Stirling: -- given that black Americans are disproportionately likely to do things forbidden by law; that's why they're 13% of the general population and over 50% of the prison population. This is not evidence of docility.

Nor is it evidence of black Americans being any more violent. The 50% prison population matches the split in below-poverty level populations. It's only evidence that people in bad economic and social situations do bad things to try to get ahead.

OK I have my online spellchecker running this time, I switched to Konq for this as Firefox doesn't have it in yet...next version:

"There's what we observe in birds and other some other animals where there is little predator/food pressure; the males become decorated according to female preference. Yes, there's some speculation that this is a proof of fitness but still it only occurs after the selective pressures to hide from predators disappears.

Look at what we've done to dogs in a couple of centuries, whose to say we haven't been doing the same thing to ourselves over the past thousand years unconsciously."

I see tendancies in in todays people that point's toward a complete understanding of the universe and how it should work. We evolved but we hadnt really scene our potential beyond our sky. People are inside more but only in the last 10 years or so, so now we are rebelling saying: “what happened to all the solar power and eco-management we came up with in the late 70s.” So yes it has looked pretty dam bad in the last 10 years but it seemed like a harsh rebalancing that was pretty heavyhanded but hopefully that's over as we might even need to get out to space to end it. Imagine what a stress relief it would be to ship some people off planet. “See you later leave me alone I want some peace and quite please.” :-)

We are hopefully trying to develop a balance so we can run from predators but not die completely like a renewability cycle. Humans are meant to be outside 50% so we create that environment instead of being forced into it to a certain degree, I don't think we should completely manage things though which I am against over-managed stuff like over-managed code/state. To me we need to strike a perfect balance so we don't get too complacent, then maybe reaching the stars is a great way to spread ourselves out so everything isn't just simulated in cyberspace.

I might believe that our universe does resemble our imagination and what we simulate in the computer world sims. We always tend to make the humanoids like Elves extreme in one direction and the humans like us are always middle ground. Take Role Playing games for example. I wonder if that's true...out there...
I think the Gene Pool does need a rest once in a while to domesticate and beef up it's future.
Comparing Humans to Wolves for example: I guess a wolf does want to be a wolf but how much? So the universe needs Man to survive and manage itself. Obviously a human is at the top of the food chain but considering the universe is built on comparable building blocks why is that a limitation or Singularity. I am a firm believer of the more is better only within context though. I think people are afraid of knowledge as they assume they wont have ownership of their destinies.
A major Singularity would be impossible with General Relativity unless the universe was entirely destroyed. General Relativity states that as mass approaches a certain constant speed it slows down or gains an equivalent mass so then it would become another reality and then you might go in a different direction. Like a rest state on a train. That's how these 'Post-Singularity' novels were really driven, foremost by Stross, to prove we need to poke ourselves in the butt manually to a degree. Post negative era.
It's pretty amazing I hope we all live forever.
Living forever in various states but not too off your pattern is best as then you can't run from your problems or predators in life totally. I still think there is a gene limitation as each person is associated with these world traits and then it eventually runs out. Bonn Scott, AC/DC; George Washington, America's birth; Gandhi, India etc... I think I agree with Charlie that we will retain our sex organs and then deal with not having more children by being around our resurrected ancestors somehow (why raise them?) orrr there are some who might enjoy aliens more as some of us like me are more independent but I do have a large family-human friend base too. We have to get off planet though and spread out to that vacuum rest. I wonder what the math is there? At what point would the Gene Pool stop producing children based on how many people usually don't want any children. Today people are more satisfied with less children because they have more tools to relate to the past. When our past becomes fully realized in flesh will we want any kids at all? Could that be worked out? I just don't see zillions of humans in the universe. Too much on the brain.

With all due respect to Mark, he confuses Special Relativity with general Relativity in drawing some conclusion about the Singularity, which I cannot fathom. Nor do I follow his biology arguments -- why are people "meant" be outside 50% of the time? What does it mean to say: "a wolf does want to be a wolf"?

Evolution is without goal, direction, or consideration for what a creature "wants." There is perhaps some intutive merit to his argument that we are breeding people the way we breed dogs, except for "panmixia" -- a standard mathematically convenient model of the human population is that anyone virile can in principle impregnate anyone fertile, regardless of attempted social stratification. I'm not agreeing with panmixia either, but even a very small percentage of breeding between otherwise separated populations suffices to keep the gene pool sufficiently mixed as to prevent subspeciation (i.e. people splitting into clades as different as great danes and poodles). Come the Singularity, or interstellar colonization, or strong human genetic engineering, all bets are off.

I think that Steve Barnes was saying (20 or so years ago when I was designing neurology and pseudo-Physics for his novels) that plantation masters killed off the insubordinate slaves, and in so doing also killed off the smartest ones, thereby affecting African-American intelligence as well as docility. This comes perilously close to racism, but I didn't disagree on ideological grounds, merely biological, and now I find my biological assumptions challenged by new putative research results.

Japanese Science Fiction culture sems to reward authors whose characters are strongly shaped by environemnt; they love, for instance, Larry Niven, where people who evolved for many generations on weird plants have physical characteristics shaped by those planets; and races of aliens even more so. How popular is your work in Japan, I wonder, Mr. Stross, and why do they say so?

Mr. Stirling is suggesting that Europe tax child number in the opposite way that China does (currently China disincentives a 2nd child)?

Edited by author 03-17-2006 03:13 PM
Govt's could encourage higher birthrates by enforcing a rule that only 30% of an inheritance could be passed onto an individual child, the rest going to the govt. You'd quickly have 3-4 children per family and probably solve the foster child problem as well.

I never bought the 'panmixia' model as it discounts the human tendency to mistrust others who are not like ourselves. Look at the different body and facial types in different regions through Europe, China. While we know some of that is nutrition based (height for example), we haven't accounted for other 'asthetic' preferences. That was my point about dogs. If we did modify dogs in a couple of hundred years, surely we could modify our gene pool in several centuries of cultural, or language, separation purely on asthetic grounds.

Mark: Universe wants Man to survive? Nothing but Man wants Man to survive, and I doubt that too almost every day.

It's interesting to note that no sooner has alternate history become an established sub-genre than the alternate-history-with-crosstime-travel story seems set to become a sub-sub-genre.

There's Charlie, me, Harry... all following in the footsteps of Norton and Piper, of course.

My wife and son and I hope then to follow in your footsteps, and get "Oh, and Another Thing About the Universe, and Other Stories" published, which is OUR alternate history cross-time travel connected set of novellas and short stories. Meanwhile, we are polishing the individual stories (which should work stand-alone) for magazine and original anthology submissions.

As to sexual selection, mentioned earlier as how humans may be breeding themselves in strange directions, consider:


Bad Sex Evolves 2 Female Beetle Types
By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

March 20, 2006 — Diving beetles engage in such exhausting, uncomfortable sex that these insects have actually evolved two different types of females, as well as unusual variations among males, according to a new study.

The find adds to the growing body of evidence that sexual conflict between males and females influences evolution. In many cases, individuals over time develop characteristics that are appealing to the opposite sex.

For diving beetles, however, researchers believe females have tried to avoid the painful sex for so long that some have actually evolved a feature that enables them to spurn most suitors.

The result is that the insect family Dytiscidae includes species, such as the diving beetles Dytiscus lapponicus and Graphoderus zonatus verrucifer, which each have two distinct types of females.

D. lapponicus has females with smooth and furrowed backs, while G.z. verrucifer has females with smooth and granulated backs. The furrows and granulation allow these types to avoid frequent sex with males, which grab onto the females with suction-cupped feet.

Findings are published in the current issue of The American Naturalist....

Back in the 1790's, a Jacobin mob stormed the French national assembly, complaining about food prices and demanding that the politicians Do Something about it.

The politicians, instead of giving the canaille a whiff of grapeshot, put price controls on bread.

About a year later, another mob stormed in, complaining that bread had disappeared from the shops and was only available on the black market at even higher prices.

Observing current events in France, one gets a powerful sense of having seen all this before... I believe they have a word for it: deja vu... 8-).

There are words which evidently _don't_ exist in French, though. Like "wishing don't make it so".

Pre-Destination vs. Manifest Destiny. If the Universe created us it then needs us if we created the Universe then we need it.

Jonathan Vos Post:

“With all due respect to Mark, he confuses Special Relativity with general Relativity in drawing some conclusion about the Singularity, which I cannot fathom. Nor do I follow his biology arguments -- why are people "meant" be outside 50% of the time? What does it mean to say: "a wolf does want to be a wolf"?”

Right, that's 'Special' Got that mixed up.. Technological Singularity: I think I meant that if it didn't have it's own light cone. Singularity Sky shows this. The last part is about not being too technologically advanced.

Andrew: "Govt's could encourage higher birthrates by enforcing a rule that only 30% of an inheritance could be passed onto an individual child, the rest going to the govt. You'd quickly have 3-4 children per family and probably solve the foster child problem as well."

I think that you assume a longer viewpoint than most people have. Child-rearing is an extremely hard, full-time job. In terms of raw money, the costs up front are substantial (usually felt by women, impacting their careers). Altering inheritance laws on the margin will probably have little effect.

If you had two children, and were considering a third, would that inheritance difference motivate you to any significant effect?

[and, under the specific plan proposed, it'd make more sense for parents to spend the inheritance on the children while the parents were still alive]

JVP: "I think that Steve Barnes was saying (20 or so years ago when I was designing neurology and pseudo-Physics for his novels) that plantation masters killed off the insubordinate slaves, and in so doing also killed off the smartest ones, thereby affecting African-American intelligence as well as docility. This comes perilously close to racism, but I didn't disagree on ideological grounds, merely biological, and now I find my biological assumptions challenged by new putative research results."

The reason that ev psych/sociobiology has a bad rep is that sort of statement. If insubordination leads strongly and directly to death, intelligent people might well: (a) obey, (b) disobey only when they could get away with it, (c) run away to more congenial surroundings, or (d) develop higher intelligence to get away with disobedience.

QT - Barry wrote:
> The reason that ev psych/sociobiology has a bad rep is that sort
> of statement. If insubordination leads strongly and directly to
> death, intelligent people might well: (a) obey, (b) disobey
> only when they could get away with it, (c) run away to more
> congenial surroundings, or (d) develop higher intelligence to
> get away with disobedience.

You forgot e: "Rebel". There is a story, (which I think I first saw in a Niven
novelette). It goes something like this: in ancient China a group of slaves
were resting after a meal. After a while, one of them asks the others: "Guys, what is the penalty for being late?" "Death" the others answer as one. "And what is the penalty for rebellion?" "Death" rings out again. "Guys, I have news for you: We're late".

And thus began one of the more successful slave revolts in ancient China.

Barry, I think that it would be hard to find any real scientists who are advocates of evolutionary psychology who'd actually say anything of the sort. The bad reputation tends to come from laymen making pop theorizations that use evo psych "logic" too poor effect.

"Mankind surely does not represent an evolution toward a better or stronger or higher level, as progress is now understood. This 'progress' is merely a modern idea, which is to say, a false idea. The European of today, in his essential worth, falls far below the European of the Renaissance; the process of evolution does not necessarily mean elevation, enhancement, strengthening."
 
"True enough, it succeeds in isolated and individual cases in various parts of the earth and under the most widely different cultures, and in these cases a higher type certainly manifests itself; something which, compared to mankind in the mass, appears as a sort of superman. Such happy strokes of high success have always been possible, and will remain possible, perhaps, for all time to come. Even whole races, tribes and nations may occasionally represent such lucky accidents."

From: The Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzsche, 1895.

Nietzche's problem was that he kept falling into the teleological fallacy; associating evolution with design, or that it's a process which should be 'going somewhere' towards a 'higher type'.

Mr. Stirling, I agree with you. But this 1895 date is one of the earlier fun-read rants of this misconception. Of course, Erasmus Darwin did it in an epic poem, Zoonomia, which nobody seems to read today, that had the seeds of his grandson's scientific theory. And earlier than that, Europeans referred to the Mohammedan Theory of Evolution, which went bottom-up from formation of minerals through plants, animals, people, angels, and Allah, in a way which influenced both the medieval "Great Chain of Being" model and naturalists. Once we begin serious genetic engineering (the new Omega-3 pork) we are taking the reins of evolution into our own hands, and teleology appears with the bottom line. In a sense, the Singularity is all about teleology, albeit old-style humans may never comprehend the goals.