What can change the nature of a man?

[Jefepato]

This question has stuck in my head ever since I played through Planescape: Torment.  So, Elliquiy-ers, what do you think?

[ZK]

Certain strong events can shape a man or a woman to their current state, but it is the person which changes themselves.

[Natalie C. Barney]

Master genetic cloning so men aren't needed anymore. Then woman can conquer the Earth.

[ZK]

Bah, cloning would get lame as people would be copies of one another. I prefer diversity, as does nature.

[TheoTheBard]

Bah, cloning would get lame as people would be copies of one another. I prefer diversity, as does nature.

Right.  Not to mention that giving any group or corporation the power to mass-produce people would be very bad.  Brave New World, anyone?  Gattaca gave another good view of a related idea of screening people based on genetics.

[Natalie C. Barney]

Who said corporations just the technology to take one womans genes combine with a partner and make a unique sweet little girl baby, then we don't need men anymore.  ;D

Not cloning more taking out the need for sperm. And what's wrong with Brave New World seems to me their system worked and pretty much everyone was happy?

[TheoTheBard]

Who said corporations just the technology to take one womans genes combine with a partner and make a unique sweet little girl baby, then we don't need men anymore.  ;D

Not cloning more taking out the need for sperm. And what's wrong with Brave New World seems to me their system worked and pretty much everyone was happy?

Happy?  Perhaps.  Thoroughly dehumanized?  Yes.  From where I sit, part of the human condition is weakness.  Fallibility.  Imperfection.  Challenges to overcome, and adversity to confront.  A perfectly engineered world takes all that away.

[Natalie C. Barney]

You mean the major problem is men. Face it with modern advances there is only one thing women need men for and science hopefully can take care of that in the future. Can you give me one thng men do that women can't and don't say make war we all know men are great at breaking things and killing what women produce from their bodies if you take away baby making?

I think that's why men are afraid of cloning we perfect it and the related technologies we won't need them anymore.

[Swedish Steel]

Bah. Stop trying to remove men from the reproductive cycle and we'll stop trying to invent those artificial wombs, ok? I think a world without either men or women would be a far less interesting world.

[TheoTheBard]

You mean the major problem is men. Face it with modern advances there is only one thing women need men for and science hopefully can take care of that in the future. Can you give me one thng men do that women can't and don't say make war we all know men are great at breaking things and killing what women produce from their bodies if you take away baby making?

I think that's why men are afraid of cloning we perfect it and the related technologies we won't need them anymore.

If we go the Brave New World route, technically women won't be needed either.  No one will be "needed" except those in power, who will have a blank check to dispose of any who get in their way.

And we've had ideologies driven by scapegoating a single group of people for all the world's problems before.  Never worked out worth a damn, usually required a lot of "killing what women produce from their bodies" to put down.  We're all human.  We're all part of the world's problems and part of their solutions, too.

[Natalie C. Barney]

It doesn't matter nature clearly is tipping things to our side the birth rates alone in the industrialized world favor girl babies and we are the gender advancing with college degrees and on other fronts- one way or another women will have the power in a hundred years. Heck we can't do much worst running things than the men and I bet we do much better. Maybe Gaia decided that its time for new management. LOL  ;)

[Swedish Steel]

I am cynical enough to believe that there is only one reason we haven't seen that many wars started by women: they haven't been in the position to do so. The more equal we get and the more women we see in power, the more we will realize we aren't that different after all. Can you say Maggie Thatcher? I knew you could. :) We will see more wars started by women, if that is something to strive for, only they might be started for other reasons than the usual ones. Like the Primeminister of England wearing the same dress as the American president to a UN party. :)

[Jefepato]

Well, we're zero posts closer to knowing what can change the nature of a man, but at least we know what can change the nature of a thread.

EDIT: My mistake.  ZK did in fact address the question at hand.

[Moondazed]

*grin*  My two cents:  We all grow up in a certain environment, no matter what it is, and we all have preconceived notions about various things (the nature of people, our purpose in life, our goals).  I think that a fundamental change to one of those notions can change the nature of a man, for better or worse.

[Natalie C. Barney]

Science- its clear our skills at invention and technology are what drives humanity.

[Moondazed]

I respectfully disagree... sure science has an effect on things, but I don't think it can drastically change a man's 'nature'.

[GothicFires]

No getting rid of men... I like them... lots...

I would rather think, at least from the way i live my life that emotion drives humanity regardless if the emotion is positive (love, compassion) or negative (hate, greed). Invention and technology are just byproducts of intelligence.

As for what changes the nature of a man, it is really to broad of a question to pin point... Loss, love, joy, birth, death. It is nature to evolve and have your philosophy change as you gain life experience. At one point in life you can say i am definitely this way then 10 years down the road suddenly realize that you have changed, but the change occured gradually

[Swedish Steel]

This might be a bit of a cliche, but I hear having a kid can change a man. Don't know if that's true myself, but it's what I've heard.

[TheoTheBard]

This might be a bit of a cliche, but I hear having a kid can change a man. Don't know if that's true myself, but it's what I've heard.

I agree with that...most people I know who have kids find their outlook changed.  Won't necessary turn an asshole into a saint, by any means, but it does change.

And people can change for other reasons.  I had a grandfather who was a dyed-in-the-wool conservative prick.  And when I say that, I'm talking voted for George Wallace, proud member of the JBS, and marched to support the Vietnam War conservative.  He "found Jesus" in the early '80s, totally changed and reconciled with the rest of his family.  You wouldn't have known it was the same man, I swear.  He died eleven years ago this July.

[Elvi]

I think I would rather keep the men thankyou.

[Max]

I vote we keep men.  But then, I am a guy, so....   :)

And, let's keep women too. 

[Lyria]

Things are so much more interesting with both men and women around.

Don't take my men away, please?

[Swedish Steel]

Oh, and I also vote for keeping the cats. I like cats.

[ZK]

Honestly Natalie, please, calm down with the pseudo-sexism. Sure, this site is ran by women, but we are no sexists. Jefepato asked a question and wanted a response, man is usually used as a generic term for "a person" as well as "woman". It goes with the she and he that a lot of people use to describe genderless beings.

(like roleplaying manuals for a while. Some have "He/him and others have she/her".


Please, keep it safe, civil and such...as for my opinion. If you want to hate something... don't hate everything. Don't be discrimitive. Hate isn't. Hate is pure chaos, pure and simple. Evil too. :D

[Violet Maui]

Oh, and I also vote for keeping the cats. I like cats.

SS just got my vote. >:3 We'll keep the cats too! Rats I could do without.

As for the men; if we were to take the opposite stance of science, isn't it that Adam came before Eve? Thus he has every right to stick around.

::Isn't religious, just remembers that from.. Everyone else.:: e_e;

[Hunter]

I vote for keeping both the men and the women.  Preferably together.   ;)

[Elvi]

I vote that we could possibly get back on topic, perhaps someone could start a thread "Should we get rid of a gender?"
(Though I wouldn't recomend it really)

[ZK]

Yeah, the fifth gender, who really needs that one?

[Natalie C. Barney]

Hello I did change the topic your all keeping it going. Didn't you notice I noted if one thing changes the nature of humanity its SCIENCE. It can elevate or destroy- we are even getting to were we engineer humans at the genetic level. So its clearly the big factor to me.

[Elvi]

Natalie,
This is the second time as moderator, in as many days, that I have asked you to not set an antagonistic stance.
My post, requesting that the subject be returned to the topic, included everyone not just yourself.

[Zakharra]

 Culture can change the nature of man, but that is a hard way of doing it and takes a very long time. Science might be able to. Thru  genetic engineering. But even that might fail. Only time will tell.

[Elvi]

I would also prefer it, Natalie, that you did not continue to delete your posts so as to make other's posts look out of context and thus make the thread confusing to read, for this reason, I have put your post back onto the thread.

Your points are valid (in this case) your antaganism is not.

[Ajoxer]

For the off topic we've got going, I kinda like living...

For on topic: Anything can change a man, it just depends on the factors. A child can make a man want to change the world better, the loss of a loved one may drive him over the edge. God knows that I change quite frequently. Even the most trivial of things may be that last snowflake that ends with several villages being wiped off a map by a tide of white...

Anything can change the nature of a man. But I'd say that it takes something important to change the nature of a woman. Them and their 'stability'...

[Jefepato]

Honestly, I only said "the nature of a man" instead of "the nature of a person" because it has more rhythm to it (and because it's how the question was originally presented).  It was meant to be a question of personal development, not of sexual hegemony -- in retrospect, I should have included a disclaimer in my first post.

My personal favorite answer, though, is "regret."

(And I vote we get rid of the cats.)

[Violet Maui]

(Why? Why get rid of the kitties? They're so cute and cuddly..)

Children not only change men, but they change women as well -- Someone who doesn't want kids can have the maternal instinct brought out by looking after someone else's child. >:3

[Elvi]

Jefepato,
I simply read it as 'man' meaning human kind in general.

[Swedish Steel]

"What a piece of work is man..."
Yepp, sticking with the baby theory. I guess regret could change you...or just taking a look at yourself and realizing you haven't accomplished much, time for change.

And yeah...lay of the kitties or the Cat Liberation League will dump kitty litter in your mailbox. They're devious that way.

[Lilac]

"...there is in all men, both male and female, a desire and power of generation more active than is ever universally exerted." - David Hume.

The word originally referred to both genders, and often still does.  Somewhere along the line wermen and wyfman got too muddled, I guess.

Why feminists don't get up in arms about the origin of 'fe' in 'feminist', 'female', and such instead, I have no idea.

Regarding changing the nature of man, in that context, hmm.  Well a strong enough base or enough heat will denature them. ^^

[Ajoxer]

Possibly because they don't know what the Fe means. I don't. >.>

But yeah, and extreme gravity can do a badass job too.

[Elvi]

Or no gravity at all?

[Lilac]

Or no gravity at all?

That wouldn't cause a denaturing ^_^

'fe' is from the proto-Indo-European root meaning 'to suck' or something like that, Vekseid has a reference or something, given his avatar he finds it highly amusing >_>

[Violet Maui]

::Enjoys the denaturing comment.:: My tenth grade science teacher would of loved you for that one. :)

[Lirliel]

What can change the nature of a man? - Answer: Love

[Lilian]

Desperation can also change the nature of a man. Ultimately, as Zulo said, men and woman change themselves.. thier life path, despite guidance, is still very much thier own to choose. When an honorable man has nothing, he may choose to steal. When a truthful man is put into a certain situation, he may choose to lie. Given enough of this they would adopt it, again and again.  In a way it's a path of both corruption and purity that we go through in our lives. To think, sometimes, we can't change.. but only because nothing has changed in our lives.   


On the side, I am totally in favour for diversity. ^^  I'm not for or against cloning..  but I definitely know that in order to clone as Natalie suggests, chances are, they'd actually have to rewrite how woman respond biologically and physiologically. Besides, you know, sooner or later, they'd just be cloning em with dicks anyways and we'd have an entire race of hermaphrodites before natural procreation began again and.. if the gene pool hadnt been sterilized by that point..  woman would begin producing both male and female children, and so the cycle continues. ^^

[King_Furby]

Well if a man had no nuts it would change them by a great deal.

[Swedish Steel]

True dat.

[Lilian]

Just a sack of crushed nuts to get him through life.. how sad..

[Elvi]

Well if a man had no nuts it would change them by a great deal.

Peanut? coconut? macedania? cashew?
What about those who are alergic to nuts?
Do they not lead a satisfying and fulfilling life?
Does it make a man better if he has cashews and not just hazel nuts?

Would the same thing apply if woman did not have chocolate?

[Swedish Steel]

A  woman without chocolate is a dreadfull thing to behold! I advice every man to keep an emergency stash hidden, it just might save your life.

[Lilian]

Especially during menopause. Just keep a bag of bon bons and a see's candy deluxe tray on hand, some soap operas on TIVO, and hide any sharp objects in the house. XD

[PhoenixBlaze]

Has anyone mentioned women here yet? If so forgive me, but I think women have a profound effect on man, whether it is negative or positive. I've seen alot of asshole men who thought they were the stuff, only to be knocked down a notch or two by a women, which is good of course I hate stuck up people. As said before children do it as well, I know this because I use to work in a daycare when I was alot younger. Science yes in a way at least of how man does certain things, and physically I suppose so far as medicine, etc. But I think the biggest thing that changes the nature in a man is life itself, because things are constantly changing, and most people choose to change with it. So that's my two cents.

[Purple]

Someone mentioned having a child...losing or almost losing a child or their spouse (or both) can also profoundly affect man.

Abuse, success, any number of things.  One of the greatest things about humans is that we can change, that we are adaptable.

And not to start up the hatred thing again, but regarding Margaret Thatcher, etc.  Great, strong, wonderful woman.  And if I had been in her position, I would hope that I would have done the same.  War isn't created by man (males), war is created by hatred and fear, and women are equally capable (if not more so considering all the women that I know) of such emotions.

[Lilian]

I wouldnt know how woman change man. I havent had one yet. T.T

[ZK]

As for the chocolate thing? I prefer strawberry... then again, I'm ZK. I'm always outside the norm! *bounces around*

[Lilian]

A good freind of mine (who was a girl), couldn't really have chocolate.. she loved strawberry cheesecake though, and I think you'll find a winner there. ;)

[littlelostlaney]

Okay, a huge while back someone suggested that men stop developing artificial wombs, and I just wanted to beg them to reconsider (If technology can do it for me, that would be great).

Also, are we saying change the nature of A man, or of Men in general?

Because I think personal epiphanies (whether they're brought about by religious experience, a close up view of the horrors of war, the love of a good woman/man/cat/rosebush/etc, or the act of becoming a parent) certainly can change the nature of person. I think introspection combined with sheer force of will can change a man. And I think that almost all major changes in adult individuals come about from a combination of both external and internal forces.

Humankind, however, seems to require impetus for change from both external and internal forces as well (albeit they tend to be major technological advances, philosophical and social movements, epidemics, natural disasters, tyranny, etc). My question on the subject is where does societal change originate? With individuals, or with the majority?

[Swedish Steel]

With individuals. The majority is to stupid.  :)

[robitusinz]

  Man's nature is dictated by his environment.  It constantly influences him.  I used to be a very jovial, deeply religious person, until I moved from my hometown of Miami, FL to Rochester, Minnesota.  The complete change in culture and "the way things are" really openned my eyes to a lot of the world.  My interactions with other people slowly changed the way I initiated contact with others.

  All in all, I think where you are influences you greatly, to the point where prolonged exposure could easily change your most basic thoughts, feelings and instincts.