khorum
Murder Apologist
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That's called Survival. So far as we have empirically proven, it's the ONLY "practical reason" for all livings things to, well, live.
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The Fermi Paradox -- Where is everybody?
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That's called Survival. So far as we have empirically proven, it's the ONLY "practical reason" for all livings things to, well, live.
Bubbles
2022 Asshat Award Winner
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if you have sex with your clone, is it gay or just masturbation with extra steps?
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khorum
Murder Apologist
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Happens all the time in nature tho. The oldest land organism is Pando, a 80,000-year old clonal colony of trees. And that's less than half as old as the oldest organism on the planet, a clonal colony of sea grass in the Pacific that's about 200,000 years old.
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Cybsled
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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Right, but there is a difference between individual and collective survival.
We can presume that for a civilization to arise, the species in question would have to be social to a degree. Civilization by its definition is essentially a collective work.
Once you get to that point, there are wild divergences. It would be safe to assume that if the species in question was the "hive mind" variety, then the individual is irrelevant and the collective is all that matters. Survival takes a much more macro approach, so spreading out earlier makes more sense. With more individualistic societies, while there will be an eye towards the collective good, the biases of an individualistic species will still ask "what's in it for me?". That could be anything from material or genetic (ie, who cares about survival if MY genes don't survive?). I think in those instances, expansion beyond the realm of "what's in it for me?" becomes a much higher hurdle to navigate.
Intrinsic
Person of Whiteness
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somehow managed to not read any of Alastair in all the sci-fi I’ve read.
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khorum
Murder Apologist
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He used to work as an astrophysicist at CERN. But his Revelation Space Series isn't some dry "hard sci-fi" thing. It's a lot more Lovecraft than Heinlein. It's about unimaginably ancient horrors doing inscrutable things and HIDING because of even more ancient and inscrutable horrors.
In fact he’s better described as a horror writer who specializes in sci fi settings.
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Not sure I'm totally convinced by this line of reasoning. Civilization is a collective phenomenon, to be sure, but so is a mammal. But it's not like the elements and the DNA and molecules and proteins and cells of a mammal all agreed to become a mammal. They were each just doing what they do, and a mammal happened.
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Cad
scientia potentia est
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You say this, and most of our collective decisions don't look beyond this fucking quarter, much less beyond our lifetimes. It's easy to say this, but humans don't work this way, and the proof is before us every day.
I don't disagree that in aggregate we're exceptionally shortsighted. Your claim was about me specifically, though.
All it really takes is enough tech scaling (AI, nano/micro machinery, low launch costs, etc.) and one Elon Musk type willing to make some personal investment and at some point in the future it's bound to happen. I'd be surprised if there weren't some kind of attempt in the next few hundred years unless we all kill ourselves.
Cad
scientia potentia est
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Interstellar AI baby-seeding probes are civilization-spending events, not anything any one person or company could do. We spend a significant fraction of the US's wealth in the 60's just getting to the moon.
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iannis
Musty Nester
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Hive insects, too. That is a society with very few inputs I think. In the macro you can have a singular structure as well as a collective.
Again though, clones.
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Cad
scientia potentia est
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Appoint me dictator for life and I'll have 100 billion a year each on anti-senescence and space propulsion technologies. I can cut that 100-500 down to 50-100, and still be alive to see it.
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Cad
scientia potentia est
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A benevolent dictator is obviously the best form of government.
The trick is, who comes after me? My sons? Someone I groom? The first one works out fine but dynasties are fucking disasters.
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Cad
scientia potentia est
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Anti senescence is different from immortality though. One would think with the first few generations of the tech, they would neglect to fix something important and some system would fail and you'd die at 150 or whatever due to X. They'd go, oh shit and fix X, and then it'd be Y. For a few generations of the tech I think you'd still get those kinds of errors and the first few waves of people on the tech would still die at some advanced age.
The real gold standard would be simply turning off the Hayflick limit without causing cancer, and then the person would simply stay young forever. You could still die of whatever but you wouldn't need treatment for anti-senesence because you just wouldn't be getting old.
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The 'problem of succession' has never been truly solved in all of human history.
Save that of the solutions that are called democracy and/or republicanism. But even those aren't perfect because they breed a particular class of lifelong corrupt-as-fuck career politicians who themselves pass power on to their biological offspring.
Every time I go through Roman history, I always end up thinking that the Emperors should have appointed the best man for the job to succeed them and not just their sons. This happend a handful of times but not nearly enough.
As great as Aurelius was, and even though he was not handed the throne through blood, he still ended up putting his shit-bag son up for the throne much to the detriment of the future of Rome itself. I've read his meditations. He was a smart dude who probably should have been Emperor and whom deserved his throne, but he still went with blood in the final analysis, just like Augustus did.
And honestly? It makes sense to me why this happens. We all work to improve ourselves and our families. Even the most benevolent of us do this. We are hard-wired to believe in our own children. But it's also almost biological why we, even as benevolent dictators, each of us might pick our own blood to succeed us even when we might have 2 or 3 or 4 friends whom we know would do a better job.
It plays into our females as much as anything if I'm being totally honest. We want the absolute best for our girls. That's what makes us good men in the first place. But it's also that which makes us sycophantic to our own bloodline because even if we don't know it, we know that the females tend to carry the bloodline. Maybe not the name, but the germ cells. This is why females don't go to war. They are simply too valuable to risk like that.
No matter how much sense we can make between each other intellectually, biology will fuck with our heads.
We want to groom and make someone our chosen and rightful successor, but we also know that the amount of power and wealth we are handing over is so insanely immense that we MUST keep in in our own family so as to fulfill our biological duty to provide for those with the most similar DNA, the females included.
We were biological creatures long before we were sociological ones.
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Reaching further, I think I agree with the dictum that 'benevolent dictatorship' is the best form of government. It pains me a bit to say it, but I can admit it to myself.
But there is a major problem with that. Although I'd like to think that I would be happy underneath the dictatorship of Augustus or Aurelius or Elizabeth or Victoria, all of them must face the problem of succession. And when heredity is involved, for every Elizabeth, we get 20 Georges. For every Catherine, we get 20 Ivans.
On the flip side, Democracy and Republicanism share a similar problem. For every Lincoln, we get 20 Clintons.
In the longer run, I DO think that Republicanism is the better form of government. It might not always produce the best results but it will more consistently produce better results than will dictatorship because of the biological reasons I've mentioned.
Of course Republicanism produces an incipient and corrupt Political Class (Clintons, Kennedys, Bushes) that cannot be ignored. But I just can't see how we can do better. I'm all ears, but it's not immediately evident to me.
But there is a major problem with that. Although I'd like to think that I would be happy underneath the dictatorship of Augustus or Aurelius or Elizabeth or Victoria, all of them must face the problem of succession. And when heredity is involved, for every Elizabeth, we get 20 Georges. For every Catherine, we get 20 Ivans.
On the flip side, Democracy and Republicanism share a similar problem. For every Lincoln, we get 20 Clintons.
In the longer run, I DO think that Republicanism is the better form of government. It might not always produce the best results but it will more consistently produce better results than will dictatorship because of the biological reasons I've mentioned.
Of course Republicanism produces an incipient and corrupt Political Class (Clintons, Kennedys, Bushes) that cannot be ignored. But I just can't see how we can do better. I'm all ears, but it's not immediately evident to me.
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