Early Human Evolution---Evolution Pt 1

Early Human Evolution

Those who tend to doubt such great species changes during the evolutionary process would do well to remember that humans themselves, through selective breeding of dogs, have achieved great changes. The wide variety of dog breeds that exist today are primarily through human manipulative breeding. Today we can actually insert a new gene into the genome through recombinant DNA and genetic engineering. What this all means is not certain, but certainly it is possible that undesirable genes will be removable and more desirable gens inserted. Maybe we will all order our babies from Amazon and of course that means all babies will look like you and I—the end product of perfection.

We know from fossils that humans started to exist around 2.5 million years ago, a rather late entry into the evolutionary scene. We know they existed, but what can we really say about how they lived? Not much, and at this early stage, humans had little more impact on their environment than other species. We were hunter/gatherers back then, had only small groups which constituted independent groups one from another. If humans stayed ‘stupid’, relatively speaking, until 70,000 to 30,000 years ago it was because with no written language they had to learn things all over again, essentially from start. It was the same simple things with every generation, like what kind of berries were safe to eat, where to find the best food, the best hunting, and how to hunt.  Even watching film clips of interactions of modern man with those groups isolated from modern civilizations is hard to interpret, outside the fact that these primitive people know so little. With so little knowledge there must have been a lot of fear of just about everything. Life expectancy was short, at least for most humans back then, especially for the young. Maximum life expectancy has not really changed that much over time for humans; what has changed is that so many more people live relatively healthy lives longer. If we manage to locate the genes involved in aging, remove them or inactivate them, the consequences will be scary. We are already overpopulating the planet, let alone everyone live a lot longer. 

All this fear, of just about everything around them, created Gods of some sort, usually many Gods. Nature was a big source of their fear. When famines, droughts, diseases, etc happened it was viewed as a case of the Gods being angry at them. Response was to try and placate the angry Gods. This started offerings of things humans thought valuable, and then animal sacrifices on alters, even humans. I have already realized the early stages of human existence, from 2.5 millions years ago to about 100,000 years ago will remain mostly mysterious because while we know humans existed from fossil evidence, we know little else about them simply because language and writing did not yet exist. . 

Intelligent abstract communication requires anatomical capabilities to speak, as well as brain power to generate intelligent complicated thoughts. While we evolved originally from apes or chimpanzees, any understanding of what humans were really like functionally, back then, is imagination on our part. Scientists do seem to agree that humans were social but in groups of less than 150.  Greater size groups than that were not feasible because humans don’t really have the capacity to relate personally to everyone in larger groups. The groups functioned isolated from each other because tolerance for strangers was non existence. This helps explain why their enemies, if captured, were often used as sacrificial lambs on the alter to gain the good will of the Gods.  This lack of tolerance for humans strange to ourselves exists today for many humans. As a physiologist I wonder what kind of mental stress existed back then, and what role the stress hormones played, and to what extent the stress-response role played in their lives. It seems probable (but not provable) that back then humans reacted to sudden stressful situations much like animals do today. Even our domestic pets like dogs and cats, if suddenly stressed either run or fly into a rage (fight or flight) but then a short time later, when the threat is gone, they are usually quickly back to their old self. I reckon one could argue otherwise that early humans were so fearful of everything that they were under constant stress. I would doubt this though, as compared to today when we are often under constant stress from so many interactions with others and with endless matters important to ourselves. Back then life was much simpler. You got hungry, you hunted for food. You ate and were satisfied. You got tired, you slept. If food got scarce, your group packed up and moved on. No one was amassing a lot of personal property. If you needed a primitive tool that someone else had, you borrowed it. Shelter from the weather was a primitive hut or a cave or whatever. 

Our species, homo sapiens, was only one of 6 human species. The others became extinct. Humans originated in Southern Africa and then, with time spread north and then east and west. How homo sapiens survived is guesswork but most likely we eliminated the competition. just like today our activities has created the 6th mass species extinction period in evolutionary history. I wonder what the status was of human brain power back then? Since nothing changed much with our species for millions of years, it seems maybe no further advancement could be made until enough brain power existed for consequent changes in behavior. But everything is guesswork. The answers are probably lost forever. 

Lifespan was very short back then, especially for children. Death was common and so I wonder if they had more or less fear than we do today of death. I am going to guess they had less fear of death precisely because it was so common. For example, when terroristic acts first occurred in our present day situation, we were all appalled and shook up after 9/11 for quite some time. But terroristic acts are now common place occurring almost daily—and certainly weekly, so our reactions become dimmed. We can know little about the amount or nature of kindness, hate, sadness, laughter, personalities, work hours, sleep hours, entertainment, religious rituals, sex habits, marriage, and so on back then. It is hard to imagine, but surely back then it was a mystery to them as to where babies came from. Sex was likely not monogamous back then so becoming pregnant was likely thought to have come from something eaten, or a gift from one of the Gods etc. Today, on the internet, one can find porn relating to maybe 50 different kinds of human sex acts. I guess we will never know what kind of sex acts were engaged back in the early days of human existence.  I am going to guess that some of it we would not now consider normal and yet normal would seem to be saved for what kind of sex acts came first. But we don’t know that. Most people today realize that whatever two people consider sexual turn-ons is normal for them. We scratch our heads and like the long ago lady in Britain said; “I don’t care what they do as long as they don’t do it in the street and scare the horses.”. Of course many people still feel otherwise. I wonder if some people can’t enjoy themselves in bed due to their worries about what other couples might be doing in bed. Given all the tensions sex can cause in a marriage maybe the lucky couples are the ones who have little interest in sex, considering it a messy, dirty, icky kind of activity. Actually, I don’t think I have ever met anyone who can turn the subject of sexual acts into any kind of logical, scientific, ethical discussion, and that includes those who insist the only reason for sex is to produce children. That isn’t even true anymore since we have sperm banks, and test tube babies carried to term by a surrogate pregnancy. Another one of those “stop the world, I want to get off” head spinning debates. 

We know that in modern times, if a child is not taught how to speak or write during their formative years, that they will not be able to, or do so with little skill thereafter. Most actions by other animals, like bees and ants, parrots, birds, etc. are innate, there is little learning required. They are wired to behave in certain ways. Some parrots can speak human language well with amazing memories and the ability to actually sound like the person they are mimicking, but they have no idea what they are talking about. Humans learn language, some easier than others and some better than others. Thus, genetics is involved but we still have to learn the language. So how does that fit in with early humans who had no language to be learned?  We can understand certain sounds may have been made when referring to a tree but that is not language really, just a name for something.

Many books have been written about life among the early humans, but I will simply jump to a period in time when we can really know something about how humans lived and behaved. I am not much into useless speculation unless it has to do with behavior by someone more modern who I can judge according to modernity. 

I just sailed through the first 2 million years of human history in shorter time than a musing on some personal experience for one afternoon. The length will surely get longer as we get into human history after these humans had well developed languages and writing. Then again, shallow impressional observations make it clear enough that some real ‘dodos’ from the primitive past have surfaced—ever since tweeting became available to every such dodo from the swamps of ancient forest life. Smile. Maybe, after all, some sort of ‘DUH?’ species of human is still around, never became extinct, and requires genetic testing done to send them back to the swamps where they came from. Who let them in to begin with?  Smile. I am not referring to you or I, but like Trump, this is 

only for now. There is always next week. I might turn on you any minute. I am disappointed that he never uses my favorite put down (when facing my own ignorance or failures:) “When I want any shit out of you I will squeeze your head”. He prefers insulting adjectives as opposed to calm reasonable discussion of almost any topic. 

Predictions On Which Nations Will Play Dominant Roles On The Economy In The Next Decade.

Predictions On Which Nations Will Play Dominant Roles On The Economy In The Next Decade.

These predictions were a tad rushed since I wanted to make them before two birds of a feather meet in Singapore and before any results materialize from the G7 conference in Canada. I no longer see myself as anything in the political arena except an observer. The next generation will need to confront and select courses of action. They have to live with the consequences --- my generation should get out of the way. We won’t but we should. 

I like predictions in that it puts someone on the spot after volumes have been written or stated by so many for so long on the global political future. 

Going into the summit with North Korea the U.S. has already lost. North Korea has already had individual talks with Russia, China, and South Korea. It looks right now that these neighboring countries have agreed to a NATO like agreement with China, Russia, and South Korea agreeing to defend North Korea against any American attack and end all trade boycotts against North Korea. North Korea will probably agree to inspectors from Russia, China, and maybe South Korea, but likely not US inspectors. What inspections mean is past my pay grade. In the past we have been told we cannot knock out North Korean missile launchers since they are mobile. Supposedly North Korea already has nuclear weapons. As far as labs are concerned for further research, why can’t these labs be mobile like the launchers? Once the technology is achieved it is not clear how much inspections mean. In short, Kim Jong un becomes a major trade partner in the huge Asian market, and gets to keep iron clad barbaric control over his own citizens.   

Meanwhile, China has put themselves into position to be the world’s main economic power. After a long series of horrible leaders like Mao and his successors, China has gotten serious about human overpopulation, climate change, pollution, poverty, and is able to best any agreements sought by U.S. firms on business deals with Third World / European  countries.

China some years back initiated a one child policy. This was very effective to the degree  now 2 children are ok, except few Chinese are jumping at this. The Chinese people are far more consumer orientated now than large family oriented. In the past 5 years 60 million people have been lifted out of poverty. The perplexing situation here is that China can implement progressive and mostly liberal policies because they are a dictatorship. They are the only country which has addressed human overpopulation. They now have universal health care for all citizens. And universal pension plans. Are they perfect yet? No. But they have power to make changes whereas the U.S. has been unable to make needed structural changes in our governance since the 70’s. Our advances in human rights have been noteworthy but the inability for the United States to stop the rapid shift of almost all our wealth to the already very wealthy is pitting large groups—like whites, blacks, hispanics, fundamentalists, non fundamentalists, environmentalists, non environmentalists, those with health care, those without health care, affluent neighborhoods, ghettos, athletes, fans, those with good pensions, those without good pensions, those with livable wages, those without livable wages, those who want to own weapons of mass destruction and those who want weapons of mass destruction banned, and so on—all theses groups being encouraged by politicians to blame each other for the  reasons behind the environmental and economic stagnation or decline of their daily lives. The latter is the primary force behind all the unrest.

China doesn’t have to get popular support to attack poverty in meaningful ways, regulate capitalism, put limits on capitalism, and now that it has decided the environment and climate change are important matters, they don’t have to sell it via elections to get meaningful action. As a consequence, Chinese GDP grew 6.7% last year while the U.S. grew 2.9%. By 2020 China will have a middle class of 600 million people and the U.S. 167 million people. China’s foreign investment activities have more than doubled since 2012, while the U.S. is pursuing an angry and unsympathetic attitude toward other foreign countries. A new coalition seems to be forming with democratic countries plus China on one side and Russia, North Korea, the United States, and assorted militaristic dictators across South America, Africa, Israel, and  Arab States in the Middle East on the other side. This is a truly noteworthy realignment of coalitions. Trump feels more comfortable with dictators and has already alienated the European allies. 

Everywhere that counts in terms of economic growth, China is rapidly moving ahead. The United States is focusing it’s attention on military expenditures even though we currently spend more than all the other industrial powers put together. After expending all this money-- the U.S. hasn’t won any wars after Korea aside from Granada.  We have won the killing fields war, always killing many times more than our adversaries have killed us. 

The American electric car manufacturer says it will shortly build 260,000 electric cars. China already sold 700,000 electric cars in 2017, offers subsidies to buyers to the tune of $15,000 per vehicle and is threatening to block automakers, which don’t make electric vehicles, from selling cars. Right now China is the world’s largest automotive market. The city of Shenzhen now has 16,359 all electric buses. The whole United States has 300.

American governance hasn’t done anything effective to reduce the size and personal safety of our urban and rural ghettos for over 50 years. These huge poverty pockets have become so unsafe for the residents that the greatest number of individuals with post traumatic stress syndrome are not veterans from terroristic type conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and so on, but people—especially children in their formative years—in our urban and rural ghettoes. Chronic levels of stress hormones are doing to our huge ghetto populations what has been done to veterans in ghetto like wars abroad. The damage being done to children in our ghettos is often permanent, and this translates to poor employer choices for any kind of employment for them. What is the U.S. doing to help these economic deadbeats?  We are currently reducing whatever welfare they get via food stamps and whatever else, and telling them if they don’t accept work at slave wages, they will get no benefits at all. In essence, we are doing what we can to get rid of illegal immigrants as our most abused slave labor force, and replace them with American citizens who are trapped in our urban and rural ghettoes. The ethics here is mind boggling as is the strong support all this stuff is getting from fundamentalist Christians. 

China, on the other hand has a current goal to lift 1 million people out of poverty per year. Recently, in one province, the numbers of impoverished residents dropped by 25%. American farmers, in the meanwhile, have suffered a 45 percent drop in net farm income, the largest 3 year drop since the great depression. 

How can China be doing so much all at once while America can’t make structural changes in our governance in these areas?  Unregulated and no limit capitalism runs the United States at this point in history. We really have a corpocracy. China, on the other hand, has firm control over their capitalists. When China decides their ghetto regions are going to be eliminated, they control where companies can build new plants, or relocate—while providing, when necessary, ecological compensation, upgrading schools in the targeted areas, form cooperatives for the workers in which 30% of profits go to the villages to cover public spending, 30% goes to the company running the cooperative to expand production, and the remaining 40% is shared by the workers, who are often farmers. 

China’s troops are busy planting trees (and shutting down hundreds of coal plants), not blood shed in endless foreign wars, and are spending one tenth of their gross domestic product on artificial intelligence. In 2011 85% of Chinese preferred foreign brands, while in 2017 the preference for foreign brands dropped to 40%. China is concentrating on long maternity leaves, improved pensions, strict gun control, and is going after ‘fake internet’ news (I have no idea myself how to deal with this problem or how effective they are).

All of the above are just a few of the reasons why China is poised to be the economic leader of the next decade. Europe has already established itself the leader in terms of meeting the basic needs of their citizens with universal health care, reform of criminal justice systems, vacation periods, pension benefits, living wages, dealing with recreational drug abuse, and having their citizens score highest on the yearly global ‘happiness polls’.  China is copying their policies rapidly. But European countries, like the United States, are being hemmed in by democracy. Democracy is right now failing almost everywhere, whether measured by the number and quality of measures being taken to solve global problems, or in the quality of people who run for office. American elections have become endless circuses with all sorts of ignorant clowns using the forever campaigns to secure a yearly income rather than actually do anything like real work. 

Notice these predictions are for only the next decade. All the major problems today are global in nature and require unified global actions, but there is little indication any such cooperation seems likely. For example, wages can hardly become livable wages for many as long as there are no global minimum wages. As long as some workers, somewhere, are willing, or forced, to work at slave wages, then workers everywhere are trapped. 

Also vast military power with modern weapons of mass destruction coupled with drones and smart missiles are virtually obsolete, The days of uniformed armies fighting battles on battlefields is over. One smart bomb these days could eliminate the whole battlefield. Instead, every group, no matter how small, has access to a wide array of terroristic ways to create endless turmoil upon the society they wish to destroy or simply punish. More and more countries are finding ways to implant viruses in computers which coordinate whole vital industries, including the ability to launch a military missile attack. So far nothing real malicious has been done with these implanted viruses, but what if they decide to be malicious? All the atomic weapons in the world are worthless if they can’t be launched. 

Most disheartening is this: what good can really happen in a world saddled with national leaders like Putin, Kim Jong un, Netanyahu, Omar al-Bashir (Sudan), Mugabe (Africa), Ayahtollah Khamenei, Musharraf (Pakistan), Bashar al-Assad (syria), Erdogan (Turkey), Trump, and Duterte (Phillipines), The craziest is Equatorial Guinea’s Mbasogo. He tortures and kills political dissidents, skins enemies alive then eats their testicles, brains, and livers. He claims he is in constant touch with God. This is a very poor 2 bit country and yet the United Nations does nothing. Almost all of these leaders won an election of some sort, and all are ignorant and emotionally disturbed persons who in many cases claim to be hard core religious and yet have zero ethics, if we use the only universally accepted ethical Principle: the Golden Rule. 

With leaders like this— violence is in, tolerance for diversity is out; working together to help all constituents to have a better life is out, blaming minorities in their midst as the cause for all problems is in; name calling is in, reason and logic are out; justice is out, revenge is in.

Science has advanced to the point where most people could theoretically live a good and peaceful life with a good home, good schools, good jobs, adequate leisure time, good pensions, secure neighborhoods, and so on. Instead almost half the world live on less than $2.50/day; 80% live on less than $10/day, and more than 80% of the world’s population live in countries where income differentials are widening, albeit no where’s near the rate taking place in the U.S. 

There are roughly 75 million refugees in the world today with no home, no job—living in raggedy-ass tent cities on barren land. In most cases they were driven out of their native countries by the kind of leaders listed above. For plenty of logical reasons, no one wants these refugees. There are more refugees without homes than at any past point of human history. If one word could best describe human relationships in this age of cyberspace communication it would be disingenuous. There is no reason to consider that the Evolutionary process will end. But there is every reason to predict that a major correction, as severe as others in the past, will take place. 

Between 1970 and 2010, 52% of all of the world’s vertebrate animal populations—mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians—disappeared, and all because of activities by one species—humans. As the most advanced species yet in the evolutionary process, humans have become self-serving illusionists thinking our species is now running the evolutionary process. It is attacking this delusion that has earned me a not totally affectionate title of “Professor Doomsday” . The evolutionary process will go forward, on evolutionary time, while the near term, on human time, for the human race will not be so upbeat. The predictions in this musing are for just the next decade.  The age of global terrorism is going to be a very destructive age. I seem to have, without any planning, arranged for my earthly departure, if not exactly at the best time, at least reached an age where having lived a good life is a done deal. Time of death is now irrelevant.