Onward, Evolution!
The Mad Prophet
[...]
> Humans are optimised for hot dry climates where there is enough
> drinking water. We are very very good at sweating.... Before you
> choose to makek fundamental changes in our physiology, wouldn't it be
> good to make sure that there is an ecological niche waiting for the
> changed people?
What physical changes would make living in central Kentucky easier, let
alone North Dakota?
I think we've started already: we've managed to add a layer of blubber
like whales. But we haven't yet grown fur, which would be less costly
than fat because it'd be easier to shed during the warm months and
wouldn't shorten our lifespans.
We should cut out any heat source except for but locally-gathered and
directly-burned wood, coal or oil (as opposed to electricity or piped in
natural gas) so we could select from those who survive. If it turns out
that everybody who survives to reproduce is bald-bodied and "plus sized"
(instead of my own personal preference, thin and furry) then of course
our sexual aesthetics and cultural biases would change too. Unless we
were enslaved by alien lizards or those adapted for the tropics, in
which case we might still be psychologically fucked up the way black
people are who hate dark skin. (Wouldn't it be weird to have a white
race conquered by Africans, Maya or Tamils?)
We'll get there eventually after we've run out of easily accessible
big-time fossil fuel sources, after we leave a big sinkhole under the
Arab countries and flatten all the mountains we can, and we'd need more
infrastructure than we've bothered to start to replace petroleum and
coal with nuclear power or even natural gas. (Assuming with natural gas
that there's enough go around, which I doubt; I don't know what'll
happen after we've used up all the natural gas deposits either, while
it's obvious that getting all the coal from the Appalachians would leave
West Virginia flat if not sunken in.) It seems to me, given our species'
current level of (lack of) ingenuity, that we should go straight to
scarcity and get it over with.
We might also stop importing and/or mass-producing warm clothing
materials to make do with what's locally grown (or already stockpiled,
which could be made to last for a generation or two). It'd be better
from a strictly evolutionary perspective to abandon clothes entirely,
but frostbite and hypothermia might make that effort ludicrous.
It's clear to me that we've only managed to increase the birthrate in
colder climates by defeating our bodies' natural adaptations with
technological and economic innovations. We're not supposed to have so
many people in this climate: even the Mound Builders were far fewer
around here than us white folk are.
Speaking of which, light-skinned people aren't made for living in say
southern Mississippi or Florida either: doing without air conditioning
would also eventually decrease the "Aryan" population in those regions,
whether by lowering the birth rate, increasing the death rate through
mosquito-borne diseases or inspiring migration northward. Obviously it's
easier and quicker for humans to keep warm by getting fat than it is to
cope with heat by becoming darker-skinned (as opposed to just seasonally
tanned): in less than one generation the "First World" has chubbed up,
while there are as many pale pink blondes as there ever were.
Perhaps in so-called temperate climates like Kentucky or nothern
Virginia we'll select for slight chubbiness and increased hairiness,
while those in Alberta would be hairless and obese.
In Kentucky it seems humans would benefit by being medium-sized and
medium-skinned folks who each Fall gained a little wait and got hairier,
the way squirrels and such do, to shed hair and pounds in the Spring.
Then our area's current sexual aesthetics and cultural biases wouldn't
have to change very much: we'd mate more in late Spring or early Summer
when we look better -- thinner and not so hairy -- and so the latter
months of pregnancy would fall in Winter when it's easier to tolerate.
Going straight to fossil-fuel scarcity, say by failing to correct the
current global economic troubles, would increase evolutionary pressure
and thus our species' longevity -- albeit at the cost of a population
crash here and there. If my hunches are correct the said population
crash would mainly affect "White" people, but since we're the big
villains in the current unfeasible situation that's just too damn bad.
For the good of humanity the economy should collapse. Do what you can to
immanentize the eschaton!
Shambatically,
TheDavid
--
"We're legally crippled, it's the death of Love."
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Governor
medium-skinned folks who each Fall gained a little weight and got
hairier, the way squirrels and such do, to shed hair and pounds in the
Spring. Then our area's current sexual aesthetics and cultural biases
wouldn't have to change very much: we'd mate more in late Spring or
early Summer when we look "better" (thinner and not so hairy) and so the
Jim
> In Kentucky it seems humans would benefit by being medium-sized and
> medium-skinned folks who each Fall gained a little wait and got hairier,
> the way squirrels and such do, to shed hair and pounds in the Spring.
One big improvement Appalachians could make is mating
with people outside their immediate families.