[ExI] tech influence

[Tara Maya]

Selective pressure now favors will power and forethought. 

Example #1: In the past, people only exercised when they were hungry. There was no selective to pressure to exercise when you had plenty to eat. Now, however, bounty poses as much a threat to health as scarcity, which requires more forethought, will power and intelligence to the matter of exercise than in the past. 

Example #2: In the past, people had a limited set of memes to absorb and pass on. They generally accepted whatever was passed to them by their elders, and taught the same to their children. In the present, the extreme competition of memes, and constant generation of new memes, means that people must be much more selective about which memes they accept and pass on.

Example #3: In the past, people pursued pleasure and ended up with children as a result. Now, people who place their own pleasure above the annoyance of caring for helpless humans can easily avoid breeding, thus sprang the rest of us passing on their selfish anti-child inclinations. At the same time, people who reproduce excessively can't invest in educating their offspring as well as those who choose to have children, but only those they plan for and can afford.

Example #4: In the past, people did not need to be literate to be social. Now literary is a key component of sociality. Likewise, good math skills, such as the ability to balance a household budget and keep good credit, is also becoming important to high social standing.

Those are just a few that come to mind. The pressure of civilization (just an earlier term for "technology") has been relentlessly pushing humans toward worse bodies but better brains for millennia now. And the evidence is that genes adapt much faster than people have given them credit. 


Tara Maya
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On Feb 7, 2014, at 10:06 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Interesting article.  Will America and technology ruin the world?
> 
> bill
> 
> Click here: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/02/as-technology-gets-better-will-society-get-worse.html?utm_source=tny
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