Behavioral Obsolesence

Through millions of years of primate evolution, our nervous systems and the neuro-transmitters in our brains are hard-wired to choose particular members of our species as the "alpha" males and females, the preferred ones who got their choice of food and mates. Our bodies and brains were shaped by this basic principle of survival of the fittest: let the animals battle it out, and to the victor goes the right to pass on their genes. We're very much the same as most other mammals this way. So naturally, over time, those who are the best at climbing the hierarchy, those whose neurology is capable of navigating a centralized system of status and rank, pass this inherent instinct onto their children.

This divide continues today, taking many forms, but none more obvious than the separation between haves and have nots, between the wealthy elite and the poor of the lower class. Without enough time for our biology to evolve out of this particular behavior, our governments and corporations and organizations of all kinds still fall into this same hierarchic tendency that was formed in the jungle by our ancestors.

But that's not where or how most of us live these days. Today, we’ve developed the unique ability as a species to alter our world through culture and technology. By creating communities that punish violence through exile from the tribe (prison) or death, we’ve continually driven those with such genetic proclivities out of our gene pool. Similarly, by living in less fearful conditions we have more time for creativity and innovation, and we’ve created fields of science and technology that can tell us how our animal bodies function and therefore how to fine-tune them so that we are no longer victims to the useless or destructive remnants of evolution.

For this reason we are now facing a crisis in our contemporary world. Our ancestral behavior of limiting power to the “alphas” of our society is no longer necessary, but may actually be destructive to the point of potentially driving us into extinction. It might have once been the case that kings and government leaders had the luxury of information that the peasants and even other members of the elite were blind to. With low literacy, books that were prohibitively expensive, and slow communication requiring interpersonal interaction and horse-delivered letters, it made sense that we had a chain of command, a hierarchical system that ensured information could accumulate to someone capable of making a decision while the rest of the community focused on growing food.

Now we have smartphones and the internet. The average citizen is just as informed, if not more so, than many or most of our leaders. And we’re not struggling to pass on our genes anymore, so having a competitive hierarchy for the best mates is no longer necessary. Most people living in developed nations aren’t struggling to get food to survive. Instead, one of the biggest problems in America is overeating, as our obesity rate is over 70% and rising.

Our government has shown an inability to adjust in the same way, as the mere existence of Facebook and Twitter as new communication mediums have created a slew of unexpected socio-political propaganda, inciting high levels of hate crimes, civil unrest, and tension among the masses. Not surprisingly, the masses don’t feel represented, largely because votes are being funneled through a broken government controlled by corrupt politicians. A system that moves at a crawl, living in the bureaucratic jungle-mentality of the past like apes battling for power, when the rest of us can see right through the crap thanks to our technological prowess.

We now can see the failures of our government clearly; our technology has allowed us to see the blatant incompetence and corruption, and we’re furious that even when it’s this broken it can still manage to stay so powerful and resistant to the change the majority of us are fighting for. 

So what can we do about it?          - tomorrow's blog -