Transhumanism and Gender Relations

daenerys

11 Transhumanism and Gender Relations

11th Nov 2011

2 min read

11

Upon reading Eliezer's possible gender dystopias ([catgirls](http://lesswrong.com/lw/xt/interpersonal_entanglement/), and [verthandi](http://lesswrong.com/lw/xu/failed_utopia_42/) and the other LW comments and posts on the subject of future gender relations, I came to a rather different conclusion than the ones I've seen espoused here. After searching around the internet a bit, I discovered that my ideas tend to fall under the general category of "postgenderism", and I am wondering what my fellow LessWrongians think of it.

This can generally be broken down to the following claims:

A higher level of egalitarianism between the sexes increases utility. For example, if only men are generally allowed to do Job A, then you are halving the talent pool of people who can do Job A, AND women who would otherwise be happy in Job A lose that utility. It is equally of dis-utility if only women are socially allowed to be emotionally expressive, etc, etc. In other words, Equality = Good.
The differences between men and women are a mix of environmental factors, such as social conditioning, and biological factors, such as varying levels of hormones.
Some of these differences are optimal in the current environment, and others are suboptimal. For example-Women have better social skills (good!), but are more prone to depression (bad). Men are better self-promoters (good!), but are more prone to suicide (bad).
Should transhumanism occur, it will eliminate the suboptimal differences. We can help people become less suicidal and not depressed.
This will lead to a spiraling effect- Fewer *actual* differences will lead to a lessening of socialized differences, which will lead to less actual differences, etc

I am positive at least *some* of this will occur. In fact, I would posit that it is already occuring in that we have drugs to treat depression, and hormone therapy to assist people with hormonal problems, etc. Some postgenderists claim there will be no need for different genders at all, as we can have male pregnancies, and female paternity, etc. I rather doubt it would go that far.

My questions to you all is- When do you see these changes occuring, if at all? How far do you think we will go? Will we end up as essentially a one-gender society? Will we move towards the middle but still retain some gender differences? What would they be? Will they be purely physical, or some psychological differences as well?

A possible contention is that the forces of natural selection would not allow this to go too far. In other words, women are attracted to high-testosterone men, and men are attracted to feminine women. However, we already have studies that show that birth control can make women desire lower testosterone men, and I don't see a reason why we wouldn't end up just being attracted to the new/different standard.

Another possible contention is that people *like* having both men and women about. This is an acceptable argument, but is based solely on personal taste. I would also surmise that most the people who desire the current two-gender system to persist are men (and therefore used to being the dominant gender, and therefore not personally feeling a reason to change it).

One Good Reference-

[Postgenderism: Beyond the Gender Binary](http://ieet.org/archive/IEET-03-PostGender.pdf) , George Dvorsky and James Hughes, PhD, IEET-03, March 2008

EDIT- Due to some really insightful comments;

I replaced men being prone to aggression as a negative, with men being prone to suicide.

I made the verbiage a little more explicit that no one would be *forced* to change, but would seek out the changes that transhumanism would have available.

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11 Transhumanism and Gender Relations

by daenerys

11th Nov 2011

2 min read

118

11

This can generally be broken down to the following claims:

A higher level of egalitarianism between the sexes increases utility. For example, if only men are generally allowed to do Job A, then you are halving the talent pool of people who can do Job A, AND women who would otherwise be happy in Job A lose that utility. It is equally of dis-utility if only women are socially allowed to be emotionally expressive, etc, etc. In other words, Equality = Good.
The differences between men and women are a mix of environmental factors, such as social conditioning, and biological factors, such as varying levels of hormones.
Some of these differences are optimal in the current environment, and others are suboptimal. For example-Women have better social skills (good!), but are more prone to depression (bad). Men are better self-promoters (good!), but are more prone to suicide (bad).
Should transhumanism occur, it will eliminate the suboptimal differences. We can help people become less suicidal and not depressed.
This will lead to a spiraling effect- Fewer *actual* differences will lead to a lessening of socialized differences, which will lead to less actual differences, etc

One Good Reference-

[Postgenderism: Beyond the Gender Binary](http://ieet.org/archive/IEET-03-PostGender.pdf) , George Dvorsky and James Hughes, PhD, IEET-03, March 2008

EDIT- Due to some really insightful comments;

I replaced men being prone to aggression as a negative, with men being prone to suicide.

I made the verbiage a little more explicit that no one would be *forced* to change, but would seek out the changes that transhumanism would have available.

Transhumanism

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[anonymous]15y-20

I think we will eventually end up in either a genderless society, where the sets of attributes that define gender no longer exist and humans are free to adopt whatever attributes they desire, or in a patriarchal dystopia. The dystopia will come about through "voluntary" changes that will not be explicitly forced, but will be the only option for non-men under patriarchy. The game will be more rigged than it already is.

Feminist theory has held that gender (the set of memes that people with penises behave in certain ways, and people without penises behave in other ways) is both socially constructed and socially enforced. This is accomplished by instilling a great many cached thoughts in humans of both sexes that even most rationalists never question, and then severely punishing the people who transgress those categories in a variety of horrific ways.

One cached thought in the rationalist community that isn't often questioned is that natural selection, rather than higher-level social pressures, cause certain things. If men are attracted to "more feminine" women, that begs the question of what "feminine" even means. Feminine appearance has meant several contradictory things over the course of the last 50 years alone, just as masculine appearance has meant several contradictory things. Who determines what these things are? Where do our images of femininity and masculinity come from? Who do they come from?

The technological promises of transhumanism are meaningless unless we confront and destroy gender. Gender is, as the OP suggests, maintained mostly by men for our own benefit (and to a lesser extent, maintained by women so that men will reward them). Gender socialization is dangerous because it has a hand in determining what we want, even when that is almost certainly not what we want to want.

JoshuaZ15y100

In general, it seems strongly that some aspects of gender are social constructs and others or not. The most helpful way of distinguishing them is to look at differences across different societies. If some difference in gender behavior exists in all or almost all societies then the degree of social construction in it is likely to be small. If some gender aspect only exists in some specific times and places then it is a gender construct. Let's look at examples which are relevant to modern society. In the United States, and much of the Western world, it is ta... (read more)

17Eugine_Nier15y

Many (and probably most) animals also have gender in the sense that individuals with penises behave in certain ways, and individuals with ovaries behave in other ways, despite not having memes. [...] I'll take it you haven't been paying attention to the discussions of status on OB and LW. In my experience rationalist are much more willing to consider explanations based on social pressure, then feminists are to consider explanations based on natural selection.

2lessdazed15y

You think it likely we will end up in a future with what you see as an enormous evil gone, even as most people don't see it that way. I'm reluctant to update my predictions about the future much based on yours because you have an idiosyncratic prediction that matches an idiosyncratic value system. Maybe you took steps to avoid thinking something true because you hope it? As an analogy, imagine you were speaking to someone and they predicted the USA, Canada, and Mexico would become a single political entity before 2100. You might think that very interesting, but if it later was revealed that the person's solution for America's problems was unity with Canada and Mexico, you would probably be skeptical about the prediction and think it might be wishful thinking. The reason you didn't think that at first is because you had never heard that discussed as an ideal or near-utopian scenario (at least I haven't).

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