Nick Szabo  🔑

@gwern @cinnamon_carter Niches that required photosynthesis, nitrogen fixing, and even many far simpler capabilities were unavailable.

@NickSzabo4 @cinnamon_carter Nevertheless, early Earth would have a great variety of organic chemicals to harvest. That is a big opportunity

@gwern @cinnamon_carter What kinds of organics? What 150 base pair ecosystem could exploit them? Be specific stop hand-waving.

@NickSzabo4 @cinnamon_carter It would use the amino acids and nuclear acids floating around, you know that. The usual abiogenesis proposals.

@gwern @cinnamon_carter A 150 base pair ecosystem can't catch, much less put to use, most of the amino & nuclear acids floating around.

@NickSzabo4 @cinnamon_carter Why does it need to catch to grow or spread or evolve w/o competition? Does not catching prove panspermia?

@gwern @cinnamon_carter Many far more likely places in universe to find stable amino+nucleic acid soup than bombardment-era Earth.

@NickSzabo4 @cinnamon_carter Be that as it may, what does that have to do with linearity of genomes as clocks and that paper's model?

@NickSzabo4 @cinnamon_carter And thus you see the pressure to rapidly expand and develop longer, more capable genomes. Anon-linear pressure.

@gwern @cinnamon_carter "Pressure" is a silly metaphor. It's about (in)ability to exploit chemicals in the environment.

@NickSzabo4 @cinnamon_carter Pressure/selection relevant for long genomes. Again, viruses as extreme example demonstrating genomes!=clocks.

@gwern @cinnamon_carter Viruses depend on metabolisms of vastly more complex organism. Terrible example.