" Humans are basically the minimally conscious and intelligent creatures that could take over a planet."
I believed this about a year ago and thought myself well and properly cynical.
Then it was pointed out to me that humanity is the minimally conscious and intelligent population such that, with some random genetic shuffling, you wind up with 2-5% capable of taking over the planet, and pulling the rest up with them.
While I am a broadly cynical person, I do not mean this as a "we are certainly doomed post" to wave about my self-hating credentials; I rather dislike people who do that and consider self-hatred a pernicious and dangerous meme, not something to be rolled in. I rather see it as a cautionary tale about our need to be careful; we are not certainly doomed, but if we run about as if our success is ensured, an attitude that manifests itself in a lot of political debates in various ways, we will get ourselves into trouble.
I did mean the population, since of course we have rather significant variation in personal intelligence.
I believed this about a year ago and thought myself well and properly cynical.
Then it was pointed out to me that humanity is the minimally conscious and intelligent population such that, with some random genetic shuffling, you wind up with 2-5% capable of taking over the planet, and pulling the rest up with them.