Which of us do NOT want to get married, or breed?

[ghosts]

Really? How do you determine what's civilized and what's not?

[Fayetje]

Getting married would mean that I would have to pretend to be heterosexual (and I meant the sexual part), and thus miserable. I'm not going to fake that for anyone.

And I have no maternal instincts.....at all. Babies and kids annoy the crap out of me. So I'm not having any of the little parasites because I don't want to end up like all the abusive mothers I've seen. Or Andrea Yates.

I decided long ago that, selfish as it may sound, this body is mine and not anyone else's for physical gratification or nine months of reaping nutrients. This body works for ME.

I sound cheery today, don't I? :)

[Brodertun]

Getting married would mean that I would have to pretend to be heterosexual (and I meant the sexual part), and thus miserable. I'm not going to fake that for anyone.

How so? I do plan on getting married. But only to an asexual.

And I have no maternal instincts.....at all. Babies and kids annoy the crap out of me. So I'm not having any of the little parasites because I don't want to end up like all the abusive mothers I've seen. Or Andrea Yates.

I prefer kids older than 8. I think of babies is nothing more than one big sticky mess.

I decided long ago that, selfish as it may sound, this body is mine and not anyone else's for physical gratification or nine months of reaping nutrients. This body works for ME.

You can have both marriage and kids and still hold to that principal

[Neurovore]

I wish we had the technology for ectogenesis like in Brave New World.

Anyway, there is so much pressure to get married and have chilren in soceity, and there are also a lot of threads dedicated to marriage and children, that it seemed that people like us were rare, even among the asexual population.

[mouth brooder]

Interesting how Huxley intended ectogenesis to be part of a dystopia, yet people like the idea.

Maybe if society weren't so down on natural processes in general, more of us would look favorably on natural processes in particular.

To me, civilized means blinded by tradition and totally hung up.

[Neurovore]

You could even argue that Brave New World was not entirely distopian.

It seems the call to go "be fruitful and multiply" is more of a hinderance than a help, at this stage of human development.

[mouth brooder]

Yes, why fight evolution? As if we think we can control it.

[a-d]

I'm all for natural processes anyway. However, If people wanted to continue breeding through ectogenesis, that wouldn't solve any problems. If people were to treat ectogenesis as a way to create a class of slaves, then we'd be getting somewhere.

Anyway, society may have an ingrained tendency to pressure people into reproducing, but if you remove yourself from society, then none of that means anything to anyone anymore. Usually when people decide that they want to have children, the benefit for them is conforming to some social norm. Without those norms, I don't see many real long-term benefits.

[Neurovore]

Just because something is "natural", it does not automatically mean that it is ideal.

[a-d]

Just because technology is contrived by humans doesn't make it unnatural, no more than dams built by beavers or hives built by insects. What's most at odds with nature would be a sense of ethical responsibility.

[Neurovore]

I never saw "technology" or "science" as being "unnatural" either. Humans did not invent the atom or the cell. What we have learn about either has existed long before us.

[mouth brooder]

And besides, everything is natural no matter what anyway because it IS. Now I think ideal is a more puzzling concept. It seems ideal is also natural because it is one of those things that IS.

a-d's signature says it all for me.

Don't know if I got across clearly so far, but I think procreating is yucky.

Remember how disgusting Linda the breeder, John the Savage's mom was in BNW?

[Neurovore]

Yes. Do not be like her.

[a-d]

a-d's signature says it all for me.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. The pattern in my avatar is an old symbol representing a hurricane. I'm originally from a hurricane hot-spot. My favorite forces of nature by far would be violent geophysical and meteorological phenomena. It's interesting, because while most animals cope with cyclones, floods, earthquakes, and other so-called disasters, humans tend to freak out as they wreak havoc on their artificial socioeconomic infrastructures. I guess it's completely off-topic, but I figure I had to explain the significance of my avatar to me! As I'm well aware from the avatar association thread, it can mean a lot of things to a lot of people...

[mouth brooder]

I meant your sig, what Buddha said.

But now that you mention it, your avatar is a mouthful too.

[a-d]

Okay, chalk another one up for word association. You used the right word, I quoted it, and somehow wrote avatar instead. It's been a long week...

[Neurovore]

Yes, it has. It is nice to see so many people climb on the no marriage/no spawn bandwagon. Perhaps there is hope for human common sense after all.

[a-d]

Well, I've always been against marriage, but spawn is a tricky subject. I'll just say I want no human spawn as we know it, but I wouldn't be opposed to raising an army of clones or zombies or robots or something. I think that would bring me some fulfillment over the old-fashioned child rearing.

[Neurovore]

I much rather watch my rats grow up than watch a human child "mature". I would also like to watch an army of aliens or robots be grown in a laboratory, or be built in a factory.

[a-d]

If you create a test-tube baby from human and rodent DNA, could you claim it as a dependent? (Okay, that belongs in the stupid questions thread...)

I'm just saying, though, that I think it's about time for a major revision of widely held ethical standards in science. Anyway, best of luck with that...

[Neurovore]

I would rather that a human/rat hybrid be more rat than human. The only human characteristics that I would want it to have would be the greater intelligence (sometimes, anyway.) and the longer lifespan. I wish that rats were larger, too.

[a-d]

Okay, completely off topic now, but wasn't there some old TV show about a lawyer that turned into a giant rat?

[Neurovore]

Yes. It was called Gary the Rat. I do not know what happended to it, though. He looked better as a rat. It was a funny show.

[mouth brooder]

A tourist walks into an antique store and sees under the front counter a small bronze statue of a rat for sale. Intrigued by the object, he asks the price.

"Twelve dollars for the rat, sir," says the shop owner, "and a thousand dollars more for the story behind it."

"You can keep the story, old man," replies the tourist, "but I'll take the rat."

The transaction complete, the tourist leaves the store with the bronze rat under his arm. As he crosses the street in front of the store, two live rats emerge from a sewer drain and fall into step behind him. Nervously looking over his shoulder, he begins to walk faster, but every time he passes another sewer drain, more rats come out and follow him.

By the time the tourist has walked two more blocks, at least a hundred rats are at his heels, and people begin to point and shout. He walks even faster, and soon breaks into a trot as multitudes of rats swarm from sewers, basements, vacant lots, and abandoned cars. Rats by the thousands are at his heels, and as he sees the waterfront at the bottom of the hill, he panics and starts to run full tilt.

Yet, no matter how fast he runs, the rats keep up, squealing hideously, now not just thousands but millions, so that by the time he comes rushing up to the water's edge a trail of rats twelve city blocks long is behind him.

Making a mighty leap, he jumps up onto a light post, grasping it with one arm while he hurls the bronze rat into San Francisco Bay with the other, as far as he can heave it. Pulling his legs up and clinging to the top of the light post, he watches in amazement as the seething tide of rats surges over the breakwater and into the sea, where they drown.

Shaken and mumbling, he makes his way back to the antique shop. "Ah, you've come back for the rest of the story," says the owner. "No," says the tourist, "I was wondering if you have a bronze sculpture of a lawyer."

[a-d]

Okay, back on topic, I looked up "Gary the Rat" on IMDb, and found this quote:

Harrison: Does she have any kids?

Gary: Yes.

Harrison: How Many?

Gary: Eight

Harrison: Jimminy Christmas, someone should tell her that it's a vagina not a clown car.

Hooray for sterile humans!

[Neurovore]

I think that sterlization should be covered by insurance. I also think that it should be done whenever anyone asks their doctor for it, instead of being told that they should have children first.

[Dixie]

Marriage, maybe. If I can find someone who understands me, wonderful. If not, I've got friends and family who love me.

Kids..eh..I dunno. Most certainly not right now, but if I really want one in the future, I'll go to my nearest adoption center.

[a-d]

I think that sterlization should be covered by insurance. I also think that it should be done whenever anyone asks their doctor for it, instead of being told that they should have children first.

Best just to give vasectomies and tubal ligations at birth. If people really want children and can prove that they're both fiscally and personally responsible, then they can adopt until there's no more children left to adopt. Then just harvest germ cells and fertilize as needed.

[Neurovore]

Hold on...I will quote myself again...

Here, I'll quote myself from another thread. It would be the easiest way to explain myself. I like the idea of completely artificial reproduction. No mess, or fuss. Currently, the world has close to 7 billion people and the population keeps on growing. For the human race to survive and prosper in the future we will have to decrease our population. If we do not do this, we will face widespread wars, disease, overcrowding, famine, shortages of critical resources, and humanity's civil rights would probably be severely curtailed as a result.

Some of the ideas in Brave New World wouldn't be so bad in some cases. Instead of burdening anyone with the physical and psychological traumas of pregnancy, why not eliminate it entirely? Even though we do not have the technology yet to grow embryos in tanks (ectogenesis) it could prove to be quite useful.

Everyone would have to apply for a license to have children. Applicants who wished to have more than one child must go through the process each time, with a waiting period between each successive application. Racial, regional, cultural distinctions, gender, and sexual orientation would not matter in the application process.

The areas that would be looked at in the application process would be 1. Financial stability, 2. The number of children that you already have, 3. Housing conditions, 4. Criminal history, 5. Genetic health. The last one might sound controversial to some people, but keep in mind that some genetic disorders are really horrible such as Cystic Fibrosis and Tay Sachs disease. I would not want to curse anyone with conditions such as these. I realize, that we have not identified the gene or genes responsible for all of these conditions, but the ones that we do know of can be tested for. In the future, we will probably find more of them.

At the onset of puberty, everyone would be sterilized. Tubal ligations and hysterectomies for females (only the uterus, not the cervix or ovaries) and vasectomies for males. For those individuals who are thinking about having children in the future, their gametes would be harvested before sterilization. Their eggs and sperm will be frozen until they are needed.

If someone is approved to have a child, they would need the written and signed consent of a sperm or an egg donor during the presence of a lawyer. A man would need the written and signed consent of a genetically healthy woman who would want to be his egg donor, and a woman would need the written and signed consent of a genetically healthy man who would be her sperm donor.

The gametes would be combined in a test tube and then transferred into the ectogenesis chamber where it could continue its development. If, at anytime, the male or the female decided to terminate the "pregnancy" they would have until the third trimester in order to do so. The man could fill out a written and signed consent form in the presence of a lawyer to abort without the permission of the woman, but the woman could fill out a written and signed consent form in the presence of a lawyer to abort without the permission of the man.

After the third trimester however, it would be too late to abort if anyone changes their mind. The fetus would be allowed to continue to develop to full term and then put up for adoption. The child could be adopted by anyone who meets the first four criteria of the licensing process to have children. This means that anyone who was rejected because they carry an allele for a debilitating genetic disorder need not give up the hope of having children.

If neither the man or the woman changes their mind during the development of the fetus, the baby is then "delivered" when full term, and is then raised by the licensed man or woman. If they both are licensed, than they can raise the child together if they wish.

This is my proposition. I know that it is long winded, but I hope that it makes sense.

[mouth brooder]

Best just to give vasectomies and tubal ligations at birth. If people really want children and can prove that they're both fiscally and personally responsible' date=' then they can adopt until there's no more children left to adopt. Then just harvest germ cells and fertilize as needed.[/quote']

Sounds like a good idea considering we live in a society in which it is only a matter of time before some car manufacturer names their latest model, the Vagina.