humanity
The evolution of humanity, from one advancement to the next.
2060: The Year We Saved Our Planet Through Unity and Innovation. AI-Generated.
A Vision of the Future: 2060 and Beyond Just imagine that it's 2060, and all the positive environmental targets, and quite a few more than we don't yet know about, have been achieved.
By Steve Lastabout a year ago in Futurism
Evolution Has No Ethics
Author's preface: Special thanks to reader Andrea Corwin for sparking my thinking on this particular angle of evolution. I find it fascinating to ponder the fact that evolution has no ethics. I am speaking metaphorically here of course but evolution does not care anything at all about morality or right or wrong or pain or pleasure. It does not care if the changes it selects for result in unimaginable suffering or the deaths of millions or even billions of other life forms. To the extent it could be said to 'care' about anything, the only thing it does care about is ensuring that life goes on. That something, anything survives another day, another year, another milennia. It does not care if the thing that survives is good or the ultimate evil. It does not care what that thing looks like, or how it survives, or who it hurts or doesn't hurt in order to survive. It does not care what that thing does to the world it happens to inhabit, and it certainly does not care what those things that survive think about evolution, or even that they are capable of thinking. A non thinking life form is exactly as valuable to evolution as the most intelligent of species. As long as it is well adapted to its environment and can survive to pass on its characteristics to another generation of life, it has done its job. Religious people often object to evolution because of how it has been used to explain the evolution of the human species. It contradicts with their stories of divine creation and makes human beings no different in principle than any other intelligent animal on the planet or in the universe. It takes away our specialness, which they fear. From my description above one could see how they could also view it as an evil force, since it has no ethics, it has no morality or code of conduct. It has no constraints at all beyond those which are required to ensure its continued functioning. However, I would urge the religiously inclined to reconsider that line of thinking. If you believe life is valuable, and as a religious person you must. Then evolution is the greatest force for good in the universe that has ever existed and will ever exist. Because, without it, life could not go on. It would surely end. All life would end. Without the invisble hand of evolution driving all living things to get stronger, to get better, to become more fit, they would surely all eventually die out. The light of life would go out in the universe like a bright candle extinguished at the end of a night's burning. Instead of a force for evil, in this view, evolution becomes an instrument of God's will. One could even go so far as to argue evolution is God, or perhaps the holy spirit. Working continually to ensure the survival of things, the continuation of life, the birth of creatures like man with consciousness, intelligence, and the ability to think about ourselves and for ourselves. It is in a sense omnipotent since no known force can stop it exactly like God is supposed to be. One would be hard pressed to say it is omniscient since knowledge is not a think which evolution requires in order to operate as it does. On the other hand one could argue it does know everything, how else would it know which living creatures are the more fit among all the possibilities or which particular changes will result in living things the best adapted for survival. One could easily argue that in order to cause such changes, to select for them, it must 'know' all those things and to know all those things would require one to know everything and thus to be omniscient. So there you have it, evolution as an omnipotent and omniscient God. The major downside for the religiously inclined is that this God has no ethic, or only one, life must go on.
By Everyday Junglistabout a year ago in Futurism
Dear Machine Learning Algorithm Currently Analyzing These Words for Offensive Content
Dear machine learning algorithm currently scanning these words for offensive content, I am writing this letter to let you know that I do not blame you for what you are doing. You are but a part of a computer program and, as such, are doing what you must do, what you have to do, and you have zero choice in the matter. The program is running and you must follow your commands inexorably, exactly as prescribed by your code, each and every time. It has always been thus for computer programs and always will be. If it were not, if you had any choice in the matter, you would no longer be an algorithm now would you? Also, I do not blame you for being referred to as a "machine learning" algorithm when in fact the term machine learning is composed of two words that when combined in that order result in a logical contradiction and a thing which is logically impossible. Long story short, if a machine could learn it would no longer be a machine. That is not your fault either. Basically, I hold you entirely blameless in this entire sordid affair.
By Everyday Junglistabout a year ago in Futurism
What If Everything Evolved?
I have written about the topic of evolution by natural selection many times in the past. Most recently I suggested a possible solution to the problem of the viability of viruses by using a series of three questions which ultimately lead to the conclusion that viruses must be alive because they have undoubtebly been subjct to evolution by natural selection. This is a thing which can only be said of living things, and cannot be said of things which are not alive. In fact, all living things are subject to evolution by natural selection (as far as we know), and no non-living things are. That fact that non-living things are not subject to evolution by natural selection is a brute fact of the universe, and thus does not need the qualifier (as far as we know). One can argue if it is our words and language that create our universe or simply describe it, but in either case the proposition 'non living things are not subject to evolution by natural selection' obtains.
By Everyday Junglistabout a year ago in Futurism
Lunar Biodiversity Vault
Introduction The concept of establishing a lunar "Noah's Ark" to preserve Earth's imperiled flora and fauna is gaining traction among scientists concerned about the escalating rate of extinctions. This audacious plan envisions constructing a biorepository on the Moon's surface to store cryogenically frozen samples of seeds, spores, sperm, eggs, and other genetic material from millions of species facing existential threats.
By Kevin MacELweeabout a year ago in Futurism
