Prolong and relationships

dscott8 wrote:

cthia wrote:Let's look at this problem as mature adults. It's frowned on to engage in incest because of the possibility of failed births and the dangerous nature it imposes to the bearer as well as the possibility of deformities. If that can be eliminated then one may imagine that incest is ok. And that the ugly word no longer should carry a negative connotation.

And calling someone "motherf***er" would no longer be an insult?

LOL... Perhaps not, but alas, it still could very well be launched with its usual vitriol and intended as a threat... depending on whose mother.

Heinlein addressed the topic of incest in the far future, in his book "Time enough for Love". I found it hard to take that aspect, but otherwise the book remains one of my favourites.
As a sample he used time travel to put a clone into his protagenist's mother's deathbed, then rejuvenated her and had them have an affair. The most imaginative was for his current lovers to gestate clones of his (with the Y chromosome replaced), bring up the resultant twin girls, then have a threesome with himself. So one of the greatest imaginations of our time has already been there, far further than I suspect any of us would want to go.

There is the flip side of this where positive effects of prolong on relationships can be found. Shall we...

There is time to remarry until you finally get it right. And for the playboy, more time to play. For the woman, there's more time to build a career before her biological pendulum starts swinging too closely to her body and causing a panic.

For those like myself who has managed to find the perfect mate, there will be many more years to wake up beside her. (And if that perfect mate has morphed into the perfect nightmare and the initial romantic heart and a diamond has turned into a plea for a club and a spade, well, now there's plenty of time to plan the perfect murder - but I digress.)

The two of you can see everything together that's worth seeing. Now there would be opportunity to assuredly see one's grand kids mature and be successful and to also see your great grandkids and on and on... and to actually get to know them and they you... and to come to know the same in your wife's family and also of your friends. It wets my eyes imagining the addition of so much more time to have to spend with parents and their parents and siblings and their kids and kids' kids. Socially, the Honorverse has call to drink lots of champagne and make lots of toasts. What a social circle they weave.

I would imagine that many discoveries are found as the result of this huge addition of time's effect on research. Imagine an Einstein as a prolong recipient.

What effect could it have on the puritan values of a female or male who pledges to themselves to closely guard their virginity unto marriage -- which now may be postponed for a very long time?

The relationship with your teacher should be closer, or not, because school may be scheduled longer to impart more knowledge by covering more of a subject, or adding more subjects and covering them more thoroughly.

At what point does a parent kick their children out of the home? The old charge of "you don't have forever to twiddle your thumbs and make up your mind to become somebody" no longer rings true. You'd have close to forever.

And kids of parents on a poor planet could find themselves not beginning a serious run at an attempt at an education because they have miraculously received prolong -- by whatever stroke of luck -- and can now help their father in the fields or the family business 'til pigs fly.

Procrastination could become a disease. History books would have to cover much more of a span than they do now. And the fish tales that parents and grandparents could conceivably turn into Moby Dicks...

"I had to walk barefoot and backwards to the airbus stop to get to school."

"HD sets had knobs and controllers. You couldn't talk to them."

"You had to plug your phones into a wall outlet to charge."

"Ovens took hours to cook food."

"Nuh uh, it never took that long dad. Then you'd die, wouldn't you?"

There are kids even today that would be lost operating a rotary phone.

The ramifications of Alvin Toffler's Future Shock has threat of a step up transformer in the Honorverse.

Daryl wrote:Heinlein addressed the topic of incest in the far future, in his book "Time enough for Love". I found it hard to take that aspect, but otherwise the book remains one of my favourites.
As a sample he used time travel to put a clone into his protagenist's mother's deathbed, then rejuvenated her and had them have an affair. The most imaginative was for his current lovers to gestate clones of his (with the Y chromosome replaced), bring up the resultant twin girls, then have a threesome with himself. So one of the greatest imaginations of our time has already been there, far further than I suspect any of us would want to go.

Not as far as some friends and I have gone with it. I broached this subject some two years ago at the request of some Romanian friends who were in medical school and wanted it discussed in the forum. The thread quickly deteriorated into something ugly until it was Duckked. The gedanken continued amongst overselves. The scenarios ranged from the insanely humorous to the macabre.

cthia wrote:What effect could it have on the puritan values of a female or male who pledges to themselves to closely guard their virginity unto marriage -- which now may be postponed for a very long time?

Meh - the horrible pressure of the body fluids and the NEEDS would make for marriage at 18, divorce whenever, and remarriage at will. Or, if you are determined to mate for life and wait for marriage, you may need libido suppressing medication.

At what point does a parent kick their children out of the home? The old charge of "you don't have forever to twiddle your thumbs and make up your mind to become somebody" no longer rings true. You'd have close to forever.

The stretch may be different, but the factors are still likely much the same: parental tolerance, parental wealth, and offspring wanderlust. The most direct effect prolong will have there is maybe on the wanderlust: more time, less pressure. But if I'm totally unwilling to think that will help on the sex side (NOW! NOW!!), I'm not going to be confident it will help on the getting out into the world side.

And kids of parents on a poor planet could find themselves not beginning a serious run at an attempt at an education because they have miraculously received prolong -- by whatever stroke of luck -- and can now help their father in the fields or the family business 'til pigs fly.

That runs on a combination of having prolong despite poverty with a labor-intensive family business without the need for much education. That would be a downright freakish combination.

I hope the medical profession has a handle on Alzheimers, because a loved one who doesn't remember you for over a century can be even more devastating and potentially life threatening -- on both sides of the track.

There would be much motivation to choose a spouse carefully. It would be a life sentence instead of a precious gift to have to spend two centuries with the wrong person grating on your nerves day after day after week after week after month after month after year after year after decade after decade after fourscore after fourscore or century after century. Whew!

Divorce rates in the Honorverse are either through the roof or through her heart with a dagger. Or there are many sss deaths... (sudden stop syndrome -- aircar axecidents).

Can you imagine wrongly thinking that someone you've met at eHarmony was love at first sight then plunging headlong and headfirst into marriage after only a few weeks romance (as some do after only days) then later discovering you've married Cordelia "offer her head up to her father as a" Ransom?

JeffEngel wrote:

cthia wrote:What effect could it have on the puritan values of a female or male who pledges to themselves to closely guard their virginity unto marriage -- which now may be postponed for a very long time?

Meh - the horrible pressure of the body fluids and the NEEDS would make for marriage at 18, divorce whenever, and remarriage at will. Or, if you are determined to mate for life and wait for marriage, you may need libido suppressing medication.

At what point does a parent kick their children out of the home? The old charge of "you don't have forever to twiddle your thumbs and make up your mind to become somebody" no longer rings true. You'd have close to forever.

The stretch may be different, but the factors are still likely much the same: parental tolerance, parental wealth, and offspring wanderlust. The most direct effect prolong will have there is maybe on the wanderlust: more time, less pressure. But if I'm totally unwilling to think that will help on the sex side (NOW! NOW!!), I'm not going to be confident it will help on the getting out into the world side.

And kids of parents on a poor planet could find themselves not beginning a serious run at an attempt at an education because they have miraculously received prolong -- by whatever stroke of luck -- and can now help their father in the fields or the family business 'til pigs fly.

That runs on a combination of having prolong despite poverty with a labor-intensive family business without the need for much education. That would be a downright freakish combination.

****** *

Meh - the horrible pressure of the body fluids and the NEEDS would make for marriage at 18, divorce whenever, and remarriage at will. Or, if you are determined to mate for life and wait for marriage, you may need libido suppressing medication.

You obviously haven't effected much travel outside of the US to the right places. You're looking at life through tainted American lenses. I had several friends in Romania (female and male) who were virgins until they were in their late twenties. I know several women there who are still virgins, unmarried, in their late twenties. Also a Scottish girl in her mid twenties -- very sweet, very beautiful, very virginal. And they treasure that fact. You cannot assume to judge other countries by our own mores. They were raised quite differently. Why do you think there are so many movies featuring women across the Atlantic that are chosen as worthy "religious sacrifices?" It is because abstinence is very much a part of life there. And chastity belts don't readily come with keys across the waters.

'Cherry before marry' is a large part of many Asian cultures. I don't know if these cultures are deploying some type of pill to decrease libido or have a membership in a battery company -- but it is what it is. And it ain't what it ain't. And what it ain't, is life by American mores.

The whole kerfuffle over Hamish and Honor's "affair" implies there were marriages that are neither monogamous nor permanent. I think prolong would lead to an increase in marriages with either an expiry date or escape clauses. 'Till death do us part might be a bit much for people expecting to live for a few more centuries. Maybe "'till the kids are grown and we've had a good run of it" will be more common; a more planned version of divorce or pre-nups, though maybe with an escape clause for the escape clause.

I'm skeptical that current cultural obsessions over virginity will survive until Honor's time. Too irrational when there's easier and less restrictive means of ensuring reproduction occurs in the proper circumstances. Though individuals will still choose to abstain for their own reasons.

cthia wrote:The relationship with your teacher should be closer, or not, because school may be scheduled longer to impart more knowledge by covering more of a subject, or adding more subjects and covering them more thoroughly.

Good point. In a prolong universe I would expect advanced degrees to be the norm. He got it right in The Apocalypse Troll (Ludmilla has multiple advanced degrees despite being a fighter jock) but while we see little of the educational system in the Honorverse it doesn't seem to go this way.