the process of de-evolution has begun

[foal]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know what you mean by "typically thought of," but in the scientific community "natural selection" isn't just about the who.

[/ QUOTE ]
I guess I meant "typically thought of by myself". [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I can be presumptuous sometimes.

But at any rate it doesn't matter. Just take what I said as "natural selection or evolution will be driven by biotechnology". Agree/disagree?

[Splendour]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If an "education" produces theories like this, then count me as happy that I belong to the great unwashed masses. You think you are great and the rest of the world are idiots; this is not a particularily novel viewpoint but it is undoubtably unwarranted.

[/ QUOTE ]

Doesn't every poker player think this way?

[/ QUOTE ]

No.

[/ QUOTE ]


I'm echoing Dbblbarrelj's no with emphasis. I don't see this attitude a lot live, but I sense it more present online. Its probably a lot easier to role play this pseudo-superiority thing online than live where you actually socialize on a table. I can't imagine what satisfaction anyone gets out of this phoney superiority unless there's some kind of hole they're trying to fill. Online reality is definitely not the same as live reality [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[JMP300z]

I was just thinking near exactly this the other day but it was entirely too depressing. Cheer up, there are options other than genocide...like population control...or sending them to some form of moron colony on the moon...or a draft.

-JP

[oe39]

[ QUOTE ]
I was just thinking near exactly this the other day but it was entirely too depressing. Cheer up, there are options other than genocide...like population control...or sending them to some form of moron colony on the moon...or a draft.

-JP

[/ QUOTE ]

i like the idea of a moron colony. i even have a candidate in mind to serve as its president.

[surftheiop]

so you
A) havent seen idiocracy
B) have seen idiocracy and stole the movies concept as your own

[im a model]

this is why i dislike democracy so much. democracy kind of works as intended in finland where most people are about equal and similar (compared to america's heterogeneity). but in america its just terrible. and how can you expect to run a society based on a completely incorrect premise: all men are created equal.

[Splendour]

[ QUOTE ]
this is why i dislike democracy so much. democracy kind of works as intended in finland where most people are about equal and similar (compared to america's heterogeneity). but in america its just terrible. and how can you expect to run a society based on a completely incorrect premise: all men are created equal.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess we can run it based on the equality principle because God says he loves us all equally so we regard each other as equals.

We also have a political system of checks and balances that is kind of a trinity. One the Legislature makes the laws, Two the Judiciary judges the issues of law and Three the Executive oversees and enforces the law.

[CORed]

[ QUOTE ]
so you
A) havent seen idiocracy
B) have seen idiocracy and stole the movies concept as your own

[/ QUOTE ]

There was a science fiction story by C.M. Kornbluth about 1950 called "The Marching Morons". Some guy ended up several hundred years in the future (whether through time travel, suspended animation, or what, I forget) and everybody was stupid.

[foal]

the concept's been around since Galton... (i.e. late 1800sish, after the Origin of Species)

[m_the0ry]

The fact that we don't need to have tons of kids for survival is what marks the most recent evolutionary breakthrough. We evolve culturally now, and our children 'inherit' these traits through our upper level interactions with them instead of exclusively through genetic process.

It's not hard to see how the more extreme cases of what you're describing produce 'less fit' offspring. They work in construction yards and factories, they are the warehouse grunts. They are needed to bootstrap the rest of society and provide a foundation for infrastructure. If they ever become useless to society their economic means will certainly be cut off and their numbers will dwindle. The process regulates itself, there's no need for anyone to engineer a selection mechanism.