Timeline for How could a sapient species lose its intelligence?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 9, 2023 at 15:53 | comment | added | user3153372 | Evolutionarily speaking, it's more about benefit to the individual than to the species. If people didn't need intelligence for survival, there would still be an evolutionary benefit if being intelligent helped you to outwit rival humans and breed more. (Though it's also possible for more intelligence to lead to fewer children...) | |
| Jun 9, 2023 at 13:36 | comment | added | user86462 | @NotThatGuy Whoosh, have you read The Time Traveller? | |
| Jun 9, 2023 at 8:38 | comment | added | NotThatGuy | @AncientGiantPottedPlant "Welfare" - assuming everyone is given equal means and opportunity to succeed, regardless of where they're born (most definitely not the case in modern society). "Comfort" - discomfort doesn't stop people from having children, unless you push them to depression or suicide, but that's... In any case, much of modern "comfort" factors affect people across entire genders, races, etc., that has little to no correlation with intelligence. You'd need to implement these measures in a very specific way, in a very specific society, to negatively affect intelligence selection. | |
| Jun 9, 2023 at 8:37 | comment | added | NotThatGuy | @AncientGiantPottedPlant "Endless peace" - it may very much depend on technological level. In modern society, people are frequently drafted into war regardless of intelligence (except arguably for people who lie their way out of the draft, but whether that's a beneficial trait for humanity is highly doubtful), and war happens at far too big of a scale for intelligence to be hugely beneficial to an individual soldier. And across societies, any society that gets the upper hand at one point can keep other societies from advancing through force. It might work for primitive settlements though. | |
| Jun 8, 2023 at 23:28 | comment | added | user86462 | Endless peace, comfort, and welfare. | |
| S Jun 8, 2023 at 22:18 | review | First answers | |||
| Jun 8, 2023 at 23:34 | |||||
| S Jun 8, 2023 at 22:18 | history | answered | James Belcher | CC BY-SA 4.0 |