[ExI] Women

[spike]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of F. C. Moulton
Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2012 8:02 PM
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: Re: [ExI] Women

On 12/27/2012 07:05 PM, spike wrote:
> 
> Buy and distribute the technology to determine gender of a fetus 
> shortly after conception, and create arbitrarily many abortion 
> clinics
> I expect that the female/male ratio will reach an equilibrium at about 
> 45/55.  Then the women will be treated as princesses.  Men will kill each
> other over them.   After that lethal battle, there will be just enough
women
> to meet the demand, and all will be respected. spike
> 

>...Are you absolutely sure about your idea?

No.  I can imagine plenty of ways it could go wrong.  Yanks are coming in
with buckets of money and setting up abortion clinics to kill our babies,
and corrupt the morals of our youth, to arms!

>... seems to me that valuing woman so much that one would fight does not
necessarily imply that one would treat the women as a princess...Fred

I am going on what I heard from college friends who adopted a girl from
China.  In the five years they were involved in the process, it became
dramatically more difficult, and after all the expense, they almost didn't
get their girl.  They commented that the status of women in China has
improved since they found they didn't have enough to go around.

A big part of the problem in a lot of places is the culture itself, and very
likely the religion.  Those religions that cherish ancient writings for
instance have an inherent difficulty changing with the times.  Before the
industrial revolution, muscle was needed to work a farm, to fight, to do
pretty much every job back in the old days.  Now muscle isn't needed for
much, so women are perfectly suitable for any job.  We have plenty of
cultures which cannot readily adjust to what has happened in the past couple
centuries.

I don't understand why it happens: some cultures are inherently resistant to
change, others embrace change.  In the latter, women get a pretty good deal.
I don't know how to make an equilibrium culture learn to love change and
accept the modern world.  I guess we are stuck with the tried and true
methods: corrupt the morals of their youth with our video games.

Here's one for you: during the 1800s, sugar plantations were started in the
South Pacific, and they being far removed from civilization, didn't change
much over the decades.  When WW2 brought the US military in to these
islands, the sailors assumed that the harlots there get 25 bucks just like
their counterparts in Toledo.  Uh oh, now a harlot could earn in an hour as
much pay as a strong man could make in a week.   Suddenly all the women were
harlots, and all the men were pimps.  Needless to say, the sugar went
untended.  There would be a case where the status of women went up
dramatically from the sudden tremendous demand and short supply.

spike