4 ms·

The evolutionary innovations that wait millions of years to come good

36 points by Petiver 4y ago

JoeAltmaier 4y ago
Part of why resurrecting ancient organisms (think Jurassic Park) is going to be difficult. They won't want to thrive today. Wrong gut biome; wrong food; wrong air! They'll likely be sickly or die soon after birth.
- jareklupinski 4y ago
  yea we should wait until we figure out how to deflect asteroids reliably too
quantum_state 4y ago
Could this be in anyway related to punctuated equilibrium?
jonplackett 4y ago
There’s something off for me about this way of thinking about innovation. A lot of it is just random chance. DNA mutation is just random chance for a start. And a lot of inventions are discovered by accident - rubber as mentioned but lots of others. You can tell a story afterwards about a bunch of chance events that interacted, or stacked on top of one another. That’s just what humans do. We will turn any events into a story to try and force it to make sense. The truth is though, it’s all very random and out of control and mostly life makes no sense
- bane 4y ago
  Another way to think about it is that we really don't know what changes drive towards survival as a fitness function, so nature tries as many of them as possible. Teams that make more shots generally make more goals -- more attempts provide more opportunity to find the "thing" that improves evolutionary survival. The lesson for VCs is then that more competition, more players in the same general space give more shots at the goal and thus more chances to "win". It seems wasteful, but every survivor may advance something a few percent, and over a few generations of companies, you can up with large advances in a technology area. There's the other approach, sit quietly, spend loads of time thinking and trying to engineer your way there in one shot. The best modern version of this that I can think of is the Space Launch System (SLS) vs. Starship. The SLS was the "think long" version while Starship was the "iterate fast". If you handwave away the Space Shuttle and the Falcon programs, both started within a few years of each other. SLS has had a successful launch, and Starship blew up on stage separation. Early on it looked like Starship would surpass SLS, but as of today, SLS is technically a more successful program. Yet in the spirit of "you can win the battle but win the war", requirements have changed -- reusability is part of the plan. SLS isn't, Starship intends to be. Who will "win" in the end? Well reusability of course, as a fitness function it checks all the boxes for long term survival. Rapid iteration is a mimicry of evolution in that sense that it can hopefully change and adapt to changing environmental conditions (changing requirements), and hopefully result in successful survival. Sitting back and thinking hard thoughts, while it can appear to provide better thought through designs, may end up missing changes in the environment. You might produce a wooly mammoth, or a sabre-toothed tiger, and then humans show up all of sudden over the bearing straight.
pneumonic 4y ago
Don't waste your time on this article; it's just a collection of anecdotes with a thin thesis for which it gives no supporting evidence.
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  I've noticed this happening so often nowadays in 'The Guardian'. Editorial quality is just a remnant of what it used to be.
  - ars 4y ago
    The Guardian was always garbage. You're just getting better at noticing the garbage. vox and businessinsider are also examples of sites that are garbage.

36 points by Petiver 4y ago

Part of why resurrecting ancient organisms (think Jurassic Park) is going to be difficult. They won't want to thrive today. Wrong gut biome; wrong food; wrong air! They'll likely be sickly or die soon after birth.

jareklupinski 4y ago
yea we should wait until we figure out how to deflect asteroids reliably too

quantum_state 4y ago

Could this be in anyway related to punctuated equilibrium?

jonplackett 4y ago

There’s something off for me about this way of thinking about innovation. A lot of it is just random chance. DNA mutation is just random chance for a start. And a lot of inventions are discovered by accident - rubber as mentioned but lots of others. You can tell a story afterwards about a bunch of chance events that interacted, or stacked on top of one another. That’s just what humans do. We will turn any events into a story to try and force it to make sense. The truth is though, it’s all very random and out of control and mostly life makes no sense

bane 4y ago
Another way to think about it is that we really don't know what changes drive towards survival as a fitness function, so nature tries as many of them as possible. Teams that make more shots generally make more goals -- more attempts provide more opportunity to find the "thing" that improves evolutionary survival. The lesson for VCs is then that more competition, more players in the same general space give more shots at the goal and thus more chances to "win". It seems wasteful, but every survivor may advance something a few percent, and over a few generations of companies, you can up with large advances in a technology area. There's the other approach, sit quietly, spend loads of time thinking and trying to engineer your way there in one shot. The best modern version of this that I can think of is the Space Launch System (SLS) vs. Starship. The SLS was the "think long" version while Starship was the "iterate fast". If you handwave away the Space Shuttle and the Falcon programs, both started within a few years of each other. SLS has had a successful launch, and Starship blew up on stage separation. Early on it looked like Starship would surpass SLS, but as of today, SLS is technically a more successful program. Yet in the spirit of "you can win the battle but win the war", requirements have changed -- reusability is part of the plan. SLS isn't, Starship intends to be. Who will "win" in the end? Well reusability of course, as a fitness function it checks all the boxes for long term survival. Rapid iteration is a mimicry of evolution in that sense that it can hopefully change and adapt to changing environmental conditions (changing requirements), and hopefully result in successful survival. Sitting back and thinking hard thoughts, while it can appear to provide better thought through designs, may end up missing changes in the environment. You might produce a wooly mammoth, or a sabre-toothed tiger, and then humans show up all of sudden over the bearing straight.

pneumonic 4y ago

Don't waste your time on this article; it's just a collection of anecdotes with a thin thesis for which it gives no supporting evidence.

MichaelZuo 4y ago
I've noticed this happening so often nowadays in 'The Guardian'. Editorial quality is just a remnant of what it used to be.
- ars 4y ago
  The Guardian was always garbage. You're just getting better at noticing the garbage. vox and businessinsider are also examples of sites that are garbage.