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A few rebuttals. Race to the bottom only works in a universe where there is a reason to keep getting lower. where in a petri dish; if you don't replicate fast enough you die; thats a strong selective pressure; in human-world reality there is no such pressure of equivalence. (I also disagree with rat-island) for this reason. Where there is not a benefit to get lower; it won't happen. Evolution seems to happen by two main pressures; slow selection of the most-fittest and sudden selection by major environmental factors (with a range of both in between). For the sake of argument; the cutest of humans procreate; and the lesser ones - less so; but no one survives the next meteor strike. only the cockroaches which then have to grow under slow pressures until the next big pressure.
as for distinct mind - we (as humanity) would only go down the path of non-distinct mind if we wanted to. It may seem like a bad thing from our perspective now; but its a bit of a strawman argument that it will certainly be something we do not want when the time comes that it is possible to do so. I am not concerned for such far-away situations that are framed as problems.
Was there any particular point that you would like refuted?
This is absolutely what I am afraid of. Values themselves will be selected for and I don't want my values to be ground up entirely to dust. Who's to say that I will want to exist under a different value system, even as a part of some larger consciousness? What if consciousness is a waste of resources?