whestler's Shortform

Cf this Bostrom quote.

Far from being the smartest possible biological species, we are probably better thought of as the stupidest possible biological species capable of starting a technological civilization - a niche we filled because we got there first, not because we are in any sense optimally adapted to it.

Re this:

In evolutionary timescales, virtually no time has elapsed since hominids began trading, utilizing complex symbolic thinking, making art, hunting large animals etc, and here we are, a blip later in high technology.

A bit nit-picky, but a recent paper studying West Eurasia found significant evolution over the last 14,000 years.

I agree that "general" isn't such a good word for humans. But unless civilization was initiated right after the minimum viable threshold was crossed, it seems somewhat unlikely to me that humans were very representative of the minimum viable threshold.

If any evolutionary process other than civilization precursors formed the feedback loop that caused human intelligence, then civilization would hit full swing sooner if that feedback loop continued pushing human intelligence further. Whether Earth took a century or a millennia between the harnessing of electricity and the first computer was heavily affected by economics and genetic diversity (e.g. Babbage, Lovelace, Turing), but afaik a "minimum viable general intelligence" could plausibly have taken millions or even billions of years under ideal cultural conditions to cross that particular gap.

I have no idea what the event will be, but Petrov Day itself is the 26th of September, and given that LW users are in many timezones my expectation is that there will be no specific time you need to be available on that day. 

I feel like this should be a lw question post. and maybe an lw admin should be tagged?

I'm also wondering the same question.