Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[helmacon]

We have this notion that we're outside evolution, it comes from the same place as all those old charts with Man at the top of creation. But that comes from the same place as e.g. the aristotlean world view with Earth at the center, then we moved to our sun as the center of the solar system. Then when we realized there was a galaxy, we decided that our sun was the center of the galaxy, and that there was only one galaxy. It was only fairly recently (post hubble) we realized that this pattern of "but surely we're at/near the center?" was itself bullshit on every level.

There are still just as many selection pressures as ever. That is where we get smug, get it wrong. We like to tell ourselves we've transcended evolution, that we're the pinnacle of creation. How could you even imagine something better than us? Clearly evolution plateaued when it thought of us, it found the "ideal form" that will last forever. But really ... this is just a projection of Christianity's "Humans = God's Image" into the science era. It's bullshit, "Emperor's New Clothes" type bullshit.

People in the third world have high infant mortality, they have high selection pressure in childhood. People in the first world have low infant mortality, but very low birth rates, they have high selection pressure for a mate and to procreate. You don't have / don't want to have kids? You're part of the selection pressure. Any genes that you have that correlated at all with your lack of kids are the ones being selected against.

"No selection pressure" would be a world where everyone has a high chance of reaching adulthood and then went on to create large families. No such world exists.

um. The pinnacle of evolution is not perfection. Arguable, by evolutions standards, ants are far more successful than we are. Ants are 20% of earth's terrestrial biomass, (give or take) and damn near impossible to suppress. so what if we have fancy tools and big fat brains.

Anyways, social darwinism is a bunch of crap. We developed cities and cultures and 3rd and 1st worlds so rapidly on an evolutionary timescale that that selective pressures have become so convoluted as to be effectively meaningless. Genes going everywhere for factors that really don't relate to relative fitness at all. It's genetic chaos.

That's besides the point. The point is, even if we don't have selective pressures present to push us along at an infinitesimally slow rate of evolution, we can just figure out the genetics and do it ourselves. That applies if there are selective pressures too.

We can use these tools much more efficiently than evolution does too, as in, we can actualy use them. Evolution just sort of scrambles the genetics around until something sticks. (well, except symbiogenesis, cause thats a pretty important thing, except not really anymore).

We can conceivably design and disseminate meaningful and beneficial genetic improvements in a single generation, whereas evolution takes a LOT of generations and mistakes to make eveny the most trivial improvements. 

Another huge thing. Evolution requires each previous iteration of something to be functional and beneficial before you can reach something else. No complex system can occur on it's own. (though it can appear that way, because evolution will take away the underlying steps afterwards.) Crispr technology allows for us to design and implement complex dissociative systems because we can design and implement all the necessary parts at the same time.

I... I think i'm rambling a bit. It is 1am, so... yea.
Point Being, I disagree with the evolution through society thing. It aint that fast. I also think that we have the potential to drive our own evolution much more efficiently than nature.

Your argument, as I understood it was

Transhumanism = lack of selective pressures = loss of evolution = stagnation of humanity = bad.

My counterpoint is that we can cut that chain at the third step, because we can do that ourselves.

Weather selective pressures exist today is irrelevant.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Ooh, controversy, don't mind if I do.

- As I've stated a few times before on the forum and gotten into massive arguments about, I believe that by all rational resource calculus that we are already massively killing our environment and if the governments of the world were responsible they'd have already enacted strict and global population control measures including two or one child policy, transferable child rights, subsidies for temporary and permanent birth control, and education on sustainable living. I am not advocating Reddit eugenics bullshit (people seem apt to believe I am), all child limits should be globally equal and indiscriminate. The human population needs to be decreasing, not stabilizing.

- Pineapple is not a fucking pizza topping.

- Anti-vaxxers are a threat to public safety and there should be no exemption to vaccination except medical necessity.

- Circumcision of male babies is as much child abuse as it is with female babies even if the latter has more severe consequences, and the procedure should only be available to adults or if medically necessary. Also, people's reactions to the thought of trying to convince 18-year olds to get their dicks chopped prove they already know it's inappropriate.

- Improving oppressive nations is primarily a financial and memetic task, and the free world needs to realize the fire is under its ass because of new style dictators like Putin and Erdogan (and a certain Orange, even if he isn't a dictator) using counter-memes to make people love hatred and autocracy.

- Speaking of politics, I'll just go ahead and steal LW's point about yesterday's irony being tomorrow's truth and say that the next wave of politics needs to be of those who abandon pragmatism and cynical dealing for straightforwardness and utter integrity. Playing Game of Thrones with the government used to work, but now people are aware of that and have no confidence at all in anything because of it. What would have once been naivety holds a hidden power, and the mere perception of this was what allowed Trump to get powerful.

- Morality is as much subject to the progression of knowledge as anything else in philosophy, and is in most cases not timeless. We should be open to new discoveries on this front and should also not bother with judging those in history by our standards. Their acceptance of what is to us is obviously evil is the same kind of thing as their ignorance of electricity.

- Even taking mental illness into account, people have an inherent right to self-harm and suicide. If a person is doing so publicly it's alright to intervene because we reasonably know that when people do it publicly it's sourced in a desire to be helped, but the actions of law enforcement and medical personal towards the (typically post-attempt) suicidal while well-meaning are often stepford-esq and are a violation of their personhood. The Baker Act in particular goes even further beyond this and should be repealed or strictly amended as it is frequently used to abuse people not in an active crisis state and even maliciously against those who are under no mental stress at all. A society that cares about freedom must, to be consistent with its own values, accept that the right to life comes paired with the right to refuse that life.

- In order to solve our endemic economic problems, we're going to need a new order of economic thought on the level of Wealth of Nations or Das Kapital to deal with the stockholder system, new monopolies, and automation. If you thought communism was a radical proposal...

[ein]

i got called an anti-semite once for arguing that point about child circumcision being abuse

that gave me a nice, hearty laugh

[misko27]

I don't think you understand me Max. Or you are talking past me, or me you, or something.

We're both talking past each other, the internet is an enabler of human development in a new way, along a path which there is no reason to think won't end up square in transhuman territory, nothing more, nothing less.

Well that's just, uninteresting. That's not controversial at all! Begone!

I don't try to make things happen and lack the ability to begin trying to care if they do, just can't do it, but it is what I call them, and you asked for clarification.

You know, they have a pill for that now.

- Speaking of politics, I'll just go ahead and steal LW's point about yesterday's irony being tomorrow's truth and say that the next wave of politics needs to be of those who abandon pragmatism and cynical dealing for straightforwardness and utter integrity. Playing Game of Thrones with the government used to work, but now people are aware of that and have no confidence at all in anything because of it. What would have once been naivety holds a hidden power, and the mere perception of this was what allowed Trump to get powerful.

Perhaps its only the perception that matters.

- Morality is as much subject to the progression of knowledge as anything else in philosophy, and is in most cases not timeless. We should be open to new discoveries on this front and should also not bother with judging those in history by our standards. Their acceptance of what is to us is obviously evil is the same kind of thing as their ignorance of electricity.

True enough, but I'll ask ya straight: what exactly is the nature of morality? Not necessarily what is moral, but what is its nature? Because you seem to know quite a bit about it, and I want to hear your thoughts.

- Even taking mental illness into account, people have an inherent right to self-harm and suicide.

Well fucking hey! Here is something I should have said earlier in the controversy thread.

If a person is doing so publicly it's alright to intervene because we reasonably know that when people do it publicly it's sourced in a desire to be helped, but the actions of law enforcement and medical personal towards the (typically post-attempt) suicidal while well-meaning are often stepford-esq and are a violation of their personhood. The Baker Act in particular goes even further beyond this and should be repealed or strictly amended as it is frequently used to abuse people not in an active crisis state and even maliciously against those who are under no mental stress at all. A society that cares about freedom must, to be consistent with its own values, accept that the right to life comes paired with the right to refuse that life.

If I could make gifs work, I'd have the one of Citizen Kane applauding.

- In order to solve our endemic economic problems, we're going to need a new order of economic thought on the level of Wealth of Nations or Das Kapital to deal with the stockholder system, new monopolies, and automation. If you thought communism was a radical proposal...

Is this supposed to be controversial? If it wasn't for the last line you could insert this into most online discussions without getting more than a raised eyebrow.

[Reelya]

social darwinism is a bunch of crap.

It's a good thing then that nothing I wrote has any connection to social darwinism.

The idea of competing for a mate and limited resources meaning you have to decide whether to have kids or not : that's normal Darwinism. Social darwinism is about the idea of superior beings rising to higher social classes, a totally different thing.

And if we do genetically engineer ourselves, it will be subject to selection pressures anyway dictating what we decide to do. It's just that now our tables and data are part of the selection pressures.

Darwin's theory doesn't dictate where mutations come from, they just have to arise. And any CRISPR-created mutants will still need to prove that they're actually an improvement or they will naturally not be continued. So natural selection still at work.

Just because a selection involves people's thoughts doesn't mean it's outside the theory of natural selection. People don't want to fuck ugly people, therefore ugly people are selected against. That's pure a concious decision made by individuals therefore it's "social". But its still part of the selection criteria.

This is back to Humanity's Great Conceit. We view human actions as "rational" and "outside nature" e.g. if some human decision shifts the genome we cry that this wasn't "evolution" because we worked "outside the system". But you know, animals make concious decision all the time which affect who they mate with, and these decisions shape their species. We are in fact not outside that system despite being smarter.

[helmacon]

-snip snoop-

a +1 to most of this in general, and the pineapple pizza topping thing in particular.

[helmacon]

social darwinism is a bunch of crap.

It's a good thing then that nothing I wrote has any connection to social darwinism.

The idea of competing for a mate and limited resources meaning you have to decide whether to have kids or not : that's normal Darwinism.

ok, sorry. I guess i misinterpreted that.

Still, the existence or lack thereof of selective pressures is irrelevant to the initial argument.

[itisnotlogical]

I thought saying that pineapple is a pizza topping was the controversial one?

It is, by the way. Hawaiian pizza is delicious, and some day I'll experiment with other combinations. One day pineapple will be in all foods. You can't stop progress.

Circumcision of male babies is as much child abuse as it is with female babies even if the latter has more severe consequences, and the procedure should only be available to adults or if medically necessary. Also, people's reactions to the thought of trying to convince 18-year olds to get their dicks chopped prove they already know it's inappropriate.

I've never seen this opinion as controversial. I haven't asked everybody I know "Hey how do you feel about circumcision," but everybody I have asked has an opinion much like yours.

[Reelya]

social darwinism is a bunch of crap.

It's a good thing then that nothing I wrote has any connection to social darwinism.

The idea of competing for a mate and limited resources meaning you have to decide whether to have kids or not : that's normal Darwinism.

ok, sorry. I guess i misinterpreted that.

Still, the existence or lack thereof of selective pressures is irrelevant to the initial argument.

You misinterpereted my parody of the "human elitist" view. I was talking about the traditional "pyramid of life" charts which shows humans at the top of a pyramid of "lesser species", and how bullshit they were. Early "evolution" materials didn't show the radial tree structure, but a pyramid with humans at the top and all the lines of lesser species converging on us. Since you can't go above the top of the pyramid it was strongly implied that humans are a "Golden Form" and the ultimate end-form of evolution.

Since you didn't understand what I was arguing for, the rest of your points are non-sequiters thus I have no response for them.

[helmacon]

I actualy agreed with that in the beginning, when I was talking about ants.
Yea, human elitism can be some bullshit.

 The rest of the points were in regards to crispr technology being a viable alternative to natural evolutionary process, which I still think is very relevant to your argument for resisting transhumanism.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Perhaps its only the perception that matters.

I guess we'll see. If Trump keeps up the song and dance for four years successfully, than yes. If he's forced into substance or everybody realizes he's a terrible person, than no. Regardless, actually reliable people in government will always be better than those who just look reliable, so seek that no matter what.

True enough, but I'll ask ya straight: what exactly is the nature of morality? Not necessarily what is moral, but what is its nature? Because you seem to know quite a bit about it, and I want to hear your thoughts.

Morality is the definition of when and why some actions should be accepted or not, and is inherently subjective in nature (to the extent that even should an objective moral standard exist in the universe, all actual standards set by human beings will be subjective, including those that claim objectivity). As a concept it's really not more than that, and to say more would be to delve into actual discussions of the morality of certain actions. Morality is inherently linked to actions by (for now) humans, however. An orphanage of children burning to death in an accident is wrong, but it's wrong in the sense that it's an undesirable occurrence because it was accidental. The moral dimension would only come in if, say, you had people opposed to righting the fault in electrical wiring that makes such fires likely. Of course, if the likelihood of the fault causing a fire is so low that using the money for fault correcting for it instead of other things causes even further deaths and saves none, yadda yadda and now we're down the rabbit hole of magnitude and probability.

Is this supposed to be controversial? If it wasn't for the last line you could insert this into most online discussions without getting more than a raised eyebrow.

It's only not controversial because I didn't start laying into my proto-first draft of how I'll become the next Marx. Once you get to proposal level people start freaking out, or perhaps nodding in rapturous agreement. One of the two.

I thought saying that pineapple is a pizza topping was the controversial one?

It is, by the way. Hawaiian pizza is delicious, and some day I'll experiment with other combinations. One day pineapple will be in all foods. You can't stop progress.

I'm generally against genocide, but you pineapple folk are starting to get at my utility function.

I've never seen this opinion as controversial. I haven't asked everybody I know "Hey how do you feel about circumcision," but everybody I have asked has an opinion much like yours.

It depends on a lot. It's not controversial among young Americans or most Europeans, but outside of that group you start to encounter resistance, some hysterical in nature. Also, people who circumcised their children because a doctor told them to and always secretly questioned if it was alright, they tend to panic when these things are discussed.

Anti-vaxxers are a threat to public safety and there should be no exemption to vaccination except medical necessity.

Out of curiosity related to this point, what are your views on gun ownership?

In short form, gun ownership in the United States (that distinction will be important) should be subject to reasonable restrictions on things like straw purchases and military equipment, but otherwise permitted. It is my almost one and only shamefully center-right opinion, though I don't see it that way and would probably clash with those sorts in spite of alleged agreement. Strict scrutiny should be applied to measures that seek to disarm particular elements of the population due to, in particular, a history of arming whites and disarming blacks. Any further on this line and I'll run straight into my controversial policing opinions, but the thread is young.  I also think that this is an issue that it is alright to have different standards on for different societies, because it is in many ways based upon the historical ethos of different nations. It's like how South Africa has a long, long amount of law that pertains to the protection of the unique post-apartheid stability attained there, it's a necessity for them but not for anywhere else.

This is the case for the Second Amendment as well, which along with gun ownership has always been an inherent element of American culture. The more practical benefits....that goes back to policing controversy. And as for the consequences, a lack of gun culture doesn't seem to have stopped spree killings in nations without it, nor has it made them all that more deadly statistically speaking. Not to mention, as we've seen, it isn't overly difficult to smuggle guns for an act of terrorism.

Specifically regarding its relation to anti-vaxxers, I don't think it's at all the same anyway. Guns don't multiply through the population forcing everybody to shoot each other, nor do they occasionally change form to make people who have been...gun-vaccinated....start dying as well. The public health difficulties are on a whole other scale, and disease has always been more dangerous than guns, or any human weapon short of nukes. Not to mention, it's alright or at least not a major problem if a few people own guns, but it is a major fucking deal if vaccination rates are below herd immunity, which is a high percentage for most diseases.

[Reelya]

The rest of the points were in regards to crispr technology being a viable alternative to natural evolutionary process, which I still think is very relevant to your argument for resisting transhumanism.

What argument for resisting transhumanism? I never made that argument.

See, I'm just not following on how anything you're saying is connected to anything that I said, except for the bit where you "contradicted" me by agreeing with the point I was trying to make.

~~~

Basically I was arguing that we're still "inside" nature, and this was in response to exactly one argument: that we've transcended evolution. Nature is rocks, it's light, it's all of physics. It's not just the biosphere. The "natural world" is the entire universe. We are just arrogant to think we're separate from that, that things we make are "above natural". It's actually a belief with it's origins in western religion, not science.

e.g. we have evolved brains. If those brains then decide to do things that affect further evolution, then they are a selection pressure, and the selection pressure is from something that evolved according to other selection pressures. So even with genetic engineering, it's our evolved brains which make the determination. So we're not actually "outside" evolution at all. We are just the mutation source now, and there is no clause in the theory of evolution that says "mutations must be because of cosmic radiation etc, or they're not 'real' mutations". Actual natural selection still plays out on anything we create, no matter how cleverly we create it.

"Natural Selection" actually means innate selection, i.e. it's something's innate qualities itself which determine if it reproduces. This process is not limited to things that we arbitrarily label as "nature" in a schema of natural/artifcial. "artifcial" just means "things we made", and it's definitely not a given that "things we made" are somehow exempt from the laws of physics and causality.

Genes that humans like, that we want to engineer into themselves, those genes are mutations, and they get a kick in the selection process. After all, genes only know gene spread, they don't care how it happens. But if those changes aren't actually an advantage they will die out - natural selection at work. And this can be extended to a machine culture as well. Useful machines get replicated, less useful ones become extinct, and new designs (mutations) are tried out as part of the process. We see this all the time in the market deciding which technologies become standard.

This has absolutely zero bearing on whether we are humans, post-humans, trans-humans or what have you. Even though we are part of the natural universe no matter what we do, we aren't necessarily always going to be "humans", because being part of nature (physical universe) isn't negotiable, whereas humanity is.

[Frumple]

Eh. Rough guess as to the nature of morality is social optimization, shaping the implementation of our inter and intra group behaviors to increase comfort (and/or survivability and/or happiness, and/or safety, and...), in the face of environmental concerns and human bio/psychology. It's long been how we inculcate behavior that makes it easier for us to live with each other, and function better in relation to a reality that wants to kill us. Just about every major ethical system and most individual and/or near/entirely universal ethical behavior derives pretty easily from that supposition, and explains a lot of what has caused ethical systems to develop as they have. It's not necessarily the exclusive or exhaustive nature of ethics, 'cause multivariate is multivariate and fuck your answers clear, simple, and wrong, but it's definitely what seems to be a very strong majority of it.

The stupid propositions that come from trying to game the observation into absurdity are pretty much invariably rooted in misunderstanding or ignorance of the mentioned environment, or biology or psychology, to preempt one of the more common attempts to invalidate it.

[helmacon]

One aspect of transhumanism can be that: becoming symbiotically dependent on technology to the point we lose the evolved ability that would have done that job (although not as well). That happens with physical skills, and there's no reason to think it won't also happen with mental skills. The types of cognition abilities which are selected for will be the ones that make a difference in reproduction. If we offload tasks to computers then those will do things we used to do, and there will be less selection pressure in that direction. In that sense we are in fact in a symbiotic relationship with technology.

This argument right here. I responded with "Those selection pressures are null and void, because crispr exists".
Consider crispr a natural selective pressure if you want, it dosent matter.

On the idea that "The universe is natural, thus, everything that comes about from these natural products is natural" is kind of silly. "Natural" & "Manmade" are not actual things, they are abstract concepts that are useful for defining the world.

What is the actual difference between caffeine isolated from tea leaves and synthetic caffeine? none. They are exactly the same. "Synthetic" is only a word we have developed to describe a process we have made, because it's useful to make that distinction.

The actual definition of natural is "not made or caused by humankind.". Call that elitist if you want, but we are humans, so it's helpful to define what we have done ourselves.

Now take evolution, or natural selection. Once we take part in that process it is no longer natural, it's just selection. That's exactly what we are doing with crispr. Selecting genes or traits we want.

except for the bit where you "contradicted" me by agreeing with the point I was trying to make.

This isn't the type of debate where we are arbitrarily relegated to opposition. We are allowed to agree on things.

[Reelya]

Unless you're talking about a full gene drive (which basically edits the genome every single generation), anything you make with CRISPR is still subject to selection pressures.

Mutations = change in genes
Selection = culling of genes

Mutations add variety, and selection takes it away, until the gene pool hits equilibrium around some "ideal point". The further you are from this equilibrium point, the higher the selection pressure that you face.

CRISPR is a type of mutation basically. And there are two outcomes:

#1 - small change: the equilibrium point is still where it was. The CRISPR mutant will therefore face stronger selection pressures which drive it back towards the old equilibrium point

#2 - large change: the genome is changed enough that it's in the realm of an entirely different equilibrium point. This is what you need to happen if you want some edit to remain stable. But the problem here is that many (vast numbers of) possible genomes will be in the "catchment" area that would get driven to the same equilibrium point. So the chance that changing one gene that made a new equilibrium point is actually on the equilibrium point is basically zero chance. So the organism will face increased selection pressures on all other genes to optimize itself for the new equilibrium point.

e.g. mutations do not reduce selection pressures, they increase them in almost all cases, because existing organisms have already reached an equilibrium point that minimizes selection pressure. Any mutation disrupts that equilibrium.