Comment by osenthuortuh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by osenthuortuh | Hacker News Reader

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Pugs cannot give birth naturally. The continued existence of pugs is completely dependent on medical intervention. In other words, pugs are not real. They exist only to the degree that a painting or building exists. They require constant upkeep by an advanced society, which has never existed beyond a few thousand years at a time.

Why would anyone's vision for the future of humanity be an animal that can only exist in the context of an advanced civilization? Why would anyone's vision of humanity be an animal that is dependent for survival on <product> from <company> as though they were cattle? To reduce a human being to a dependent component of a pharmaceutical production chain is an abhorrent moral hazard.

Smallpox was made extinct, and other diseases may be made greatly reduced because they are unique to humanity. But the many coronaviruses are shared between mammals, and are an eternal component of the environment. We have a moral obligation to evolve to suit the environment. That is what it means to be a successful animal.

> We have a moral obligation to evolve to suit the environment

And we've done that by evolving our mental capacities and developing a wide range of tools that have enabled us to survive and prosper. We are apex predators of apex predators, to the point that we kill other predators for sport rather than food.

Stick me naked and toolless in the wilds of Siberia and I'd estimate my survival time in hours rather than days. Without our tools we're a pretty useless species that hasn't even evolved far enough to be able to walk on two legs without developing back pain, unlike penguins.

Vaccines taken once in a lifetime, or taken annually, or taken daily are just another tool. Why is this any worse than brushing your teeth, showering, taking medication or even getting dressed. If a doctor told you to take heart medication on a daily basis to stay alive, would you refuse on the grounds that it's better for humans to evolve hearts that are less prone to heart disease?

> We have a moral obligation to evolve to suit the environment. That is what it means to be a successful animal.

So tools as a whole are just... sins? How far down this line do you want us to go? No plastics? No computers? No structures? No roads? No clothes?

>Why would anyone's vision for the future of humanity be an animal that can only exist in the context of an advanced civilization?

That is a textbook description of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, IMO. We are not very impressive without an advanced civilization.

Niches changing is pretty boringly normal.

Dolphins are evolutionarily unfit to occupy the niche they had back on land. The bacteria that precipitated the oxygen crisis were very successful until they weren't.

There are many reasons to care about environmental destruction, pollution, and the loss of biodiversity, but at the same time it's neither particularly rational nor natural to obsess about preserving exactly the niches which existed at a particular point in time, nor our fitness for them.

Evolution is not a moral obligation; it's just the best nature could manage without thinking.

If civilization crumbles, then natural selection will take the reins and a lot of people will die, but that's not a goal we should aim for.

Natural selection is still at the reins. It operates in an environment. One that we, fortunately, can shape.

> We have a moral obligation to evolve to suit the environment. That is what it means to be a successful animal.

I'm not sure how any of this related to morality. What is your moral framework here?

However, if we accept it, the unique success of humanity clearly does not stem from blindly accepting whatever nature throws our way. Humanity's success, and defining characteristic is that we're able to bend nature to our will, and when that isn't possible, consciously bend ourselves.

The vaccines are another example, and the mRNA vaccines are incredible example of this. We engineered a way to use our own body as a factory.

Humanity's progress doesn't depend on giving up on technology, it depends on increasing our abilities with it. Evolution is too slow and too random, humanity can do better altering our own genome. If we survive, humanity will eventually be able to manipulate entire solar systems or even galaxies. Possibly the whole universe. That's our destiny, not dying of smallpox on our home planet.

This is textbook appeal to nature.

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