the question of whether evolutionary pressure on the timescale of human generations can keep up with our technological advancement
As long as people exist who could/would refuse it, and as long as there are enough of them to form a viable breeding population, evolution will bring the species through it.
Waiting for random beneficial mutations usually takes a long, long time. But if the beneficial mutations are already in a population, the population can adapt extremely quickly. If all the individuals without that mutation died off quickly (or at least didn’t produce offspring) then that mutation would be in basically 100% of the population within one generation. A rather smaller generation than the previous ones, sure, but they would have less competition and more room to grow. (Though, thanks to recessive genetics, you’re likely to still see individuals popping up without that beneficial mutation occasionally for a long time to come. But those throwbacks will become more and more rare as time goes on.)
That’s a vast oversimplification, though. Because it’s very unlikely that the ability to resist the temptation of ‘wireheading’ comes down to the presence or absence of a single particular gene.
Since mouse studies have already been done, it would be interesting to do it with a large, long-running experiment on an entire breeding population of mice, to see if there are any mice that are capable of surviving and reproducing under those conditions (and if so, do they show any evidence of evolving to become more resistant?)
Same here. I block all kinds of communities, often just because they’re not relevant to my interests.
I wish I knew a way to block a community without having to visit that community first, directly from my front page where a post from that community is showing up.