Thank you. I think in this case a lot of it comes down to the model though. A lot of the character/monologue/humour comes from simply trying to put words to her facial expressions and body language.
And here's we've got the people who went at it the smart way. Only to be called sexists by their grand or great grand children :D
They probably didn't need more than one generation of Volunteers - afterwards they'd have made sure of a steady supply. Keeping the first generation happy would have been a huge priority and a lot of it probably stuck.
These people went with the chose sex once keep it forever model. I wonder if other nations managed to solve their problem by just developing sex changes to the point that people could just go for it for a pregnancy (or fun later) and then switch back.
You're probably right - this way of doing this makes a lot more sense than constantly requiring volunteers - or worse, imposing a lottery/draft system. Doesn't make for such good drama though :) If I ever get round to writing the novel-length account of the Depopulation Event, I think this is going to be a fairly big plot hole to hand-wave my way out of. In fairness though, when did governments or societies ever do anything in a way that was kind, fair, rational or even intellectually coherent? Particularly when it comes to sex?
They usually do when it's actually important. The societies that didn't collapsed and wiped themselves out.
Well, they usually do what they think is necessary. Fairness is usually of little concern, but would you want to deeply traumatize about half your population and have those people actually raise children? (the lottery/draft model)
Making a sex-change attractive for volunteers would be the pragmatic thing to do. Propaganda and massive incentives could help a lot. And if you can do mass transitions you can probably also tune female bodies to the point that basically every volunteer would consider the experience superior.
"They usually do when it's actually important." Ah, Beyogi! How I admire your optimism in these post-Brexit, post-Trump times :) Joking aside, sometimes people do get their shit together and put a working system in place, sometimes society collapses altogether, and sometimes people muddle along in a barely-functioning system for decades. You do raise an interesting point about draftees and trauma. Maybe they'd have to add some kind of monitoring/psychological evaluation. But a lot of people will be going through it together, and I think they would take measures to help them adapt. I guess it all comes down to how traumatic you think changing sex is. I mean, compared to the military draft - facing death and killing people - having slightly different but functional genitals, and going through few painful experiences that a large portion of the population also endure isn't really that big a deal.
I would argue the experiences of transgendered people with their original sex prove this wrong.
The greatest danger to humans have been other humans for a long time.
As a result we should be adapted far better to killing each other than changing sex. That's the sad state of affairs.
Ultimately it probably depends a lot of the persons involved, but you can expect that society would need to change massively to accomodate these people.
Even if you took the third of the masculine gaus-curve that cuts with the female gauss-curve and feminised them all they'd still have learned an entirely different gender role and have different expectations. While we can alter gender roles, we can't really force people to adapt one. Either they do or they don't.
You'd probably end up with a rare few women, a lot female guys and the rest male guys. I think the society in this caption has handled such a situation pretty well. But I can easily see this go wrong if someone tries to force people too hard.
Honestly I find these scenarios fascinating. I just wonder if artificial wombs wouldn't really be a more practical solution. Basically transform every volunteer with normal RL (sterilising) sex change methods and just get the next generation from artificial wombs.
There's a lot of different ways this could play out, and it would vary from individual to individual, culture to culture. A lot of people (RL) spend their time in bodies/genders they're not exactly happy with, but just get on with it. I think any volunteers would be people who didn't mind particularly what gender they were and were able to adapt. Draftees would vary wildly - I'm sure some wouldn't cope. Others would grin and bear it. Others would thrive. But in the Depopulation Event universe we're struggling for the survival of the species. It's a much bigger crisis than, say, world war 2, and the total suffering on the part of the volunteers/draftees would be much, much lower. Our entire evolutionary history is one of suffering, death, and slow incremental improvements. In the long run, all that really matters is that the species survives, that society - in some form - survives - and enough people cope well enough for things to continue. Artificial wombs may be a valid solution, but they probably wouldn't make for interesting stories/drama. It also wouldn't solve the issues relating to the wildly skewed M/F ratio. The idea of 'female guys' - men who were obliged to change sex but maintained their old identity is an interesting one - I think I covered this slightly a month or so back in 'Lucky'. Of course, it's also worth pointing out that our notion of 'woman' would change as well. Within a generation, woman just means 'a person who changed sex from male to female, plus a few who were born that way'. That's a pretty fundamental change to the culture. It's pretty complex, I guess, is what I'm saying.
Very sweet read. Your vivid imagination conveys realism with a twist of humor.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Rachel.
-CL
Thank you. I think in this case a lot of it comes down to the model though. A lot of the character/monologue/humour comes from simply trying to put words to her facial expressions and body language.
ReplyDeleteAnd here's we've got the people who went at it the smart way. Only to be called sexists by their grand or great grand children :D
ReplyDeleteThey probably didn't need more than one generation of Volunteers - afterwards they'd have made sure of a steady supply. Keeping the first generation happy would have been a huge priority and a lot of it probably stuck.
These people went with the chose sex once keep it forever model. I wonder if other nations managed to solve their problem by just developing sex changes to the point that people could just go for it for a pregnancy (or fun later) and then switch back.
Thank you for this great caption,
Beyogi
You're probably right - this way of doing this makes a lot more sense than constantly requiring volunteers - or worse, imposing a lottery/draft system. Doesn't make for such good drama though :) If I ever get round to writing the novel-length account of the Depopulation Event, I think this is going to be a fairly big plot hole to hand-wave my way out of. In fairness though, when did governments or societies ever do anything in a way that was kind, fair, rational or even intellectually coherent? Particularly when it comes to sex?
ReplyDeleteThey usually do when it's actually important. The societies that didn't collapsed and wiped themselves out.
DeleteWell, they usually do what they think is necessary. Fairness is usually of little concern, but would you want to deeply traumatize about half your population and have those people actually raise children? (the lottery/draft model)
Making a sex-change attractive for volunteers would be the pragmatic thing to do. Propaganda and massive incentives could help a lot. And if you can do mass transitions you can probably also tune female bodies to the point that basically every volunteer would consider the experience superior.
"They usually do when it's actually important."
ReplyDeleteAh, Beyogi! How I admire your optimism in these post-Brexit, post-Trump times :)
Joking aside, sometimes people do get their shit together and put a working system in place, sometimes society collapses altogether, and sometimes people muddle along in a barely-functioning system for decades.
You do raise an interesting point about draftees and trauma. Maybe they'd have to add some kind of monitoring/psychological evaluation. But a lot of people will be going through it together, and I think they would take measures to help them adapt. I guess it all comes down to how traumatic you think changing sex is. I mean, compared to the military draft - facing death and killing people - having slightly different but functional genitals, and going through few painful experiences that a large portion of the population also endure isn't really that big a deal.
I would argue the experiences of transgendered people with their original sex prove this wrong.
DeleteThe greatest danger to humans have been other humans for a long time.
As a result we should be adapted far better to killing each other than changing sex. That's the sad state of affairs.
Ultimately it probably depends a lot of the persons involved, but you can expect that society would need to change massively to accomodate these people.
Even if you took the third of the masculine gaus-curve that cuts with the female gauss-curve and feminised them all they'd still have learned an entirely different gender role and have different expectations. While we can alter gender roles, we can't really force people to adapt one. Either they do or they don't.
You'd probably end up with a rare few women, a lot female guys and the rest male guys. I think the society in this caption has handled such a situation pretty well. But I can easily see this go wrong if someone tries to force people too hard.
Honestly I find these scenarios fascinating. I just wonder if artificial wombs wouldn't really be a more practical solution. Basically transform every volunteer with normal RL (sterilising) sex change methods and just get the next generation from artificial wombs.
There's a lot of different ways this could play out, and it would vary from individual to individual, culture to culture. A lot of people (RL) spend their time in bodies/genders they're not exactly happy with, but just get on with it. I think any volunteers would be people who didn't mind particularly what gender they were and were able to adapt. Draftees would vary wildly - I'm sure some wouldn't cope. Others would grin and bear it. Others would thrive. But in the Depopulation Event universe we're struggling for the survival of the species. It's a much bigger crisis than, say, world war 2, and the total suffering on the part of the volunteers/draftees would be much, much lower.
DeleteOur entire evolutionary history is one of suffering, death, and slow incremental improvements. In the long run, all that really matters is that the species survives, that society - in some form - survives - and enough people cope well enough for things to continue.
Artificial wombs may be a valid solution, but they probably wouldn't make for interesting stories/drama. It also wouldn't solve the issues relating to the wildly skewed M/F ratio.
The idea of 'female guys' - men who were obliged to change sex but maintained their old identity is an interesting one - I think I covered this slightly a month or so back in 'Lucky'. Of course, it's also worth pointing out that our notion of 'woman' would change as well. Within a generation, woman just means 'a person who changed sex from male to female, plus a few who were born that way'. That's a pretty fundamental change to the culture.
It's pretty complex, I guess, is what I'm saying.