Comment by Intralexical

2 days ago

We've basically flooded the information space with r-strategists.

In evolution, rapid reproduction gives an advantage to spamming low-quality offspring [1], and rapid selection without agglomeration [2,3] incentivizes antisocial behavior.

Ideas spread, mutate, and evolve just like animals [4]. So when the Internet made it free for anyone to transmit information to millions of people instantly, trustworthy information sources [5] and prosocial cultural values started dying [6], as literally the worst and craziest people become dominant [7,8,9,10,11].

...Presumably "AI" is going to make this even worse, and immeasurably so.

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1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory

2. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context_collapse

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_newspapers

6. https://theweek.com/culture-life/third-places-disappearing

7. https://globalnews.ca/news/1157137/internet-trolls-are-sadis...

8. https://www.engadget.com/2018-03-19-study-shows-distribution...

9. https://old.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most...

10. https://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/news/2023/why-are-online-po...