[ExI] [ieet] Singularity - Non-Gender Specific

[Damien Broderick]

On 9/29/2009 5:00 PM, natasha at natasha.cc wrote:
>> Can you give some examples of phallic singularitarianism? What
>> currently is "gender specific in its promotion"?
>
> Visually, the camera angle of men - mostely from the bottom up to
> enlarge the form/figure. I think that both the Singularity Institute and
> University are too focused on fast-track futurism rather than social
> issues as well as human, transhuman, posthuman issues.

Seems we're going in circles here. I asked if you meant there were too 
few women involved in promoting the idea, and you came back with "I am 
not asking why more women are not discussing the Singularity.  (Why is 
it that is women are mentioned, there has to be a giant leap to sex 
symbols?)".

>> I do see, and agree with, your comment that "cyborg" has been
>> appropriated by feminist and other poststructuralist theorists. What's
>> the equivalent you have in mind?

> The equivalent I have in mind is the chrysalis that I mentioned.

I must have been unclear, again. I was asking what the equivalent is of 
males having appropriated the inherently sex-neutral idea of a 
technological singularity. Is it just the "camera angle of men" and 
other instances of men usually being the speakers? What does it mean to 
say that singularitarians are avoiding "social issues"? The chrysalis 
figuration is intriguing (it reminds me of the feminist "wise crone": as 
you put it, "it is well-known to women as a transformation stage from 
being fertile, reproductive organism to transforming into non-physically 
reproductive BUT intellectually productive, wise organisms") but it 
seems to imply a teleological pathway--like menopause--from where we are 
to a kind of predetermined transcendence (pupas don't *decide* to become 
butterflies, nor can they choose not to be).

Damien Broderick