Thursday, September 30, 2004

Will women outpace men in 2156?

"Women's times have been improving steadily faster than men's in recent years, they showed. If this trend continues, they calculate that a woman should be the fastest person in the world 152 years from now, give or take an ample statistical margin of 724 years. Women would triumph in a time of 8.079 seconds compared to men's 8.098, they report in Nature."

I think "gender" and "sex" will be mostly inconsequential by 2156, terms useful only in a formal sense. I foresee a burgeoning population of asexual "gender migrants," an idea sensitively explored in Greg Egan's novel "Distress."

Sex will still be available, of course. If you're into that sort of thing.

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