
Superstimuli and the Collapse of Western Civilization (2007) - billswift
http://lesswrong.com/lw/h3/superstimuli_and_the_collapse_of_western/
======
DanielBMarkham
Reading some of the other comments, I think I need to note that there is an
important difference between this article, mine, and pg's.

When I wrote my article in Feb 09 Eliezer commented on HN with something like
"hey! I already did that!"

Since my piece
([http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/02/technology_is...](http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/02/technology_is_h.php))
received such a high rating on HN, I did a bit of research to determine who
came up with what idea when. Mainly because I am vain, yes, but I was also
interested in how several people come up with the same thing around the same
time. I hadn't read anything along the lines of what I wrote. How many more
articles were out there?

Not many, as it turned out, but that's not the point. The point was I learned
there are some distinctions in how people see the problem.

Eliezeer makes the point that electronic goods "super-stimulate" -- an
importatnt piece of the puzzle. I believe when people argue "but no, this
isn't _really_ the end of the world" they attack this piece first.

What Eliezer missed at the time in his piece is that _this is an evolutionary
process_. It's not just that digital goods can stimulate just like drugs. The
killer part is that there is a survival of the fittest process going on where
the digital drugs keep adapting to optimize their hold on our brains. This was
the point I made.

I think it's an important distinction and deserves re-mentioning. There is a
good and scary reason why pong from the 1970s looks so dumb yet we spent 30
minutes playing it, while games from 2010 look so awesome and we spend 30-40
hours a week playing them. Our games today will be pong to somebody in 2025.

PG makes the point that _this is accelerating_. Not only are various
electronic goods competing for time on our brains, not only are these goods
evolving to self-optimize, the evolution process itself is accelerating.

So the timeline goes 2007: it's a drug, 2009: it's an endlessly self-
optimizing drug, 2010: it's adapting at an accelerated rate.

Ouch.

I'm not trying to yell the sky is falling, and I remain an optimist for the
species as a whole. I just don't think waving your arms around (with a game
controller in your hand, no doubt) while you say something like "nothing to
see here folks, please move along" is going to cut it anymore. We have some
work to do.

~~~
Luff
Laissez-faire(not troll) viewpoint: People will be unequally susceptible to
these new super-stimuli, and humanity will keep on evolving. If the victims,
who will have their genes excluded from the gene pool, leads happy lives,
what's the problem?

edit: Felt a need to play devils advocate to get a more complete discussion,
but just saw that it had already been done in the comments to pg article. so,
eh, never mind.

The point I really wanted to make was that I'm not worried that this will be
the end of humanity, since not just super-stimuli, but also humanity keeps on
evolving.

------
bryanlarsen
I highly recommend reading the comments to this article as well.

------
Ardit20
Man, this Civilization thing just keeps collapsing all the time.

Like the title, the article too is a bit of a mess. I up voted it however
because I agree that free will - to resist temptation that is - requires work
and often hard work.

I must say however, could people please stop using the hunter - gatherers as
our gods in which image we are made? These people lived thousands of years
ago. Evolution does not just stop at some point - thousands of years ago that
is. To illustrate the point, those three people that died, that is evolution,
their genes were not passed, so their behaviour will occur less.

You see after we lived in caves, we started farming and after that we started
to build big cities, and after that we managed to learn how to fly and able to
write on here. I think that throughout those stages evolution has continued
and whoever was or is not adapted to the environment will just die without
leaving off springs and those off springs who are left behind will be better
adapted to video games.

~~~
derefr
You are referring, in your last paragraph, to _adaptation_ ; _evolution_ is a
much more particular process that species undergo over the span of thousands
of generations. We are not currently well-evolved for our environment; it has
been only 100 generations (3100-3300 years, statistically) or so since we
first developed agriculture. You would be hard-pressed to find a species that
had managed to naturally-select for _anything_ in a hundred generations,
unless it was something that killed off a large majority of the species before
they reached reproductive maturity.

We can adapt our behaviors (the whole point of brain matter, in fact, is
adapting faster than evolution allows), but until we start genetically-
engineering ourselves, we can only _evolve_ our instincts. Thus, our instincts
are currently those of hunter-gatherers.

Further, since humanity seems to be particularly against the notion of
eugenics at this time, we aren't even undergoing much natural selection at
all. Sure, there will be some Darwin-award winners, and the very poor in the
third-world may be picked off by disease or hunger until only the more
resilient are left, but this thing we have created, _society_ , protects the
weak and unfit through a process of empathy. People will not choose to not
reproduce with you just because you're nearsighted—so now a quarter of all
people are nearsighted. There is no natural selection happening in humans,
especially now that, through a huge population, globalization, and
search/match algorithms, every person is guaranteed to be able to find, within
their lifetime, 10000 people they would consider "soulmates" if they met by
happenstance.

~~~
Ardit20
Perhaps I am mistaken, but evolution is the survival of the most adapted.
Adaptation and evolution are not two distinct concept. Adaptation is the
mechanism by which evolution functions. That is the most adapted survives, the
least adapted does not. Those who survive then pass on their genes, thus their
instinct, to their children which eventually leads to a change of behaviour or
characteristic.

Even assuming that our ancestors came down from the trees our outside of the
caves and started working the earth 3000 years ago, that would not be merely
100 generations. People died much more younger then and frequently. Only a
thousand years ago the population of London was no more than perhaps 50,000
people. 2000 years ago there probably hardly were any people here.

Now let me address the 3000 number. First, Egypt is much older than 3000
years. Mesopotamia is older than Egypt. Now Mesopotamia was a civilisation.
There was culture and religion and governance. It must have taken a few years
to evolve from farming the land to a civilization. The estimates as to when we
started farming range between 10,000 and 50,000 years ago but most likely it
is about 20,000 - 10,000 years ago.

If we take the lower number of 10 thousand, and go back to London 2000 years
ago where there probably were not many people. Its a brutal world. There is
fighting. A lot of disease, perhaps some due to diet. Branches of ancestral
lines much easily vanished. Those who were stronger to fight, or lucky as it
may be, survived, those who were smarter survived, those who were fine with
eating rice and whatever bacteria it might have contained survived.

Now if we go back to the time of the ancient greece, those who were slaves
probably did not pass on their genes, thus the behaviour which got them into
slavery probably eventually was minimised in the population as a whole. Going
back to Egypt, the weak, or the less adapted, were more likely and more easily
than say 1000 years ago to die leaving no children.

Now lets come back to our days. It is true that here it is hard to die of
hunger, but, the poor are more likely to be alcoholics, do drugs, smoke a lot,
fight, steal, be in jail, that is why the poor get pregnant so young, they
might not live so long. Also, those who are poor and least adapted to being
poor, that is fight and the like, are less likely to have children.

There are studies where evolution has been documented within our own lifetime
of different species such as peacocks within a very short time frame. That is
one or two generations, or for good measure ten generations. We are however a
different species in a very fundamental manner from any other. Our evolution
is of a different kind to the peacock or the lion or the monkey. We might not
change physical characteristics, but what does evolve is our thinking, our
intelligence if you like, which I am using as an umbrella term to describe in
another way mental adaptation to our world. Those who are not so adapted might
be married but are less likely to as they would have to do with what is left
from all else and are likely to engage in harming behaviour to themselves due
to falling pray to such temptations as drugs and thus leave a worse
environment for their children, etc.

I think I should stop now. I just wanted to point also that many people might
be able to find 10,000 solemates, but a very fat person might probably not, so
to the guy who plays video games all day and smells of dirt because he can not
be bothered to wash.

It is a very big picture. We might not notice evolution occurring, but have
you noticed how we as a society have and keep becoming better and more
prosperous and more educated and healthier...

