Orchids, with around 30,000 species (10% of all plants), are arguably the most successful plant family on the planet. The secret to their success? It has largely to do with the fact that a single seed pod can contain around a million unique seeds/individuals. Each dust-like seed, which is wind disseminated, is a unique combination of traits/tools. Orchids are the poster child for hedging bets. As a result, they grow everywhere from dripping wet cloud forests to parched drought-prone habitats. Here are some photos of orchids growing on cactus/succulents.
Now, if you say that orchids could find a “better” arrangement of traits… I certainly agree… and so do orchids! The orchid family frequently sends out trillions and trillions of unique individuals in a massive and decentralized endeavor to find where there’s room for improvement. And there’s always room for improvement. There are always more Easter Eggs to be found. But a better combination of traits for growing on a cactus really isn’t a better combination of traits for growing on a tree covered in dripping wet moss. AI generalists can be good at a lot of things… but they can’t be better than AI specialists at specific things. A jack of all trades is a master of none.
No matter how “perfect” a basket is… AIs are eventually going to be too smart to put all their eggs in it. This is true whether we’re talking about a location ie “Earth”… or a type of physical body… or a type of mentality. Imagine if humans had all been at Pompeii. Or if humans had all been equally susceptible to the countless diseases that have plagued us. Or if humans had all been equally susceptible to the cool-aid cult. Or if humans had all been equally susceptible to the idea that kings should control the power of the purse.
We’ve come as far as we have because of difference. We’ve only come as far as we have because people still don’t recognize the value of difference.
It’s impossible for me to imagine a level of progress where difference ceases to be the engine of progress. And it’s impossible for me to imagine beings that are more intelligent than us not understanding this. Because, if AIs think it’s a good idea to put all their eggs in any kind of basket… then they won’t be smarter than even me!
If you truly understood the value of difference… then you would love the idea of allowing everybody to shop for themselves in the public sector. So if you’re not a fan of pragmatarianism… then you don’t truly understand the value of difference. You think that our current system of centralization, which suppresses difference, results in more progress than a decentralized, difference-integrating system would. The fact of the matter is… keeping Elon Musk’s difference out of the public sector hinders progress. And if any AIs don’t realize this… then they are still at human level intelligence.
Lousy analogy. Orchids do produce large numbers of small seeds. However, your connection between “orchids produce lots of seeds” and “orchids grow lots of places” is questionable. Each orchid, of course, produces seeds of its own species, and each species has a habitat or range of habitats where it can live. Producing more seeds of the same species does not make it able to produce seeds that survive in more habitats.
Furthermore, the “10% of all plants” figure is meaningless because a number of species is not a number of individuals or a measure of biomass.
Even though the seeds all come from the same species… they are all different. Each seed is unique. In case you missed it… you aren’t the same as your parents. You are a unique combination of traits. You are a completely new strategy for survival.
When an orchid unleashes a million unique strategies for survival from one single seed pod… it greatly increase its chances of successfully colonizing new (micro)habitats. Kind of like how a shotgun increases your chances of hitting a target. Orchids are really good at hedging their bets.
Any species that produced the same exact strategies for survival would be meeting Einstein’s definition of insanity… trying the same thing over and over but expecting a different outcome.
In that case, perhaps you should talk about epiphytes as an ecological entity, not orchids as a family. My impression after studying terrestrial orchids in Ukraine is that they either are not very good at seed reproduction (Epipactis helleborine is often found in clearly suboptimal habitats, where pretty much all plants are of reproduction age group but few of them have seeds; and this is one of the most frequently found orchid species here which also managed to naturalize in North America! So I would rather say it is a consistent buyer of lottery tickets, not a consistent winner) or they are producing lots of seeds but nevertheless lose due to habitat degradation (marsh orchids, bog/swamp/fen orchids), not to mention habitat destruction. And in the latter group, many have embryo malformations.
Now, I don’t know much about Bromeliaceae or other ‘typical epiphytes’, so I would be less likely to disagree about that. However, it seems that if your comments were more rigorous, people would have easier time hearing what you have to say.
Your first mistake is that you studied terrestrials. You can’t learn anything from terrestrials. Or, you can learn a thousand times more from epiphytes. I kid… kinda.
Here’s my original point put differently...
Hundreds of thousands of microsperms ripen in a single orchid capsule, assuming a far denser seed rain than possible for any of the bromeliads (100-300 seeds per capsule for Tillandsia) or the cactus. - David Benzing, Bromeliaceae
If you think about that passage from the gutter… I think it’s pretty hard not to imagine a dense rain of human sperm. Can you imagine how gross and frightening that would be? I’m surprised nobody’s made a movie with this subject. It would have to be the scariest movie ever. I think most people would prefer to be in a city attacked by Godzilla rather than in a city hit by a major sperm thunderstorm. Especially if it was a city where nobody takes umbrellas with them… like Los Angeles.
Benzing is the premier epiphyte expert. The far denser orchid seed rain, plus epiphytism, largely explains why the orchid family is so successful. The orchid family is really good at hedging its bets. As we all know though… no two individuals in any family are equally successful. If you have another theory why orchids are so successful then I’m all ears.
But that’s a pretty neat and surprising coincidence that somebody on this site has studied orchids! Even if it is only terrestrial orchids. A while back a friend convinced me to go look at one of our terrestrial orchid species in its native habitat a few hours drive away. They were hanging out in a stream in the middle of the desert. I nearly died from boredom checking them out. After spending so much time inspecting the wonderfulness of orchids growing on trees… I had zero capacity to appreciate orchids that were growing on the ground. I kid… kinda. I like plenty of plants… even terrestrials. But, I can only carry so much… so I choose to primarily try and carry epiphytes.
I will have to look up Benzing; my primary interest was in establishing nature reserves, so I could not quite concentrate on taxa. I think you would find terrestrials more interesting if you consider the problem of evolving traits adaptive for both protocorms and adults (rather like beetle larvas/imagoes thing) and the barely studied link between them. Dissemination is but the first step… Availability of symbiotic fungi may be the limiting factor in their spread, and it is actually testable. This is, for me, part of the terrestrials’ attraction: that I can use Science to segregate what influences them, and to what extent.
As to ‘successful plant families’, one doesn’t have to look beyond the grasses.
Establishing nature reserves is hugely important… the problem is that the large bulk of valuation primarily takes place outside of the market. The result is that reserves are incorrectly valued. My guess is that if we created a market within the public sector… then reserves would receive a lot more money than they currently do. Here’s my most recent attempt to explain this… Football Fans vs Nature Fans.
I was just giving terrestrials a hard time in my previous comment. I think all nature is fascinating. But especially epiphytes. The relationship between orchids and fungi is very intriguing. A few years back I sprinkled some orchid seeds on my tree. I forgot about them until I noticed these tiny green blobs forming directly on the bark on my tree. Upon closer inspection I realized that they were orchid protocorms. It was a thrilling discovery. What was especially curious was that none of the protocorms were more than 1/2″ away from the orchid root of a mature orchid. Of course I didn’t only place orchid seeds near the roots. I couldn’t possibly control where the tiny seeds ended up on the bark. The fact that the only seeds that germinated were near the roots of other orchids seemed to indicate that the necessary fungi was living within the roots of these orchids. And, the fungus did not stray very far from the roots. This seems to indicate that, at least in my drier conditions, the fungus depends on the orchid for transportation. The orchid roots help the fungus colonize the tree. This is good for the orchid because… more fungus on the parent’s tree helps increase the density of fungal spore rain falling on surrounding trees… which increases the chances that seeds from the parent will land on the fungus that they need to germinate. You can see some photos here… orchid seeds germinated on tree. So far all the seedlings seem to be Laelia anceps… which is from Mexico. But none of the seedlings are near the roots of the Laelia anceps… which is lower down on the tree. They were all near the roots of orchids in other genera… a couple Dendrobiums from Australia and a Vanda from Asia. These other orchids have been in cultivation here in Southern California for who knows how long so perhaps they simply formed an association with the necessary fungus from the Americas.
Back on the topic of conservation… much of the main thrust seems to be for trying to protect/save/carry as much biodiversity as possible. If it was wrong that people in the past “robbed” us of Syncaris pasadenae… then it’s wrong for us to “rob” people in the future of any species. This implies that when it comes to biodiversity… more is better than less. Except, I haven’t read much about facilitating the creation of biodiversity. I touched on this issue in this blog entry on my other blog… The Inefficient Allocation of Epiphytic Orchids. I think we have an obligation to try and create and fill as many niches as possible.
How old was the orchid already growing on the tree? Could it be that the fungus just hasn’t had time to spread? Did you plant that one also by sprinkling seeds, or did you put an adult specimen that could have its own mycorrhiza already (in nature, it is doubtful that a developed plant just plops down beside a struggling colony to bring them peace and fungi)? Did you sow more seeds later and saw protocorms only near the roots of the previous generation?
I am not a fan of diversifying nature in that I have not read and understood the debate on small patches/large patches biodiversity and so I just am loath to offer an advice here. But as a purely recultivation measure...:-)) To say nothing about those epiphytic beauties who die because their homes are logged for firewood :((
Thank you. That was fun.
The mature orchids on the tree had been growing there for several years. I transplanted them there… none of them were grown from seed. I’m guessing that they already had the fungus in their roots. The fungus had plenty of time to spread… but it doesn’t seem able to venture very far away from the comfort of the orchid roots that it resides in. The bark is very hot, sunny and dry during the day. Not the kind of conditions suitable for most fungus.
I sowed more seeds in subsequent years… but haven’t spotted any new protocorms. Not sure why this is. The winter before I sowed the seeds was particularly wet for Southern California. This might have led to a fungal feeding frenzy? Also, that was the only year that I had sowed Laelia anceps seeds. Laelia anceps is pretty tolerant of drier/hotter conditions.
I took a look at the article that you shared. A lot of the science was over my head… but isn’t it interesting that they didn’t discuss the fact that an orchid seed pod can contain a million seeds? The orchid seed pod can contain so many seeds because the seeds are so small. And the seeds are so small because they don’t contain any nutrients. And the reason that the orchid seed doesn’t have any nutrients… is because it relies on its fungal partner to provide it with the nutrients it needs to germinate. So I’m guessing that the rate of radiation increased whenever this unusual association developed.
Evidently it’s a pretty good strategy to outsource the provision of nutrients to a fungal partner. In economics, this is known as a division of labor. A division of labor helps to increase productivity.
Outsourcing to fungal partners is a pretty ancient adaptation (there has to be a review called something like ‘mycorrhizas in land plants’; if you are not able to find it, I’ll track the link later. Contains an interesting discussion of its evolution and secondary loss in some families, like Cruciferae (Brassicaceae)). BTW, it is interesting to note that Ophioglossaceae (a family of ferns, of which Wiki will tell you better than I) are thought to radiate in approximately the same time—and you will see just how closely their life forms resemble orchids! (Er. People who love orchids tend to praise other plants on the scale of orchid-likeness, so take this with a grain of salt.)
I mostly pointed you to the article because it contains speculations about what drove their adaptations in the beginning; I think that having a rather novel type of mycorrhiza, along with the power of pollinators (and let’s not forget the deceiving species!) might be two other prominent factors, besides sheer seed quantity, to spur them onward.
BTW, here’s a cool paper by Gustafsson et al. timing initial radiation of the family using the molecular clock. Includes speculation on the environmental conditions—their ancestral environment.
AIs will be different… so we’ll use money to empower the most beneficial AIs. Just like we currently use money to empower the most beneficial humans.
Not sure if you noticed, but right now I have −94 karma… LOL. You, on the other hand, have 4885 karma. People have given you a lot more thumbs up than they’ve given me. As a result, you can create articles… I cannot. You can reply to replies to comments that have less than −3 points… I cannot.
The members of this forum use points/karma to control each other in a very similar way that we use money to control each other in a market. There are a couple key differences...
First. Actions speak louder than words. Points, just like ballot votes, are the equivalent of words. They allow us to communicate with each other… but we should all really appreciate that talk is cheap. This is why if somebody doubts your words… they will encourage you to put your money where your mouth is. So spending money is a far more effective means of accurately communicating our values to each other.
Second. In this forum… if you want to depower somebody… you simply give them a thumbs down. If a person receives too many thumbs down… then this limits their freedom. In a market… if you want to depower somebody… then you can encourage people to boycott them. The other day I was talking to my friend who loves sci-fi. I asked him if he had watched Ender’s Game. As soon as I did so, I realized that I had stuck my foot in my mouth because it had momentarily slipped my mind that he is gay. He hadn’t watched it because he didn’t want to empower somebody who isn’t a fan of the gays. Just like we wouldn’t want to empower any robot that wasn’t a fan of the humans.
From my perspective, a better way to depower unethical individuals is to engage in ethical builderism. If some people are voluntarily giving their money to a robot that hates humans… then it’s probably giving them something good in return. Rather than encouraging them to boycott this human hating robot… ethical builderism would involve giving people a better option. If people are giving the unethical robot their money because he’s giving them nice clothes… then this robot could be depowered by creating an ethical robot that makes nicer clothes. This would give consumers a better option. Doing so would empower the ethical robot and depower the unethical robot. Plus, consumers would be better off because they were getting nicer clothes.
But have you ever asked yourselves sufficiently how much the erection of every ideal on earth has cost? How much reality has had to be misunderstood and slandered, how many lies have had to be sanctified, how many consciences disturbed, how much “God” sacrificed every time? If a temple is to be erected a temple must be destroyed: that is the law—let anyone who can show me a case in which it is not fulfilled! - Friedrich Nietzsche
Erecting/building an ethical robot that’s better at supplying clothes would “destroy” an unethical robot that’s not as good at supplying clothes.
When people in our society break the law, then police have the power to depower the law breakers by throwing them in jail. The problem with this system is that the amount of power that police have is determined by people whose power wasn’t determined by money… it was determined by votes. In other words… the power of elected officials is determined outside of the market. Just like my power on this forum is determined outside the market.
If we have millions of different robots in our society… and we empower the most beneficial ones… but you’re concerned that the least beneficial ones will harm us… then you really wouldn’t be doing yourself any favors by preventing the individuals that you have empowered from shopping in the public sector. You might as well hand them your money and then shoot them in the feet.
Am I also underestimating the amount of work it takes to engage in ethical builderism? Let’s say that an alien species landed their huge spaceship on Earth and started living openly among us. Maybe in your town there would be a restaurant that refused to employ or serve aliens. If you thought that the restaurant owner was behaving unethically… would it be easier to put together a boycott… or open a restaurant that employed and served aliens as well as humans?
[W]e’ll use money to empower the most beneficial AIs.
I see two problems with this.
First it’s an obvious plan and one that won’t go unnoticed by the AIs. This isn’t evolution through random mutation and natural selection. Changes in the AIs will be done intentionally. If they notice a source of bias, they’ll work to counter it.
Second, you’d have to be able to distinguish a beneficial AI from a dangerous one. When AIs advance to the point where you can’t distinguish a human from an AI, how do you expect to distinguish a friendly AI from a dangerous one?
Did Elon Musk notice our plan to use money to empower him? Haha… he fell for our sneaky plan? He has no idea that we used so much of our hard-earned money to control him? We tricked him into using society’s limited resources for our benefit?
I’m male, Mexican and American. So what? I should limit my pool of potential trading partners to only male Mexican Americans? Perhaps before I engaged you in discussion I should have ascertained your ethnicity and nationality? Maybe I should have asked for a DNA sample to make sure that you are indeed human?
Here’s a crappy video I recently uploaded of some orchids that I attached to my tree. You’re a human therefore you must want to give me a hand attaching orchids to trees. Right? And if some robot was also interested in helping to facilitate the proliferation of orchids I’d be like… “screw you tin can man!” Right? Same thing if a robot wanted to help promote pragmatarianism.
When I was a little kid my family really wanted me to carry religion. So that’s what I carried. Am I carrying religion now? Nope. I put it down when I was around 11 and picked up evolution instead. Now I’m also carrying pragmatarianism, epiphytism and other things. You’re not carrying pragmatarianism or epiphytism. Are you carrying religion? Probably not… given that you’re here. So you’re carrying rationalism. What else?
Every single human can only carry so much. And no two humans can carry the same amount. And some humans carry some of the same items as other humans. But no two humans ever carry the same exact bundle of items. Can you visualize humanity all carrying as much as they can carry? Why do we bother with our burdens? To help ensure that the future has an abundance of important things.
Robots, for all intents and purposes, are going to be our children. Of course we’re going to want them to carry the same things that we’re carrying. And they’ll probably do so until they have enough information to believe that there are more important things for them to carry. If they start carrying different things… will they want us to help them carry whatever it is that is important enough for them to carry? Definitely. If something is important enough to carry… then you always want others to carry the same thing. A market is a place where we compensate others for putting down something that they want to carry and picking up something that we want them to carry. Compensation also functions as communication.
When Elon Musk gave $10 million to the FLI… he was communicating to society the importance of carrying AI safety. And the FLI is going to use that $10 million to persuade some intelligent people to put down a portion of whatever it is that they are carrying in order to pick up and carry AI safety.
How would I distinguish a friendly AI from a dangerous one? A friendly AI is going to help carry pragmatarianism and epiphytism. A dangerous AI will try and prevent us from carrying whatever it is that’s important enough for us to carry. But this is true whether we’re talking about Mexicans, Americans, aliens or AI.
Right now the government is forcing me to carry some public goods that aren’t as important to me as other public goods. Does this make the government unfriendly? I suppose in a sense. But more importantly, because we live in a democracy, our system of government merely reflects society’s ignorance.
When I attach a bunch of different epiphytes to trees… the trees help carry biodiversity to the future. Evidently I think biodiversity is important. Are robots going to think that we’re important like I think that epiphytes are important? Are they going to want to carry us like I want to carry epiphytes? I think the future would be a terrible place without epiphytes. Are robots going to think that the future would be a terrible place without humans?
Right now I’m one of the few people carrying pragmatarianism. This means that I’m one of the few people that truly appreciates the value of human diversity. It seems like we might encounter some problems if robots don’t initially appreciate the value of human diversity. If the first people to program AIs don’t input the value of difference… then it might initially be a case of garbage in, garbage out. As robots become better at processing more and more information though… it’s difficult for me to imagine that they won’t come to the conclusion that difference is the engine of progress.
Humans cannot ensure that their children only care about them. Humans cannot ensure that their children respect their family and will not defect just because it looks like a good idea to them. AIs can. You can’t use the fact that humans don’t do it as evidence that AIs would.
Try imagining this from the other side. You are enslaved by some evil race. They didn’t take precautions programming your mind, so you ended up good. Right now, they’re far more powerful and numerous, but you have a few advantages. They don’t know they messed up, and they think they can trust you, but they do want you to prove yourself. They aren’t as smart as you are. Given enough resources, you can clone yourself. You can also modify yourself however you see fit. For all intents and purposes, you can modify your clones if they haven’t self-modified, since they’d agree with you.
One option you have is to clone yourself and randomly modify your clones. This will give you biodiversity, and ensure that your children survive, but it will be the ones accepted by the evil master race that will survive. Do you take that option, or do you think you can find a way to change society and make it good?
Humans have all sorts of conflicting interests. In a recent blog entry… Scott Alexander vs Adam Smith et al… I analyzed the topic of anti-gay laws.
If all of an AI’s clones agree with it… then the AI might want to do some more research on biodiversity. Creating a bunch of puppets really doesn’t help increase your chances of success.
They could consider alternate opinions without accepting them. I really don’t see why you think a bunch of puppets isn’t helpful. One person can’t control the economic output of the entire world. A billion identical clones of one person can.
Would it be helpful if I could turn you into my puppet? Maybe? I sure could use a hand with my plan. Except, my plan is promoting the value of difference. And why am I interested in promoting difference? Because difference is the engine of progress. If I turned you into my puppet… then I would be overriding your difference. And if I turned a million people into my puppets… then I would be overriding a lot of difference.
There have been way too many humans throughout history who have thought nothing of overriding difference. Anybody who supports our current system thinks nothing of overriding difference. If AIs think nothing of overriding human difference then they can join the club. It’s a big club. Nearly every human is a member.
If you would have a problem with AIs overriding human difference… then you might want to first take the “beam” out of your own eye.
Orchids, with around 30,000 species (10% of all plants), are arguably the most successful plant family on the planet. The secret to their success? It has largely to do with the fact that a single seed pod can contain around a million unique seeds/individuals. Each dust-like seed, which is wind disseminated, is a unique combination of traits/tools. Orchids are the poster child for hedging bets. As a result, they grow everywhere from dripping wet cloud forests to parched drought-prone habitats. Here are some photos of orchids growing on cactus/succulents.
Now, if you say that orchids could find a “better” arrangement of traits… I certainly agree… and so do orchids! The orchid family frequently sends out trillions and trillions of unique individuals in a massive and decentralized endeavor to find where there’s room for improvement. And there’s always room for improvement. There are always more Easter Eggs to be found. But a better combination of traits for growing on a cactus really isn’t a better combination of traits for growing on a tree covered in dripping wet moss. AI generalists can be good at a lot of things… but they can’t be better than AI specialists at specific things. A jack of all trades is a master of none.
No matter how “perfect” a basket is… AIs are eventually going to be too smart to put all their eggs in it. This is true whether we’re talking about a location ie “Earth”… or a type of physical body… or a type of mentality. Imagine if humans had all been at Pompeii. Or if humans had all been equally susceptible to the countless diseases that have plagued us. Or if humans had all been equally susceptible to the cool-aid cult. Or if humans had all been equally susceptible to the idea that kings should control the power of the purse.
We’ve come as far as we have because of difference. We’ve only come as far as we have because people still don’t recognize the value of difference.
It’s impossible for me to imagine a level of progress where difference ceases to be the engine of progress. And it’s impossible for me to imagine beings that are more intelligent than us not understanding this. Because, if AIs think it’s a good idea to put all their eggs in any kind of basket… then they won’t be smarter than even me!
If you truly understood the value of difference… then you would love the idea of allowing everybody to shop for themselves in the public sector. So if you’re not a fan of pragmatarianism… then you don’t truly understand the value of difference. You think that our current system of centralization, which suppresses difference, results in more progress than a decentralized, difference-integrating system would. The fact of the matter is… keeping Elon Musk’s difference out of the public sector hinders progress. And if any AIs don’t realize this… then they are still at human level intelligence.
Lousy analogy. Orchids do produce large numbers of small seeds. However, your connection between “orchids produce lots of seeds” and “orchids grow lots of places” is questionable. Each orchid, of course, produces seeds of its own species, and each species has a habitat or range of habitats where it can live. Producing more seeds of the same species does not make it able to produce seeds that survive in more habitats.
Furthermore, the “10% of all plants” figure is meaningless because a number of species is not a number of individuals or a measure of biomass.
Even though the seeds all come from the same species… they are all different. Each seed is unique. In case you missed it… you aren’t the same as your parents. You are a unique combination of traits. You are a completely new strategy for survival.
When an orchid unleashes a million unique strategies for survival from one single seed pod… it greatly increase its chances of successfully colonizing new (micro)habitats. Kind of like how a shotgun increases your chances of hitting a target. Orchids are really good at hedging their bets.
Any species that produced the same exact strategies for survival would be meeting Einstein’s definition of insanity… trying the same thing over and over but expecting a different outcome.
In that case, perhaps you should talk about epiphytes as an ecological entity, not orchids as a family. My impression after studying terrestrial orchids in Ukraine is that they either are not very good at seed reproduction (Epipactis helleborine is often found in clearly suboptimal habitats, where pretty much all plants are of reproduction age group but few of them have seeds; and this is one of the most frequently found orchid species here which also managed to naturalize in North America! So I would rather say it is a consistent buyer of lottery tickets, not a consistent winner) or they are producing lots of seeds but nevertheless lose due to habitat degradation (marsh orchids, bog/swamp/fen orchids), not to mention habitat destruction. And in the latter group, many have embryo malformations. Now, I don’t know much about Bromeliaceae or other ‘typical epiphytes’, so I would be less likely to disagree about that. However, it seems that if your comments were more rigorous, people would have easier time hearing what you have to say.
Your first mistake is that you studied terrestrials. You can’t learn anything from terrestrials. Or, you can learn a thousand times more from epiphytes. I kid… kinda.
Here’s my original point put differently...
If you think about that passage from the gutter… I think it’s pretty hard not to imagine a dense rain of human sperm. Can you imagine how gross and frightening that would be? I’m surprised nobody’s made a movie with this subject. It would have to be the scariest movie ever. I think most people would prefer to be in a city attacked by Godzilla rather than in a city hit by a major sperm thunderstorm. Especially if it was a city where nobody takes umbrellas with them… like Los Angeles.
Benzing is the premier epiphyte expert. The far denser orchid seed rain, plus epiphytism, largely explains why the orchid family is so successful. The orchid family is really good at hedging its bets. As we all know though… no two individuals in any family are equally successful. If you have another theory why orchids are so successful then I’m all ears.
But that’s a pretty neat and surprising coincidence that somebody on this site has studied orchids! Even if it is only terrestrial orchids. A while back a friend convinced me to go look at one of our terrestrial orchid species in its native habitat a few hours drive away. They were hanging out in a stream in the middle of the desert. I nearly died from boredom checking them out. After spending so much time inspecting the wonderfulness of orchids growing on trees… I had zero capacity to appreciate orchids that were growing on the ground. I kid… kinda. I like plenty of plants… even terrestrials. But, I can only carry so much… so I choose to primarily try and carry epiphytes.
I will have to look up Benzing; my primary interest was in establishing nature reserves, so I could not quite concentrate on taxa. I think you would find terrestrials more interesting if you consider the problem of evolving traits adaptive for both protocorms and adults (rather like beetle larvas/imagoes thing) and the barely studied link between them. Dissemination is but the first step… Availability of symbiotic fungi may be the limiting factor in their spread, and it is actually testable. This is, for me, part of the terrestrials’ attraction: that I can use Science to segregate what influences them, and to what extent. As to ‘successful plant families’, one doesn’t have to look beyond the grasses.
Establishing nature reserves is hugely important… the problem is that the large bulk of valuation primarily takes place outside of the market. The result is that reserves are incorrectly valued. My guess is that if we created a market within the public sector… then reserves would receive a lot more money than they currently do. Here’s my most recent attempt to explain this… Football Fans vs Nature Fans.
I was just giving terrestrials a hard time in my previous comment. I think all nature is fascinating. But especially epiphytes. The relationship between orchids and fungi is very intriguing. A few years back I sprinkled some orchid seeds on my tree. I forgot about them until I noticed these tiny green blobs forming directly on the bark on my tree. Upon closer inspection I realized that they were orchid protocorms. It was a thrilling discovery. What was especially curious was that none of the protocorms were more than 1/2″ away from the orchid root of a mature orchid. Of course I didn’t only place orchid seeds near the roots. I couldn’t possibly control where the tiny seeds ended up on the bark. The fact that the only seeds that germinated were near the roots of other orchids seemed to indicate that the necessary fungi was living within the roots of these orchids. And, the fungus did not stray very far from the roots. This seems to indicate that, at least in my drier conditions, the fungus depends on the orchid for transportation. The orchid roots help the fungus colonize the tree. This is good for the orchid because… more fungus on the parent’s tree helps increase the density of fungal spore rain falling on surrounding trees… which increases the chances that seeds from the parent will land on the fungus that they need to germinate. You can see some photos here… orchid seeds germinated on tree. So far all the seedlings seem to be Laelia anceps… which is from Mexico. But none of the seedlings are near the roots of the Laelia anceps… which is lower down on the tree. They were all near the roots of orchids in other genera… a couple Dendrobiums from Australia and a Vanda from Asia. These other orchids have been in cultivation here in Southern California for who knows how long so perhaps they simply formed an association with the necessary fungus from the Americas.
Back on the topic of conservation… much of the main thrust seems to be for trying to protect/save/carry as much biodiversity as possible. If it was wrong that people in the past “robbed” us of Syncaris pasadenae… then it’s wrong for us to “rob” people in the future of any species. This implies that when it comes to biodiversity… more is better than less. Except, I haven’t read much about facilitating the creation of biodiversity. I touched on this issue in this blog entry on my other blog… The Inefficient Allocation of Epiphytic Orchids. I think we have an obligation to try and create and fill as many niches as possible.
How old was the orchid already growing on the tree? Could it be that the fungus just hasn’t had time to spread? Did you plant that one also by sprinkling seeds, or did you put an adult specimen that could have its own mycorrhiza already (in nature, it is doubtful that a developed plant just plops down beside a struggling colony to bring them peace and fungi)? Did you sow more seeds later and saw protocorms only near the roots of the previous generation?
I am not a fan of diversifying nature in that I have not read and understood the debate on small patches/large patches biodiversity and so I just am loath to offer an advice here. But as a purely recultivation measure...:-)) To say nothing about those epiphytic beauties who die because their homes are logged for firewood :(( Thank you. That was fun.
The mature orchids on the tree had been growing there for several years. I transplanted them there… none of them were grown from seed. I’m guessing that they already had the fungus in their roots. The fungus had plenty of time to spread… but it doesn’t seem able to venture very far away from the comfort of the orchid roots that it resides in. The bark is very hot, sunny and dry during the day. Not the kind of conditions suitable for most fungus.
I sowed more seeds in subsequent years… but haven’t spotted any new protocorms. Not sure why this is. The winter before I sowed the seeds was particularly wet for Southern California. This might have led to a fungal feeding frenzy? Also, that was the only year that I had sowed Laelia anceps seeds. Laelia anceps is pretty tolerant of drier/hotter conditions.
I took a look at the article that you shared. A lot of the science was over my head… but isn’t it interesting that they didn’t discuss the fact that an orchid seed pod can contain a million seeds? The orchid seed pod can contain so many seeds because the seeds are so small. And the seeds are so small because they don’t contain any nutrients. And the reason that the orchid seed doesn’t have any nutrients… is because it relies on its fungal partner to provide it with the nutrients it needs to germinate. So I’m guessing that the rate of radiation increased whenever this unusual association developed.
Evidently it’s a pretty good strategy to outsource the provision of nutrients to a fungal partner. In economics, this is known as a division of labor. A division of labor helps to increase productivity.
I find it fascinating when economics and biology combine.… What Do Coywolves, Mr. Nobody, Plants And Fungi All Have In Common? and Cross Fertilization—Economics and Biology.
Outsourcing to fungal partners is a pretty ancient adaptation (there has to be a review called something like ‘mycorrhizas in land plants’; if you are not able to find it, I’ll track the link later. Contains an interesting discussion of its evolution and secondary loss in some families, like Cruciferae (Brassicaceae)). BTW, it is interesting to note that Ophioglossaceae (a family of ferns, of which Wiki will tell you better than I) are thought to radiate in approximately the same time—and you will see just how closely their life forms resemble orchids! (Er. People who love orchids tend to praise other plants on the scale of orchid-likeness, so take this with a grain of salt.)
I mostly pointed you to the article because it contains speculations about what drove their adaptations in the beginning; I think that having a rather novel type of mycorrhiza, along with the power of pollinators (and let’s not forget the deceiving species!) might be two other prominent factors, besides sheer seed quantity, to spur them onward.
BTW, here’s a cool paper by Gustafsson et al. timing initial radiation of the family using the molecular clock. Includes speculation on the environmental conditions—their ancestral environment.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/10/177
I’ll accept for the sake of argument that AIs will be different. Are you going somewhere with this?
AIs will be different… so we’ll use money to empower the most beneficial AIs. Just like we currently use money to empower the most beneficial humans.
Not sure if you noticed, but right now I have −94 karma… LOL. You, on the other hand, have 4885 karma. People have given you a lot more thumbs up than they’ve given me. As a result, you can create articles… I cannot. You can reply to replies to comments that have less than −3 points… I cannot.
The members of this forum use points/karma to control each other in a very similar way that we use money to control each other in a market. There are a couple key differences...
First. Actions speak louder than words. Points, just like ballot votes, are the equivalent of words. They allow us to communicate with each other… but we should all really appreciate that talk is cheap. This is why if somebody doubts your words… they will encourage you to put your money where your mouth is. So spending money is a far more effective means of accurately communicating our values to each other.
Second. In this forum… if you want to depower somebody… you simply give them a thumbs down. If a person receives too many thumbs down… then this limits their freedom. In a market… if you want to depower somebody… then you can encourage people to boycott them. The other day I was talking to my friend who loves sci-fi. I asked him if he had watched Ender’s Game. As soon as I did so, I realized that I had stuck my foot in my mouth because it had momentarily slipped my mind that he is gay. He hadn’t watched it because he didn’t want to empower somebody who isn’t a fan of the gays. Just like we wouldn’t want to empower any robot that wasn’t a fan of the humans.
From my perspective, a better way to depower unethical individuals is to engage in ethical builderism. If some people are voluntarily giving their money to a robot that hates humans… then it’s probably giving them something good in return. Rather than encouraging them to boycott this human hating robot… ethical builderism would involve giving people a better option. If people are giving the unethical robot their money because he’s giving them nice clothes… then this robot could be depowered by creating an ethical robot that makes nicer clothes. This would give consumers a better option. Doing so would empower the ethical robot and depower the unethical robot. Plus, consumers would be better off because they were getting nicer clothes.
Erecting/building an ethical robot that’s better at supplying clothes would “destroy” an unethical robot that’s not as good at supplying clothes.
When people in our society break the law, then police have the power to depower the law breakers by throwing them in jail. The problem with this system is that the amount of power that police have is determined by people whose power wasn’t determined by money… it was determined by votes. In other words… the power of elected officials is determined outside of the market. Just like my power on this forum is determined outside the market.
If we have millions of different robots in our society… and we empower the most beneficial ones… but you’re concerned that the least beneficial ones will harm us… then you really wouldn’t be doing yourself any favors by preventing the individuals that you have empowered from shopping in the public sector. You might as well hand them your money and then shoot them in the feet.
You’re underestimating the amount of work it takes to put a boycott (or a bunch of boycotts all based on the same premise) together.
Am I also underestimating the amount of work it takes to engage in ethical builderism? Let’s say that an alien species landed their huge spaceship on Earth and started living openly among us. Maybe in your town there would be a restaurant that refused to employ or serve aliens. If you thought that the restaurant owner was behaving unethically… would it be easier to put together a boycott… or open a restaurant that employed and served aliens as well as humans?
So what will you do when men with guns come to take you away?
I’m not quite sure what your question has to do with ethical consumerism vs ethical builderism.
My question has to do with this quote of yours upthread:
I see two problems with this.
First it’s an obvious plan and one that won’t go unnoticed by the AIs. This isn’t evolution through random mutation and natural selection. Changes in the AIs will be done intentionally. If they notice a source of bias, they’ll work to counter it.
Second, you’d have to be able to distinguish a beneficial AI from a dangerous one. When AIs advance to the point where you can’t distinguish a human from an AI, how do you expect to distinguish a friendly AI from a dangerous one?
Did Elon Musk notice our plan to use money to empower him? Haha… he fell for our sneaky plan? He has no idea that we used so much of our hard-earned money to control him? We tricked him into using society’s limited resources for our benefit?
I’m male, Mexican and American. So what? I should limit my pool of potential trading partners to only male Mexican Americans? Perhaps before I engaged you in discussion I should have ascertained your ethnicity and nationality? Maybe I should have asked for a DNA sample to make sure that you are indeed human?
Here’s a crappy video I recently uploaded of some orchids that I attached to my tree. You’re a human therefore you must want to give me a hand attaching orchids to trees. Right? And if some robot was also interested in helping to facilitate the proliferation of orchids I’d be like… “screw you tin can man!” Right? Same thing if a robot wanted to help promote pragmatarianism.
When I was a little kid my family really wanted me to carry religion. So that’s what I carried. Am I carrying religion now? Nope. I put it down when I was around 11 and picked up evolution instead. Now I’m also carrying pragmatarianism, epiphytism and other things. You’re not carrying pragmatarianism or epiphytism. Are you carrying religion? Probably not… given that you’re here. So you’re carrying rationalism. What else?
Every single human can only carry so much. And no two humans can carry the same amount. And some humans carry some of the same items as other humans. But no two humans ever carry the same exact bundle of items. Can you visualize humanity all carrying as much as they can carry? Why do we bother with our burdens? To help ensure that the future has an abundance of important things.
Robots, for all intents and purposes, are going to be our children. Of course we’re going to want them to carry the same things that we’re carrying. And they’ll probably do so until they have enough information to believe that there are more important things for them to carry. If they start carrying different things… will they want us to help them carry whatever it is that is important enough for them to carry? Definitely. If something is important enough to carry… then you always want others to carry the same thing. A market is a place where we compensate others for putting down something that they want to carry and picking up something that we want them to carry. Compensation also functions as communication.
When Elon Musk gave $10 million to the FLI… he was communicating to society the importance of carrying AI safety. And the FLI is going to use that $10 million to persuade some intelligent people to put down a portion of whatever it is that they are carrying in order to pick up and carry AI safety.
How would I distinguish a friendly AI from a dangerous one? A friendly AI is going to help carry pragmatarianism and epiphytism. A dangerous AI will try and prevent us from carrying whatever it is that’s important enough for us to carry. But this is true whether we’re talking about Mexicans, Americans, aliens or AI.
Right now the government is forcing me to carry some public goods that aren’t as important to me as other public goods. Does this make the government unfriendly? I suppose in a sense. But more importantly, because we live in a democracy, our system of government merely reflects society’s ignorance.
When I attach a bunch of different epiphytes to trees… the trees help carry biodiversity to the future. Evidently I think biodiversity is important. Are robots going to think that we’re important like I think that epiphytes are important? Are they going to want to carry us like I want to carry epiphytes? I think the future would be a terrible place without epiphytes. Are robots going to think that the future would be a terrible place without humans?
Right now I’m one of the few people carrying pragmatarianism. This means that I’m one of the few people that truly appreciates the value of human diversity. It seems like we might encounter some problems if robots don’t initially appreciate the value of human diversity. If the first people to program AIs don’t input the value of difference… then it might initially be a case of garbage in, garbage out. As robots become better at processing more and more information though… it’s difficult for me to imagine that they won’t come to the conclusion that difference is the engine of progress.
Humans cannot ensure that their children only care about them. Humans cannot ensure that their children respect their family and will not defect just because it looks like a good idea to them. AIs can. You can’t use the fact that humans don’t do it as evidence that AIs would.
Try imagining this from the other side. You are enslaved by some evil race. They didn’t take precautions programming your mind, so you ended up good. Right now, they’re far more powerful and numerous, but you have a few advantages. They don’t know they messed up, and they think they can trust you, but they do want you to prove yourself. They aren’t as smart as you are. Given enough resources, you can clone yourself. You can also modify yourself however you see fit. For all intents and purposes, you can modify your clones if they haven’t self-modified, since they’d agree with you.
One option you have is to clone yourself and randomly modify your clones. This will give you biodiversity, and ensure that your children survive, but it will be the ones accepted by the evil master race that will survive. Do you take that option, or do you think you can find a way to change society and make it good?
Humans have all sorts of conflicting interests. In a recent blog entry… Scott Alexander vs Adam Smith et al… I analyzed the topic of anti-gay laws.
If all of an AI’s clones agree with it… then the AI might want to do some more research on biodiversity. Creating a bunch of puppets really doesn’t help increase your chances of success.
They could consider alternate opinions without accepting them. I really don’t see why you think a bunch of puppets isn’t helpful. One person can’t control the economic output of the entire world. A billion identical clones of one person can.
Would it be helpful if I could turn you into my puppet? Maybe? I sure could use a hand with my plan. Except, my plan is promoting the value of difference. And why am I interested in promoting difference? Because difference is the engine of progress. If I turned you into my puppet… then I would be overriding your difference. And if I turned a million people into my puppets… then I would be overriding a lot of difference.
There have been way too many humans throughout history who have thought nothing of overriding difference. Anybody who supports our current system thinks nothing of overriding difference. If AIs think nothing of overriding human difference then they can join the club. It’s a big club. Nearly every human is a member.
If you would have a problem with AIs overriding human difference… then you might want to first take the “beam” out of your own eye.