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Re: Apple II: Second Best Tech Product of All Time!

mdj wrote:

On Apr 9, 7:41 pm, pau...@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter) wrote:



Destiny is a little fatalistic for my tastes :-) But logic would seem
to dictate that if human civilization survives even 50% of the time
remaining before the Sun becomes a problem then the technology to live
elsewhere, or even repair the Sun (we are after all a nostalgic bunch)
should be available :-)


It always amuses me when people believe that human civilization will
still be around several billions of years into the future....



Excellent! I aim for insight, but I'll settle for amusement :-)



Think back a billion years.  Life on Earth was then very primitive -
this was well before the cambrian explosion of life.  A lot has
happened in the evolution of life on Earth since the, right?  Man-like
animals have been around for only a few million years, modern man has
been around for only some hundreds of thousands of years, and human
civilization has been around for only a few thousand years.  So why do
you believe evolution will stop now, so mankind will be around several
billions of years into the future?



You know what I find funny? The currently popular meme that evolution
is some benevolent ever present force that guides all life in the
universe toward some unspecified apex of development.


I agree that this is a neo-religious teleological interpretation
of natural selection, which is essentially random mutation with
fitness pruning.

Of course, as you note below, humans are now in charge of their
evolution, and exert a controlling influence over much other
evolution.  As a result, future "evolution" can be bent to the
purposes of humanity--which can be either short-sighted (as is
natural selection) or guided by a long-term goal.  It's up to us.


A more interesting question might be: Why do you believe human beings
will continue to evolve? The selective processes that are the drivers
of evolution no longer apply to human beings, so why would they
continue to be subject to it?

Implying an effect without causation is the very definition of
superstition.



Are we slowing evolution down?  No
way!  Instead, we're rather speeding it up with our technological
advances, which now are influencing the Earth also on a global scale.
Our artificial breeding of both plants and animals also speeds up
evolution a lot.



You're kidding, right? Causing extinctions by the bucketload and
reducing biodiversity? This helps the great wheels of evolution spin
faster?


Actually, yes.  The biggest factor in the proliferation of species
is the massive extinction of many existing species--thus opening up
huge spaces for new life to dominate.


Come on, you're anthropomorphizing something that is nothing more than
an emergent property of a complex system. A common and excusable trait
to be sure, but equatable with creation mythologies and other forms of
romanticism.


I don't see that in what he said.

I read only a simple statement of fact--that human action is speeding
the course of biological transformation--for better or worse, and
without any real plan at present.

We can now do genetic engineering that grossly accelerates the pace
of change on this planet.  How we use this growing power in the years
ahead is one of the central questions of this century.


In a way I like that very long-term perspective though, and it would
indeed be nice if such a long-term perspective gained wide acceptance
within mankind.  We would certainly deal with e.g. the global warming
issue in a quite different way if we really considered billions of
years of future, rather than at most a few decades of future....



Too bad if you're right; we won't be around to reap the rewards of our
forward thinking ;-)


But it is *exactly* the right question:  the appropriate balance of
short-term (generational) goals against long-term (species++) goals.

To the degree that we decide issues solely on the basis of the present,
we operate just like natural selection.  To the degree that we operate
on the basis of understanding and concern for the future, we bypass
natural selection for a more intelligently directed course (which
could still be incorrect ;-).

I think it's our conflict over planning vs. not planning that leads
some to wonder whether there is actually intelligent life on Earth.

-michael

NadaNet networking for Apple II computers!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
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