For counter-examples to the idea of “selfish genes”, one should look for genes that are suicidal — or genes that only promote the survival of other genes (which don’t in turn return the favour). Of course there are such genes — but naturally, they are rare — as the idea of “selfish genes” predicts.

I like comparing us to hydrozoans more than locusts. Hehe.… Because, we are techo consciousness creatures, so we’ll become like the human hydrozoans, living very very long, instead of being the like the over-competitive short lived no birth control locusts — but with cyborg super brains.

So surviving with team work is a great point. We don’t have to be dumb like locusts… Well said.

The second question you raise is about human life extension and how it relates to the thesis of overpopulation. Throughout evolutionary history, aging has been essential to preventing overpopulation. In just the last 200 years, mankind has used technology to greatly extend human life expectancy. And one result has been that humans have disrupted ecosystems the world over and caused the fastest mass extinction in the history of the planet. I am all for human life extension, but it is also true that we as a species MUST get our birth rate down to keep from destroying the world’s ecosystems on which we depend. Otherwise we could easily be “supercompetitors” that go the way of the Rocky Mountain Locust.

So if I get this right, aging makes sure the individuals of a species die off in managable numbers, rather than put huge risks on the entire population with disasters such as starvation. It makes me wonders how old life has had aging, though. Does it go all the way to the first multicellular species?

And last of all, since we’re an intelligent species with the ability(I say we can, not that we are, because we have been irresponsible with ecosystems many times through history) to understand population control, we are, so to say, going to take aging out of us since it no longer serves a purpose and only brings us mental and physical pain?