De Societe, Coitu, Heredite

[Great Teacher Largo]

Some may consider it an act of great hubris to say that of everything in life is about sex.  And not just for Homo Sapiens, the only surviving member of Hominidae, the group whose members, by and large, seem to think themselves the end of creation, which in and of itself was just a means to that end, and them.

Let's face it.  Living Things are just Genes' way of making more Genes.  Everything that you or I or the dog or the fungus growing outside in the dirt have in our Genomes are there because they have been good at getting passed on to The Next Generation.  The only reason a large majority of so-called 'more evolved' creatures use sexual instead of asexual reproduction is because the recombination proved has benefits over asexual reproduction.

It's all very well and good if I have more efficient metabolism, am stronger than you, faster you, more intelligent than you, and have better eyesight and sharper hearing.  But if I am more efficient at metabolising, am stronger than you, faster than you, more intelligent than you, have better hearing and sharper eyes, and am sterile, my decendants will never benefit from any of those genetic qualities.

Sterility can never by passed on to one's decendants.  Or atleast not by natural means.

And everything about us (and for ease of my outlining my ideas, I will restrict myself to Homo Sapiens, whom I am most chiefly concerned with), every little gene we have, ever little trait we have evolved over countless millenia of evolution and change and adaption, has all come down to this one question:  Is this (my nice plumage/my reasoning/my ability to smell my mate's pheremones from a mile away/my walking up right) going to get me laid?

For some reason, we are what we are.  We, on average, have two arms, two legs, walk upright, have no tail, hair (mostly) on our heads (and before anyone brings it up, I know I have exactly as many hair follicles, if not more, than any other Great Ape), and are omnivores.  And we are what we are because being what we are at some point in the past made it more like for us to make more of what we are.

Speech, for example.  We can talk.  We are blessed with the ability (some of us) to make the most beatiful, hauting melodies with our voices, and all of us, or nearly all, are able to form such sounds that can be recognised by others, with the help of our intellect, as meaning thing.  In short, I can call someone up and tell them to meet me at 3PM at the usual place, and they will know that I mean for them to meet me at a certain time, in a certain park, for a certain activity.

We have language for many reasons, a few of them I can think of, though I'm sure any anthropologist could do much better.  The ability to communicate helps us organise.  It's quite hard for you and the boys (and/or girls) to get together with your fire-hardened sticks and nice clovis points and bring down Ye Olde Wollye Mammothe if you can't all agree on what your sticking where.  Of course, many other creatures have gotten along for much longer than we have, as a species, in doing similar things as this without our form of communication.  Just look at the Ants.  They will most likely be around long after we are gone.  But I digress.

To go on living, and thus to gain time in which to have a chance to pass on those all-powerful genes, you need food.  So any means that helps you exploit a previously unexploited source of food is a great boon.  And the people who are better able to exploit the unexploited will have an edge over the rest of us Neanderthals, so to speak.

Since long before the days of Homo Habilis we have been animal habilis, and quite good at using those tools, too.  One only needs watch certain finches that were studied by Mr. Darwin quite some time ago to notice that even when you can't make them, you have them, if only you use them.

The first person who figured out that the creature they'd just killed didn't need its pelt anymore, but by gosh, it'd be nice to have something between my naked ass and the elements, suddenly had an advantage.  As did the much stronger person who probably beat him up and took it from him (or her, as  the case may be.  Women probably invented agriculture, so I don't see any reason why they should not be credited with the invention of clothing for similar reasons.  In my experience women are far more intelligent than men, and also in my experience, most men can't seem to stand this, so they rely on their, on average, above average strength, atleast when comparing the averages of men and women.  But I digress.)

Every trait you have that is genetic you have because those genes proved very good at making it possible for your ancestors to go about making more copies of those genes.  Or rather, Every trait that you have that is genetic you have because those genes proved very good at not making it any less possible for your ancestors to go about making more copies of those genes.

As an example, I have Thalassemia Minor.  More accuratley, I am heterozygous.  In me, the trait is not expressed, and I am a carrier.  If I ever have a child with a woman who is also heterozygous, and we have a homozygous offspring, the child will most likely die, or lead a very complicated life.

Thalassemia Minor causes a warping in the shape of red blood cells.  As a heterozygous person, my red blood cells look slightly different than someone who is without the condition, and not at all like those of someone who is homozygous.  In person who is homozygous, red blood cells have a tendancy to break.

However, people who are heterozygous have an increased resistance to malaria, as a group.  My odds of contracting malaria are around equal to those of a person without Thalassemia Minor, however, if a thousand of us Heterozygous Thalassemia Minor people were exposed, and a thousand people without the trait were exposed, more people would become infected, on average, out of the non-trait-bearing group.  And this is particularly advantageous in place where you would expect to be exposed to malaria.

So, like I was saying.  My gene for Thallasemia Minor is in there because in one of my parents, it was very good at not substantially lowering the chances that that parent would find my other parent and mate and produce me.  For the curious, my mother is the carrier out of my parents.

However good it is to have one allelle for the condition, it's horribly bad to have both.  So you can expect, in a group where you have the gene, something like this to happen:

There is a group of people, some of whom have the gene and some do not.  Children who are born with the gene expressed generally die.  There is a severe outbreak of malaria.  A larger portion of people without the gene recessive die than those who have the gene as recessive, and therefore the next generation contains a larger number of people with the gene as recessive.  However, if too large a group of the population has the gene as recessive, the odds of children that are born to paired individuals dying goes up.  So from generation to generation, there is not a large change in the ratio of people with and without the gene recessive, and it never becomes too spread throughout the population.

However, that is for a detrimental mutation.  What about the genes for something like intelligence?

Giving birth hurts.  As a male, I bow to the experience of women in this matter.  They tell me it hurts, and from the look in their eyes when confronted with males who say it can't hurt that much, I am inclined to believe women that it does hurt.  I am also inclined to believe them because I have some small concept of what it must feel like to pass something about the size of a grapefruit through an opening far too small for it.  But I digress.

Giving birth hurts.  It is a consequence of our upright gait.  To be able to effectly walk upright as a sole means of locomotion it requires a repositioning of the pelvis with narrows the birth canal, and thus increases risk for mother and infant during birth.  One need only look at statistics for infant and maternal mortality rates in the pre-modern area.

The way we, as a species, have coped with this is to have the child be born immature, and by that I mean not fully developed.  The brain is not fully formed at the time of birth.  This means that infants are horribly dependant on their parents for protection, shelter, and food.  Since the skull of a child is soft, to allow passage through the birth canal, and then hardens later in life, the brain has an extraordinary capacity to grow after birth.

But let us get back to a paragraph with the open sentance of 'Giving Birth Hurts.'

Giving birth hurts.  As a species, or rather, as a society (and I speak only for American Society, atleast, that small segement of it in which I was brought up and now interact on a daily basis), we seem to have a fixation on women with small waists.  I find that most unhealth on many levels.  But it must be stated that we actively select, or atleast, a great number of us do, for small waistedness in women.

As waists get smaller and smaller, the spacing between the bones of the pelvis that constitutes the birth canal gets smaller and smaller, and thus the risk to mother and child during birth gets higher and higher.  Just look at the number of births these days that must be preformed as caesarian sections.  Also, read the book, "The Handmaid's Tail."  I myself tried to watch the movie, and that went much better than "The General's Daughter," as I left the room before I vomitted, but I digress.

We are selecting towards a point where natural birth will no longer be an option.  Towards a point where there will be very few women left who are able to bear children.  With the proliferation of fertility treatments for men and women who normally are not able to have children, we are making it possible to pass sterlity on.  Now I will readily grant that many of the cases in which fertility treatments are neccesary are not due to genetic problems but accidents of human stupidity and/or violence.  But nevertheless, we are making it possible for genetic sterility to be passed on.

Of note is the important fact that even if you're not sterile, but you can't give birth because it will kill you and your child, that's effectively the same thing.  Fertility Treatments and Caesarian Sections are making it possible for many people who cannot breed to breed.  Traits that have been weeded out of humanity for countless aeons, for the reason that what kills you is not good to pass on, are being put back into the population.

I should prehaps note now that I am not in favor of eugenics.  However, I do see the problem arising, possibly sometime soon, where a large majority of the population is no longer able to procreate without the aid of science.  And since dark ages are an inevitability in this human game that we all play, this seems a bad thing.

However, I didn't mean to get this far on this particular topic.  This whole talk seems to be one large tangent of a tangent.  As a matter of fact, I can't even remember what I was originally trying to get at, except that people should keep their noses out of other people's business.

As a species, we seem to love sticking our noses where they don't belong.  Throw government into the mix, and suddenly you find that people love telling other people what they may not do, under the pretext of doing it for their own good.
"We need laws that make prostitution illegal!  And murder, and rape, and larconey!  And selling tobacco and alcohol to minors!  And to stop people from buying any gun with a bore-size over one inch!"

To these people, I simply ask them, "Are you going to go out and commit all these horrible acts without a law that forbids you from doing them?"

Every action I take, everything I do, I do because I wish to.  I do not obey the laws of society any more than I obey the laws of physics.  I do not go out and kill people at random because I have no need to.  I give alcohol and tobacco to minors (myself being under age to drink) if, in my opinion, It is okay for me to do so.  If I have a friend who is sixteen and smokes, I will purchase for them a pack of cigarettes.  When I turned eighteen, some friends of mine whose house I was at at the precise minute (according to their clock) that I turned 18 gave me alcohol.

Anyone who needs a law to stop them from commiting rape, murder, or any other horrible crime needs to be dragged into the street and shot dead.  The same goes for any pro-lifer who needs a law passed to stop people from having an abortion.  If you don't want an abortion, simply don't get one.  If you don't think children should possess firearms, don't keep them where they can get them.  If you don't think it's okay to sell a minor alcohol or tobacco, then don't sell them to them, and don't give them to them.  But under no circumstances, what so ever, should you limit my ability to do as I please.  Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.  Your right to regulate behaviour ends where other people begin.

Just because murder is illegal does not mean someone will not go out and commit murder.  There are many circumstances under which I myself would commit cold, precalculated murder, and not feel bad about it.  But anyone who is so nosy as to think to tell another human being they can't do something, well, they need to be shot.

The fact is, I can go out and murder as many people as I want.  And anyone else is free to go out and kill me to stop me from murdering as many people as I want.  That is the one and only power of the state.  The threat of force.

However, those people are also free to pass whatever laws they feel they need to insure their own safety.  I can 'obey' them if I find the coincide with my own person beliefs, or ignore them if they do not.  Much as I already do.  The only thing you do when you outlaw citizens having guns is make sure no one but law enforcement, the military, and criminals will have guns, and criminals already have them.  The only thing you do when you outlaw abortion is increase the number of deaths every year that come from abortions because now they are being preformed by idiots without proper medical training in alleyways with coathangers.  You silly sods.

Once again, those people who need to legislate to ensure their own safety should be dragged out into the street and shot.

What we need in this country is a serious weeding out, and a method to stop the 'weeds' from creeping back into society.  We need to drag those people out into the streets and shoot them, and then figure out a way to stop more people like that from popping up.  Law is the greatest joke there is.  A law against Breaking and Entering does not stop people from breaking into my apartment and stealing my things.  The fact that they will have their personal freedoms curtailed does.  Also, the fact that there could be a seven foot tall scotsman on the other side of the door with a sword curtails them.  Not that there is.  However, they are free to break into my apartment all they want and I am equally as free to throw a knife into their neck from my seat when they come into my bedroom.  And if I miss, I'll just get out a gun.  Metal meets propulsion seems to solve many problems.

In short:  America:  Stay the fuck out of my bedroom!

[East Coast Hustle]

uhh....


RAH!!!!

[Great Teacher Largo]

Yeah.  Yeah, I feel the same way.  I think I need to figure out how to maintain a point while developing it.

I came out with the point I was going to make in another rant in this one, and forgot the original point entirely.

'RAH!!!' indeed.

[Malaul]

::blink::

[Great Teacher Largo]

I think my point was "Nearly Everyone's Idea of What's Pretty is Fucked Up and is Fucking Them Up."

[East Coast Hustle]

I'm just glad I'm not the only one who thinks we've been circumventing Darwin for way too long now.

[Great Teacher Largo]

I'm just glad I'm not the only one who thinks we've been circumventing Darwin for way too long now.

Hola, Senor Misterioso.  Mi Llamo Ricky Martin.  Yo Tengo Un Lapiz.  Yo Estudio en la biblioteca.  Yo Querro Burrito del Taco Bell.  Yo No Comprendo Spanish.

[agent compassion]

Metal meets propulsion seems to solve many problems.

In short: America: Stay the fuck out of my bedroom!

I like this!

[Great Teacher Largo]

Metal meets propulsion seems to solve many problems.

In short: America: Stay the fuck out of my bedroom!

I like this!

Arigatou.  And, I'm sure, as Horab will point out soon, "I'm stealing everything I say from other people /stabs the f00l" and whatnot.

But yeah.  Thanks.

[Horab Fibslager]

your a dick n00b. well i guess i'll quote you after all, in aminute. you fucking lame piss of shit, suck my fucking balls you ass sucking bitch. go ahead and weidl thjose lips ont eh collective ass of this board you fuckin cunt, dirty ass motherfucking pigfucking whorefiend. you can lie to yourself and you canlie all over the gawdamned place.

unoriginaonla? fuckin right. fuck i hate you. more to follow you fuckin dickless piece of shit

/stabs teh n00b in teh face!

[East Coast Hustle]

d00d, WTF?

[agent compassion]

<////////////>  

For you.

Both of you.

Whatever this is/was, it doesn't need to be continued.

[Horab Fibslager]

you're right. he should've gawdmaned well stayed away the first time.

i will not fuckin rest. you guys can say all you want but whatever. he will go away and stay away or i'll jsu tbe hateful utnil everyonoe hates me and i havwe to be banned.

it's jsut that fuckin simple.

[Guido Finucci]

<////////////>  

Uh... Had they run out of slashes and needed to borrow some to make file paths or somehting?

[Great Teacher Largo]

<////////////>  

Uh... Had they run out of slashes and needed to borrow some to make file paths or somehting?

I just symoblicly link everything to /dev/null.

I also love catting /dev/random to /dev/audio0