alt Hacker Newsalso, technology largly exists to remove the discomfort of evolutionary pressure. This doesnt mean the mutations that give rise to evolutionary changes in the population, but it does mean we've removed or mititaged many of the mechanisms which would select for specific traits.
Again, we would naturally still change, but not in the the way or at the rate otger organisms continue to or at which we would sans technology.
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plastic-enjoyer • today at 8:15 AM
> also, technology largly exists to remove the discomfort of evolutionary pressure.
I think this is a very limited way to view technology
I think this is a common misperception, but it's not accurate. The general idea is that with technology there is less risk of someone dying or not being able to procreate due to their susceptibility to disease (because modern medicine would likely cure them) or their inability to acquire food/resources.
But even if that were 100% true, that just shifts selection pressure elsewhere. For example, your ability to hunt is probably not selected for in modern society, where it would have been in centuries past. But your social standing (and the genetic traits that are beneficial for acquiring that social status) definitely would be, especially in places where there is a large sex imbalance.
We are currently undergoing a major change in reproduction due to the "severing" of the ties between having sex and having children due to modern birth control. Evolution is what caused sex to be so pleasurable/desired in the first place, because having sex greatly increases the chances of someone passing on their genes. The ability to have lots of sex now without having children as a byproduct means there will be natural selection pressure for another impetus for people to have children.