What is The Red Queen?
An evolutionary perspective on the 21st century
The law of natural selection is a concept so simple that, when explained for the first time, baffles the response, “that’s it?” Natural selection refers to the principle that replicating things that replicate better become more common than those that replicate less well. In Darwin’s original formulation of the concept, those things are genes (though Darwin did not know that at the time), and that replication is reproduction. The beauty of natural selection lies in the complexity that emerges from its simplicity. Consider the entirety of the diversity of life on Earth was forged by nothing but natural selection and time.
It is important here to not trip over the closely parallel concept of life. Although life represents a miraculous example of natural selection in action, it is not a necessary ingredient for natural selection. The point I am making here is best articulated in Richard Dawkins’ book The Selfish Gene. Lifeless entities such as ideas operate in a very important way the same as genes; they too are forged in the fires of natural selection. The gene analogue in idea space is called a meme.
There is a hidden hazard here, in the way that natural selection determines the evolution of ideas. Natural selection does not operate with intention. Natural selection does not intend to create beauty, its beauty is accidental. In fact, its creations are often grotesque. Its critters are at times downright hideous, its phenomena appalling, and its reality seldom coherent.
There is a reckoning that we must confront in the 21st century: if natural selection is indifferent to beauty, what ugliness might it bring into existence? And if ideas are molded by natural selection, what horrors might be lurking around the corner?
The goal of this blog is to explore this dark corner. Is there just a lack of beauty lurking there, or could it be more insidious? Perhaps there exists rationale for some of humanity’s darkest historical moments. Perhaps there exists fuel for a future war or genocide. Perhaps there exists justification for discrimination. These risks must be carefully weighed, but need not deter one from exploring the corner. The hope here is to shine light on the corner to ameliorate any potential risk it harnesses.
The Red Queen
The Red Queen is an evolutionary concept that describes the need for constant upgrade to survive an evolutionary arms race against other constantly changing forces. A gazelle must constantly evolve to escape the threat of big cats on the African savannah, and big cats must constantly evolve in response to ensure they can keep eating gazelles for lunch.
Humans equipped with advanced technology hardly need to continue evolving to survive the threat of other species, or to put food on the table, but that does not mean we have escaped the clutches of The Red Queen. Just as natural selection drives the evolution of both genes and ideas, so too does The Red Queen predict that ideas will constantly battle until the better ones win out. The Red Queen results in a royal rumble of competing ideas propelled through constant improvement towards ultimate supremacy. This ongoing process of idea warfare, indifferent to wellbeing or suffering, hell-bent on supremacy, is the hidden enemy of the 21st century. It is an enemy we must unite against to defeat. It is an enemy I intend to spotlight.
The greatest challenge to defeating this enemy, if we are earnest in our attempt, is the sense of dehumanization that comes from relinquishing the hope in free will as a solution. Just as the human body is merely the vector for the transmission of DNA from one generation to the next, so too is consciousness the vector for the transmission of ideas from one mind to the next. Simply willing ourselves out of this mess is not an option — we need better ideas that outcompete the bad ones. The views I possess are no exception. They are vying for power; seeking to defeat competing ideas. I happen to think they are better ideas, but we will let them speak for themselves.
My essays may deviate from this central theme, but it will become clear that this is the lens through which I do most of my thinking.