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You would still loose: - new DNA combinations entering the mix. They are quite damn important. - beginners minds. Without it, systems will be stuck in what we
by sametmax 10y ago
You would still loose:
- new DNA combinations entering the mix. They are quite damn important.
- beginners minds. Without it, systems will be stuck in what we assume are the best fit.
- disrupters. Newcommers, by lack of experience, misunderstanding or just because they are not blinded by the status quo have the tendency to change things.
Basically, even if you don't have "old farts", our system will get old.
There is a reason why nature promoted renewal of individuals inside a long living but dynamic group and not long living individuals inside a static small group.
- mirimir 10y agoRe new DNA combinations, do you have evidence? CNS development is a higher level of natural selection, involving on-the-fly variation. Rather like the immune system. There arguably hasn't been much biological evolution over the past few thousand years. Certainly not enough to account for modern civilization. We all become disruptors when we switch fields.
- sametmax 10y agoEvery mass extinction, a new DNA set is gaining traction.
- mirimir 10y agoThat's quite a jump in time scale. The overall lifetime of the human species is miniscule, relative to the timing of mass extinctions.
- sametmax 10y agoOf course. But once we are immortal, the timescale changes.
- mirimir 10y agoFair enough :) But on that scale, why would we be limited to flesh? I'm reminded of Sobornost practices in Hannu Rajaniemi's Jean le Flambeur trilogy. Basically, make numerous copies of a mind, introducing more-or-less random changes, and select on some set of criteria. I mean, why is natural selection limited to biological systems?
- adrianN 10y agoYou get beginner's minds whenever someone who had a lifetime of experience doing A starts trying to do B.
- sametmax 10y agoAbsolutely not. You get somebody trying to do B the A way. Not with a blank page. That's the problem.
- 50CNT 10y agoBut isnt that also interesting? They either fail to do B the A way, or they realize what things from A are applicable to B. In the latter case, we may all benefit from this cross pollination.
- adrianN 10y agoYou don't get absolutely blank pages in any field, even now. Until somebody knows enough to contribute, they've been shaped tremendously by their teachers.
- lordnacho 10y ago> - new DNA combinations entering the mix. They are quite damn important. Get a DNA profile done, throw up some random (or interesting) changes, simulate them. If you like it and have the balls, make a virus that implements it.
- sametmax 10y agoThat supposes you know what DNA combination you need. But the whole purpose of diversity is to have a backup plan for things you don't know.
- lordnacho 10y agoTrue, but it allows you to test and fix things that are predictable, something that current evolution does not.
- hx87 10y agoIf you want to prepare for unknown unknowns like we do now, then simulate a mating between you and X other people and implement them resulting DNA. Be your own biological child.
- Kostic 10y ago> - beginners minds. Without it, systems will be stuck in what we assume are the best fit. Couldn't we solve this by having an individual go through a mind erasing procedure every 100 years or so?
- SmirkingRevenge 10y agoPeople would still die, and new people would still need to be made. Granted, at rates far lower than today - but old age is only one cause of death (usually an indirect one).
- Arizhel 10y agoYou're missing out on the effect that children will have in that system. Children will still be there, to keep the population stable, and because some people do like to have children, though maybe not as many as in today's system. And you're also forgetting the old people will die off, just not as fast as today, and not from old age: instead, they'll be dying from accidents and murder. We already lose a LOT of people these days just from car accidents (30k/year in the US alone last I checked).