I do agree with you in that respect - but we will have such issues of beauty when it comes with truly transhumanistic modifications. Say I want to genetically modify my skin and hair so I can have better survival against the elements. I am not a scientist or doctor and have not worked out the...medical kinks here but what if a procedure is created to remove all natural melanin, suppress it's natural development and have controllable nanobots manage it henceforth. Obviously the process would have to mitigate any issues normally associated with hypo-leucism, but what I envision would allow for people to change their hair, eye and skin color fairly rapidly. If not at-will or to suit the elements they find themselves in then at least via some sort of smartdevice. But as with the transhumanistic benefits, you will have people doing so for social and beautification reasons and with the benefits you will have all colors of the spectrum and stereotypical racial traits may cease to exist. Whole new societal definitions of beauty would come about.<br>
<br>While I'm not sure many would ever want this technology to exist in the hands of the public due to its obvious disruptive quality, ethical quandaries and wholesale changes in societal perceptions, this is an example of a transhumanist technology that would definitely require a change in how beauty is defined by society or groupings of cultures. People are already using skin lightening and spot removal techniques that involve melanin removal.<br>
<br>(on a side note, some of the more disruptive factors of this was covered heavily in A. Sayeeda Clarke's short ITSV "FutureStates" episode "White" discussing melanin as a commodity in the age of global warming and racial tensions.<br>
<br>Article: <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2011/04/imagining-the-future-of-global-warming-and-race-through-film.html">http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2011/04/imagining-the-future-of-global-warming-and-race-through-film.html</a><br>
Episode: <a href="http://www.futurestates.tv/episodes/white">http://www.futurestates.tv/episodes/white</a>)<br><br>More to think about....<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 11:38 AM, Adrian Tymes <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:atymes@gmail.com" target="_blank">atymes@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="im">On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 7:13 AM, Giulio Prisco <<a href="mailto:giulio@gmail.com">giulio@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> Why not different social norms for different groups. Like, a<br>
> socially-approved vision of beauty for people with wings, and another<br>
> socially-approved vision of beauty for people with gills.<br>
<br>
</div>For the same reason we no longer hold people to different social<br>
norms - in most aspect - based on the color of their skin.<br>
<br>
A case could be made for relevant social norms (for instance, the<br>
most beautiful black skinned folk still tend to have wide noses,<br>
rather than the pointed noses of other ethnicities). However, in<br>
practice, attempting to impose social norms based on that leads<br>
to irrelevant social norms (which I trust I do not have to elaborate<br>
on). There is no reason to believe this would not be the case even<br>
if the racial differences were more functional (e.g., wings and<br>
gills), and even easily configurable (such as via inexpensive<br>
surgery to add or remove them).<br>
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