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There are only 720 sexes


Snao Cone

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Or rather, there are at least that many. 

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/paris-zoo-blob-1.5325747

 

In case you're wondering how the blob has 720 sexes, here's how it works: While human sex cells come in two types (sperm and egg), slime moulds have sex cells with multiple genes that can come in different combinations. Those combinations determine whether two individuals can mate with one another.

 

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3 minutes ago, NimaToad said:

Good thing blobs don't have to fill out forms

Who knows, maybe they have their own headache of a bureaucratic establishment in the blobosphere. 

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Interesting. Sometimes I actually wonder if alien life on different planets evolved to have different numbers of sexes.

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9 minutes ago, Snao van der Cone said:

Who knows, maybe they have their own headache of a bureaucratic establishment in the blobosphere. 

Oh no, do they all need their own respective toilets in blob school?

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To be more accurate, this organism is intersex, based on a combination of 720 sex determining traits. I'm not going to even comprehend the number of permutations of that. That's how many washrooms they'd need in their schools. 

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I have known several slime moulds but have not been interested in determining their mating capabilities.  Being asexual can definitely limit some life difficulties.  

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RoseGoesToYale

I remember posting once in PPS that human sex determination at birth was a crock of social construction, and that if we assigned human categories by, say, ear shape, there'd be a lot more of them.

 

When I saw this I spit out my drink and flew outta my chair.

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This is offensive propaganda. There is no such thing as different sexes in humans or in any other creature, even blobs. It's literally all just a social construct designed by the patriarchy to control us all. 

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32 minutes ago, GhostGoesToWail said:

I remember posting once in PPS that human sex determination at birth was a crock of social construction, and that if we assigned human categories by, say, ear shape, there'd be a lot more of them.

 

When I saw this I spit out my drink and flew outta my chair.

I'm trying to imagine someone having 720 ears of different shapes, but my mind has wisely blocked that mental picture from forming. 

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RoseGoesToYale
1 minute ago, Snao van der Cone said:

I'm trying to imagine someone having 720 ears of different shapes, but my mind has wisely blocked that mental picture from forming. 

Now I want to know how many possible ear shapes humans can have. Somebody get counting!

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8 minutes ago, GhostGoesToWail said:

Now I want to know how many possible ear shapes humans can have. Somebody get counting!

Someone has to socially construct an ear algorithm.  

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33 minutes ago, Snao van der Cone said:

I'm trying to imagine someone having 720 ears of different shapes, but my mind has wisely blocked that mental picture from forming. 

This is about as close as it gets.

 

Star_Trek_50_Way_to_Eden_pic2.jpg

 

The leader of the space hippies from Star Trek S03E20 "The Way to Eden".

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Is it because it's six factorial? Do they just like that number?

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On 10/18/2019 at 5:22 PM, Gloomy said:

Interesting. Sometimes I actually wonder if alien life on different planets evolved to have different numbers of sexes.

To be honest, I don't find it very likely that humannoids or complex alien lifes would have more than 2 sexes in general solely for effectiveness reason. 1 or two seem to be common-place in more complex multicellular animals.

 

That being said, imagine being a sex therapist for them.

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3 hours ago, R_1 said:

To be honest, I don't find it very likely that humannoids or complex alien lifes would have more than 2 sexes in general solely for effectiveness reason. 1 or two seem to be common-place in more complex multicellular animals.

 

That being said, imagine being a sex therapist for them.

Even if aliens did only have two sexes, they might not be male and female as we know them, another interesting thing I've thought about.

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On 10/19/2019 at 2:15 AM, Jon A. said:

This is about as close as it gets.

 

Star_Trek_50_Way_to_Eden_pic2.jpg

 

The leader of the space hippies from Star Trek S03E20 "The Way to Eden".

God that episode is pure cringe. Not quite "Spock's Brain" level, but... ugh. 😆

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10 hours ago, Gloomy said:

Even if aliens did only have two sexes, they might not be male and female as we know them, another interesting thing I've thought about.

Ever read Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis series?  It's fascinating.

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21 hours ago, Mysticus Insanus said:

God that episode is pure cringe. Not quite "Spock's Brain" level, but... ugh. 😆

To me it's just so dumb that it's laughable. Much of the credit for that goes to Charles Napier's character. I don't take any of it seriously, for me it's no more than make-believe. :)

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