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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]Calvin Harris - Feel So Close (Crystal Shyps Remix)
Thantifaxath - Ten Thousand Years Of Failure (Intro) + Violently Expanding Emptiness
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Astral Melancholy - Instrumental
Depressive/Ambient Black Metal from Rovaniemi, Finland
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In that day, as in some ancient time when a great king was overthrown and the remnants of the conquered peoples were jubilant against him—in that day when the fir trees rejoice and the cedars, crying out, “Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us?” Will the deer and the foxes and the quail exult: “Art thou also become weak as we are, art thou become like unto us? Is this the man that made the earth to tremble?”
(“Thy pomp is brought down to thy grave and the noise of thy viols; the worm is spread under thee and the worms cover thee.”)
No—none will say such words, and none will be left to think them, and the book of the prophet Isaiah will moulder unread. Only, the spike-buck will graze father from the thicket and not know why, and the fox cobs will play beside the dry fountain in the square, and the quail hatch her eggs in the tall grass by the sundial.
-George R. Stewart
Earth Abides
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Since long before the weaver spun the granite
And the sea
I took my seat in shallow vale
And watched the heavens weave and dodge
Above my head
From starlight lodge
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Modern Society As An Evolutionary Detriment
Fans of Darwin will be quick to tell you that nature favors the strongest and smartest creatures. Those most capable members of their species shall pass on their genes to successive generations, allowing the species to improve and ultimately survive. If natural selection is the will of nature, then surely we humans are slowly but surely becoming better versions of our ancestors. But are we really?
The age we live in has been described as “progressive”, with everything we utilize a result of said progress, and everything we do ushering humanity farther into our progressive age. None can refute the fact that human technological prowess has grown exponentially since the industrial revolution, and the quality of life for those within the warm light of progress has significantly improved.
But what of humanity itself? Is our evolution following the same upward trend as our technology? The simple answer is no. To understand why, one must better understand the mechanism of evolution itself. Evolution does not merely reward the best suited members of a species, but also those who are most capably and frequently reproduce. Normally this is countered by the fact that even though there is a higher quantity of less capable genes in the gene pool, those traits will be more susceptible to the rigors of nature and will die off in greater numbers. This is natures law.
What happens when you remove the rigors of nature from the equation? You take away the balancing force in natural selection. The unfit but fastest reproducing members will begin to overpopulate and by sheer volume alone, will eventually out compete their more genetically capable brethren.
Now let us take a look at modern humans. The typical human being is an apex predator in it’s natural environment. The few animals that actively predate humans are quickly killed off or diminished to such low numbers that they no longer become a threat. Medicine has stopped many a deadly pathogen in it’s tracks, shutting down yet another avenue for natural selection to do it’s work. The only thing that really kills us anymore is ourselves, either through homicide or simple biological failure.
Even this wasn’t a serious problem until recently. In pre-industrial agrarian societies, having many offspring was essential to keep everyone fed and alive. Once men began to move to the cities, though, things began to spiral downward.
With the job of hundreds now replaced by a single man with a harvester, there was no need to reproduce in the vast numbers we previously had. In fact, children became almost a detriment to the success of the parent. One simply could not raise a child while attempting to pursue higher education. The birthrate then plummeted in educated societies.
The less educated regions on the other hand, reproduced in the same pre-industrial numbers they always had. As the unintelligent and uneducated reproduce faster, their numbers begin to rise. The average global IQ may soon begin to fall as intelligence is no longer a favored trait.
Our progressive society, in taking away the perils of nature and denying natural selection the ability to do what it does best, may actually be doing the human race more harm than good. Perhaps we may evolve into two separate races, reminiscent of the future in H.G. Wells The Time Machine, or perhaps begin to devolve until we are as savages once more, and truly the meek shall inherit the earth. With all our progress, we are still at the mercy of nature, and when we attempt to circumvent her methods in the name of progress, we may find ourselves in fact moving backwards.
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