The XX Factor

“The Primary Purpose of the Singularity Will Be Seen, After the Fact, To Be Awesome Sex.’

One of the many things I adore about H Plus , the transhumanist magazine, is its penchant for asking questions I would not have thought to ask. For instance: “Is there sex in the posthuman or singularitarian future?” Extropia DaSilva, a “resident of the virtual world Second Life,” says hell, yes:

Polyamorism will be the norm. After all if “I” have uploaded, duplicated myself and exist as self-similar copies in cyberspaces co-existent with realspace, where does the “self” end and the “other” begin? Relationships will be tried out in simulation, combining variations of each self, weeding out combinations that do not optimize cooperation and mutual gain. A committed relationship would be to accept a complete merging of two selves. True love would be expressed by transferring the two uploads into a single, higher capacity “brain” (such as the sentient Internet itself) in which both minds run simultaneously.

My favorite response belongs to Alex Lightman, executive director of Humanity Plus:

The primary purpose of the Singularity will be seen, after the fact, to be Awesome Sex. There will be exponentially more sex, with exponentially more interfaces, and with exponentially more measures of pleasure … We will be installing bioports into our body, a la The Matrix or Sleep Dealer , each of which can stimulate our nervous system. In heterosex, men penetrate women, but with this, men and women will interpenetrate each other, multiply, and, as with USB 2.0 daisy-chaining, so will men, women, and androids be able to multiply-interpenetrate, locally or remotely. determine how many selves would be involved. The entire field of posthuman sex could give new meaning to sex freedom and gender differentiality - where a person could have different scenarios, depending on what form or type he/she is in.

Discover oh-so-much more hott extropianism here . And be glad that the people most fervently trying to freeze themselves for eternity are the most radically tolerant among us.