Irrelevant Thought about a Random Book

While starting to read through the Feynman Lectures, I thought of this: In Starship Troopers, a certain planet has less competitive wildlife because it happens to be orbiting a star that puts out less mutation-inducing radiation than our own star, with the hidden implication that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” However, a good balance of mutations is evolutionarily beneficial (I think his basic premise is correct: more mutations mean more variation, and hence better fitness), such that life on the planet should evolve less genetic safeguards (assuming a similar biology to us), leading to a similar rate of mutation.

Okay, I’m done sprouting randomly. Ideas like this would normally be up for twitter, but this one was a bit long.

Also, you should check out Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality . URL says it all.