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There's no rational need to survive as a species. An individual protecting its life is a different matter, but what's the point in struggling so hard to survive
by Santosh83 9y ago
There's no rational need to survive as a species. An individual protecting its life is a different matter, but what's the point in struggling so hard to survive as a species? What is it that we hope to achieve in the end?
- monochromatic 9y agoIf the species dies, all of my potential descendants die. I have genes that have evolved to prevent such an occurrence.
- Bakary 9y agoGenes don't evolve according to a purpose, they simply happened to last until the current point in time.
- jpttsn 9y agoPeople have genes for all sorts of things, from over-eating to cheating on their spouse.
- monochromatic 9y agoAnd?
- jpttsn 9y agoRational decision-making involves second guessing or even countering your genetic programming. The "my genes made me do it" argument is no less flawed in a discussion about terraforming than one about what to order at McDonald's.
- the8472 9y agoMost matter in the universe is dead. So even if we assume that we can't come up with anything interesting and worthy achieving right now we can still transform dead matter into thinking matter that might eventually come up with something. At worst you would be wasting dead matter on a useless endeavor while ideally you discover more interesting things down the road. Seems like a decent tradeoff.
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y agoWe're biological life forms, it's literally our prime directive. Besides that though is there a rational reason to do anything? Ultimately the universe doesn't care so why bother?
- hyperpallium 9y agoWe identify as a group - a tribe. In recent millenia, it's worked out well for individuals to identify with even larger groups. Today, it's rational to identify globally, for the benefits of trade, collaborative technological development and peace. There may well be some evolutionary pressure towards this. (Yes, there's reward for defection, but collaboration works even better). Granted, "global" isn't the same as "species" - but in practice, and forever there is communication between members, they are identical (have the same referent).
- jpttsn 9y agoIt's pretty circular to give group-level reasons for why individuals should "identify globally."
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Retra 9y agoA species includes its individuals. If the species dies, all of the individuals are also dead.
- bobbington 9y agoBecause life is fundamentally good. People spend a lot of time talking about how there is no such thing as good or evil, but when it comes down to it, no rational person would believe it. We all know that life is fundamentally good, and that the loss of it would be a great evil. Just like we all realize that rape and murder are intrinsically evil.