6 ms·

It's a little odd to consider the idea that fighting off modern viruses today, might actually be impeding human evolution in some way we can't foresee.

by ta8645 3y ago

AdmiralAsshat 3y ago
I suppose the ethical question would be: how many current humans are you willing to let die from exposure to a virus in the hopes that one of them might mutate something useful?
- ta8645 3y ago
  It's really an impossible calculation. There's no way to appraise the consequences to assign a value. If it were possible to say, that a future mutation was necessary to save humanity (ie. we are doomed without entering that future) well then perhaps we'd be willing to sacrifice a lot of us now. It's all academic of course, we'll never make such a decision, and never know what could have been. It's just another reminder that we don't really know the future or the best course of action in these situations -- we're just taking our best guess (even the experts).
  - omeid2 3y ago
    > a future mutation was necessary to save humanity Even in that scenario, it is very simple, we protected the people today and use vaccines to induce the necessary mutation. The moral choice in my book is to always err on the side of the living than "potential of the living".
    - ta8645 3y ago
      That's your personal calculus, and fair enough. World leaders might make a different decision though. For instance, the British military planners allowed soldiers to die on the battlefield, who they could have saved, in order to protect the secret that they had cracked German encryption during WWII. That was a place where the needs of the many, were deemed more valuable than the lives of the few. I'm not judging one way or the other, but it has happened in human history more than once. And in the imaginary scenario where leaders had perfect knowledge of the future, it would likely happen again.
      - vlovich123 3y ago
        That isn’t as hypothetical a situation though as what you outline which is preventing a mutation now that may be important tens, hundreds of thousands of years or maybe even millions from now. There’s so much time for technology to evolve to make it likely that any negative effects can be countered through that as technology can deal with problems on a much shorter time scale than evolution can.
      - omeid2 3y ago
        > For instance, the British military planners allowed soldiers to die on the battlefield, who they could have saved, in order to protect the secret that they had cracked German encryption during WWII. That was a place where the needs of the many, were deemed more valuable than the lives of the few. This is not a very good comparison, in my opinion. Military is rarely about the "needs of the many" far more than it is about the "powers that be". Once you understand the dynamic at a play, it is rather clear that the soldiers died for what soldiers almost always die for; the regimes that pushes them to war.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - romusha 3y ago
    That's the domain of longscamism
boredgargoyle 3y ago
There are probably thousands (and my guess would be much more) viruses that that dance on the information playground that is our genome, metagenome, and the genomes of the organisms we host. Fighting a few of them is probably not going to be a significant issue. Having more individuals around by itself would also lead to mutations which the environment may select for in the future. By itself there is no such thing as a beneficial mutation (gene import) unless the environment proves it to be.
- ta8645 3y ago
  You're really missing the point -- there's no way to know the future. Maybe your optimism is warranted, but maybe we stamped out a virus that would have given us a superpower. The argument is _not_ that we should change our strategy of doing the best we can with the information we have. Just that we should have some humility about what we can and can't actually predict, or say with certainty.
  - vlovich123 3y ago
    Our superpower is developing technology. It’s unlikely evolution could ever outperform that as it operates on much slower time scales for adaptation. So any viral mutation now will only really manifest at population scale after hundreds of thousands of years whereas technology can do it within years or decades.
    - ta8645 3y ago
      You're doing a lot of work to continue to miss the point. The point is not that we should embrace viruses in order to reap the benefits. Just that it is _POSSIBLE_ that a virus would turn out to be very beneficial to humanity, in the long run. We know this to be a fact, because of the article we're reading above. The only point I'm hoping people will take, is that we shouldn't be so quick to make categorical statements about the future; like we know exactly how things will play out. I don't know for sure. You don't know for sure. The experts don't know for sure.
pazimzadeh 3y ago
Yeah, if I remember correctly the RAG recombinases that enable crazy diversity in your B and T cell receptors of your adaptive immune system are also thought to come from a retrovirus that got into our ancestors germ cells.
badosu 3y ago
It is required some process of natural selection for mutations to be selected against, do we know how this occurs with the modern homo sapiens?
- MrVandemar 3y ago
  We have plenty of modern day selection pressure. Watch the first 2 minutes of Idiocracy.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  Unless you think our ancestral biology is perfectly adapted to the modern world, evolution will be acting. Indeed, evolution is probably occurring on humanity at a breakneck pace right now, because our environment has changed so radically.
juggertao 3y ago
Umbrella Corporation is working on the innovative t-Virus for the next step in human evolution. But people FUD it.
6177c40f 3y ago
I think the tradeoff is worth it, viruses are far more likely to do us harm than to help us out. Besides, we're entering the age when we can direct our own evolution.

It's a little odd to consider the idea that fighting off modern viruses today, might actually be impeding human evolution in some way we can't foresee.

by ta8645 3y ago

It's a little odd to consider the idea that fighting off modern viruses today, might actually be impeding human evolution in some way we can't foresee.

AdmiralAsshat 3y ago

I suppose the ethical question would be: how many current humans are you willing to let die from exposure to a virus in the hopes that one of them might mutate something useful?

ta8645 3y ago
It's really an impossible calculation. There's no way to appraise the consequences to assign a value. If it were possible to say, that a future mutation was necessary to save humanity (ie. we are doomed without entering that future) well then perhaps we'd be willing to sacrifice a lot of us now. It's all academic of course, we'll never make such a decision, and never know what could have been. It's just another reminder that we don't really know the future or the best course of action in these situations -- we're just taking our best guess (even the experts).
- omeid2 3y ago
  > a future mutation was necessary to save humanity Even in that scenario, it is very simple, we protected the people today and use vaccines to induce the necessary mutation. The moral choice in my book is to always err on the side of the living than "potential of the living".
  - ta8645 3y ago
    That's your personal calculus, and fair enough. World leaders might make a different decision though. For instance, the British military planners allowed soldiers to die on the battlefield, who they could have saved, in order to protect the secret that they had cracked German encryption during WWII. That was a place where the needs of the many, were deemed more valuable than the lives of the few. I'm not judging one way or the other, but it has happened in human history more than once. And in the imaginary scenario where leaders had perfect knowledge of the future, it would likely happen again.
    - vlovich123 3y ago
      That isn’t as hypothetical a situation though as what you outline which is preventing a mutation now that may be important tens, hundreds of thousands of years or maybe even millions from now. There’s so much time for technology to evolve to make it likely that any negative effects can be countered through that as technology can deal with problems on a much shorter time scale than evolution can.
    - omeid2 3y ago
      > For instance, the British military planners allowed soldiers to die on the battlefield, who they could have saved, in order to protect the secret that they had cracked German encryption during WWII. That was a place where the needs of the many, were deemed more valuable than the lives of the few. This is not a very good comparison, in my opinion. Military is rarely about the "needs of the many" far more than it is about the "powers that be". Once you understand the dynamic at a play, it is rather clear that the soldiers died for what soldiers almost always die for; the regimes that pushes them to war.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- romusha 3y ago
  That's the domain of longscamism

boredgargoyle 3y ago

There are probably thousands (and my guess would be much more) viruses that that dance on the information playground that is our genome, metagenome, and the genomes of the organisms we host. Fighting a few of them is probably not going to be a significant issue. Having more individuals around by itself would also lead to mutations which the environment may select for in the future. By itself there is no such thing as a beneficial mutation (gene import) unless the environment proves it to be.

ta8645 3y ago
You're really missing the point -- there's no way to know the future. Maybe your optimism is warranted, but maybe we stamped out a virus that would have given us a superpower. The argument is _not_ that we should change our strategy of doing the best we can with the information we have. Just that we should have some humility about what we can and can't actually predict, or say with certainty.
- vlovich123 3y ago
  Our superpower is developing technology. It’s unlikely evolution could ever outperform that as it operates on much slower time scales for adaptation. So any viral mutation now will only really manifest at population scale after hundreds of thousands of years whereas technology can do it within years or decades.
  - ta8645 3y ago
    You're doing a lot of work to continue to miss the point. The point is not that we should embrace viruses in order to reap the benefits. Just that it is _POSSIBLE_ that a virus would turn out to be very beneficial to humanity, in the long run. We know this to be a fact, because of the article we're reading above. The only point I'm hoping people will take, is that we shouldn't be so quick to make categorical statements about the future; like we know exactly how things will play out. I don't know for sure. You don't know for sure. The experts don't know for sure.

pazimzadeh 3y ago

Yeah, if I remember correctly the RAG recombinases that enable crazy diversity in your B and T cell receptors of your adaptive immune system are also thought to come from a retrovirus that got into our ancestors germ cells.

badosu 3y ago

It is required some process of natural selection for mutations to be selected against, do we know how this occurs with the modern homo sapiens?

MrVandemar 3y ago
We have plenty of modern day selection pressure. Watch the first 2 minutes of Idiocracy.
pfdietz 3y ago
Unless you think our ancestral biology is perfectly adapted to the modern world, evolution will be acting. Indeed, evolution is probably occurring on humanity at a breakneck pace right now, because our environment has changed so radically.

juggertao 3y ago

Umbrella Corporation is working on the innovative t-Virus for the next step in human evolution. But people FUD it.

6177c40f 3y ago

I think the tradeoff is worth it, viruses are far more likely to do us harm than to help us out. Besides, we're entering the age when we can direct our own evolution.