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From: [email protected] (Nesta Stubbs)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: Frankenstein (was Dystopia cont.)
Date: 11 Sep 1995 13:19:30 -0500
Organization: Cynico Network Consulting
Lines: 43
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]> <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: miso.wwa.com

In article <[email protected]>, Halibut wrote:
>[email protected] (Nesta Stubbs) wrote:
>> Much
>>Doesn't really matter if you make a distinction like that Omar, either
>>way Humanity is changed, . . .
>> More
>
>All this talk of technology changing our humanity is missing the point.
>Change is one of the defining characteristics of a human. Our genes
>inhabit the dangerous niche on the very edge of the survivability
>envelope. It is pre-programmed into us to pick up a new tool and bash
>away with it, wether we get flint cuts in our fingers or give our
>children an unhealthy glow and two heads.
>
No shit, thats what we have been saying, or at least myself for the
last two posts. I don't recall myself ever making statements to the
effect that the change is bad or avoidable. But I think your statement
about it being pre-programmed may be an error. Not all humans are
instinctivly moving towards technology and new tools. I think it's
more of a function of cultural influence. There is always a certain
push in the organism to get an "angle" but not everyone uses
technology to do it.

>Our forefathers took one look at a mountain or an ocean and started
>finding ways to cross it. So long as one male and one female gets across
>the divide with their reproductive organs mostly intact, our genes dont
>give a damn about the rest who drowned or got frostbite.
>
Is that how Tennesee started? explains some stuff.

>The only way to loose your humanity is to stand still, wether it is in
>the face of new technology, the future, agression, atrocity, whatever.
>Change is what we are, computers and biotechnology simply enhance our
>ability to make better shells to protect ourselves or make it so that, in
>the future, only one female (probably) has to survive to carry the genes
>onwards. I'm with Dawkins, our genes are our second worst enemy.

wow, that's really beautiful fluff.

--
Nesta Stubbs "Betsy, can you find the Pentagon for me?
Cynico Network Consulting It has five sides and a big parking lot"
[email protected] -Fred McMurray-


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