< In a sense, conscious evolution is a kind of rebooting of a conscious organism with a new "morality" program that has the purpose of changing the nature of that organism more toward altruism and less toward self-interest, kind of resetting the initial conditions built into our DNA, so to speak ... superseding the animal. >
There is research in this area. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2763614/ “Pathological anxiety is thought to reflect a maladaptive state characterized by exaggerated fear mismatched with actual environmental stimuli.” Special case: economic anxiety. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-was-stronger-where-the-economy-is-weaker/ “Routine jobs are often defined as those that involve tasks that can be accomplished by following explicit rules<http://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/files/alm-skillcontent-qje.pdf>. A standard definition<http://www.nber.org/papers/w18334.pdf> of routine jobs includes manufacturing and other goods-related occupations, as well as administrative, clerical and sales occupations; nonroutine jobs include professional, managerial and service occupations. For this post, we included farming-related occupations in routine jobs since the BLS projects<http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecopro.nr0.htm> employment declines in those occupations over the next decade. The correlation between Trump support and the share of jobs that are routine by this definition was 0.65.” Trump piled on copious amounts of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, and pathological anxiety emerges. “So, it's kind of changing the probabilities of the social game, like we are discussing in this thread, but on an individual level. On the individual level, this is indeed possible by way of Hebbian learning, which itself is possible by way of the plasticity of the brain, its neural network, so to speak. BUT, how can this be done on the level of a society?” As super-rich people like Peter Thiel age, I expect he (and others like him) will start looking at actually applying gene therapy to himself for life extension. (Thiel is already looking into vampirism.) Elizabeth Parrish<http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2016/08/01/did-a-biotech-ceo-reverse-her-own-aging-process-maybe/> already did apply gene therapy on herself. With full genome sequencing getting cheap and quantum computers able to perform high dimensional discrete optimization, I expect multi-SNP signatures will be found for improved short and long term memory, even intelligence. The required data, technology, and biological knowledge will likely soon converge. When it does, there will be strong economic motives -- the same kind of motives that cause parents to fork over hundreds of thousands of dollars for prep schools and colleges. These interventions will have to be regulated, but then we are in position to weed-out anxiety and personality disorders on the germline and to bless various `safe’ enhancements, much like vaccines are used routinely on children. Sure, people will freak out about this, but if it extends capabilities or lifespans, it better be done in the public interest and not just be confined to making the rich richer. Imagine if the coastal populations bumped their IQs by 10 points. “It seems like it needs to be more bottom-up.” One way is by making the individual able to learn faster and be more adaptive. Marcus
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