Exactly. Don't expect anyone to read what you wrote, much less commercial success, unless you were a Harvard undergrad English prodigy who joined Penguin publishing, or somehow wiggled into the circle of [City] Review of [Each Others'] Books. It's a one-way, time-traveling message in a bottle comprised of dead trees. Doing it for art is a wolf's howl that it lived and that it could.
Although, it's gradually shifted into over-reliance on the linkrot of spinning rust, floating electrons, and burning transistors such that used and new bookstores and libraries are endangered species. Perhaps another cycle similar to the early medieval period maybe gradually happening as today's "Romes" decline in slow-motion, accelerated by climate change decline unless and until we save ourselves through economic and ecological limits.
> It's a one-way, time-traveling message in a bottle
So too is DNA in children. You don’t get to choose the entirety of the message but you do get to choose the half of the lottery that they must receive.
And that message is likely to far outlive any message in any dead tree or electronic book.
> And that message is likely to far outlive any message in any dead tree or electronic book.
Berkeley News: Bottlenecks that reduced genetic diversity were common throughout human history (https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/06/23/bottlenecks-that-reduce...)
Perhaps the assertion is true in the sense that an average, mediocre person will have a better chance of having his genetic line survive than writing something that immoratalises him in history, like Newton or Pascal. But But if one has the ability, the latter might be a safer option...
where there is increased opportunity there is usually increased risk; it's hardly a relative comparison.
also no one really chooses their offspring's 'half of the lottery', it's an accident of nature -- we only get to choose whether or not we try to propagate our own skew into the lottery roll.
and to be very real here for a second, 99% of sexual interaction has nothing to do with genetic time-traveling bottle-messages, and just as few people really give a thought about the genetic combinations resulting from their actions.
they just like to orgasm -- it's just not as poetic a concept to talk about.
> also no one really chooses their offspring's 'half of the lottery', it's an accident of nature -- we only get to choose whether or not we try to propagate our own skew into the lottery roll
In modern societies, most people choose their mating partner. That’s the lottery half that I am referring to.
Of course no one chooses specifically which half of each mate goes into the child. That would be absurd.
> and to be very real here for a second, 99% of sexual interaction has nothing to do with genetic time-traveling bottle-messages, and just as few people really give a thought about the genetic combinations resulting from their actions.
For the individual sure “it’s just deliberate sex” but for the genome, transmission of the message into the distant future is all there is.
Just look around you, you will likely see and hear more evidence of those billion year long message transmissions than anything else.
After 10 generations your message is diluted to 0.1%.
We still read Shakespeare and listen to Mozart.
How many thousands of Shakespeare’s contemporaneous authors are lost to time? And Seneca’s?
Not sure, but 100% of their contemporaries were diluted. At 100 generations (2500 years) any message has been diluted where random mutations are more influence than your genes.
Digging the phrase "wolf's howl".
I distinctly know this phrase is part of song's lyrics - but can't think of the name.