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Notes -
I find this sort of cynicism tedious, sorry.
Biology is mutable. There is no single humankind: throughout history, entire humankinds have exploded into existence and disappeared, riding fitness gradients or being crushed by their waves – and entire continents's worth of humans, our mother Africa first of all, have been slumbering in a fitness trough for tens to hundreds of thousands of years. This time may be different in that the legacy variant of the species that didn't make the cut will remain indefinitely – either immortal and crippled by their addiction to the local minimum, as you say, or evolving to ever better maintain their behavioral crutches and shackles, as I foresee. But neither will be prohibitively costly to enable for the evolved rest (I've said the opposite recently, but that depends on the greed and ruthlessness of the decision-makers; in absolute terms, even an all-included resort for 8-10 billion immortals enjoying VR paradises is a pittance once you get proper space exploration, build space solar and fusion power, and build at least «wet» nanotech; with strong tool AI we should do that in a century easy-peasy).
This time will also be different in that biology will become mutable in a directed fashion. Between predictably succumbing to the orgasm dispenser like some pop sci rat, and the eternity of modestly pleasurable perfect arete, self-mastery and appreciation of nuanced challenge, truth and aesthetic marvels in the real world – supposing you have a self-alteration button that will irreversibly alter your basic drives and inclinations, which will you press? I know my answer. And just like before, it'll only take a few to make the right choice.
Though, of course, evolutionarily speaking the right choice is very different. But that's a different Apocalyptic scenario too.
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