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Author Topic: Power Structures in Human Society: Pros and Cons Part 1  (Read 14734 times)

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AGelbert

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Agelbert NOTE: Originally published in 2013. I am reposting it now because it even more applicable today than in 2013.

Sexual Dimorphism, PowerStructures and Environmental Consequences of Human Behaviors

Why the 1% is responsible for more than 80% of humanity's carbon footprint and why Homo sapiens is doomed unless the 1% lead the way in a sustainable life style.

By A. G. Gelbert

Today humanity faces the fact that the parasitic relationship of Homo sapiens with the biosphere is depleting the resources hitherto relied on to maintain a standard of living somewhere above that of other earthly hominids like the chimps or gorillas that are, unlike us,  engaged in a symbiotic relationship with the biosphere. The chimps engage in rather brutal wars with other chimp tribes where the victors set about to kill and eat very young chimps of the vanquished tribe. This is clearly a strategy to gain some advantage by killing off the offspring of the competition. It cannot be, in and of itself, considered morally wrong or evil behavior.

Dominance behavior and territoriality between same sex and opposite sexes also can be filed under the category of "successful behavior characteristics" for species perpetuation. Behavior that appears on the surface to have no species perpetuation purpose (like male chimps humping less dominant males or sexually mature adolescent seals, locked out of mating by bulls with huge harems, violently thrashing, and often killing, small seal pups that stray into their area) are a function of hormone biochemistry, not good or evil.

Some scientists might say this is just Darwinian behavior to winnow out the less flexible, less intelligent or weaker members of a species. I don't agree. I believe it is a downside of hormones that distracts species from more productive behavior but unfortunately cannot be avoided if you are going to guarantee the survival of a species by programming in strong sex drives.

I repeat, excessive aggression or same sex sexual activity as a dominance display is a downside to the "strong sex drive" successful species perpetuation characteristic. This "downside", when combined with a large brain capable of advanced tool making, can cause the destruction of other species through rampant predation and poisoning of life form resources in the biosphere.

The Darwinian mindset accepts competition among species in the biosphere, where species routinely engage in fighting and killing each other for a piece of the resource pie, as a requirement for the survival of the fittest. Based on this assumption, all species alive today are the pinnacle of evolution.

Really? How does a meteor impact fit into this "survival of the fittest" meme? It doesn't. Why? Because any multicellular organism can easily be wiped out by random, brute force, natural catastrophes like a meteor impact or extensive volcanism. Darwinists are quite willing to accept the random nature of the initial creation of single celled life on earth (even though the latest advances in science show that any cell is an incredibility and irreducibly complex piece of biomachinery that absolutely HAS to have several parts working in unison or none of them work at all)  but refuse to accept that the present multispecies survival is just as random.

It's more like "survival of the luckiest" than "survival of the fittest". From a strictly Darwinian perspective, the extremophiles are the real pinnacle of evolution because of their ability to survive just about anyhting that is thrown at them. There is a type of Archaebacteria that can live in an almost 32% salt concentration called halophiles. Halophiles can be found anywhere with a concentration of salt five times greater than the salt concentration of the ocean, such as the Great Salt Lake in Utah, Owens Lake in California, the Dead Sea, and in evaporation ponds.



Carbon assimilation by Halococcus salifodinae, an archaebacterial

If you want to talk about survival of the fittest, look at this humble organism: Halococcus is able to survive in its high-saline habitat by preventing the dehydration of its cytoplasm. To do this they use a solute which is either found in their cell structure or is drawn from the external environment. Special chlorine pumps allow the organisms to retain chloride to maintain osmotic balance with the salinity of their habitat. The cells are cocci, 0.6-1.5 micrometres long with sulfated polysaccharide walls.

The cells are organtrophic, using amino acids, organic acids, or carbohydrates for energy. In some cases they are also able to photosynthesize.

Halococcus archaea

This primitive life form is organtrophic AND, not or, in some cases, photosynthetic!
Now that's what I call a life form able to handle just about any catastrophe thrown at it.

The more complex a life form becomes, the less flexible, adaptable and the more fragile it becomes. That is why I think the Darwinian approach to species interaction in the biosphere severely understates the fragility of "higher" organisms. Just as a type of fungus can infect the brain of an ant species to climb before it dies and thereby aid in fungal sporulation, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the symbiotic bacteria that constitute a high percentage of the human genes  (we cannot metabolize our food without them so they are an inseparable part of being a human) actually drove our evolution to simply to aid in the spread of the bacteria. No, I don't believe that for a second but it shows that Darwinian "logic" can be used to claim the exact opposite of what the Darwinians claim is the "fittest" species. 

Laugh if you want, but which is a higher organism, the fungus or the ant?


A recent article in "The Scientist" explored the possibility that human evolution (evolution, of course, must include human intelligent development of advanced tool making for war, transportation and food resource exploitation) can be explained as bacteria driven. We may be a mobile expression of symbiotic bacteria trying to spread all over the biosphere by ensuring their human hosts do whatever it takes to blanket the planet for God and bacteria (not necessarily in that order  ;D)!

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It is estimated that there are 100 times as many microbial genes as human genes associated with our bodies. Taken together, these microbial communities are known as the human microbiome.

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These findings have the potential to change the landscape of medicine. And they also have important philosophical and ethical implications.

A key premise of some microbiome researchers is that the human genome coevolved with the genomes of countless microbial species. If this is the case, it raises deep questions about our understanding of what it really means to be human.

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If the microbiome, on a species level, coevolved with the human genome and, on an individual level, is a unique and enduring component of biological identity, then the microbiome may need to be thought of more as “a part of us” than as a part of the environment.

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More important in the context of ethical considerations is the possibility that if the adult microbiome is indeed relatively stable, then such early childhood manipulations of the microbiome may be used to engineer permanent changes that will be with the child throughout life. There is thus the potential that an infant’s microbiome may be “programmable” for optimal health and other traits.2

The article assumes WE are the ones that could engage in the "programming". It doesn't mention WHO EXACTLY was doing all that "programming" during our alleged evolution.

There is a greater quantity of microbial genes than what are considered "human" genes but it's really just one package. Genes drive genetics and evolutionary traits, do they not? I made a big joke about it in the article comments:
Quote
Perhaps the scientific nomenclature for "us versus them" organism energy transfer relationships need to be expanded upon; terms such as parasitic, commensal, symbiotic, etc. don't address the fact that the 'them' is really a part of "us". Pregnant women don't think of their future children as parasites (which is what they technically are - even the beefed up immune system the future moms get is a function of that short lived organism, the placenta). 

Perhaps we are just some giant "pre-frontal cortex" type of ambulatory appendage which exists for the purpose of spreading bacterial colonies. :(

Oh, the irony of self-awareness and tool making intelligence being an evolutionary device in the service of getting that bacterial colony to vault over the edge of the giant petri dish called Earth.

Can you picture the scientific community awarding Escherichia coli a PhD? Dr. E Coli, you are the best part of us!

We must now bow and scrape to the pinnacle of evolution, the reigning king of Darwinian evolutionary competition, that fine fecal fellow, Dr. Escherichia coli.

Now some folks out there on Wall Street might take offense to being outcompeted by Dr. E. coli. They might even say it's a shitty deal!  ;D  Others will have no problem relegating Wall Streeters and the rest of the 1% to the category of "lower life forms" in comparison to gut bacteria even if the other 99% of Homo sap are included.

A commenter named, Lee Davis was not amused by the implications of research in the direction the article was pointing:

Quote
Absolutely. "Manage" the Earth's biodiversity at your own peril. Destroy the rainforests at your own peril. Acidify the ocean with CO2 at your own peril. I read "Science and Survival" by Barry Commoner in 1964. Since then, human "management" of the planet has continued apace, with little regard for long term consequences. The only thing he called attention to that was actually changed was the halt in atmospheric nuclear testing, but we've managed to replace that pollution with the exhaust from nuclear power plant meltdowns. Half-assed demigods we certainly are, not playing with a full deck and with little understanding of how the game is played. Of course, we THINK we know it All now...and if we don't, our computing machines certainly do.

Click here for Part 2


1.   http://the-scientist.com/2012/03/01/who-are-we-really/#comment-464838811
2.   http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8393081.stm
3.   http://www.scb.se/Pages/TableAndChart____104319.aspx
4.  http://www.e3network.org/papers/Why_do_state_emissions_differ_so_widely.pdf
5.   http://www.executivetravelmagazine.com/articles/flying-on-private-jets
6.   http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/29/private-jets-green
7.   http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/high_flyers
8.   http://www.greendrinkschina.org/news/chinas-per-capita-carbon-emissions-solidly-reach-developed-nation-levels/
9.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita
10. http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
11. http://green.wikia.com/wiki/Carbon_Footprint_of_American_Cities
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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📢 Together we stand. Divided we fail.
« Reply #91 on: March 14, 2022, 01:35:44 pm »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

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