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Choose wisely! (lemmy.world)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world
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[–] 5 points 11 months ago (9 children)

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.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago* (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago* (5 children)

    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"

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (1 child)

    This is interesting because you propose that eugenics is inherently bad because it requires a lot of sacrifice, is that right? Because it doesn't have to. This line from Gattaca always stuck with me:

    [Vincent's parents are planning a second child, and are shown four candidate embryos] Geneticist: We want to give your child the best possible start. Believe me, we have enough imperfection built in already. Your child doesn't need any more additional burdens. Keep in mind, this child is still you. Simply, the best, of you. You could conceive naturally a thousand times and never get such a result.

    I could argue, could, that not doing eugenics on this level would be immoral. If we can use science to make people less prone to disease, to make them stronger and smarter, why wouldn't we? I'm not a fucking nazi here, I'm looking for a serious debate. We are already doing this in a different categorical scope with modern medicine. If we claim that all births must be "natural", then perhaps disease and death are also "natural" and we shouldn't intervene, and do without medical science and just have nature run its natural course.

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