From: Robin Hanson (rhanson@gmu.edu)
Date: Sat Jul 26 2003 - 20:35:45 MDT
On 7/26/2003, Robert Bradbury wrote:
> > Imagine a field full of slow plump rabbits, munching on grass.
> > Imagine a fox sitting ... meta-foxes ... only eat foxes. ...
>
>"why don't the meta-foxes eat the rabbits?"
>
>Because they don't have to. Neither the foxes, nor the meta-foxes
>have to eat the rabbits. In my knowledge base its generally
>accepted that eating plant protein sources rather than animal
>protein sources is about an order of magnitude more efficient (in
>terms of the raw energy resources that went into the protein
>production). The foxes (and meta-foxes) would engineer themselves
>to eat grass (if they were initially unable to do so).
>Now I could be completely missing the point of this proposal.
On Earth now carnivores can digest a wide range of meat, but not
plants, and vegetarians are much more specialized in which plants
they can eat. Since I agree with you that advanced civilizations
should be flexible eaters, more like our carnivores, when creating
a parable that draws on the right intuitions we have, I created a
parable analogy with carnivores only. So in the analogy, there is
no grass really. The meta-foxes can eat the foxes or the rabbits,
but not the grass, just as advanced life can feed on other
advanced life, or on stars/planets, but not really effectively
on the sources of stars/planets.
Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu
Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
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