Humanism

[TheRealJoeFish]

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There are a million ways to define progress.  That there's no objective progress does not mean that it is impossible or inadvisable to pursue subjective progress.

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Of course that begs the question of whether there is some underlying logic to morality which we may steer toward subjectively.  But what could this be except an examination of our innate prosocial impulses to extract and generalize what we can?  One can imagine all manner of questionable generalizations becoming inadvertently ensconced by such a project.  Perhaps there should be an imperative regarding grooming, like "groom least thee not be groomed"?  In the end the best we can do is distill what seems to us the least burdensome oughts which will provide the minimal degree of consideration which we would like to see returned.  

You lost me.  

Ok, after three rereads, I think I get what you're saying.  So, question: did the eradication of natural smallpox count as progress?  Sure, it may not be "objective" progress, but it sure as hell feels like progress to me.

Humanity can 1) plan on timescales far in excess of a human lifetime,

.. and yet strangely almost never does so except under the most soul crushing totalitarian systems.

What?  This assertion seems so wacky to me that I don't really know how to respond.  Even if true, that doesn't say anything about humanity's capacity to progress in a humanistic manner past what we could call "the constraints of evolution" or "the evolutionary drift"; all it says is that we haven't really utilized our capabilities and done so yet.

2) alter its own genetic code,

Say hello to eugenics and GMO's.

Pfffft.  Again, I'm not talking about particular ways to escape the evolutionary drift, I'm talking about our capacity.  And, also, I love how you're citing GMOs as a bogeyman.  You know, GMOs... those 1) plants that are completely safe to eat and could reduce hunger and suffering around the world and 2) animals that are altered to serve useful purposes and provide important medical and research opportunities for people.  

and 3) reach other celestial bodies.

An important out once we have overrun the petri dish of our own planet.

 
There's no inherent property of evolution that says an organism can't advance to a point where it knows enough about itself to change itself.

No, not evolution.  This is where historic example and life experience comes in.

I think you may have missed my point.  I'm not opining on the likelihood that humanity is successful in "beating evolution" or whatever.  I'm addressing a specific theme of the passage in the OP, which seems to be that humanity can't beat evolution; in making this argument, the author makes a number of statements about the species and evolution itself that I think are complete bunk, and I'm responding to those.  In response to the OP passage, I've tried to lay out some of the tools humanity has, and show why I think the author's wrong about his impossibility argument.  I think we actually agree that his impossibility argument is wrong, and we probably also agree that, even so, the likelihood of this happening is low.  But I think you misinterpreted my post.

Apologies for loose language in this re: "beating evolution" and such.  Y'all know what I mean.