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Something that occurs to me when I'm reading any of several science fiction settings, but in particular Ghost in the Shell and Transhuman Space, is the opportunity to change bodies.
There is no technological or physical limitation, most of the time, what form that new body takes.
Which makes me think there's going to be pedoroids.
A completely of-age ghost inside an undeniably child body.
There's some moral problems with this, of course, but does this society have enough of a problem with that to prohibit it?
There's some "libertarian" belter nations in Transhuman that would be fine with it. After all, the person inside the toddler body is a fully informed adult.
And some of these artificial bodies are 100% biological. That means fully informed adult in child body can do porn. They can put that porn up for sale. Possession of that porn isn't, technically, child-porn; but, also, it most certainly is.
Will it be illegal in your setting?
In one of my settings, *just because there are no laws doesn't mean there are no rules.
ReplyDeleteWearin' a child's body when you're an adult could be considered false advertising.
... Henry
*yep, stole it from Buck Godot
I find the concept of transhumanism, particularly the transferance of consciousness,
ReplyDeleteabsolutely repulsive. It is a complete rejection of nature and humanity. It is an abomination.
Transhumanists should be treated and dealt with like vampires.
By their deeds they are corrupted, by their deeds they are damned.
Transhumanism when Transhuman Space came out should not be confused with the, much ickier, transhuman movement that's in the real world.
DeleteSomewhere in the archives here is a discussion about the star trek transporter that's worth reading too.
Science fiction allows us to look at things without doing them. That's important.
Then there's the whole 'what makes a person a man' question. Just chromosomes? If so, then what about a female who has had a male parts added to her, genetically modified chromosomally 'her' parts, just XY instead of XX and zip-zap, she's got a dick and balls that work. As brought up in "A Civil Campaign" by Lois McMasters Bujold. Is that enough to allow the person to be 'male' because it now can shoot sperm instead of drop eggs?
ReplyDeleteLots of weird questions. Growing clones so one can jump into a new younger body, maybe that of the opposite sex even.
Creation of actual hermaphrodites as a 'sub race' of humans.
You can get weirder, like Delphinos or such, where the new host body is decidedly un-human but is human-brain or human-conscious compatable.
Hell, go the rout of "The Man with Two Heads" and literally have a 2-headed person. Or drop in a consciousness into an already existing brain like in Steve Martin's "All of Me."
Once you leave the concept of 'You are stuck unto death in your own body' where is the dividing line between 'Human' and 'Not-Human'? Is it just the human 'soul' or 'consciousness' that makes one human?
And then you get to the uplifted species. Great Apes, dolphins, dogs, cats, whales, whatever. Animals given human brain capacity and therefore can communicate like humans and think like humans. Traveller's Vargr is an example.
Sure, you can treat them as intelligent creatures, but in a dark world, if one isn't human, is one equal to a human?