[extropy-chat] Famous author self destructs in public! Filmateleven.

The Avantguardian avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com
Tue Jun 7 19:00:13 UTC 2005



--- Amara Graps <amara at amara.com> wrote:

> 
> Stuart:
> >Well I guess statistics are such that I would
> sooner
> >or later meet someone like you.
> 
> Statistics? I think you have not met many women.

     This is an interesting inference for you to make
considering that you have never met me. In my opinion
I know plenty of women. Maybe not as many super-models
as I would like, but plenty of women in general. I
have a girlfriend that I care deeply about and with a
few notable exceptions, I am close friends with many
of my ex-girlfriends. Add to that relatives, friends I
have not slept with, colleagues, and aquaintences and
I would say that I know at least as many women as I do
men if not more.       
     So is your assertion that I do not know many
women based on the assumption that I actually discuss
the abortion history of a significant percentage of
the women that I know? If that is the case, allow me
to to clarify that it is not something I bring up with
most of the women I know. Not only is such not polite
dinner conversation but it isn't really any of my
business. And since I have no axe to grind one way or
another about the issue, I don't really care what a
woman's abortional history is. 
     The only reason I even brought it up in the first
place is that there have been a few times that women
have volunteered such personal information to me for
their own reasons. One of the cases that I recall was
an unmarried woman in her 40's that desperately wanted
children but didn't have any and believed that she was
being "punished" for the abortion she had in her
younger years.
      The other instance that I remember was a younger
woman that was asking me for medical advice as to
whether the build-up of scar tissue in her fallopian
tubes that rendered her infertile might have been
caused by an abortion she had gotten. In both cases
there was discernable remorse.
      The closest that I have come to having abortion
affect me personally were a few scares due to missed
periods on the part of few of my girlfriends.
Fortunately they turned out to be false alarms. I find
that condom use with spermicidal jelly is a very
efficient means of birth control that have the added
benefit of protecting against STDs. Whatever YOUR
personal experience with birth control might be, these
methods have not failed me YET.      

> No. But there is a new issue, which is that I am 25
> years older. When
> I was in my 20s and 30s, egg-freezing was not a
> viable option like it
> is now. Women of my age are basically screwed if
> they want to develop
> their potential in all of the ways that Nature gives
> them.

     From what I understand, freezing unfertilized
eggs still doesn't work reliably. But for "career"
women, who want children after they have established
themselves, I would counsel them to choose a man early
in their career, whose children they would want, and
have IVF performed. There are not any technical
problems involved in freezing fertilized eggs, so the
zygotes that result can be stored indefinately until
the woman is ready. With the latest advances it seems
that having these implanted and could be brought to
term well into a woman's 50's with no ill effects.   


> I worked so hard during the last 25 years to make
> the best decisions
> for my life, and to prepare myself for caring well
> for myself and for
> a family, that it is probably too late now for a
> family. That makes
> me upset. The last 2.5 years was not the best use of
> my time.

This seems to be similar to my first example although
you obviously feel no remorse.

> (sent to the Italian version of the Scientific
> American: "Le Scienze"
> yesterday. I hope that they publish it.)
> 

Good luck, I hope they publish it. I think scientists
in the early phases of their career are underpaid in
EVERY country and not just abroad. It is pretty silly
that such prerequisites of intelligence, extensive
schooling, and talents is so unrewarded in so many
cases. But at least in my field, riches are often just
a single patent away. Have you considered the
aerospace industry as an alternative?

The Avantguardian 
is 
Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that they haven't attempted to contact us." 
-Bill Watterson


		
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