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I am beginning to believe that the solution to the "Fermi Paradox" (where are the aliens that we think must be out there?) is a simple one: the more advanced a society, the more advanced its technology the more the individuals decline over the generations. All technological species use their technology to make life easier for themselves …
I am beginning to believe that the solution to the "Fermi Paradox" (where are the aliens that we think must be out there?) is a simple one: the more advanced a society, the more advanced its technology the more the individuals decline over the generations. All technological species use their technology to make life easier for themselves and their offspring. Think of beavers and the dams that they build. A sufficiently advanced species will inevitably reduce selective pressures on their own offspring and mitigate for as long as possible those effects on their gene pool until the decline becomes to great. The technology required to exploit, much less leave one's natal star system reduces the fitness of the individuals until they can no longer maintain their society. Dr Edward Dutton has posited that the mean IQ in the west has declined about a point per decade since the Industrial Revolution. 250 years later, 90% of the population of the advanced world is "spiteful mutants" that would not have survived to adulthood in pre-industrial times. I think this process of dumbing down the west explains a lot of what we see today and say "WTF?".