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On 25/05/2020 21:56, bill w wrote:<br>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">Classic case of
'good enough for who it's for'. bill w</div>
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<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, May 25, 2020 at 11:17
AM Dave Sill via extropy-chat <<a
href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org"
moz-do-not-send="true">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr">On Sat, May 23, 2020 at 1:30 AM The
Avantguardian via extropy-chat <<a
href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
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It is true that deleterious mutations are more common
than beneficial ones. It is the price that life pays for
searching fitness-space for greener pastures on the
other side of the valley of death. That being said,
automotive engines display a different sort of
complexity than living systems. The complexity of the
car engine is imposed upon it a top-down fashion.
Because of that, the engine's parts are very specialized
and essential. This has the effect of making the engine
brittle and failure-prone. <br>
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<div>No, engines are brittle because that's the way we
design them. We don't design them to last a million
miles or to be inherently redundant, we design them to
be relatively robust, inexpensive, and efficient. Would
you pay $200,000 for a car that got 15 mpg, performed
like a Camry, and had an drive train that was unlikely
to ever need repair? Engineering is about trade-offs.
Manufacturers know what buyers will buy and design their
products to meet that demand.</div>
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<div>-Dave</div>
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<br>
Precisely. Everything is a case of 'good enough', why would it be
otherwise?<br>
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The important thing is that there are now intelligent, self-aware
creatures whose 'good enough for' is not the same as evolution's. In
fact we have many, so we end up with trade-offs, like the car
engine.<br>
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Our requirements for our own bodies will be different again, and
quite a long way from those of evolution. That's why we need to (and
will, I think) redesign biology, from a very fundamental level. And
yes, we will introduce brittleness in some areas where nature
doesn't, where it won't matter to us, just like it doesn't matter
that a car engine is brittle because we can easily repair or replace
it, more cheaply than making it very robust.<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Ben Zaiboc</pre>
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