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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E who wrote (52244)	8/20/1999 5:11:00 AM
From: nihil	Respond to of 108807

I never could bear to read the whole damned thing, but Mark Twain wrote a book named something like "Dairy of Adam and Eve" that I recall took up some of these questions.

To: E who wrote (52244)	8/20/1999 8:31:00 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Kurt Vonnegut had characters dealing with this situation in the novel Galapagos. Coercion did take place, though not, Vonnegut being Vonnegut, in any way you might expect. My main curiosity here would lie in how the criteria by which the individuals evaluated each other would change once they realized that nobody else was around. Our current criteria for sexual selection are based very heavily on external perceptions: we desire what we are told is attractive because acquiring a partner who meets the group perception of desirability increases our status in the group. Without a group, I imagine that the criteria would change very quickly. I realize that this is not addressing the question that was asked, but I find it a more interesting hypothesis to explore. Who would make a better partner in an empty world, an Internet entrepreneur, an actor, or a farmer? Women who would, in our world, spurn the latter for one of the former might very well think otherwise once they realized the change in their circumstances. Men who think a supermodel or an actress was the peak of desirability might prefer, if they thought about it, to be left in an empty world with someone who had more practical skills. If one of the two was a total and impossible loss, the other might still be so thoroughly disinterested that the spurned one might think of coercion. But in this case survival would be unlikely in any event. Another evasion. I guess I don't have strong enough feelings on the original question to form an opinion.