posted
Well, it looks as though some Japanese have really started what could be the end of us males http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/cloning/cloning.jsp?id=ns99994909 It was fun while it lasted, eh? No more whistling, and chasing skirts. I for one do not welcome these female-only reproductive methods.
Posts: 1132 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
I don't think you have anything to really be concerned about in your lifetime. Besides....I think most people will think the old-fashioned way is more fun.
Posts: 512 | Registered: Jun 2002
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quote:While he agrees the creation of the mouse is a major achievement, imprinting expert Azim Surani, at the University of Cambridge, UK, hopes the work will not be misinterpreted to imply that males are somehow redundant.
"It shows the opposite - clearly IGF-2 is the key gene," he says. "They managed to get around it but to really get to a situation where the procedure would work as well as [fertilisation with] sperm, you would need to mutate a lot more genes."
Well, what do I care? My genes will continue to plague humanity even in the worst case scenario presented here-- I have two daughters.
You'll never be rid of me.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
This might mean we are not needed anymore for reproduction, but who's going to do all that other cool stuff in the world? The world would collapse if we left it all to females. Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
I vaguely remember an episode of "Sliders" (I know...bad show. I'm somewhat embarrassed that I remember this) that dealt with this issue. In the society that they arrived in women had full control of their reproduction. Men not required. So...men were relegated to a sub-class and were completely subserviant.
Posts: 512 | Registered: Jun 2002
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posted
If men are no longer needed for reproduction, they will still be needed to open pickle jars and carve the meat. (women are genetically unable to carve meat, even when they cooked it)
posted
Nah, as soon as it's possible for women to be the sole genetic parent of a baby they carry, science will come up with a way for men to carry babies of their own, that they too are the sole genetic parent. And what a wonderful world of true equality that will be! Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
I just keep thinking, if women only wanted men for reproduction, why are there birth cotrol pills?
Posts: 2332 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Also, we need them to give us backrubs and carry the babies on their shoulders and throw them in the air so we can yell at them for endangering the life of our child and get our excess agression out. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote: Like so many male functions in a woman's life, we can be replaced by the proper battery-driven gadget
I would agree with you to a point, but "you look great tonight" wouldn't sound the same coming froma robot.
Posts: 1015 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
Don't ruin the false romantic ideas I have in my head.
I know it probably sounds less genuine after a while, but I would rather hear it coming from a guy staring at the TV then a robot. There are also other things like kissing. I do not think robots would have very nice lips.
Posts: 1015 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
Do you? If you know a robot that can kiss and convincingly comment on my appearance then I will buy him off you.
Posts: 1015 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
So I think this was the basic premise of David Brin's book Glory Season. I read the book a really long time ago so I'm not recalling how good it was but the idea was just really interesting.
Posts: 872 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Haha, you're right, Jen, me too, now that you mention it. At least in Varley's future universe men can become women and vice-versa, and male-female sex continues. A little more user-friendly than those fictons where men just shrivel up and die.
posted
According to this USAToday Op/Ed piece, men in America and throughout the industrialized world are well on our way to becoming 2nd class citizens:
quote: the real news is tucked into the deeper, darker corners of the report [a Dept. of Ed. report]. Boys are doing miserably, and nobody knows quite why. On measures ranging from writing ability to the likelihood of needing special education, boys are flat-lining - or worse. [skipped section]The problem has already grown so severe that three out of every four private colleges (an informal estimate from admissions directors) quietly practice affirmative action for boys, favoring them over girls in admissions to get near balance
article Bummer. *starts writing obituary for males* Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
In Glory Season female children were cloned. Every fall or winter the cloned women would have sex with the men for some reason, I forget why exactly, which was what produced the protagonists of the novel.
This reminds me much more ofEthan of Athos, except in that case it was a planet of only men.
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
The reasons vary - I was refraining from posting my commentary in a relatively light-hearted thread, but:
The skills that made men dominate in a primtive, hunter-gatherer system do not function as well in a modern, industrial setting.
Women, however, whether through biology or social conditioning, do have the communication and interpersonal skills that take precedence over strength and brute force.
The only reason why women have been kept out of the loop for as long as they have, in my opinion, is a male self-preservation instinct and a subconscious need to justify themselves in light of a superior entity. We justify to ourselves, "what does a woman know" or "she doesn't have a head for business since her reproductive organs are on the inside" and so on.
The fact of the matter is those arguments don't withstand any reasonable test for validity.
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