Saturday, September 02, 2006


I (sort of) MISS NATURAL SELECTION

Now that everybody has me pegged as a vigilante nutjob I need to clarify where my frail mind was wandering. I was expressing my view that the law preserves a lot of people who are little more than a waste of amino acids. I mean would you rather have an Adolf Hitler or a couple of Cocker Spaniels? Mother Earth somehow forgot to weed out psychotic bullys through Natural Selection!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection


NS developed over 3.5 Billion years for a reason. We humans seem to have usurped it's authority in the last 200 years mainly through advances in medicine. Which is good.... but are we inadvertently crowding the shallow end of the gene pool.

Before you get your shorts in a knot thinking that if I ran the world that I would institute some sort of Neo-Nazi like Eugenics program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
hear me out. We already have volunteers winning Darwin Awards and excusing themselves from the reproductive process. So relax.

I certainly have benefitted from this exemption. If I had lived in the 'Caveman era' I would have had to rely on my youthful speed (yes I was a sprinter) and sense of humor (How you doin?) to have stayed in the game and passed on my genes. I could have outrun most of the other huge dumb lugs trying to club me and maybe spread a few seeds around by gettin' the gals to giggle around the stream while they were washing deerskins. That scene was beautifully recreated in the movie Quest For Fire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_for_fire


Anyway once my wheels were worn out I would have been easy pickins for all of those bullys (angry harem owners). Then again if you lived to be 40 you were ancient. Life was brutal and short and yet somehow the population of homo sapiens crawled along at a steady rate. We humans hit the 1 Billion mark around 1800 and now we are riding a population avalanche that will probably kill most of us off. Think of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse; War, Famine, Pestilence and Death, basically all of the worst parts of the Bible, riding in to finish us off.

Like our soon departing Chimpanzee (Bushmeat) cousins (apparently you could fit all living wild apes inside of a football stadium) we are territorial little rascals who routinely start wars with neighbouring tribes. Jane Goodall discovered that male Chimps get together every once in a while to go looking for outsider Chimps to kill . Crude but effective population management.

I always imagined that by the 21st Century that we would have been a little more cerebral and that wars would be far and few between. Obviously that is not going to happen...

So maybe natural selection is actually still operating. Instead of the brightest ascending to the leadership roles of our species the most aggressive (genes) are still winning out. So maybe one day some of us can sneak off to a new Atlantis type scenario and just hang out until all of the other guys kill each other off.

Where should we go? Somewhere not too hot and not too cold...don't forget that global warming will raise sea levels above most of the best vacation spots.



20 comments:

  1. Entertaining and thought provoking as usual! Thanks!

    The "smart" guy never gets the girl....! Brain vs. braun!

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  2. Angela,
    There has always been an uneasy truce betwixt the Muscles and and the Minds. Historically the Minds have given the Muscles great ideas for destroying others in mass quantities in exchange for protection.
    As far as getting the girl..it's the same for both sexes..a perfect combination would be ideal.

    hey nerd,
    I mentioned that (Darwins are listed in my resource panel) but the process of having a volunteer sample of dead enders excuse themselves is painstakingly slow.

    Mother Earth once eliminated these guys on grand scales and culling the herd was proportionate. Now the system is way out of whack and the majority of the shallow end waders escape their natural date with destiny.

    The resulting 'overflow' is self evident from the White House all the way to the vapid gum chomping check out clerk at your local grocery store.

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  3. Thank God, I am not docile! My aggressive genes will win hands down..

    You mean to say as I am in my late 30s, I am almost ancient?

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  4. I've always thougth we need more natural selection.

    Like you said, there's just too many of us. We can cut the number down a bit.

    But then the question is "who goes?"

    Certain groups of people contribute more than others (and no, I'm not refering to race or ethnicity). Maybe we should just let the groups that don't contribute, die off.

    But then that would make me a cold-hearted bastard.

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  5. I've always wanted to visit Malta, but I hear the summers are brutally hot and humid... and that just won't do. So how about I meet you in Torremolinos, Spain?

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  6. Yes, it is another (the second in a row) entertaining and thought-provoking post.

    There is no them only us, imo x

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  7. Anonymous7:02 pm

    Top to bottom, the idea is to drum up as much grist for the mill as we can. Excess cranial bone mass just gums up the machine-guys, girls, doesn't matter- can we count on your ongoing support??
    Zhtepp zis vay fur disinfektion.
    Show me young people who know to question our dealings with each other, and i'll show you parents who (at least, in theory) know how
    to approach ideas with others.

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  8. Well, well, imagine that, an examination that I actually beat you to! I am SOOO gloating over this! Anyway, this is a great excuse for me to get you to go back in my dank basement (archives) and read my post that examined natural selection and why my previous belief that man had totally circumvented it might have been wrong, since we are getting better all the time at killing ourselves off by the millions rather than merely tribe by tribe. Gaia seems to know what she's doing afterall, since she has turned us against ourselves much the same way cancer cells attack the body. Her (and all of life's) only real hope is that we are weakened and humbled enough, in time, not to overwealm the planet and kill it regardless.

    And yes, I totally agree, that antibiotics was the worst medical discovery man ever made, and yes, a very shallow gene pool is the result. However, resistance to our best efforts is growing daily, and soon we won't have that shield to hide behind anymore. In time, we won't have to worry about how we are going to afford to warehouse all our old, demented, tube-fed relatives. People are going to die when the reaper comes for them, like they used to. And you know something? LIfe just might have meaning again.

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  9. gautami,
    Oooh I better watch out! You are still a spring chicken but in days of olde you would have been well into middle age.

    coldheartedblogger,
    It is frustrating sometimes..I just drove home on the highway and a 1000 year old man is driving 80 in the passing lane!!!totally oblivious..who knows he might feel as if he is travelling at warp ten!
    Whatever.. there should be a phone number that you can call for a giant helicopter with a magnet to swoop in and carry Old Mr sensory deprivation off to the soylent green factory

    anna,
    OK. You can be in charge of finding our utopian location..I'll start on a list of suitable candidates.Send me your list of must have people..this is gonna be great!


    benjamin,
    I love the sound of there is no them only us..aaah. However there are definitely a few thems..Son of Sam, Jeffrey Dahlmer, Josef Stalin,
    Manson...shall I continue?

    grumblicious,
    Alvays mit der Germans! Young people are so idealistic and do not have enough life experience to make realistic decisions..oooh did I just say that..you can almost picture a giant shepherd's staff coming into the frame to hook around my neck and yank me off..stage right!

    aidan,
    Pigeons and Turkeys. There is not one angstrom of brain left in a domestic Turkey. Dumb as a rock.
    I hate pigeons. One day while I was raking my yard a Falcon snatched a Pigeon from my neighbours roof and landed on his yard. He started plucking that thing right in front of my eyes..while it was still alive. I felt nothing.
    As for the breeding program let's see what we can come up with once we have relocated.

    michael,
    Yes that cancer thingamabob and our increased proficiency at annihilating each other is a stunning breakthrough and a brilliant analogy to boot.

    Yes I agree that the virus will prevail because they have a couple billion years on us. The virus is the Terminator! Good thinking! I will definetly dig into your archives and learn more.
    Thanks Gaia.

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  10. Great post HE, as usual.

    **I mean would you rather have an Adolf Hitler or a couple of Cocker Spaniels?

    hehe I'd prefer Hitler...why? cos then we would really know how cool spaniels r.

    What im trying to say is, if not for alot of idiots, we wouldnt know how precious goodness is.

    but yeah I agree that war is becoming too much of a menace at a time that many thought peace would be omni-present and cranium wouldnt be scarce.


    Keshi.

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  11. hemmm....have u heard of the carter catastrophe. Eventually, our extinction will come about...say in about 200 years. MAybe its time that the weeding out starts. Being the smartest to survive doesnt ensure the survival of the human race, so the boldest genes are carried along to find another suitable habitat?

    What do you perceive or how do u perceive reality? This is off-topic, but i wrote a post of it and want ur opinion. thx.

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  12. keshi,
    the cost of keeping some of these idiots around is too great..they are the people who dream up reasons to have wars..I'll trade them in for cocker spaniels.

    ghosty particular,
    whatever is left of this planet (after an all out Superpower fight to the death scenario) may not be suitable for human habitation.
    and 200 years from now could become 200 hours or minutes any day now.

    Enter the next rulers of the Earth..
    and I for one welcome our new Insect Overlords!

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  13. :) I so get ya.

    Keshi.

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  14. Are you being ironic, HE?

    What did Adolf Hitler do wrong other than extinguish a lot of people who were little more than a waste of amino acids in his view?

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  15. benjamin,
    where do I begin...
    we will certainly never rid ourselves of evil people, or even tedious people for that matter.
    Coping with Life on Earth and sharing the planet with complete assholes is one of the greatest challenges that we face.

    My point was that we are completely REACTIVE and it is a very expensive proposition. If we were proactive we might bolster the fortunes of the average person who shoulders the penalty for tolerating the cruel antics of delusional psychopaths.

    Our system is set up to deal with things AFTER they occur. We never deal with the source of problems. Somehow tidying up is good enough.

    What if we nipped things in the bud for a change?????

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  16. Nip the destruction of the climate in the bud for a change. Nip poverty in the bud.

    I don't think people are simply good or evil. It's a matter of perspective, I think, of how you look at them.

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  17. People certainly aren't good or evil..they are charming or tedious!

    Working on the source of societal ills would take a complete revamping of the human condition.
    We like reacting to problems because it seems less expensive than being proactive. It is a time honored tradition to throw good money after bad and an endless excuse for politicians to raise taxes.

    L'aissez faire..to leave to do.

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  18. Natural selection in humans is an interesting topic. Once upon a time in western civilization the ill of health didn't marry because they were lousy prospects who might -- and often did -- die. Once upon a time economic realities meant that only the most secure financially dared marry and propogate. Spinster sisters and bachelor brothers were the norm in families of limited means. Once upon a time the ugly and cognitively challenged were kept under wraps and only the best-looking family members were put forth as marital prospects. Nowadays it doesn't matter how sick, poor, stupid and ugly you are, everyone can survive and society penalizes no one. Much. But, like The Naked Nerd said, there's always hope! (The Darwin Awards)

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  19. mwaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahaha...
    that is absolutely hysterical! loved it!
    (and yes- i do know what they say about multiple exclamation marks!!!!)

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  20. andrea,
    Holy Social Engineering Batman!
    Ah yes the good old days...whatever happened to spinsterism? Bachelorism just mean't that the man was gay but spinsterism was a noble occupation.
    They were usually well educated and freakishly large handed suffragettes who looked like men but hell they got THE VOTE!

    angel,
    I am delighted that I brought a ray of sunlight into your world. I know from your road rage pictures that you have a soft spot in your heart for all of those frickin idiots crowding the planet!!!!
    aaarrrggghh!

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