# If we were all shapeshifters like Mystique, or made of magical T-1000-style liquid metal... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 31, 2016, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-were-all-shapeshifters-like-mystique-or-made-of-magical-t-1000-style-liquid-metal/761385 "2016-07-31T16:26:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-were-all-shapeshifters-like-mystique-or-made-of-magical-t-1000-style-liquid-metal/761385/21 "2016-08-26T20:08:46Z")
I remembered the quote I was thinking of regarding this thread, its about the forms people choose to take in The Culture sci-fi society by Iain M. Banks: “the tenor of the time had generally turned against … outlandishness and people had mostly returned to looking more like people over the last millennium”, previously “as the fashions of the intervening times had ordained – people … had resembled birds, fish, dirigible balloons, snakes, small clouds of cohesive smoke and animated bushes”. The entry under ‘phenotypes’ explains a bit further: > **[The Culture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture)** > > The Culture is a fictional interstellar post-scarcity civilisation or society created by the Scottish writer Iain M. Banks and features in a number of his space opera novels and works of short fiction, collectively called the Culture series. > In the series, the Culture is composed primarily of sentient beings of the humanoid alien variety, artificially intelligent sentient machines, and a small number of other sentient "alien" life forms. Machine intelligences range from human-equivalent drone... Basically after a lot of experimenting most people go back to mostly being humanoid. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-were-all-shapeshifters-like-mystique-or-made-of-magical-t-1000-style-liquid-metal/761385/22 "2016-08-26T22:15:13Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > I think you would quickly end-up with a height race. I think most people would prefer to be a bit above average height, but with everybody trying to be over-average, it would get crazy unless there is some thing limiting it. Conservation of matter. Which tends to be handwaved away in most common shapeshifter fiction. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-were-all-shapeshifters-like-mystique-or-made-of-magical-t-1000-style-liquid-metal/761385/23 "2016-08-26T22:33:47Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > Various sci-fi story universes have this idea as part of their set-up, The Culture by Iain M. Banks for example. > > As he described it there was a little of what you worry about at first but then things settle down and its pretty much like clothing fashion for bodies, forms go in and out of style, most people are generically attractive and a lot take different forms to greater or lesser extremes to stand out, as a fashion statement, or just because they feel more comfortable looking a certain way. > > Some people find a body they like and stick to it, others spend their lives experimenting. One character spends likes to spend five years as a female, five years as a male and five years as a neuter for example. > > Personally I think it would be one of the greatest benefits we can imagine, both for individuals and society as a whole. > > Take gender for example, a person would be male or female _(or both, or neither)_ because they _want_ to be, not because of a fifty/fifty coin toss they have no control over. > > What a person is inside would quickly become more important than their external appearance, who they are, not what they appear to be. > > A lot of ‘isms’ _(racism, sexism etc)_ would go away, of course people being people we would probably come up with new ones… > > Injury, disease and genetic problems would go out the window, if we can change form there should be no problems choosing or being given a healthy body. > > Anyway, yes, personally I would love for this to happen. I think it would be fascinating and a lot of fun to change my form at whim. I really don’t see any downsides, at least none that can’t be overcome. _Liking What You See: A Documentary_ by Ted Chiang had an interesting take on this. In this story, it wasn’t that people could change their appearance so everyone was beautiful. Instead Chiang came up with the idea that it was possible to deactivate the part of the human brain that sensed physical attractiveness. You could still see other people and recognize their faces but you were no longer able to tell if they were beautiful or ugly. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2016, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-were-all-shapeshifters-like-mystique-or-made-of-magical-t-1000-style-liquid-metal/761385/24 "2016-08-27T11:20:20Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > _Liking What You See: A Documentary_ by Ted Chiang had an interesting take on this. In this story, it wasn’t that people could change their appearance so everyone was beautiful. Instead Chiang came up with the idea that it was possible to deactivate the part of the human brain that sensed physical attractiveness. You could still see other people and recognize their faces but you were no longer able to tell if they were beautiful or ugly. Ted Chiang always has interesting and unusual perspectives in his stories, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2016, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-were-all-shapeshifters-like-mystique-or-made-of-magical-t-1000-style-liquid-metal/761385/25 "2016-08-27T18:53:12Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Conservation of matter. Which tends to be handwaved away in most common shapeshifter fiction. Exactly. People will then overeat and not exercise to try to gain as much matter to work with. Or some might wanna be a pixie or some shit and the eating disorders go the other direction. So, nothing really changes on bad habits. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-we-were-all-shapeshifters-like-mystique-or-made-of-magical-t-1000-style-liquid-metal/761385.md?page=1)