[j33zusjuice]

Idk enough about this discussion to argue it, but his hypothesis does not imply your second point couldn't be true.

> your answer is just a hypothesis, not a proof. these things can be studied (by studying abiogenesis in-vitro), and it's not certain these decisions were "flash frozen" like you describe. 2-, 4-, and 6- nucleotide coding systems might have coexisted in the RNA world, and 4- could have won out for some reason.

His hypothesis is, at least in part, “4- won for some reasons for which we have no explanation, and it stayed that way for some reason [that we may or may not know].” I suppose the reason would be that 4- was somehow better suited for the particular use-case at the time.

Of course there’s a ton of interesting details to discuss to discover, and whether if multiple systems coexisted is one of many fascinating things to discuss, and his response never said otherwise.