2014.03.30 01:00 - Why Are We Who We Are

The Guardian for this meeting was Wol Euler. 

Wol Euler: hello qt
Qt Core: Hi Wol
Wol Euler: good morning
Wol Euler: how's the gym going? :)
Qt Core: Are you a little thing like a cat head with a little green sprout in it ?
Wol Euler: mmhmm
Wol Euler: Totoro
Qt Core: or my SL is just gone crazy
Wol Euler grins.
Wol Euler: both may be possible
Qt Core: the gym, hard to say it for me but it is going well, even if hard
Wol Euler: good
Wol Euler: stay with it!

Qt Core: no problem in going, the hard part is coming back after it ;-)
Wol Euler laughs.

Qt Core: how are you, Wol ?
Wol Euler: cheerful
Wol Euler: even if it's going to be a working weekend (and next too)
Qt Core: good approach
Wol Euler: best not to be upset about things that one cannot change ;)
Wol Euler: funny how many people don't know that
Qt Core: (even about the ones you can change, just change them/wait until you can change them)
Wol Euler nods.

Qt Core: i remember arguing a lot with a schoolmate about crying or not about very low grades :-)
Wol Euler: what did you say?
Qt Core: it's useless
Wol Euler grins.
Qt Core: and she said i didn't care about grades
Wol Euler: hmmmm
Qt Core: in the meantime she, crying could not follow the teacher explaining the errors we made
Qt Core: sometimes being a Vulcan is nice ;-)
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: ha!

--BELL--

Qt Core: Yesterday a thought hit me like a ton of bricks
Wol Euler listens.
Qt Core: I was at a stop in my car and was offered (and refused) to buy a rose
Qt Core: i've heard that with old people and especially with women those seller/beggars are very pushing
Qt Core: and i had a first thought of this kind "thanks god i'm a male"
Qt Core: but then i thought "and if i was a woman ?", but not the simple what i'll do now if i was one, what my live would have been being one
Wol Euler listens.
Qt Core: the traffic light went green ;-)
Qt Core: but it was the difference about all the times i thought that, it was always about this moment, not about an entire life
Qt Core: it toke my breath away for a couple seconds
Wol Euler nods.
Qt Core: it still make me feel like i don't have a solid chair under me

Wol Euler: would you like to say anything about the life that you imagined?
Qt Core: i only thought that i would have had even more problem being not so social, but then, how much my personality would have been the same ?
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: Qt-male and Qt-female might share very few characteristics :)
Qt Core: from the male people i met who i could have liked ? ;-)
Wol Euler: hehehe
Qt Core: having always had poor balance would i wear heels ?

--BELL--

Qt Core: ohh, just thought it, would my sister be a brother ? that is a very, very scary thought ;-)
Wol Euler grins.
Qt Core: wondering if this would make more probable or less probable a female Qt avatar, at the moment i'm a little scared, so i'll say less probable
Qt Core: i=a

Wol Euler: yes, I was thinking about that
Wol Euler: wondering whether you might ...
Qt Core: it's keeping my background thinking quite busy, my and up dreaming about it ;-)
Wol Euler: following that thought, a friend of mine is a sociology professor. He says that his students are unable to consider that their lives, their personalities, would be totally different had they been born in different circumstances to different parents
Wol Euler: so you are a step ahead of them :)
Qt Core: they are younger too
Wol Euler: yes, one hopes that they will continue to learn
Qt Core: just being born 20 years before or later or 500 km away...
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: being born in a Jewish family instead of a christian one
Qt Core: or just being born to the previous girlfriend/boyfriend of your father/mother...
Wol Euler: yep

Qt Core: would we be different or we just would not be ?
Wol Euler: my belief (and the professor agrees) is that we would be entirely different people
Wol Euler: because none of the events that formed us would have happened, and different ones would.
Wol Euler: we would have met and been guided by different people
Wol Euler: read differnet books (or been born in a house where reading was scorned as a foolish thing for weaklings to do)
Qt Core: :-(
Wol Euler: there are such houses ...
Qt Core: and no compulsory vaccine to that
Wol Euler: yeah

--BELL--

Wol Euler: somebody who starts with that idea is not going to be improved by the things school will make him/her read
Wol Euler: it's ridiculous to make 12-yr-olds read "Julius Caesar" by Shakespeare
Qt Core: especially if school MAKE him read, i already love books before school, but i'm grateful i never found teacher make me read something as compulsory
Wol Euler: mmhmm
Wol Euler: for many kids, school is their first experience of reading.
Wol Euler: so they find out that reading is a bore, a chore, something that people force you to do
Qt Core: exactly
Qt Core: i remember about only three books i was forced to read by school, one i loved it, it was science fiction, one i hated it, it was in english (and i did't liked it yet) ;-) and one i was almost 18 and understood it could be useful but still disliked it
Wol Euler smiles.

Wol Euler: I cannot remember hating a book in school, not even textbooks.
Wol Euler: I think I loved reading so much that I was glad that people gave me something new, whatever it was
Qt Core: seeing the ratio between males and females in astronomy clubs... would a female qt be interested in astronomy, science ? OMG, science fiction ?
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: who would she have met that encouraged her to be interested?
Qt Core: well, that was (even if not directly) my mother, so only a gender change would not matter so muc, but maybe social/peer pressure

Wol Euler: there's a very unfortunate "threshold effect" in what people calle STEM fields
Wol Euler: where girls don't go into that field because there are no girls in that field, so girls don't go in ..........
Wol Euler: (Science Technology Engineering Math)
Qt Core: not even with so may males to choose from ;-) yes, but most of them are nerds ;-)
Wol Euler: it's awfully uncomfortable to be the first one to do something

--BELL--

Qt Core: Another you, how to make your head spin (really fast) could be this session title ;-)
Wol Euler: heheheheh
Wol Euler: "Why are we who we are?"
Qt Core: a lot of chance and a few choices, many not even ours
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: this is why I find it so odd that people talk about "making a second Hitler" whenever cloning comes up. It wouldn
Wol Euler: it wouldn't be "our" Hitler.
Wol Euler: it would have none of his experiences, unless we re-ran WW1 and the Great Depression for him
Wol Euler: etc etc
Qt Core: yeah, just someone complimenting his paintings may make him defferent
Wol Euler: right!
Wol Euler: that is all it would have taken
Wol Euler: had he met *one* Jewish gallery owner who took him under his wing, rather than being rejected
Wol Euler: that's all.
Qt Core: i have an Hitler hung in my dinner room sound weird ;-)
Wol Euler: only to us. In that other universe, people would spot it as they walked in for the first time. "Wow, you have an early Hitler! that must be worth a lot now "
Qt Core: ok, time to come back to this (not less weird) universe where Qt is male and go doing something
Wol Euler: :)
Qt Core: that is if i want lunch
Wol Euler: enjoy the day, qt, and thanks for the conversation!
Qt Core: ty, Wol, have fun
Wol Euler smiles.