CopyRight @ 1996
This paper started out as an attempt to understand human
variation. Why is that person different from another? What are
the ranges of psychological, physiological and morphological
variations in the human race? The problem is how to correlate
volumes of varied and diverse data. Initially the problem is
looked at from a view of human biology and ecology. Immediately
it is noticed that human ecology is undergoing what is in many
ways the most profound change that any organism has ever
experienced. We are entering a completely new ecology, but are
still basically adapted to an old ecology. So human variation
and adaptation must be examined in relation to more than one
ecology as well.
Human ecology has been undergoing rapid changes since
the advent of big game hunting. This examination is always stated
in the context of what it would take for humans to create another
relatively stable ecology. If we cannot find a long term niche,
we will not survive. This book is written to produce a way of
examining and evaulating factors of human existence as elements
that can be evaluated by the methods of science. In general, the
science used was ecology. I prefer to refer to it as a
sub-discipline of biology. Another and perhaps the main goal of
this book though, is
to create an examination of survival strategies, particularly
strategies humans can use to survive. A method and will to
survive is a morality. So this is to examine a science of
moralities, especially as it applies to humans. This implies that
there are characteristics of human survival strategies that are
qualitatively different than the strategies of other organisms
examined by biology. Humans have diverged and will continue to
diverge from the characteristic patterns of the rest of the
animal kingdom, just as plants and animals diverge. As suggested,
these changes largely relate to intelligence and tool use. Call
this part of the study what you like, perhaps moralology. This is another
historic function of religion that may be changed to a science. Rarely can
religion look forward, a science can. The difficulty is the
complexity of the study that includes energetics, genetics,
behaviors, beliefs, technology, disease and a good dollop of
other factors, all observed in an unavoidably subjective context.
Enough said, here is a view of what a stable ecology might look
like, in terms of human variation, ecology and survival strategy,
that is understood to be so rudimentry as to only qualify
as a model. This is a model that took a lot of thought.
Moralities are the learned behaviors that we have used to
replace our instincts. A learned survival strategy is a morality.
Morality is like food in many ways. How it is done may
change, but the result never does. How one gets food may change,
but the need and use never does. There are many moral systems,
but their result is the same. There are many ways to do it, but
the result of a moral system is a method to survive and raise
children that can survive. So what is variable about moral
systems and what is not? A moral system is the method and will to
survive. How to survive changes, characteristics of survival do
not. A moral system must allow for the raising of children such
that they will be able to raise their own children in turn.
The preceding chapters give a view of human ecology. So how
can this be projected into a description of a stable ecology?
A stable ecology could be described in characteristically
prescise biological terms, as a specie having relatively stable
population size as well as resource acquisition and utilization
strategies. It is not just an issue of energetics and resources.
It is also a matter of what we believe, want and hope. Human
destiny will be determined largely by human desire. It can only
be described as a collection of views, some of which are
subjective. Still, as Thomas Aquinus suggested, it seems unwise
for human laws to widely differ from the laws of nature.
Of course, then again, nature seems capable of almost anything
and experiments with everything. The issue of humans deciding to
change themselves in any particular way will not be near as novel
as the choice to make the changes. Nature does it all the time.
So a description the biological view
preceeds the views of human wants.
We will be able to
achieve survival in a number of different ways.
ecology, personal, moral, dangers
First and foremost, models must be based on survival systems
that allow for adaptability, variability and potential for
continued development. We must find a niche that is stable as the
hunter and gatherer ecology was, but that still promoted continued
development and adaptation. The continued adaptation part will be
easy. Humans are so new at this opening niche, that we are going
to do a lot of adapting for a while to come. But what do we want?
We can have health, beauty and brains. We can develop working
philosophies and moral systems that are familiar and comfortable.
Present human resourse strategies are tied to tool use. It will
be tools that will be the basis of the energetic strategies of the
next stable ecologys.
Truth is, there is a lot of arguement for a primitive
existence, similar to the niche that aborigines occupy. Still, it
is an arguement for an ecology that is stabilized by limitations
on human potential, rather than the potentials that have
developed recently..
what can humans do? Technology development will stabilize to
where there is not an ongoing revolution. We will have solved the
problems of resources and pollution. We will be able to create
artificial niches.
We strive to create a safe comfortable niche. This promotes
the development of weaknesses that are from lack of selection for
strengths. We can use artificial selection to do much of the job
of genetic selecton for health and physical integrity. How can
the environment, that is education, be comfortable, yet not
destructively foster weakness. What are the traites that we call
strengths?
we must consider this in light of planetary and non-planetary populations.
What do people want****
sometimes people think that they must conquor, or that they must
be the richest or the best. This is the result of hypertrophied
paleolithic hunting behaviors.
sometimes people want to be gods. ask them what that means and
you usually find that it is an extremely irrational responce to
either childhood images or else it is an image ervoked of freedom
from fear, cold, disease and starvation.
some people want to be rich or famous. They are lonely and
falling for hollow symbols of acceptance represented by modern
images of status.
What do I want*****
I want to see a stable ecology on earth, where energy and resources
are produced cleanly. Where residential and industrial wastes are
recycled or managed. Where wild crops are managed by policy. Where
agriculture is non-depletive and pest control is environmentally
undamaging. Where population is stable. Where people are healthy,
intelligent, beautiful and strong. Strong refers to moral strength,
the will and ability to survive, including the ability to adapt.
Where the potentials of technology, genetic and communication/transport,
have made the people of earth into a wealthy hybridized tribe..unified
enough by knowledge, to do great things. To become more than we are.
Populations in complete artificial habitats in space, with all of
the attendent adaptations.
Where status values are such that they promote survival.
what does morality suggest
morality and biology have the same opinions. They may be too
conservative. Who knows, they may both say that we should
become farmers on hillsides.
What is to be feared*****
many fear human weakness due to automation
some fear the state
danger? of speciation
danger of nihlism
machine life
equality between men and women
status symbol that is conta-survival
usually, parents and children have been together. sometimes,
children have been raised by the community as opposed to
primarily by the family.
Both energy and interstellar transport have a common
consequence. If either one becomes too easy it will increase
human independence in such a way as to promote fragmentation,,
disorder and needs to adapt to the disorder. This is easier to
understand in terms of space flight. If an easy, cheap way were
invented to travel through space or just to other planets, it
would promote populations with high growth rates and adaptation
potentials suited to a rapidly changing ecology. If we examine
the survival requirements of a population on the ecology that is
the earth, the needs are much more conservative.
When considering the factors that require that humans
control their own genetic destiny, it was stated that we must
change, but that changes should not be made for the sake of
change. In the present context, it is observed that the
potentials offered by genetic manipulation are near limitless.
The arguement follows that what would humans want to be if they
used a little imagination?
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