I just want to drop in and call out “death is a design flaw” specifically. It is not. Without death, there can be no evolution, and any change to the environment is extinction.
The mountains seem eternal, but there were forests before many of them, and though the trees will be different in the distant eons when the mountains are worn to nothing, the forests will live on.
That’s pretty cool in nature, especially with plants and fungi that don’t think. But applying it to people is kinda eugenics-y. “Billions should die so that our genes can improve”
Oh, giving ourselves endless lifespans is a fine endeavor. We’ve got plenty of ways to adapt to changing environments without changing our bodies, and we’re pretty close to being able to do that without dying and evolving anyway. Shit might get weird, but it always does with us.
Based. I always think stories about “immortality is bad actually” are weird because people are fundamentally capable of change. Lots of people choose not to change, but I think that’s because the boredom in their life is smaller than other forces like poverty, oppression, trauma, and culture. Give people infinite time to heal from their traumas and I think they eventually will. I think enlightenment is a more stable state than ignorance.
Hmm, why can’t there be evolution without death? As long as organisms reproduce, genes are passed on, and some reproduce more successfully than others, why would it matter if existing individuals stay around or not? I don’t see how it makes evolution fundamentally impossible.
death is what paves the way for change. Old ideas literally die out, since the dawn of time. The passing of strategy and technique happens in even single celled organisms
the laws of thermodynamics though, you eventually die. You eventually spend resources, you eventually have to obtain more, etc. Unless you are perfect, you may be killed unless you know your environment perfectly, no?
I just want to drop in and call out “death is a design flaw” specifically. It is not. Without death, there can be no evolution, and any change to the environment is extinction.
The mountains seem eternal, but there were forests before many of them, and though the trees will be different in the distant eons when the mountains are worn to nothing, the forests will live on.
That’s pretty cool in nature, especially with plants and fungi that don’t think. But applying it to people is kinda eugenics-y. “Billions should die so that our genes can improve”
Oh, giving ourselves endless lifespans is a fine endeavor. We’ve got plenty of ways to adapt to changing environments without changing our bodies, and we’re pretty close to being able to do that without dying and evolving anyway. Shit might get weird, but it always does with us.
Based. I always think stories about “immortality is bad actually” are weird because people are fundamentally capable of change. Lots of people choose not to change, but I think that’s because the boredom in their life is smaller than other forces like poverty, oppression, trauma, and culture. Give people infinite time to heal from their traumas and I think they eventually will. I think enlightenment is a more stable state than ignorance.
Hmm, why can’t there be evolution without death? As long as organisms reproduce, genes are passed on, and some reproduce more successfully than others, why would it matter if existing individuals stay around or not? I don’t see how it makes evolution fundamentally impossible.
Without death you can’t have reproduction, you’d get way too many organisms to be sustainable in any way.
So we could go visit our great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents and they’d look like Jabba the Hutt. Holidays would be a beast.
death is what paves the way for change. Old ideas literally die out, since the dawn of time. The passing of strategy and technique happens in even single celled organisms
That is indeed what happens, and it is helpful. But I disagree evolution wouldn’t happen without it.
the laws of thermodynamics though, you eventually die. You eventually spend resources, you eventually have to obtain more, etc. Unless you are perfect, you may be killed unless you know your environment perfectly, no?
Yeah, but that’s an argument against being able to live forever, not an argument against evolution being able to happen, if you did.