The Future Driving Force of Human Evolution
If the technological progress happens to cancel the old process
of natural selection which had the virtue of leading to the
emergence of relatively intelligent humans, as happened in the
last 2 centuries or so by letting most people survive and
reproduce no matter their defects, while coercing the most
intelligent into half-life-long mental slavery to the academic
system (in addition to the negative selection practiced by
religions since about 2 millennia, of sending the wisest people
either to monastery, priesthood or death penalty depending on
whether they agree or disagree with the official creed, and other
effects of confusions between love and sin), then how can the
human specie continue a positive genetic evolution, towards higher
intelligence and other qualities ?
This question might seem frightening, as if we had to choose
between 2 evils :
- Necessary regression by lack of positive selective pressure,
or
- The horror of totalitarianism with their pseudo-ideals of
"pure race", segregation and organized mass murder of the
"inferior people".
As surprising at it might sound, I have a good news to bring : I
envision a possible way for genetic progress to still go forward,
at least as fast as the previous effect of Darwinian selection,
but that does not require any kind of dictatorship nor mass
murder. It does not even require any large number of people to opt
for any futurist artificial procreation with synthetic genome.
There will be some artificial procreation of course, but it will
not need to be any more widespread nor sophisticated than current
practice. Generally, it won't even require any deliberate
collective organization (hmm... let's just admit the method
described against
overpopulation, that's all we need). Amazing news, isn't it
?
So, at this point you may feel very curious and enthusiastic at
this news. You want to understand how it can happen, yes ?
However, I'm afraid you will hate it when you will understand it.
Well, it does not matter anyway, since it is not a project I'm
going to describe here, but a predictive description of what is
most probably going to happen no matter whether anyone likes it or
not, no matter whether anyone cares about it, works for it or
against it.
So you might prefer to not understand it, after all. But it will
happen anyway. So do you really want to know what will happen
anyway ?
Okay, let's go. Be warned : you might hate it. Read it at your
own peril ;-)
Here is the idea :
A little factor is that the current negative pressure by the
education system that spoils the life and time of the intelligent,
is going to fall down, as it will become clear that this waste is
not needed.
But the main factor is that, in the free time thus obtained, new
online dating technologies will offer people optimal means to find
their dates.
All will happen based on freedom : people will use these efficient
tools of online dating because it will be everyone's best
available means to find love. Such tools will be chosen to be used
as determined by the condition of being everyone's best method to
find what they are looking for. And it will have consequences. Let
us describe these consequences in details.
In a first attempt of analysis, let us compare it to a market, with
offer and demand of relationships. In usual markets, the balance of
offer and demand in transactions is regulated by price. Here it is
not exactly a market since there is (usually) no price of
transaction, as the object of the transaction is to form a couple
that will usually constitute an economic unit instead of 2 separate
people where one pays to the other for the transaction. But still
the deep structure of the problem is similar, whether or not it
works with prices.
So for the sake of analogy, let us analyze the equivalent problem
where transactions are regulated by price.
Then the regulating parameter that would adapt to make offer an
demand meet, would be a "distribution of values" between people,
that is constructed as follows:
Every individual A's preferences towards others B1,B2,...can be
expressed as values he puts on each: v(A,B1), v(A,B2)... meaning
that A is ready to pay v(A,B1)-v(A,B2) to get B1 instead of B2. Then
the final choice for A will be the B makes the "best offer", that
is, the price p(B,A) that B will pay for A is the best of all B for
the fixed A, that is, B provides the maximum value of
(p(B,A)+v(A,B)) among all B for the fixed A. In this way the "market
regulation" consists in the search for the maximum value of
(p(B,A)+v(A,B)) for each A, finding the B that is ready to give this
maximum. The "market regulation" provides a distribution of success
between people, where the "success of A" is defined by the maximum
value of (p(B,A)+v(A,B)) for each A, thus letting B the chance to
relate with A if the price p(B,A) reaches the value in agreement
with the level of success of A. But this p(B,A) itself happens in
the context of B's search, where it is similarly obtained by
correcting B's preferences to each A with B's overall success in the
bid for B by all other A, so as to make this transaction as
interesting as the next best option for B.
Now if there is no monetary price, and even if there is no explicit
regulating system, things will anyway regulate themselves in a way
or another no matter if the regulating variables are visible or not.
And the structure of the problem is similar even in the absence of
financial counterpart. So the natural regulation will anyway involve
similar adjustment variables, even if these variables are hidden.
These variables are "How successful is each individual in one's
search for love".
Some people are very successful, i.e. they have a large and
comfortable choice of possible partners ready to accept them.
Others have low success, i.e. they cannot get the partners they
would best prefer because these preferred people have better
available options.
Anyway, things are no less cruel than if they were regulated by
price. Maybe even more cruel.
An advantage of a powerful dating system is that people who would
have the best qualities in the absolute (such as a high
intelligence) but are of an "exceptional kind" that cannot find
partners in their immediate surrounding and thus would be lost in
the absence of dating system, can then have the good chances of
finding their best match by searching in the larger population,
where they can be preferred by the exceptional others who they will
prefer there.
So the diversity has 2 dimensions : a vertical dimension of
"comparison of success" between people, and a horizontal dimension
of separation between people of different characters, similarly
successful in different manners, towards different people, according
to the diversity of tastes.
In the case of a market with monetary prices, only horizontal
proximity would determines who fits who ; vertical distances do not
matter as they can be crossed by paying the price. But in the
absence of payment, this solution is impossible.
With old inefficient dating ways, people with different levels of
success would happen to relate because the possibly more successful
people have not many others with whom to relate, horizontal
proximity is rare and precious, so that people can match if they
happen to meet each other and fit in their particular taste. Who
could otherwise be more successful may have to accept someone
otherwise possibly less successful for this reason that they happen
to meet and fit, in the lack of chances to find someone better who
does not happen to be locally present.
But in the presence of efficient dating methods, this constraint is
removed. So, people able of success in the large picture get the
opportunity to find who they prefer, as horizontal proximity becomes
easy to find at the same success level.
The consequence is this one : in the non-monetary version of the
market with efficient dating methods, the best goes with the
best. Relations are much more likely to take place between
people enjoying the same level of success, than people at different
success levels. A person A cannot relate with more successful Bs
because these Bs have better other opportunities to choose from ;
but won't accept less successful Bs because other Bs horizontally
close to A (i.e. with common tastes) can be found at the same
success level as A.
Now let us deduce the consequences of this rule on the genetic
evolution.
Each person has a mixture of genetic traits, some good, some bad.
Even if things can be complicated and non-linear, let us imagine a
simple model where each trait has a definite contribution to the
success level : we define "positive traits" as those bringing a
higher level of dating success, and "negative traits" as bringing a
lower level of success.
Now if the possibility for 2 people to relate requires them to have
roughly the same level of success, then the result on the next
generation is an increase in the discrepancy (standard deviation) of
success levels between people : positive traits are more likely to
be combine with other positive traits, while negative traits are
more likely to combine with other negative traits.
But if the standard deviation between success levels of people gets
wider and wider every generation, then where is the limit to this
deviation ? It cannot extend up to infinity. Sooner or later, a
physical limit to this deviation will be reached.
The result is that negative traits are going to disappear, not
because they kill the person directly, but because they are more
likely to be oriented in the next generations into individuals with
other negative traits.
Let us recall the diverse mechanisms which can contribute to switch
from such accumulations of traits of the same sign in the same
people, into differences of overall numerical presence of each trait
in the population:
- Highly disabled people (with an accumulation of negative
traits) may disappear as the people carrying them will die, not
that a single defect can significantly suffice to kill someone
in a highly technological society, but an accumulation of many
defects can.
- We mentioned that, as technological progress goes on, natural
intelligence becomes more and more crucial on the job market.
Thus, each inequality of intelligence induces a wider inequality
of income, but inequalities of intelligence themselves widen in
the absolute because of this breeding process, so that
inequalities of income will widen even more (Yes I warned you,
you would hate the news ! now you must cope with it !). Also, an
efficient trust system can help to favor the honest people over
the dishonest, so as to make dishonesty a selective
disadvantage. And wealth contributes to attractiveness in a
world with huge inequalities of income. Finally, even if they
did not naturally want it at first, the most defective people
becoming too poor will become more likely to accept the anti-overpopulation
deal of sterilization in exchange for charity. If you think that
is a bad deal we should not introduce, well, what do you really
want ? Do you want defective traits to survive and keep
accumulating into more and more disabled people ? Until what
point ?
- Too unsuccessful people, cannot find any acceptable partner at
all. They will be condemned to loneliness. Very awful fate too.
Even more awful than accepting the deal of sterilization in
exchange for charity, don't you see this ? So, please let the
poor people accept the above deal for fear their reproduction
may induce such horrors in the next generations !
- The minority of people opting for artificial procreation with
gamete donors, will prefer the best quality donors, of course !
and can even be ready to pay for this, so that accumulations of
positive traits can result in numerical multiplication by this
process of artificial procreation.
Now things are clear : positive natural evolution of humanity can go
on in a high-tech, comfortable, wealthy society, even without any
dictatorship nor any high-tech means of artificially designed DNA...
Up : On humanity's failures to steer itself
properly