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I don't really doubt that life with human-level (or greater) intelligence has evolved at least a few times. What I'm more pessimistic about is how long such in
by JohnBooty 2y ago
I don't really doubt that life with human-level (or greater) intelligence has evolved at least a few times.
What I'm more pessimistic about is how long such intelligence might live. How many civilizations reached a point of harnessing nuclear power and then wiped themselves out with nuclear war?
- bigiain 2y agoI think even that's perhaps a warped anthropocentric view of intelligence? Think about other earth-centric scenarios, and try and imagine if dolphins or octopuses or fungus or maybe even insect colonies or plant ecosystems had "won" and become the apex lifeforms on earth instead of humans. I wonder just how different concerns like "civilisations" and "war" and "nuclear power" would have played out in those cases? I wonder if assumptions like "industrial revolutions" and the inevitability of scientific discovery being used in detrimental ways like we have done with nuclear science actually correlate with "intelligence"?
- DubiousPusher 2y agoIt's not even clear that the ants haven't won.
- lazide 2y agoDepending on your definition of victory, it’s pretty clear they won a long time ago. I’m quite sure ‘winning’ doesn’t involve filing taxes, for one.