How would we look differently (evolution for 2025 tasks)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Hi there,

spin-off from the bi-pedal robotics thread here:

there is (at least some) agreement that it does not make sense “copying” the human body (HB) in robotics, as the HB did evolve over 1000s of generation and so prepares us for all kinds of activities, from 200.000 to 1.000 years in our past, 95% of which seem to be obsolete in today’s lifestyle.

so here my Q: In a hypothetical scenario of “freezing out western 2025 lifestyle” for 1000s of generations, how would the human body evolve over time to work better for our today’s taskset?

  • eyes optimized for reading distance (30-70cm)?
  • weaker/shorter legs (very little actual walking)
  • bigger head / larger brain?

any thoughts?

2

More thumbs so you can text faster.

3

Direct brain computer interface. (So you don’t need to use thumbs to text. :wink: )

Much greater resistance to obesity in the presence of overeating.

The actual ability to multi-task. Not just the mistaken illusionary ability to multi-task.

4

The issue is evolution rewards people who have the most children that survive into adulthood and successfully reproduce themselves. Evolution doesn’t care about our well being or whether we are a good match for our environment.

If people who drop dead of heart disease at age 51 have more children who successfully reach adulthood vs people who live to 120 having fewer kids who reach adulthood, then the people who die at age 51 from heart attacks will become the new normal.

But if you are doing a hypothetical of how evolution could make us more able to thrive in our current environment I would say things like:

  • The ability to function with less sleep (so we can get more done, and don’t need to worry about night predators. Supposedly one of the reasons we sleep is to avoid nocturnal predators)
  • The ability to eat a shitty diet and lead a poor lifestyle w/o developing diabetes, obesity, heart disease, etc. We evolved traits like insulin resistance, obesity, etc to survive times of food shortages. So we’d evolve to thrive in an environment full of abundant food.
  • Larger brains to function in a highly complex technological world. A reduced need for tribalism or loyalty to our local tribe. With abundant food, we don’t need to divert calories away from the brain and direct it to the body. We could evolve brains that require 2000 calories a day but are far more competent, instead of the brains we have now that only need 500 calories a day.
  • Faster forms of learning and communication. The conscious brain can only interpret a small amount of information, which is a massive disadvantage in the modern world where information is endless.
5

Second set of eyes in the top of the head so you can walk and stare at your phone without running into things.

6

Y’all are thinking small.

Most mammals use their mouth to manipulate the world, so it makes sense that it’s close to the primary sensory organs. But we use our hands. We should have a sense of taste on our fingers, and probably eyes on our palms and maybe inside the fingers, as well.

And we use electric stuff, but are totally blind to it. Many fish can sense electric currents. We should be able to, too.

(I met a guy who had a small powerful member surgically implanted in the tip of an index finger. In addition to helping him do magic tricks, he can tell if there AC current in a wire just by running his hand over the wire. There’s no reason we couldn’t have magnetic organs like a shark.)

That’s kinda true of people whose ancestors lived for generations in crowded cities. There are large genetic differences in the tenancy towards diabetes by population. The cost is less ability to withstand famine, and especially less ability to bear children during a famine.

7

Some of your swypos are better than others … :zany_face:

Great ideas for wider-ranging bodily changes. Thanks.

Here’s another:
Birds are believed to have a built-in magnetic compass which manifests somehow in their visual system. Human’s “sense of direction” is much less developed and much more indirect, based on training and local familiarity. No reason we couldn’t have birds’ mag compasses too.

8

Basically, we’d look like novel War of the Worlds Martians as that was pretty much the idea behind them. They’d been a technologically advanced civilization so long that they’d lost everything that didn’t involving controlling their technology. So they had big brains, really good “hands” (tentacles in their case), good eyes, and everything else pared down to the simplest that can support life (such as drinking blood since they had a very simple digestive system).

Essentially the step just below a “brain in a jar” cyborg if you don’t have the idea (or technology) to actually directly hook a brain into machinery yet.

9

“How would we look differently”

Nitpick: different, not differentLY.

This is about appearance, not behavior or activity, so the correct word is an adjective, not an adverb.

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People who lived on SDMB for many 100s of generations would be easily identified by having grown a so called nitpick somewhere.

Maybe another small member growing out of our indexfingers…

/s

11

Indeed. :laughing: He had a magnet implanted in his fingertip. And yes, that was awkward when he needed an MRI, but he was able to hold his hand outside the machine and it worked.

I thought about that, but i don’t think we need a sense of direction more than our ancestors. We really do have more need to be aware of electric current, though.

12

Maybe at least an extra lobe for our brain, to deal with social media and other internet/intranet connected activities. At least two more pairs of arms; one large, strong pair to carry things and perform other very heavy-duty activities.One normal-human-sized pair, probably with an extra joint for mobility and extra fingers; and one small pair for fine work. Similarly, extra eyes - one pair behind, to see dangers behind you, and two or three extra pairs to see extra wavelengths and look at very small things. Olaf Stapledon suggested a telescopic eye to look at the stars, but a pair of built-in binoculars would work better, I think. And brain-to-computer wifi would be an essential.

This optimised human wouldn’t look very like humans of today, no doubt.

13

Good point. I drifted off from “what’d be useful in current civilization?” to “What’d be cool just because?”

14

The ability to see heat would also be useful. There wasn’t much point for our ancestors, since our warm blooded nature means that our own infrared glow would blind us to the incoming infrared from most environmental sources.

But modern humans regularly deal with heat sources much stronger than human body temperature, and knowing that something is too hot to touch without injuries would save people a lot of burns.

15

Regarding diseases like diabetes, I think a big part of it is subcutaneous fat vs visceral fat.

Subcutaneous fat doesn’t really contribute to diabetes, it just looks unappealing. Visceral fat that collects in and around the organs in the torso is what contributes to diabetes.

Some groups like east asians cannot store as much subcutaneous fat as other groups like polynesians. When a person can’t store any more subcutaneous fat, the body starts storing extra body fat as visceral fat.

Because of this, there are attempts to reclassify the BMI for obesity in east asians to a BMI of 23 for overweight and 27.5 for obesity, compared to the typical 25 and 30 respectively. They have less ability to store subcutaneous fat, so the fat ends up being visceral at a lower BMI.

Generally, normal BMI is anything below 25. Researchers assessed Asian Americans using that traditional standard as well as an “Asian-specific cut point for ideal weight” that reduced the normal BMI threshold to less than 23.

Previous studies have shown Asian populations are at higher risk for diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol at lower BMI thresholds. Using standard BMI definitions for overweight and obesity among Asian Americans may fail to identify people at increased cardiovascular risk, according to the study.

Even when compared to white people of similar age, sex and body fat, Asian Americans tend to have consistently lower BMI because of their “different body build,” said Dr. Jing Fang, the study’s lead author and an epidemiologist in the heart disease and stroke prevention division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Specifically, Asians are more likely to develop fat around their abdomen, which is linked to a higher risk for cardiovascular disease. It’s partly why the World Health Organization proposed lowering the BMI cutoff for Asian populations to consider anything 23 or higher as overweight, Fang said.

By the same token, I wonder if there are also groups that have fewer health risks from obesity since they store more of their fat as subcutaneous fat.

Like do polynesians not start to develop the health risks of obesity until their BMI reaches 35+, because due to their environmental history polynesians who were better at storing subcutaneous fat had higher survival rates? Meaning, can polynesians store more fat as (relatively harmless) subcutaneous fat before their body starts storing fat as dangerous visceral fat? No idea.