>>19771518>And if your only consideration of a female is reproductive functionsWell, there is also menial tasks and relief of physiological needs, but reproduction is the only one which is essential and can't be replaced by an alternative source or a surrogate performs them just as good or at least at acceptable level, while not imposing costs that a female imposes. It all boils down to cost of having to tolerate solipsistic, narcissistic meat automaton which constantly radiates psychological aggression and can fuck one over at moment's notice if something clicks in its head.
>that is if your test tube babes can even be considered humanYou should be really careful with wording in this hypothetical situation, because it puts sides one step away from genocidal conflict. And since homo sapiens kills with intellect and complex tools, you should be able to understand which side the conflict would favor.
I do believe that humanity would split in at least two species in the future though. There will be one increasingly seeking mastery over own biology and rapidly leaving their former level behind, and "natural" humans which in conditions of advanced technology giving safety and abundance, would evolve into something resembling what was described by H. Wells in "The time machine". There will be one subtle difference though, their males will be pretty like in the novel, however females would be ugly, smelly and round because they won't be subjected to any sexual selection. You can already see first glimpses of that in underwear advertisements from world's most advanced nations.
High intellect correlates with benevolence, so it's unlikely that self-bioengineering over-humans would do any harm to their relatives. If anything, they would probably convert Earth into a preserve where clownish males with hypertrophied visual markers that females like, would spend their lives doing peacock mating dances around them.
