>> Individuals can always rise above the predispositions >> of their genetic heritage,
OK, delete the "always". I was in that comment referring more to the intellectual/emotional aspects than the physcial ones, which I imagine are easier to overcome (but even that can be debated). I, too, knew early in life that I would never be a basketball player, despite being 6'3", because I had a vertical leap of about an inch and a half, and the speed and agility of a hippo. But I did overcome the handicap of Southern Baptist family and bleeding-heart democratic mom. Indeed, I have since enlightened her.
> I would agree that the facelessness of the lists does make it
> easier to concentrate on the content rather than the speaker.
> Perhaps I should join the transhuman mailing list as Roberta
> just to see what kind of difference it makes.
Even in email, anyone who has been around for a while can usually tell the difference between male and female writers about 80% of the time (I remember the last one I got wrong--I assumed Robin Hanson was female until I discovered otherwise).
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC