5 ms·

Wait, are you saying humans would be evolving if not for technology? Interesting take...

nverno 4y ago
Always evolving, but technology has surely influenced natural selection - a lot of illnesses/conditions that might have killed people prior to them reproducing are no longer factors in that regard
- gnz11 4y ago
  We're altering the environment rapidly. Environment has a large influence on gene expression. Not a biologist but that is more likely the reason.
Grimblewald 4y ago
pretty much - we don't adapt our form to our environment, rather when a problem arises we develop a technology that removes the discomfort we feel, which would otherwise act as an adaptation driving pressure. We develop our tech such that any segment can be readily learned as an isolated component, and as such our memory isn't under pressure to improve. We outsource memory to digital storage, and so there is even an allowance for memory to shrink. Overall, all our tech looks at helping us not have to change, grow, or adapt. We want to live a life of comfort but comfort means no pressure and no pressure means no adaptation reinforcement of advantageous mutations, since what is most advantageous is being average in every way.
- pohl 4y ago
  The notion that “we don't adapt”, though, is really a euphemism for “people, who otherwise might not, are surviving to reproduce and are therefore not selected out”. But the truth is that death is still inevitable and people are still being selected out, and we are still, therefore adapting. The only thing that has changed is what environment we are being selected for: Earth in the Anthropocene.
- PeterisP 4y ago
  The technology-caused changes of environment are so recent that we wouldn't have had adapted to them no matter what. Adaptation takes a long time, the last significant adaptation we've had is lactose tolerance (lactase persistence mutation) which was unusually fast to spread and took only a few thousand years to do so. A few centuries is so small time (for human generations - it's different for bacteria or insects) that we should expect literally zero adaptation even if the "pressure to improve" would be the same.
  - throwaway290 4y ago
    This sounds more logical. We change the environment way too fast so that we become worse adapted to the new, human-modified, environment as a result
collegeburner 4y ago
i mean yeah i knew a bunch of weak sickly kids growing up who wouldnt've survived natural selection. instead they will go on to breed more scrawny allergy ridden asthmatics i wonder how this carries over to mental stuff. like autists or psychopaths might have gotten forced out of society a few hundred years ago so they couldn't reproduce as much, might explain why the former is so much more common? idk
- watwut 4y ago
  There is absolutely no reason to think psychopaths were excluded from society. Chances are, they were very successful and run even more unchecked then now.
  - throwaway290 4y ago
    Cultures had good psychopath tests then too, like this is where dares originate from. You could get excluded quickly. After religion and tech arrived I think on balance it's more comfortable for them.

Always evolving, but technology has surely influenced natural selection - a lot of illnesses/conditions that might have killed people prior to them reproducing are no longer factors in that regard

gnz11 4y ago
We're altering the environment rapidly. Environment has a large influence on gene expression. Not a biologist but that is more likely the reason.

Grimblewald 4y ago

pretty much - we don't adapt our form to our environment, rather when a problem arises we develop a technology that removes the discomfort we feel, which would otherwise act as an adaptation driving pressure. We develop our tech such that any segment can be readily learned as an isolated component, and as such our memory isn't under pressure to improve. We outsource memory to digital storage, and so there is even an allowance for memory to shrink. Overall, all our tech looks at helping us not have to change, grow, or adapt. We want to live a life of comfort but comfort means no pressure and no pressure means no adaptation reinforcement of advantageous mutations, since what is most advantageous is being average in every way.

pohl 4y ago
The notion that “we don't adapt”, though, is really a euphemism for “people, who otherwise might not, are surviving to reproduce and are therefore not selected out”. But the truth is that death is still inevitable and people are still being selected out, and we are still, therefore adapting. The only thing that has changed is what environment we are being selected for: Earth in the Anthropocene.
PeterisP 4y ago
The technology-caused changes of environment are so recent that we wouldn't have had adapted to them no matter what. Adaptation takes a long time, the last significant adaptation we've had is lactose tolerance (lactase persistence mutation) which was unusually fast to spread and took only a few thousand years to do so. A few centuries is so small time (for human generations - it's different for bacteria or insects) that we should expect literally zero adaptation even if the "pressure to improve" would be the same.
- throwaway290 4y ago
  This sounds more logical. We change the environment way too fast so that we become worse adapted to the new, human-modified, environment as a result

collegeburner 4y ago

i mean yeah i knew a bunch of weak sickly kids growing up who wouldnt've survived natural selection. instead they will go on to breed more scrawny allergy ridden asthmatics i wonder how this carries over to mental stuff. like autists or psychopaths might have gotten forced out of society a few hundred years ago so they couldn't reproduce as much, might explain why the former is so much more common? idk

watwut 4y ago
There is absolutely no reason to think psychopaths were excluded from society. Chances are, they were very successful and run even more unchecked then now.
- throwaway290 4y ago
  Cultures had good psychopath tests then too, like this is where dares originate from. You could get excluded quickly. After religion and tech arrived I think on balance it's more comfortable for them.