From: kim3@husc10.harvard.edu (Jason Kim)
Newsgroups: alt.sex,alt.cyberpunk,misc.legal
Subject: Re: Virtual Ethics
Date: 11 Apr 92 06:45:07 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Apr11.024509.10949
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

In article <65174@apple.Apple.COM> chmilar@Apple.COM (Michael Chmilar) writes:
>kim3@husc10.harvard.edu (Jason Kim) writes:
>
>>since in a VR world a person can take whatever form he or she desires, the
>>feeling that we present-day people experience of not being able to make our-
>>selves look good will disappear. If Mary has what it takes to attract Bubba
>>and she knows it, her confidence in herself will be such that she won't care
>>about not looking like Kathy Ireland in the physical world.
>
>>Which brings me to my second hypothesis. I think that everyone on such a net
>>will learn to value the *substantial* things in others, rather than just their 
>>physical charm (insubstantial because it is accidental and temporary)
>>thus leading to a greater maturity of society. I think this will be especially
>>true in light of the fact that *everyone* will be able to make themselves
>>look "perfect" (by modern standards). If everyone can look like the ideal
>>model, then the value of having an ideal appearance drops to nothing, and the
>>value of looks as a criterion of personal worth drops to nothing.
>
>We still have a physical body.  We still have to breed, at some stage 
>during these wonderful relationships.

Well, I shouldn't be saying this but there is always the possibility of
artificial insemination...now wait, come one, if all your carnal desires were
being fulfilled already, would you *really* care that your physical body
were missing out on the awkward act of copulatory coitus?


>Throughout history, physical attractiveness has been highly influenced
>by fashion.
>In any VR world, if there is mass communal interaction, there will be some
>notion of fashion.  Fashion may be based on this mechanism:  I have some
>unique trait (tall/short, thin/fat, able to spew out large prime numbers
>quickly, good color sense, etc.) which I manage to convince other people
>is cool and worthwhile, so it becomes fashionable.  Not everyone has the
>same ability.
>
>Therefore, cliques will still exist.  So will prejudice.
>"All men are created equal" does
>not mean that all men (or women) have equal abilities.  Some are smart,
>some are stupid.
>This will be the same in a VR world.

Well yes, I never denied any of this. All I said (and read your quote of me!)
is that *looks* won't count any more. As they shouldn't, for I too believe
all people are created unequally but deserve equal rights. Surely it is easier
to treat others fairly when we are stripped of our ability to make preconceived
notions about others based on purely *external* criteria. Maybe having a good
color sense seems just as arbitrary to you, but at least that is a value that
is a reflection of a person's inner self. In that sense I believe it is a more
substantive judgment to make about a person.

In a VR world, the ideal of being blind to a person's physical characteristics
will not be a dream; it will be real. Just like it is here in the Net today!


>Utopias never work.  Communist Russia was supposed to be one, and look how
>that turned out.

Well... you can't really use the Soviet Union as an example of a failed utopia.
Without ever having fulfilled the prerequisites that Marx defined, 
the project was doomed from the start and was never a valid example of a 
utopian experiment. But I see your point.

=============================================================================
Jason Y. Kim                    |        "To see others suffer does one good,
                                |           to make others suffer even more."
kim3@husc9.harvard.edu          |                        --Friedrich Nietzche