meaningoflife.html
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