Mother Nature is Not Our Friend

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My thought is that the writer needs to get his head out of his rear.

He makes a number of unsupported assumptions. For example, while the average lifespan might have been 40, that doesn't mean that people weren't regularly living to the age of 60 or above, especially before we stopped being hunter gatherers (average lifespan too a serious hit when we became farmers). Since we live as family units, children who were surrounded by 60 year old ancients with a life worth's of experience would be more likely to survive... or at least less likely to kill themselves off by making stupid mistakes. This would in turn give those families with elder people in it a decisive edge... genes which would support a person living to the age of 60 would thus gain prominence in the gene pool, and thus life after 40 would indeed be selected by evolution (sic).

The main problem with us "optimising" ourselves is that we honestly have no idea exactly what we are optimised for. Ok, we have some idea, but there's just so much about the human body that we don't know. As they say, you don't know what you have until you don't have it anymore.

And finally, nature may be indifferent, but nature as a whole is still a finely tuned engine. Mess with the current settings at your own peril.

I want to optimise myself. Level up, get more abilities and some phat lewts. g0g0g0.

Xarog said:

And finally, nature may be indifferent, but nature as a whole is still a finely tuned engine. Mess with the current settings at your own peril.

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Do you not think that we've been messing with natures "settings" since the stone age or even before that? Surely we've been at "war" with nature since we first learned to use tools? Or started selectively breeding other species for food or as tools?
Unless we're going to suddenly decide that the whole thing was a mistake and that we should go back to the trees as nature "intended" until we're wiped out by an asteroid strike, we're going to have to keep messing with the settings until we get it right or until we destroy ourselves.

Nick333 said:

Do you not think that we've been messing with natures "settings" since the stone age or even before that? Surely we've been at "war" with nature since we first learned to use tools? Or started selectively breeding other species for food or as tools?
Unless we're going to suddenly decide that the whole thing was a mistake and that we should go back to the trees as nature "intended" until we're wiped out by an asteroid strike, we're going to have to keep messing with the settings until we get it right or until we destroy ourselves.

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Nature has been balancing itself for the last 3 billion years. Sure, things have changed, but it has been a slow and gradual process. "Mistakes" have been made, and the price is usually extinction.

My point is that 3 billion years of change is a very long time. Maybe we aren't at our optimum for dealing with the natural enviroment as it is, but personally, I would rather not put my trust in a bunch of know-it-all humans that think they have the answer to all our specieal ills, because if they get it wrong (and seriously, how often do we make mistakes? Nuclear power anyone? Greenhouse gasses? Global warming? etc?), we run a decided risk of extinction.

Xarog said:

Nature has been balancing itself for the last 3 billion years. Sure, things have changed, but it has been a slow and gradual process. "Mistakes" have been made, and the price is usually extinction.

My point is that 3 billion years of change is a very long time. Maybe we aren't at our optimum for dealing with the natural enviroment as it is, but personally, I would rather not put my trust in a bunch of know-it-all humans that think they have the answer to all our specieal ills, because if they get it wrong (and seriously, how often do we make mistakes? Nuclear power anyone? Greenhouse gasses? Global warming? etc?), we run a decided risk of extinction.

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Unless you're suggesting we go back to our caves or somewhere arbitrarily more advanced, what choice do we have?
Surely the way forward will always be fraught with trial and error?
At this stage the only alternative is backwards.