STUPIDITY EVOLVED

STUPIDITY EVOLVED   (Originally posted 9/26/12)

An Andrew Tirade

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”

-Albert Einstein

My fourteen-year-old son started high school a few weeks back.  As we all remember to a greater or lesser extent, high school is the true proving ground for Evolutionary Science.  It proves that diversity doesn’t always benefit development.  It also proves that adaptation tends to flounder more than it fails or succeeds.  Most of all, this time we spend in transformation from childhood to maturity reveals a certain undeniable truth; Natural Selection favors physicality, not brains.   In fact, personal experience has lead me to conclude that any intellect developed by the human race to this point, is nothing but a divergent accident of the evolutionary process.  The reality is that Natural Selection, favors survivability, and as any Saturday afternoon trip to Walmart will assure, smarts has nothing to do with our reproductive survival.  It is my position that this evolutionary spike in learning and intelligence that has occurred over the past 7,000 or so years, is nothing more than a temporary anomaly.  Without question, the next few millennia will bring us back to our natural state.  This is the one where we pissed in our drinking water and ate tree bark for a few hundred thousand years.  This is not really as bad a thing as it is natural and in keeping with Evolutionary Science, because as I have always believed, adaptation and natural selection favor stupidity much more than intellect.

I THINK YOU KILLED IT PAL

This was the conversation that I had with my son, Jake during his second week of high school:

“Hey Buddy, how was school today?”

“Uh, okay I guess.”

“Why?  Have you been having a problem with anybody?”

“No, not really a problem.”

“Well was there an incident then?”

“I kinda guess it was.  My friend Noah started yelling at me when I sat down at his table for lunch.”

“Why would he yell at you?  I thought you guys are friends?”

“Well when I sat down, Noah and four of his friends arguing with another two guys at the table about how evolution isn’t real.”

“So what did you do?”

“Just sat there and ate my lunch for about five minutes, then Noah asked me what I think.  So I told him I believe in evolution.”

“How did that go over?”

“They gave me really angry looks and then Noah told me ‘that’s really stupid!’ So then I asked him ‘why do you think that’s stupid?’ So then he got really mad and told me ‘Because it’s proven that evolution is false in the Bible!’”

“Sounds like a pretty heavy lunch.”

“Yeah, so then I asked him ‘Is there any physical evidence in the bible which proves evolution is false?’ So he answered back ‘No, but there is no proof for evolution either.’ So I told him ‘Yes there is, haven’t you ever been to the Museum of Natural History?’”

“Good for you buddy!  What did he say to that?”

“He told me how stupid I am again.  Then I decided that it was pointless to argue and I walked away.”

Jake went on to tell me that he no longer associates with those kids because they bring up the “evolution thing” every time he sees them.  As a person of Universal Faith and the firmest belief in Science and the Scientific Method, I tried to explain to my son what I believe to be a fundamental truth; “You can’t argue faith with science and you can’t prove science with faith.”  I think Jake got it, when he said; “It’s kinda like the circle thing right dad?”  Recalling a recent conversation we had about what was around before the Universe, before the Big Bang.  “That’s right buddy, it’s like trying to find the corner of a circle.  You just can’t.”  Now Jake just avoids the lunchroom revival meetings.  I’m proud of him, however, I reminded him that to avoid them is good, but to ignore them is bad because before you know it, one of them could turn into a Pogrom!

Here is the nickel version of Evolution, as I understand it.  You have any group of animals.  Then every so often, they accidentally produce a random mutation.  Lets say brown bunnies have snow white babies.  Well, those mutations aren’t very good, because the white bunnies are highly visible to predators, which makes them more likely to have shorter lives and less likely to pass along their whiteness to the next generation of baby bunnies.  Pray for snowy winters bunnies!  On the other side of this evolutionary coin, every once in a while these same brown bunnies have baby bunnies with dark brown spots mixed in with their medium brown pelts.  These spots work to naturally camouflage the bunnies, making them less visible to predators.  So these babies live longer and pass along their spots to their babies who in turn do the same.  Being that the regular brown bunnies are at a disadvantage compared to the spotted bunnies with regard to survivability, competition for food resources and making new bunnies they eventually are replaced by the new “super” spotted bunnies.

Obviously spread over long expanses of time, this Natural Selection leads to big changes on an “as needed” basis.  Now exactly why is this against religion again?  We all play at this little game when we go to see somebody’s new baby and comment; “Oh how precious, she has her fathers Toucan like nose!” or“Would you look at that.  He has his mother’s disproportionately short limbs and elongated cranium.  Isn’t that just darling?”  Like I said, most of the random mutations and passed along traits are whopping failures.  We all can’t be spotted bunnies; some of us just have to settle for working the drive thru at White Castle.

Hence we arrive at the big question.  Does this controversial evolution thing favor intelligence?  It should, but as we all know from Real Housewives of New Jersey, human success, at least in the monetary and material sense of the word would seem to indicate otherwise.  Maybe brains helped a little back in our hunter/gatherer days, but I think smarts has run its course and we are all now slowly and steadily boarding the train for Dumb Dumb Town!  Think about it, we’re a really young species as the fossil record indicates.  In a short time, with our freaky accidental smarts we have figured out how to make fire, domesticate animals, communicate across vast distances, and invent the Shake Weight.  Great!  Or maybe not great, according to Mr. Darwin’s findings.

PEOPLE ACTUALLY BOUGHT THIS!  NEED I SAY MORE?

The last time I checked, horses didn’t invent calculus, elephants didn’t build the Great Pyramids, and my dogs are still having a really tough time reading Shakespeare.  This isn’t because they don’t want to do these things, however from the inception of the evolution of smarts, they didn’t have to!  For hundreds upon millions of years, they didn’t need developed intelligence, and for most of humanity’s extended history, we didn’t either.  Maybe without truly knowing it, this is what Jake’s new archenemies were getting at.  Yes, there is a fossil record.  That is indisputable.  (If you would like to dispute it, I will bring you on an all expenses paid tour of the Museum of Natural History in New York.  If you continue to disagree during the visit, I will throttle you somewhere between the T-Rex skeleton and the giant Easter Island head in the Margret Mead wing. )  However, what is disputable is at what point did man’s intelligence enable him to leave the world of nature and construct a world of his own.

This would be the time when God, or whatever you chose to accept as a higher power, lifted us out of the world of beasts and taught us how to finally wipe our asses.  One of the older calendars on the planet puts us in the year 5773.  That’s puts us back to the very beginning of our recorded history.  Not the beginning, but close to the beginning of the world, as we know it.  These were the days when our race really started to control our environment in earnest.  This was the era when our evolution stopped modifying us and we started modifying the world to suit our needs.   So I see the lunch table fundamentalists point, although I see it on my terms.  Terms, which I am sure that any 14-year-old zealot would consider “stupid.”

Maybe a higher power did trigger the event that raised us up out of the evolutionary process.  And it’s likely that evolution plays a major role in the creation of intelligence, albeit not a wholly necessary part.  A very wise ignoramus once said; “If ya ain’t goin forward, you’re a goin backward.”  This being said, evolution is possibly still working in a subtle way upon humanity.  And we are willingly immersing ourselves into the process with loving abandon.  This affair of the mind is what leads us back to the real question.

Are we getting stupider?  Damn right we are!  I say this with a high degree of uneducated bloviating confidence.   Just watch animal planet on a Saturday night(for something other than documentary footage of rhino’s “doing it”, although that is as entertaining as hell) and one can immediately observe that in majority of the animal kingdom, females are not inclined to accept their mates based on any display of intelligence.  In fact, color, strength, and aggression are way ahead of smarts when it comes to reproductive success.  In fact the archetype of the “simple handsome lug” of a man wins the day ninety nine percent of the time.  Now guys, don’t start getting all high and mighty about why David Beckham gets more chicks than you.  Trust me, men are more responsible for bottom feeding for intelligence in their mates than their female counterparts.  In fact, I would bet my last cent that if I asked 20 men what kind of woman they find attractive, brainy wouldn’t be anywhere near their top five desirable attributes.

Should we blame ourselves for our devolution into dumb-dumbs?  No not really, it’s just the way we were made from the beginning.  Our smarts are obviously one of natures more pronounced accidents in Mother Nature’s otherwise spotless 4 billion year track record.   She always seems to clean up her mistakes in the end, but for now, I wonder what she looks like naked?

ALL THOSE BOOKS

ALL THOSE BOOKS

An Andrew Ramble

A few years ago I started asking myself a simple question.  This was it; “Why do I keep almost every book I read?”  It was getting out of hand.  I had stacks of books on shelves, in boxes, and even under my bed.  Now let me go back and preface this by saying that I am a reader, but I’m not what I would consider an avid reader.  This is to say that I probably knock off about a dozen books a year, give or take.  It’s amazing how even at this modest pace, just how quickly they accumulate.

The problem was amplified by the fact that people like to share books, especially if they know you enjoy reading.  They start telling me you MUST READ this or that, and being that I understand the personal and often intimate connection that grows between a reader and the page, I am hesitant to wave off these “shared books” or “gift books.”  It’s just bad form to do that, besides I would hate to hurt a fellow readers feelings that deeply.  So I ended up with a bunch of books from a bunch of writers that don’t interest me much, such as Robin Cook, James Patterson, and Tom Clancy.  I also ended up with a bunch of books from writers such as Michael Chabon or David Foster Wallace.  Writers I respect and would like to read, but I just can’t seem to follow.  I would like to think that my comprehension is unlimited, but a few sessions trying to cut through works like Wallace’s, Infinite Jest or Faulkners, The Sound and the Fury, quickly dispelled any illusions I previously had about my unlimited potential with regard to reading comprehension.

So, I did what I think many of us do with furnishings, trinkets, and toys that we tire of.  I got rid of them.  Some went to friends, some went to the public library, but most just went in the ole garbage can.  When I look at what is left I am struck by a realization.  The books that remain are not my favorite stories or my greatest reading accomplishments.   They are the books that I always grab off the shelf, shuffle through, and look for certain memorable passages, or as I like to think of them, brilliant flashes.  Passages that have stuck with me over the years and have saved the lives of these paperback masterpieces from being packed away for a garage sale or given away to people like myself who don’t really want them.  Most of the time these passages contain what I consider to be great writing.  Other times I have made some personal connection with what the author was saying and I continue to draw inspiration from their writing.  This is all very high minded, but the main thing that draws me into a passage it this; If I read it aloud, and it sounds really cool, then I’m hooked.

Every once in a while I reach over to my bedside bookshelf that now contains the few remnants of a once vast, often unread personal library, and I pull out one of these books.  Sitting on the edge of the bed, I sit and read the dog-eared page or the long ago underlined passage, and I continue to be amazed.  Maybe one or two of these writings has before, or will now, amaze you as well.  Or you just might be like me and only be occasionally interested in the literary likes of another.  Either way, please enjoy or ignore.

MOBY DICK, by Herman Melville

The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men fell eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung.  That intangible malignity which has been from the beginning; to whose dominion even the modern Christians ascribe one-half of the worlds; which the ancient Ophites of the east reverenced in their statue devil; -Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them; but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it.  All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick.  He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.

SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, by Kurt Vonnegut

I looked through the Gideon Bible in my motel room for tales of great destruction.  The sun was risen upon the Earth when Lot entered into Zo-ar, I read. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven; and He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

So it goes.

Those were vile people in both those cities, as is well known.  The world was better off without them.

And Lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been.  But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.

So she was turned to a pillar of salt.  So it goes.

ON THE ROAD, by Jack Kerouac

The one thing that we yearn for in our living days, that makes us sigh and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, it the remembrance of some lost bliss that was probably experienced in the womb and can only be reproduced (though we hate to admit it) in death.  But who wants to die?

LORD JIM, by Joseph Conrad

He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built, and he advanced straight at you with a slight stoop of the shoulders, head forward, and a fixed from under stare which made you think of a charging bull.  His voice was deep, loud, and his manner displayed a kind of dogged self-assertion which had nothing aggressive in it.  It seemed a necessity, and it was directed apparently as much at himself as at anybody else.

A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT, by Norman Maclean

“It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us.”

Now nearly all those I loved and did not understand when I was young are dead, but I still reach out to them.

Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn’t.  Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening.  Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence faces to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.  The river was cut by the worlds great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time.  On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops.  Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.

I am haunted by waters.

~

SOCALIST

SOCIALIST!  (Originally posted 8/10/12)

an Andrew rambling tirade

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” 
- John Steinbeck

Politically, I have been called a lot of lousy names over the years.  Back when I was a deluded young man and erroneously thought I knew something about the world, people called me a Republican.  Then the day arrived when I realized that I’d probably live and die in the same class I was born into.  This was when I came to be called a Democrat.  When I started thinking about the necessity and enormity of the American government, a government that realistically will never get any smaller, I started to say; “since we have this amazing resource, that we pay a fair share of money for, we should demand and expect great things of it.”  For this I was labeled a Liberal.  However, the most offensive label ever to be hung over me came about as the result of a simple question; “Why is my monthly health insurance premium more than my mortgage?” 

After asking this question a few times, I also found myself saying things like; “Maybe it would be a good idea for the bloated slobs on and around Wall Street to receive the same level of government oversight that the food manufactures, the airlines, the fishermen, the farmers, the builders, and the doctors endure.”  This has resulted in several of my peers fondly referring to me a Fucking Socialist!  Well, I don’t know about that, but I’m willing to look a little bit further.  Maybe they’re onto something?

Back when my parents were children and the Blitzkrieg Raged (Thanks Mick & Keith), being called a Socialist wasn’t the worst political jab a person with opposing beliefs could hurl your way.  Back then the biggest, baddest political label one could acquire was Fascist.  I can say with a high degree of confidence that Fascism was a one of the lesser gifts that the Italians have given to the world, but then again, anyone who ever owned a Fiat would surely beg to differ.  Regardless of its birthplace, I never really had a good handle on exactly what Fascism was, so I did something that a self-proclaimed “know it all” like myself almost never does.  I looked it up!

Government marked by centralized authority under a dictator exhibiting strict socio-economic control.  Governing marked by suppression of opposition through terror and censorship also 

demonstrating belligerent nationalism and racism.

Sounds Lovely!  Well, to put it mildly, it never really caught on in the long term.  Its’ chief advocate and spokesperson Benito Mussolini (Il Duce or The Duce), really wasn’t a “people person.”  (What a cool nickname though!)  To this end, his people executed him.  This happened while Mussolini, his girlfriend, and some other members of The Duce Fan Club attempted to sneak out of Italy in July of 1943.  After shooting the whole bunch of them, their Fascist carcasses were promptly hung on meat hooks outside an Esso station and beaten like piñatas.  As a final salute to Il Duce, his genitals were severed and stuffed into the mouth of his chicky, Carla Petacci, who was hanging out beside him.  This, as well as the innumerable atrocities committed by the Fascists, left the world with a bad taste for this type of government from that time on.  (Pun completely intended)

But what about the Socialists?  Well, it seems like they started materializing in America during the Great Depression.  Sure, it’s widely believed that WWII was the deathblow to The Great Depression, but the reality is that America was actually almost out of it by the start of the war.  However, during the depression, F.D.R had this massive Socialist program called The New Deal, which really saved the day.  Hell, even my grandfather worked for some of these socialist programs (The WPA among others). (I’m not going to elaborate here, but look it up if you’re interested.)  So in a sense, Socialism is partially responsible for me being here today.  I don’t know if the New Deal style of Socialism has a place in the world today, but it sure helped put food on the table during the hard times before “The War Effort” truly put America back to work.  Thank you Adolph!

GRANDPA WORKED HERE

In those desperate times these government-sponsored programs fed my mother, her sister, and all of my uncles.  Additionally, they built a lot of the infrastructure that we take for granted today.

Up until the time I was an adult, the Soviet Union was alive, if not so well.  Starting soon after the Communists helped us wipe out the Nazi’s, they became the new bad guys.  From what I can gather, as the Cold War heated up and dragged on, Communism came to ultimately be defined as the engine which drove an “Evil Empire.”  Just to make sure the “Reds” never got totally out of control we would kick their ass’s every few years.  Not really kick their ass’s, but rather make a movie about kicking their ass’s.  We sent in Rambo to take them down with a bow and arrow on the long lost battlefields of Viet Nam.  Then after taking a nasty beat down from the Italian Stallion, they had the unmitigated gall to attack the (now long forgotten)serenity of small town Colorado, in Red Dawn.  Little did they know that

Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Charlie Sheen, and Jennifer Grey, among other lesser Brat Packers, were just waiting for them, cocked, locked, and loaded with a can of 1980’s Whoop Ass!  Take that Comrades!  Score one for the Wolverines!

YOU GOIN DOWN COMMIES

But who were these Communists and what made being a Communist so bad?  Again I had some vague notion, but nothing really concrete.  So once again, I looked it up!

Communism is a system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single often authoritian party holds power.  They claimed their goal was to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.

Nice idea!  I think John Lennon even wrote a song about this idea.  Imagine that?  However, there is a huge problem with Communism, and this is it; it looks good on paper, but when you start adding real life human beings into the equation, it just doesn’t work.  Homo Sapiens are truly creatures of individual achievement.  We fight to achieve, we fight to learn, we fight to build, and we fight to conquer everyone and everything.  In addition to of all this fighting, we are also the most selfish, self-serving, cruel, and completely corrupt group of primates on the planet.  These are not traits that are well suited for a communal government and social system.  Despite this, we gave all the credit for its demise to Ronald Regan and none to human nature.  So the walls came down and Free Trade Capitalism won, allowing the former Commies to wear Nike’s, Listen to Rap Music, and watch reruns of The Nanny on flat screen TV’s.  Hooray for us!  We won the Cold War!

But where were the Socialists?  If memory serves, the only time I heard about Socialism in my formative years was in relation to medical services.  Every so often a corduroy clad, knit tie wearing Liberal would pop out of the bushes squawking his Socialized Medicine mating call. Now I know that the majority of folks don’t like to hear this, but let’s not forget that Socialized Medicine has existed in the USA since 1965  (Look up The Great Society if you want to know more) when Medicare and Medicaid were introduced to lend a hand in caring for the poor and elderly.  Sure these are flawed programs, sure people take advantage of them, but the reality is that they truly help a great many more people than they hurt.  So in my mind, Socialism attached to medicine is kind of a nice thing.  The strange thing is that nobody seems to talk about the Socialism we already have, the Socialism that works, and the Socialism that could work much better.  Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and other Conservative Puppet Heads, just like to use Socialism as a slur, where no slur is really intended in the word.  It’s just like when I walk out of a room and all the Goyim turn to one another and exclaim, Fucking Jew!  (And to think, people say I’m paranoid.)  Really, it’s ok.  It’s only an insult when we choose to make it one.  So call me a Socialist all you want.  As an insult, it’s totally irrelevant.

These days I’m a former Moderate Republican.  This is to say that I am a Liberal Democrat.  Not a Welfare Democrat, not a Progressive, just an old fashion Liberal Democrat or as I like to say; “I’m a Liberal with sanity.”  The thing is, that these days having this political identity makes me a target for the “name callers” who like to call me a Socialist.  Again, I think I know what Socialism is, but I’m not totally sure.  So I looked it up!

Socialism is a system whereby the ownership of capital, resources, and production capability reside with and are controlled by the citizens. In theory, citizens have equal access to the products and resources and are compensated based on the amount of work performed. This form of economic control claims to have the benefit of allocating resources, services and compensation equitably among the population. In other words, the system purports to be fair to everyone and to provide everyone with an equal piece-of-the-pie.

Wait a second!  That just sounds like “ Communism Lite.”  That’s not my thing at all!  I’m a very independent person.  I run an private independent company.  I make my own decisions and blaze my own path.  I’m a “poster child” for Capitalism for Christ Sake!  Socialism as I read it here is just plain un-American.  I don’t want to be a part of this type of system and I don’t need to be a part of this type of system.  So why would anyone call me a socialist?

It all comes down to recognizing one simple question.  The question of need.  There is a growing list of things that a growing number of people in America the Beautiful do in fact need and don’t in fact have.  We can start with the “old reliable” affordable healthcare and go anywhere:  education, effective public transportation, elder care and the list just goes on and on.  And here is the real question.  Who’s going to fill these needs?  Bond Traders?  Investment Bankers?  Internet Entrepreneurs?  Film Makers? General Contractors?  Engineers?  Oil Companies?  No Way.  I’m telling you who’s got do it, the same folks who provide for our national defense, our federal law enforcement, our disease-control agencies, and even our space program.  Things that I personally don’t need at any given moment, but when I do need them, I’m certain that they will be a functional and essential resource.  This is what we have a government for in the first place.  To help us in times of need.  Not to provide nightly news entertainment, but to actually do something.  Government in general is really just a big insurance policy for its citizens.  Do I like paying insurance?  No way, but I know I need it.  Do I like paying taxes and paying to support the government?  No way, but I know I need it.  And as long as we have it and as long as we need it, let’s demand great things of it!  And let’s always keep in mind that if we ever get to the “tipping point” where the true need of the majority outweighs the fickle want of the minority, some big ugly changes will be headed our way!

So am I a Socialist?  I think I’ll answer that question with a big fat NO.  But the only reason I’m not, is simply because I don’t need to be… for now.  The day will come when I’ll be a 71-year old codger.  My prostate will surely be the size of a cantaloupe and my knees will be about as functional a rusty door hinges.   Most likely, I’ll be scraping to survive on a diet of Ramen Noodles and Crystal Lite like every other old fart of my generation.  And who’s going to take care of me?  Who’s going to fix my pains?  Some good old fashion Socialized Medicine and Social Security, that’s who.   No, I don’t buy into it as a system of government, but if some aspects of Socialism are someday going to help me eat, walk, and piss, just show me where to sign!

~