Why Chicks Don't Dig the Singularity

Why Chicks Don't Dig the Singularity

The Acceleration Studies Foundation has Salons that are held in cool places like San Fransciso with great speakers. The most recent Salon had a speaker with the wonderful name of Joe Quirk, who is an evolutionary psychological comic.  His recent book is called "Sperm are from Men, Eggs are from Women, the Real Reason Men and Women are Different."  You can take a look at Joe's website, and click on the information about the book to get a feel for the contents.  His basic thesis is that evolution determines the reasons that men and women have so much trouble connection in our advanced technological society. Men are hardwired to go around spreading their sperm so their DNA survives, and women need men to stick around to make sure their babies survive.

Before the Salon, Joe was interviewed by RU Sirius, and the salient points were published on the Webzine,  10 Zen Monkeys.  If you aren't familiar with RU Sirius, he is an American writer, musician, and cyberculture icon.  He is a show host for two ongoing weekly podcasts, The RU Sirius Show and NeoFiles.  He launched the Webzine, 10 Zen Moneys in September 2006. Thanks to wikipedia for the information.  (Aside, how did I ever survive before Wikipedia and Google?)

Quirk points out that woman are not very interested in all this Futurist stuff, especially the Singularity.  Dear readers, if you have no idea what I am talking about, look here. But the question is – Why doesn't the idea of The Singularity appeal to women?

JQ is Joe Quick and RU is RU Sirius, This is transcribed from a Podcast.

"JQ: All these ideas are founded on some assumptions about human nature. And I think some of the assumptions about human nature that we make in the futurist community are wrong. For instance, I’ve noticed chicks don’t dig the singularity. For instance, I went to a recent Accelerated Change conference, and I actually counted up the people, and I found that less than a fifth of the presenters were women, and less than a sixth of the attendees were women.

RU:That sounds like a high count of women compared to some geek stuff that I’ve been to!

JQ:Yeah, when there’s actual machinery, it’s like 1% women. But I knew a lot of the women who were there, and they were there because it was their guy’s primary interest. So Ray Kurzweil got up there and Moira Gunn was interviewing him, and everybody got to submit a question. And Moira would pick her three favorite questions. So there were all these technical questions about how will the singularity do this, how will the singularity do that. And my question was, “How will the Singularity get laid… err help me get laid?” So she picked my question as an extra one as a way of dismissing it. She said, “Somebody put a joke question in here, and can you believe that there are people here who would write something like this? It’s ‘how will the Singularity help me get laid?’” And then she throws it aside and tries to move on to another question. But Kurzweil says, “Hang on. Hang on. I want to answer that.” And then he goes into this long technical description…

JEFF DIEHL: …and then he got out his slide rule, and straightened out his bow tie. [laughter]

JQ: Exactly! It was stuff like, “You can wear body suits.” He was talking about tactile things and about how people can caress each other from far away. And it was so funny. It’s too bad this wasn’t filmed, because Moira Gunn’s face was getting more and more skeptical, the more he kept talking. She kept saying things like, “Well, what about intimacy? You know, what about actual interacting with a real human being?” And Kurzweil wasn’t picking up on what she was talking about. You could tell he enjoys the subject, but he gave a long-winded technical explanation for how to get off. And she was talking about sex as a medium for connecting to another person’s soul. So right there, you’re seeing this divergence between men’s priorities and women’s priorities. My wife doesn’t care about the Singularity. When I talk about it, it doesn’t resonate for her. It doesn’t sound exciting to be able to put a machine inside your brain or something like that.

JD: What about the real prospect of an indefinite life span? I think that appeals to women!

JQ: I think it does, but I don’t know anyone outside the futurist community…

RU: You look young for a much longer period of time. Women are early adopters of youth technology in terms of looks.

JQ: My wife is actually in the business of making women young and beautiful. She’s what’s called an aesthetician. She makes people beautiful. So if I could convince her that people can live forever and be young as long as they want, she might be into it. But my explanation ends up being sort of technical and attenuated. There are so many other things you need to know that it tends to become like religion –- the rapture for geeks.

JD: There’s not a big female fan base for science fiction, right?

JQ: Right. So guy geeks are always talking about how you can connect to more people and form more networks with people you never met. And my research tells me women’s brains are just more interested in face reading and voice reading and reading all the messages you get beneath the words. Guys tend to concentrate more on the abstract ideas behind the words. So email is unfulfilling for most women. They want to get together at lunch with their friends and make eye contact and stand way too close to each other."

So I guess, dear reader, that I fall somewhere in between.  For those that know me, I am quite the girly girl. Yet, I hide my gender with an ambiguous screen name and I  don't have many female friends.  Actually, I think that's a Generational thing – I love the inclusive Millies, it's the hyper-critical Xer's and boring Boomers that don't like me.  My children would  cring when they recall that I once dragged them to a Trekkie Convention. And I love, love, love email..

I approach the Singularity with great enthusiasm, especially the coming medical breakthoughs.  As soon as those body replacement parts are ready, sign me up!  I would like to participate in more geeky gatherings, and I'm actually attending the World Future Society convention in Minneapolis this summer. So Girl Geeks unite!  The Singularity will soon be here.

 

Comments

[Joe]

That is an interesting conversation. (Note: I have RU Sirius' book, Counterculture Through the Ages. I thought this a great read!)

Anyways, it seems that guys are into their tools (both meanings of the words) and how cool and interesting their (technological) tools are. They may or may not be concerned with how it affects relationships, as the women are. I made a similar comment on your last post, as I think people need to look at tools as something that really enhances life and culture, (okay, and occasionally to get laid!)

[Ron Davison]

So, why might women be less generally interested in the singularity? I can think of a couple. One, one of the perks of being a woman is that you get to live longer; when life expectancies are 400 years, that won't seem like such an advantage. Two, women probably rightly suspect that the new technology will be largely designed by men for men.