1,000I think more people would start favoring no when they start seeing a bunch of 40 y/o men guising as 13 y/o girls. As an active VR user where this is already possible, I voted for yes, because I like freedom of expression, and am not one to kink shame. However I know that I'm an extremist here and such freedoms has some serious social ramifications that will eventually have to be partially regulated.
@RanaG The restriction might be fairly minor, like remaining recognizably human. (I'm imagining how this might work in a future where there are very few physical limitations.)
Certain traits are relative (like height) and many people will prefer living in a space where there is still variation in the trait and/or not have to worry about an arms race dynamic. Or where such traits are connected to something that requires effort, so it can be used as a signal.
Some people just have terrible aesthetics and will choose things like having grotesquely disproportionate sexually dimorphic parts, or having the most disturbing possible bodies - not just creepy monster but more like graphic warcrime. Most people won't want to live around the dude with a penis literally bigger than the rest of his body, or someone with a NSFL nightmare appearance.
(And of course, some people will want to live only around people with a specific ethnic appearance, or conventional attractiveness, etc...)
I think the equilibrium of all this will be large spaces (> 1 million people each) which best balance the competing desires for everyone. Plus interface protocols for visiting other spaces, and millions or so of holdouts for whom living in a large society isn't worth giving up their desired form.
@gregrosent this is such limited thinking. The Internet industry has resolved this issues ages ago using public/private keys
@Bayesian @RanaG Yeah, I guess you're probably right. Most people most of the time wouldn't shape-shift for identity theft, and we could use public-key crypto when it really matters. (And if P=NP but in the future everyone has their own quantum smartphone, there's still some hope that this could work, see e.g. Section 1.1 of https://arxiv.org/pdf/2310.08870.pdf.)
I also didn't adequately take into consideration the benefits of shapeshifting - personally I think most people look fine by default, but the existence of the fashion industry implies that a large fraction of humanity disagrees.
@gregrosent most people don't look fine, mostly due to lack of fitness but also due to some other illnesses e.g., aging
@Tea i don't think it's fundamental to free will lol, but agree they should be, and that's another interesting question
@TheAllMemeingEye Being able to exactly impersonate someone else would create more problems than value created.
@Paul I guess people could identify themselves with password phrases like we do with online accounts? Sure it's a little inconvenient but nothing compared to the euphoric glory of instant transhuman utopia
