This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Live
PTR
10.2.7
PTR
10.2.6
Beta
News Articles
Post Reply
Return to board index
Post by
Monday
Well, I'm not an expert but wouldn't that leave only Lesbian couples with children? Since the emybro goes into the womb to be born?
I'm confused. How does this matter? In a straight couple, there's only one person (the wife) that can have children. In a lesbian couple, if one of them has a baby, that's the same ratio as a straight couple.
Post by
Skreeran
EDIT: Looking back over my own statement I actually think what I said may have been kind of silly. Taking only 10,000 years of human history, and really only 200 years or so since the Industrial Revolution, in the context of millions of years of evolution doesn't really make sense. It's like hopping out of a cab outside the airport, and in the few minutes before boarding your plane saying "well, I guess this is it. We're done traveling now..." Anything could happen that could render technology useless. Maybe we'll get a mantel plume eruption that wipes out most of the life on this planet (again) and no amount of technology can save us from that. Maybe we'll have advances in biotech that changes out physical makeup over generations. Who knows what may happen. They're already predicting that in hundreds of years different races won't exist anymore and we'll all just be one big mix of what there is now.Well, you're right, we don't know what will happen. It's
climate change
that I'm personally most scared about.
We're also on the edge of two different singularities: the Artificial Intelligence singularity, and the Genetic Modification singularity.
But yes, the point is, we're reached a state where traditional natural selection is disrupted by our medical and hygienic advancements.
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Monday
So a judge struck down Utah's amendment banning gay marriage.
I approve.
Post by
Skreeran
I swore I wouldn't get involved in this again, but an important nitpick. "Survival of the fittest". This phrase is popularly attributed to Charles Darwin, but he never used it. He used the phrase "adaptive change". "Survival of the fittest" entered the lexicon thanks (or no thanks) to Herbert Spencer. He termed himself a "Social Darwinist". He was not a biologist; he was a social theorist. His basic idea was that the poor are poor because they are intrinsically inferior to the rich and powerful. His obvious mistake was to subvert a concept that only has relevance in biology for political ends. Fascist idealogues, racial scientists, and the third reich latched on to him quickly enough though.Right right, I knew that. But my point is that whether or not Darwin said it, it's a good way of summarizing his theory, but should be something we are striving to get away from, not model ourselves after.
Post by
Squishalot
everyone has an equal chance at a happy life, no matter how they were born.
...should be something we are striving to get away from, not model ourselves after.
Why? Shouldn't we be striving for continuous improvements in the species? Should we attempt to preserve stupidity for the sake of equality?
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
Squish. What if a stupid person possesses an inherited resistance to a probable pandemic virus like influenza? Not even the wise can see all ends. What if they are a great mother? What if my nephew with cerebral palsy inspires us to really make the most of each day because he's trapped by his body. He's unlikely to have children himself.
I think you're missing the point of my question. Skree is suggesting that natural selection should be not just ignored but deliberately intervened against / overcome. I'm questioning why that should be necessary.
The example I gave was a throwaway line. If you want to go down that path to discuss specifics:
1. An inherited resistance would be an improvement, so that doesn't exactly go against what I was saying.
2. A great mother would be an improvement, so again, that doesn't go against what I was saying.
3. Your nephew with cerebral palsy, as you say, is unlikely to have children. That would be an example of natural selection, where his condition renders him unable to procreate, and as such he won't pass his genes down to the next generation. I don't see that as something to be deliberately intervened against or for.
I think that you're putting too much emphasis on one particular trait which I suggested would be advantageous were it to be bred out of our species via natural selection. If more people started valuing intelligence over thigh gap, it may well happen.
I have no idea how you came from my question to end up at eugenics and fascism, so I'm not even going to try to respond to that.
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
You're still missing my point. I'm trying to argue that we shouldn't be intervening in anything. Mutual aid is great. It helps preserve our society. We see those who don't provide mutual aid being less successful and less likely to flourish and grow. As a result, generosity and cooperation are traits that are surviving through natural selection. There are many traits that are doing the same.
I don't see why we should be "striving to get away from" that.
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Skreeran
everyone has an equal chance at a happy life, no matter how they were born.
...should be something we are striving to get away from, not model ourselves after.
Why? Shouldn't we be striving for continuous improvements in the species? Should we attempt to preserve stupidity for the sake of equality?If you ask me, more compassion and less competition would be an improvement in our species.
Skreeran. To posit that "everyone has an equal chance at a happy life, no matter how they were born" is so hopelessly naive, and demonstrably false, that I believe you are playing Devil's advocate, trying to troll us all.Maybe you misread me? I suggested that that was a future we're getting close to (in evolutionary timespans) and should be aiming for.
Rather than building our society as a place where he strong (or smart or ruthless or whatever) dominate the weak, we should be doing our best to work towards a future where everyone has the same chance, no matter the circumstances of their birth.
Post by
Squishalot
everyone has an equal chance at a happy life, no matter how they were born.
...should be something we are striving to get away from, not model ourselves after.
Why? Shouldn't we be striving for continuous improvements in the species? Should we attempt to preserve stupidity for the sake of equality?If you ask me, more compassion and less competition would be an improvement in our species.
That didn't really answer the question...
Post by
Skreeran
everyone has an equal chance at a happy life, no matter how they were born.
...should be something we are striving to get away from, not model ourselves after.
Why? Shouldn't we be striving for continuous improvements in the species? Should we attempt to preserve stupidity for the sake of equality?If you ask me, more compassion and less competition would be an improvement in our species.
That didn't really answer the question...Darwinian Evolution via Natural Selection is a brutal, cruel, and unfair process that optimizes a species for its environment by the suffering and death of thousands of generations of ill-fitted individuals who are out-competed by their peers.
Since we, as a species, now have the capability of advancing ourselves in other ways, like technology, we are finding ourselves in a position where we have the resources and power to make a world where humans might not have to compete with one another to survive. If we spread our resources right, and made responsible choices to cut back on overpopulation, we might have a world where everyone survived, not just the fittest.
And yet our current state persists, because people accumulate far, far more resources than they actually need and let other people starve and kill each other for ownership of necessary resources, and then justify their right to that hoard of capital with "survival of the fittest."
By god, I've even seen "survival of the fittest" used to justify the systematic repression and cultural genocide of the Native Americans, because European civilization had grown and advanced so far ahead of the Native Americans technologically that it was mere "survival of the fittest" when the Europeans expanded and took over.
So that's what I mean when I say we should be doing our best to distance ourselves from that kind of brutal, lethal competition that rules the lesser animals. We have the capability, or soon will, to pull ourselves out of that, and have compassion for the needs of everyone, instead of only those who were born in a position of power.
I'm not even talking about redistributing wealth here. This wouldn't take distributing money evenly among everyone. Just changing our mentality from Survival of the Fittest "Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers" to something more compassionate would be a huge step in the right direction.
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Skreeran
Well I have a problem with the concept of "continuous improvements". From an evolutionary perspective, it's impossible to determine successful adaptations until conditions change. We can collectively and individually attempt to improve ourselves, but by definition, we will never know whether we were right or not. Trilobites were masters of the seas for about 400 million years. All it took was one meteorite.Humans are different. Unlike other animals, whose
bodies
adapted to the environment; humans, with the aid of technology, have to adapted to every biome on the planet. We can travel through the air, under the sea, in the most arid deserts and the most frigid poles.
Homo Sapiens first appeared in the fossil record some 500,000 years ago. Writing was invented some 492,000 years after that. We achieved flight 90 years ago and landed on the moon 46 years after that. The first manual computer was built in the 40s, and now we have the internet and smartphones and self driving cars and computers that win Jeopardy and robots that can run faster than a horse.
We have mastered everything nature can throw at us. Our biggest threat to our own survival is ourselves.
Post by
322702
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Snake387
We have mastered everything nature can throw at us. Our biggest threat to our own survival is ourselves.
Really? I can name a whole load of things we haven't mastered off the top of my head, e.g. tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, volcanic eruption, acid rain. This is just to name a few.
And you're 'equality' idea can only be achieved if every single person was born exactly the same from what I can see. Then your plan would work. But I don't think the majority of people would want to do that for a start. And secondly, how would we be able to tell humans apart?
Post by
Skreeran
We have mastered everything nature can throw at us. Our biggest threat to our own survival is ourselves.
Really? I can name a whole load of things we haven't mastered off the top of my head, e.g. tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, volcanic eruption, acid rain. This is just to name a few.
And you're 'equality' idea can only be achieved if every single person was born exactly the same from what I can see. Then your plan would work. But I don't think the majority of people would want to do that for a start. And secondly, how would we be able to tell humans apart?I'm not saying we thrive in these conditions, but they are no longer a risk to the survival of our species.
That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that people should think of the lives of other people just as much as they think of their own. Survival of the fittest carries with it the distinct implication that "I am fit enough to survive, and it's just tough luck to anyone who isn't."
No one proclaims the virtue of survival of the fittest when it's their life, or their family's life, that's being smothered.
Post by
Gone
I'm not saying we thrive in these conditions, but they are no longer a risk to the survival of our species.
This isn't really 100% true. There are plenty of things in nature that could happen that would literally either wipe us off the planet in a very short amount of time, or make the planet so uninhabitable that we'd die off in a few years. Just off the top of my head I can think of meteors, volcanoes, and mantle plume eruptions, and I'm sure there are others as well. Continental shifts will eventually interfere with the flow of warm water currents and through a chain reaction bring about another ice age, for example.
Post Reply
You are not logged in. Please
log in
to post a reply or
register
if you don't already have an account.