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skeptical_lurker comments on Neo-reactionaries, why are you neo-reactionary? - Less Wrong Discussion
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If you think seriously about what living a lot longer than current norms would have to mean, then you'll realize that everything familiar to you now will eventually vanish, and new things will take their place. Then those things will vanish as well, and other things will take their place. Just keep iterating.
Consider how much of the currently familiar things in our social world originated in an intellectual experiment in the 18th Century called the Enlightenment: democracy, egalitarianism, cosmopolitanism, feminism, secularism, individualism and so forth. Do you think the social innovations based on these ideas have gotten locked in as a permanent part of the human condition? I wouldn't assume anything of the sort.
In fact if I survive long enough, it wouldn't surprise me to see "regression towards the mean" in human society after a few centuries. The people of the world in the 24th Century might wield amazing technologies by our standards, but their society could have more in common with premodern, pre-Enlightenment societies than the ones we've known as products of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries.
I feel sorry for the feminist women in cryonics who don't see this as a distinct possibility of the kind of Future World which would revive them. They might find themselves in a conservative, patriarchal society which won't have much tolerance for their assumptions about women's freedoms.
And this is worse than death?
No, that just means that these women haven't thought very hard about what living a really long time could mean. Those science fiction writers in the last century who postulated the return of traditional social structures in high-tech societies might have come closer to the reality of life in "the future" than they imagined, and some Neoreactionaries have pointed this out. Refer to this podcast by Richard Spencer, for example:
http://www.radixjournal.com/vanguard-radio/2014/8/15/archeo-futurist-messiah
I wouldn't be too surprised by the possibility of a future society returning to traditional social structures. I would be somewhat surprised by every future society returning to traditional social structures. Either way, I don't see why this means feminists shouldn't sign up for cryonics.
I'm puzzled by your focus on women. Many men probably don't want to live in a patriarchal society either. I certainly don't.
That's aside from the fact that this really has very little to do with the subject at hand. There's a distinct question of what you expect will happen and what one should try to make happen.
Thirded. My disquiet comes primarily from the idea of benefiting in status and power from a system that would systematically deny freedom and independent agency and security to half the people I know, and the notion that I would be denied the freedom to take on roles usually assigned to other groups should the situation warrant it.
Fourthed.
Seconded. Dear Lord patriarchy is unappealing: you "get to" basically enslave a few women and children at the cost of having to spend your entire life on utterly unappealing status and machismo competitions.
What do you mean by "status and machismo competitions"? Narrowly defined, in many patriarchal societies this is false. Seriously, read some history. Take a look at say 18th-19th century England. Some men could do many different things from becoming ascetic monks, to becoming gentlemen scientists, to sponsoring works of art, to yes even status and machismo competitions if that suites your fancy.
If you define "status and machismo competitions" broadly then we're mostly doing the same thing today.
I still don't get why you'd prefer to live in a world where women cannot do all those awesome things as well.
Your mistake here was thinking I enjoy what we have today.
Ok, then you won't be any more disappointed up on waking up in a patriarchy.
Of course there were plenty of options...they were post enlightenment societies.
Depends on how patriarchal the society is. Few women would like to live in, say, Gor. "Please freeze me again while I wait this out."
Few women say they would like to live in Gor. But some would. Some live in Gor-inspired relationships now. And maybe people would adapt.
I am aware that some people live in Gor-inspired relationships, that some people are masochistic, that some women want to be dominated, and that more people would like to live that way than those who would care to admit it, or even that those who know for a fact that they would. I still assume these numbers to be small.
Of course people would adapt. That's what people do. That doesn't make it right.
In the past, almost everyone thought that one should wait until marriage for sex. Now, almost everyone (in my part of the world) believes in serial monogamy. In both these cases people think that their social norms are in the right. I see no reason not to suppose that if Gor lifestyle became the norm then most people (inc. women) would think it right (not just publically saying that its right).
I see no objective way to say that any of these lifestyles are right or wrong, unless it can be shown to be damaging the children.
What they believe in, or rather, endorse, and what they end up actually doing or wanting to do have usually been at odds. The ideal solution is different for every combination of individual and circumstance: the ideal universal solution is therefore an superstructural (ideological, legal, cultural, etc.) framework capable of running and accommodating any specific arrangement between interested parties. Objectively speaking, I think the only hard and fast rule is "Safe, Sane and Consensual".
Except the meaning of all three of those terms is culture dependent.
"Sane" is certainly culture dependent, but consent seem relatively objective.
Really?
All in all, it looks very much like "communicated agreement" is the objective fact, and whether that gets upgraded to "consent" depends on a whole host of ethical judgments that are often contentious.
Is so called "marital rape" consensual since they consented to marry? (Most societies say yes, but lately in has become fashionable in Western countries to pass laws saying no).
What if someone says yes but feels pressured to?
If two drunk students had sex, has a rape occurred? (Yes, according to California's new "Affirmative Consent" law).
I would agree that the desirability of the Gor future largely depends on whether its consensual.
If you are planning your glorious transhuman future on the premise that people will adapt, you're doing it wrong.
I think the glorious transhuman future will involve some sort of radical change, probably far more radical than Gor. People will have to adapt - even if they live in groups preserving 2014s norms, completely isolated from outsiders, they will have to adapt to the fact that they can't influence the outside world and that baseline humans will be overtaken in all fields of endevour.
Furthermore, it will likely lead to many outcomes that people today would complain about and disapprove of.