Subject:
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Re: Future of Humanity (was: lotsa stuff)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 30 Oct 2001 18:27:09 GMT
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Viewed:
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930 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
>
> snippo
> I am not saying that humanity will not change at all
> any more. I am just saying that barring a collapse in civilisation, our days
> of changing involuntarily are more or less over. (that doesn't mean we're at
> a dead end... well it sort of does but not in a BAD way)
>
> To Ross's point, yes, we may well make ourselves go extinct. It cannot be
> ruled out. But I consider it highly unlikely already. We are at/close to a
> cusp in the probability... As soon as we escape this basket, even if just to
> other parts of this system, the chances go way further down. They go down
> again, to almost nil, once we start colonising other systems. I don't see
> 1000 years as an at all unreasonable time estimate for when we will have
> several viable colonies in other systems. (the fraction of the total
> population outsystem may still be small but that doesn't matter)
I think these points interact in an interesting way.
> > I think speciation of humans on earth is unlikely: if anything we're
> > homogenising. Once we colonise space though I think it's almost inevitable,
> > if fertile humans can be conceived and born in non-earth gravity.
I'm no physiologist, and this is largely based on mediocre SF, but I think
it's quite possible that humans will evolve rapidly as a response to low
gravity conditions (if that's not a selective pressure I don't know what
is!!). More immediately, development and growth could easily be affected
(lower bone densities etc) and cultural/physical antipathy to Earth would
create a population bottleneck. Isolated population + novel environment =
classic speciation scenario.
--DaveL
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Future of Humanity (was: lotsa stuff)
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| (...) I think one of the biggest shifts in our species "unnatural evolution" will come when we stop worrying about the effect of zerogee (ZG) on the human body and split into ZG and PlusG branches, where ZGs will have no DESIRE to visit planets and (...) (23 years ago, 2-Nov-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Future of Humanity (was: lotsa stuff)
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| (...) Right. Or at least closer. What I'm getting at is that evolution is a natural process that produces changes in organisms in response to changes in environment (including the changes that occur in other organisms) but that we are now choosing, (...) (23 years ago, 30-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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