Comment on Radio transmissions
TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I think the meme is funny too, but it seems like it’s becoming so divorced from its original context that some people actually believe that carcinisation is some kind of ideal endpoint of evolution. Just to clarify: this isn’t true given how few actual examples there are and the tradeoffs involved.
I unironically love Latinisation (and Greekification).
“Crabification” would have worked just fine to express this idea, but “carcinisation” sounds so scientific and erudite.
People dog on English, but I think it’s really cool how we have other ancient source languages to pull from to coin “smart” words when needed. And when you dig into the etymology of the “fancy” word, it adds texture, layers, history, and extra context to the whole thing.
Ok, that was a tangent. Carry on.
A few additional fun points about this:
I mean most of the European languages do the same with mostly ancient Greek and Latin.
Ephera@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
“Ideal endpoint of evolution” is itself a funny joke to those who participate in knowing things…
victorz@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Well, evolution simply means adaptation, right? If there’s nothing new to which you need to adapt, ever again, you will have reached the end of your branch. 🤷♂️
Ephera@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Sure, but that doesn’t actually happen in reality, that things just stop changing. Occasionally, you get rather isolated ecosystems where the changes go back and forth in a mostly self-contained manner and then adaptation might plateau for a bit, but at some point, a lightning or an earthquake or something will strike and then it’s back to adaptation.
Well, and those species which were the most adapted to this isolated ecosystem are also likely to die out then, rendering this temporary endpoint not exactly “ideal” either.
But it’s also not one singular endpoint either. Diversity is itself a strength, which helps species survive. This is particularly important where there is change, because external influences will affect different members of this species more or less strongly.
But even without change, splitting the work is beneficial. This can be as mundane as not everyone carrying around the equipment for bringing out the babies. But in particular with societal structures, it can also mean that the big muscle folks might do the muscly tasks and the big brain folks do the brainy tasks and those with claws for hands open up all the tin cans.
Evolution will not push past that to arrive at some hypothetical “ideal endpoint”, because that society with work splitting is fitter for survival than a monoculture would be.
victorz@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It doesn’t happen in reality, of course. It’s just a hypothetical.
But there are obviously cares in nature where species have not changed (much/noticeably) for millions of years. I would call that pretty much end game, given the set of animal and plant (and other) life forms present up to that point. But sure, apocalyptic changes will turn that upside down. You could argue that those are also part of nature and that adaptation to those scenarios are also a part of evolution.
I tend to both agree and disagree. 😅
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The ideal endpoint of evolution will have regrowing limbs and organs, acid abs poison breath, laser eyes, hard, chitinous exoskeletons, little monkey servants who bring you cheese look what about this isn’t crab
victorz@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
😂 love you 🦀