@KitlerIs6 @SpaceElf @alex @bot @dave Also some of big bird's direct progeny were kind of useless, and didn't compete so well. It's not noted if they died or just didn't thrive and reproduce, but the ones that did well persisted and turned into that new species.

It's not something you want to do willy nilly, knowing that the price of failure is death for the offspring of the experiment that turn out to not work so well. This insensitivity to death that is brought along with openness, IMO, explains why extreme progressives don't have a strong revulsion to things like pedophilia and can entertain ideas like child sex changes etc.

But still, we don't want to become completely closed, because it hamstrings our ability to evolve. We need to take it slowly, to try things in very small increments, to change gradually while making sure we're not doing something that's going to end up killing us.