X-Message-Number: 16586
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 03:50:10 +0000 ()
From: Louis Epstein <>
Subject: Replies to CryoNet #16562 - #16567

On 18 Jun 2001, CryoNet wrote:

> ------------------------------------
> Message #16562 From: 
> Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 08:02:15 EDT
> Subject: Homosexuals, cryonics and the "natural order."
> 
> Cryonics must be getting close to breaking into the mainstream and maybe 
> making it to the Scientology level of success: two out of three "markers 

> being realized" isn't bad. Thus, it is as a genuine marker of progress that I

> noted Louis Epstein's comments about homosexuality, and the arrival of others
> who are ignorant of how what they have to argue about on Cryonet came about. 
> 
> First, some words about homosexuality from my perspective as a biologist. It 
> should be noted that I am a homosexual and thus while I have some unique 

> insights, my views must also be carefully examined for conflicts of interests
> and lack of objectivity. The readers can judge for themselves.
> 

> I'll start with some very basic observational field and evolutionary biology.
> It is a hard concept for nonbiologists, but one thing that is abundantly 

> clear is that nature truly is Dawkins' Blind Watchmaker. There is no absolute
> order or proper way in nature: the only imperative is survival of life, 
> usually in the form of the species. Here again, there is no one right way. 

Kipling:
"There are nine and sixty ways
of constructing tribal lays,
and every single one of them
is right!"

I'll say again that I read through
years of Cryonet archives...I am
aware of Mgdarwin's homosexuality
and of his status as the tortured
genius of the field,there at the
edge of cryopreservations for more
of his life than probably anyone.

But the nihilist worldview of
biology here expressed is part of
the same despair that led him to
abjure "freezing corpses" a few
years ago.We need a more hopeful
vision of being able to create a
best order where there was none,
to drive immortalism.

If we're going to make ourselves
last indefinitely,its being impossible
before can't be seen as making it
impossible for the future.

> The "best" strategy is the one that "works" for a given environment.
> Sickle cell trait is no advantage in a world without malaria and 
> is considered a genetic defect, unless of course you live in a malaria 
> infested area. Having seen the swath malaria is cutting through contemporary 
> India I have great respect for the utility of the sickle cell "defect."

Surely our biology can be improved
(not replaced) to combine the best
of traits.

(I wonder what can be done with skin.
Certainly a case can be made that
being "white" is a defect,such skin
burns easily...but I understand there
are some allied efficiencies in vitamin
processing).
 
> Nature just doesn't give a damn, to be blunt. The dice of genetic and thus 
> phenotypic variation are constantly being rolled and the outcomes tested 
> against an equally dynamic and changing environment. It doesn't take great 
> brains to realize that we have the wild bestiary of extinct animals in the 
> fossil record because the environment changed.

But as a creature capable of
changing the environment to an
unprecedented extent,we humans
make adapting to changed environments
obsolete!


> Right now, wings have the edge: birds live longer, better lives than
> mammals, including man, although we are closing the gap, albeit at
> enormous destabilizing impact on the rest of the biosphere.

What longevity records for birds
are you aware of?
(The human record remains 122,
on a proven basis,though the
110+ age category continues to
grow).

> So now we come to sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular. Sex 
> is very fluid in nature and many strategies exist to achieve reproduction. 

Reproduction is why there is such
a thing as sexuality.

> I have a Class A piece of amber which is 200 million years old and I
> can't tell the termites or the ants preserved in it from contemporary
> ones that infest my house from time to time. That's what I call a good
> initial design! Durable to say the least! But alas, unlikely to reach
> the stars, write sonnets or colonize the solar system.

And hence,I hope to see time
prove our design viable over
much longer than those insect
designs.(Whatever the wannabe
"posthumans" think...they of
course can be falsified by
being outlasted by humans).

> Homosexuality is very robust across a wide range of species including most 
> mammals and birds. It is constant at between 2% and 10% of the population as 
> an exclusive behavior, and more like 15% to 20% as a transient, occasional, 
> or opportunistic behavior. It's long durability (at least 5,000 years in 
> humans) suggests "evolutionary utility." On the other hand, it may be just 
> one of countless "mutations" or "variations" which just don't experience 
> enough selection pressure to be weeded out.

I am as you might guess partial
to the view that it's something
that could be weeded out.

> Even today, there are some tenable theories about the utility of 
> homosexuality and reasons for its evolutionary conservation. These reasons 
> bear strongly on the intersection of homosexuality and cryonics which has 
> been highly significant, as I will show.

I'm aware of the intersection of
homosexuality and cryonics,from my
reading of the archives and other
websites concerning cryonics.That's
why I included homosexuals among the
list of often-contradictory groups
that seemed prevalent in cryonics
but none of which included me,in
my first message to Cryonet.
 
> What are the possible reasons for homosexuality being "valuable to the 
> species" and evolutionarily conserved?
> 
> This doesn't leave a lot of spare time for art, music, literature or nursing 
> and care of sick and the dead. Homosexuals in almost all human cultures tend 
> to combine the superior food gathering capabilities of males with the 
> nurturing aspects of females. In the natural (precivilization) state illness 

> and death of tribe members is commonplace and women suffer a disproportionate
> share of mortality. The presence of men and women who do not have 
> reproductive units of their own allows their energies to be used to benefit 
> the group as a whole. Humans are uniquely cultural animals and we depend on 
> story telling, myth and history to survive and communicate survival critical 
> knowledge from generation to generation. Homosexuals represent a pool of 
> non-reproducers who can act as backup and support for these functions. 
> 
> It may be no accident that homosexuals in both primitive and modern
> societies occupy the following roles which are of general social benefit
> in disproportionate number:
> 
> *Nursing and caregiving to the ill. Speaking from experience a significant 
> percentage of nurses (male and female) are gay and lesbian.
> *Priestsly functions including dealing with communicable illness and 
> disposing of the dead (it is estimated that 20% of embalmers are homosexual).
> *Art and culture which are critical to group cohesiveness.

> *Major artistic, social and political changes in paradigms and reforms (think
> of Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Joan of Arc and just keep going). These people 
> have the ability to focus all their energies and resources on problems of 
> great value to the group as opposed to their immediate family alone.

I don't see why these things can
not be done by celibate persons.
Certainly if genetic components
leading to homosexuality are tied
in the genome to genes for useful
things,one would not want to get
rid of those useful things in the
process of an effort to get rid of
homosexuality.

It seems to me intellectually
bankrupt to have sexual relationships
between persons of the same sex.
This turns reasonable relaxation of
strictly-reproductive use of sexuality
into sheer absurdity.The pleasure 
aspect is a bribe built in to ensure
reproduction;this should be acknowledged
whether or not procreation is the goal
of the relationship.It is not where
the insertions take place that puts a
sex act beyond the pale of rationality
to my thinking,but the sex of the 
persons being the same,per se.That
represents a step from knowing you're
falling short of the design purpose
of sexuality,to spitting in its face.

> 2) Male-male and to a lesser extent female-female bonding approaching 
> romantic love is critical to successful hunting and combat operations. This 
> bonding typically stops before sexual interaction in the modern world.

It seems to me vital to the successful
operation of a military unit that any
sexual interaction between its members
be definitively unthinkable.If the idea
is even floating in the air there can
be trouble.If the unit is composed of
persons whose only possible sex partners
are not in it...QED.

> Homosexuality is no more or less aberrant than the first feathers or the 
> first wings or the first human born without a brain or one born with a tail. 

> It's all the same to the universe. It's a blind crapshoot and whatever works,
> works.

Again...my view of the universe
is more idealistic than that...I
believe in the possibility of
perfectability,and see that as
part of immortalism.

> On a personal note, I'm no gay rights zealot nor are most of the gays in 
> cryonics. Most are of a libertarian bent. I favor equal enforcement of laws 
> that already exist. My sexuality would be peripheral to who I am if people 
> like Mr. Epstein hadn't made it otherwise. It still isn't high on my list of 
> essentials as to who I am.

From my perspective,it seems that
those who demand homosexuality be
treated as if equal to heterosexuality
are using it to define people with
the condition,regardless of attributes
I would consider more important.

> One thing's for sure though, straight, gay or something else, you aren't 
> going to recruit people by calling them defective and threatening their 

> autonomy by "fixing" them for their own good. I've got a modest collection of
> Third Reich items including concentration camp badges, scrip, and Aryan 
> Certificates.. Horrible and sobering. I display it prominently to remind me 
> that moral certainty on issues of this kind is a very dangerous thing.

But without moral certainty that
we ought to conquer death,how can
we ever do it?
 
> Mike Darwin
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------
> Message #16565 Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 14:48:07 -0400
> From: <>
> 
> Many of us have conversations with our loved ones about cryonics
> which are similar to this whole discussion about whether homosexuality
> is `deplorable'.  I will paraphrase `deplorable' as `unhealthy', which
> i think is a little more specific.

A little less accurate,though.
My position is that it's illogical
to ever engage in sex acts with
someone of the same sex,health
effects aside.And that a predilection
to such acts is an unfortunate
condition.
 
> If our loved one presents an anti-cryonics argument which we logically
> rebut, the rebuttal may be simply ignored.  I'll bet everybody here
> has had that experience.  Likewise, recently the argument has been
> made that homosexuality is unhealthy because if everybody was a gay or
> lesbian, the species as a whole wouldn't reproduce.  [BTW, this has
> been the only argument offered on cryonet that homosexuality is
> unhealthy, i believe.]  Kennita eloquently rebutted this in 16546, and
> Mike P elaborated.  What Kennita and Mike P pointed out is known in
> economics as the fallacy of composition, and an example is `if all
> humans were men, the species would be doomed, therefore being a man is
> unhealthy'.  (They also pointed out that even if this global
> aggregation weren't logically fallacious, the premise is still wrong,
> because sometimes gays and lesbians do have children.)

In a culture where heterosexuality
is normative,there is pressure on
homosexuals to nonetheless have
children.If all were homosexuals,
I doubt that any would bother.

It's a dearly held orthodoxy of
homosexuals and apologists for
homosexuality that the condition
is inborn...so absent pressure to
act against it,why would there be
such acts?

> Now you certainly do have a point that we don't want to stifle
> diversity of opinion---but i don't think Olaf was trying to do that
> in 16551.  His statement was extremely neutral and not confined
> to homophobia.

But are you prepared to say that
anyone who thinks there is anything
at all wrong with homosexuality is
not a bigot?

 
> (I don't want to summarize Professor Wilson's arguments, but
> genetic fitness and propagation do not boil down to having as
> many direct descendents as you can.  There are collateral effects,
> and the best strategy for some genes, for example, may be
> to propagate by increasing the survival rate of siblings'
> descendents.  So it may be to the evolutionary advantage of
> some sets of genes to cause a certain fraction of the individuals
> in which they are present to engage in behavior which may seem
> counter-intuitive.)

The genetic component of homosexuality
survives through agnate relatives of
those in whom the genes manifest.But
that doesn't mean such genes themselves
help survival.

And I think a society in which
homosexuals are not expected to
reproduce will probably weed out
any related genes more effectively.

> dan
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------
> Message #16567 Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 12:03:57 -0700
> From: Mike Perry <>
> 
> >From: Louis Epstein <>
> >...
> 
> >"uploads" can no more be humans than we are the tree rats of 75 million
> >years ago that we are descended from).
> 
> I hope to become more than human. Being human is a stage of my existence, 
> that's all, rather like being a small child, which I still remember with 
> fondness, but do not want to repeat. In particular I do not have the same 
> body now as then. In the future I will, no doubt, be expressed in a still 
> different physical medium. The physical medium to me is not so important as 
> what is happening at the informational level, which includes remembering.

You do have the same body you
had as a small child,which has
matured.You have not replaced
it,it has continued to develop.
An "uploadee" would have left
the body.Ceasing to be human.

> >...
> > > I think that DLG has good intentions, but
> > > identifying as a "deathist" (we don't know your real name) is tough on us
> > > who value the opposite of deathism so highly.
> >
> >Actually,I located her real name and replied to her by it,and she
> >admitted to it in her response.You didn't notice that exchange?
> 
> Yes, "Debra" was a name she apparently used (was that her real name? what 
> about last name?) on another forum but she didn't tell us about it (and 
> didn't seem to appreciate your efforts to dredge it up either).

Her last name was mentioned on that
website,but I didn't see the need to
post it here since obviously I knew
it.Since I gave the domain,you could
look it up if you wanted.

No need to KEEP stepping on her toes.

> >I suppose the allure of mortalism is that it's "normal",and accepting
> >it is held up as a sign of maturity.
> 
> How do we best try to change that attitude?

That will be a tough one.
We all DO need to accept that
we are limited and fallible,
but the absolute necessity of
dying needs to be punctured.

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=16586