China Ends One-Child Policy: https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-ends-one-child-policy-xinhua-105107793.html
I was shocked (in a good way - like when you hear a choir singing a sustained high Do together, with lots of vibrato)...until I saw that they changed it to a two-child policy, and only because the guys who made the policy are now old and dying and don't have kids to help them not die.
Suckas.
Ah, sociobiology. I wonder how many humans out there are keeping an eye on how we're affecting our own evolution? I know Robert Wright is one, and I'd like to see who else is. The act of humans not letting other humans live (forced abortions...can you imagine?)...that's an interesting one to me, and it manifests in all kinds of ways. I lean towards thinking that we would want new thinkers in this world to help solve the problems we older folk have created, but, I suppose if the little ones are using up "our" resources, evolutionarily speaking, I can see why people would resort to population control. But then, why not control the way we consume our resources? Why not preserve enough resources - even add resources - so our kids aren't left with a barren planet, and we can actually let them live - and they can take care of us when we're old and dying, the way humans have done for so many years?
When our own selfishness (not judging, just using the word) and trying to survive in our youth ensures our own death as we age...it's a problem. Or is it...?
And I just realized I need to watch some Star Trek....
But first, I want to rant a little more. Or maybe a lot more (hold on there, this could be a long one).
Kids are the future...and they'll evolve to handle whatever we leave 'em with. One key difference between humans and animals is that, because of our ability to choose to live in a way that's counterproductive to our own survival (not that we always do, just that we clearly have the ability to make that choice, with suicide as the most obvious example), we can change the course of our own evolution: we can mete ourselves out via the choices we make. But isn't that the opposite of what we're "supposed" to do? Animals seem to tend to stick with the program; nature follows its course whether they want it to or not...well...because there's no "wanting" for anything other than what they've evolved to want, which is survival and procreation. But...we're different from animals...aren't we?
Before we say whether population control is "bad" or "good" (well, okay, I was leaning towards "bad," but, as a scientist, if I'm wrong, it doesn't bother me - we just like to know what "is")...let's take a look at a disclaimer that Robert Wright, author of The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are - The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology uses at the beginning of his book. Wright poses that, when speaking of evolution, first we should separate the "ought" from the "is"-- and he's using an "ought," of course, but that differentiates a human and the science that explains the human. When we begin to explain our actions as a species, sometimes it may seem that we're using that explanation to excuse our actions as a species. And this is why evolutionary psychology, or any of its interchangeable nomers used as euphemisms, has received a bad rap, from ideas like "social Darwinism" as put into practice by people like Adolf Hitler (besides also having seemingly anti-religious implications, but I'm going to have to save that for another discussion; I'm a Christian Evolutionist, and that freaks people out).
To quote Wright, "[N]ature isn't a moral authority, and we needn't adopt any 'values' that seem implicit in its workings -- such as 'might makes right.' Still, a true understanding of human nature will inevitably affect moral thought deeply and, as I will try to show, legitimately" (10).
There's more. But speaking of evolution, typing out quotes from the book in your hand is so old-school. Evolution, technology, digital photo, *poof*...
When Robert Wright makes the case for evolutionary psychology as a legitimate science by saying, "Hey, understanding this can help us as individuals, and as a species," he's playing upon our very instinct of survival itself...and for me, it's worked. But he wasn't even the one who introduced me to the idea. My last boyfriend, who graduated with his B.A. in Psychology, gave me the book (well, let me borrow...and then broke up with me...so I'm keeping it :P) after I had presented him with my own ideas about it. The very study of evolutionary psychology, I'm convinced, is one of the things that's saving my life right now. My survival instinct is causing me to read about survival instinct. Makes sense, really. But will it work?
To what extent are humans able to change their ways? To what extent are all of our choices already governed by the laws of biology and sociobiology?
For example, both addiction and mental illness are fascinating phenomena, especially through the lens of sociobiology (again, interchangeably, evolutionary psychology). Are some of us simply programmed to kill ourselves to carry out natural selection? And in the case of murderers and rapists - those who take the survival and procreation instincts so far beyond their (seemingly) necessary purposes - is there something in their genes that, evolutionarily speaking, just needs to be passed on?
I began pondering the implications of evolutionary psychology and how natural selection applies to humans when I, a recovering alcoholic/addict diagnosed with borderline personality, bipolar, and anxiety disorders, experienced a 6-month suicidal depression that ended only after I was brutally bound, blindfolded, gagged and raped in April of this year when I answered a Craigslist ad that was misleading. It was supposed to be a modeling gig, and yes, maybe I should have known better, or made a better career move, but I'm less concerned with judging the whole thing as good or bad than with examining it scientifically. And maybe that's my programmed way of dealing with the trauma so I can continue to survive...unless natural selection just really has it out for me.
After the rape, I went into intensive therapy, picked up mixed martial arts, and got a job helping disabled people, all of which empowered me as a human being. And one morning while I was practicing my Kenpo, Tai Chi and Wing Chun behind my apartment complex (I did say "mixed" martial arts, lol), after I had happened to read the first few pages of Darwin's On the Origin of Species as a bedtime story the night before, I thought to myself,
"Why was my brain trying to kill me for six months? Am I not useful to the species, or something? And why did that guy have to rape me? He was certainly an alpha male...top Air Force rank...rich...Carlsbad mansion...is he just hard-wired to pass on his DNA at any cost?"
I thought of the juxtaposition between alcoholics/addicts/the mentally "ill" and rapists/murders (who should probably also be labeled "mentally ill," if you're willing to slap that label on people who don't murder and rape...just sayin'). I thought to myself, "To survive or die, to procreate or not...what if every single choice we as humans make leads to one of these ends, and what if it's all decided by natural selection?"
I meditated on it while feeling my body's fluid, slow movement, keeping every muscle in my consciousness as I held two full glasses of water in each hand, blindfolded, taking the far-reaching, balanced steps that I had learned as part of the "Kenchunchi," my thighs burning with an intensity that called for constant concentration...except my mind kept wandering.
"How are human addiction and human instinct linked? Could biological evolution be responsible for the immutable 'addictive nature' in certain humans, who are bodily and mentally different from their 'non-addicted' fellows? Might the 'addictive nature' be an adaptation or a variation working towards the aims of natural selection, either for a human's survival, or against it? Since humans have the psychological ability to make choices either aligned with or that conflict with their natural instincts, either leading to the survival of the individual and species, or, against it (leading to death), how does this ability to choose shape human evolution differently than the way adaptations, variations and natural selection shape evolution in the rest of the animal kingdom?"
I was on a sick one, lol. And I kept going...
"Does the phenomena of addiction and obsession occur only in humans, and not in the rest of the animal kingdom? What part does the variation of addiction and obsession play in natural selection among the human species? Since choices can be made to redirect addictions and obsessions (i.e. alcohol, sex, love, food, etc.) towards other 'objects' or avenues (i.e. work, spirituality, or altruism), if 'properly' redirected, can these unalterable conditions work to ensure the survival of the individual? Futhermore, could addiction, when applied to survival, then be a variation naturally selected to further the species? If so, in what ways? Or, are non-addictive/obsessive types the ones naturally selected to further the species, beyond human choice? Are addictive/obsessive types less valuable to the human race? More valuable?"
Obviously, I'm the obsessive type...obsessing about obsession...
My final question brought me full circle.
"What if every single choice a human being makes is pre-determined by evolutionary psychology?"
Phew. That's a big one.
I had taken up self-defense after the horrific experience of being tied up, gagged, and forced into. It was my instinctual reaction - I wanted to protect myself. After the rape, when he was letting me dress myself, before he let me go, he bragged about his upcoming orgy with 20 women and 6 men, even inviting me to come, and he showed me upwards of 15 photos on his iPad of women whom he had similarly tied up the way he did me, except a couple of them were covered in blood. My survival instinct told me not to struggle - to stay calm, to pretend like nothing was wrong; I didn't let him know he was insane, just hoping if I fooled him into thinking I was on his side and it was no big deal, I'd get out of there alive. Because look what happened to the ones who did.
I went to the cops, but not until the next day, when I was no longer paralyzed from the PTSD - it took everything I had, and I screamed and cried the whole way there - and they said they couldn't do anything because I didn't struggle, and, because yes, I had showered first thing when I got home - so no, they weren't going to bother. The cop was a dick to me, too...he was even hitting on me in the interrogation room. No evidence, just my word for it which apparently isn't evidence enough in this country - yay, let's protect rapists. Obviously I'm still working out my resentment from the experience. But one of the things that helps me with that is realizing that these men are propelled by instinct...and so am I.
But for the six months prior, I had wanted to die. So I was actually grateful that the experience brought me out of my suicidal depression. Suddenly, when faced with that real possibility of death, and the mental illnesses that had taken hold of me no longer held sway over my survival instinct, natural selection wasn't gonna take me out - not this time.
And I'd really, really like for it not to, if I can help it.
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