Tag: nature

Leave the world better than you found it.

On By StevoIn anthropology, climate change, COVID-19, critical thinking, earth, electric vehicles, energy, Environment, EV, NASA, nature, nature vs. nurture, renewable energy, Science, seekers, space, Uncategorized, wildlife conservationLeave a comment

When I was a kid I would go outside and play and later ask my parents and doctors why I would cough and why my eyes, nose, throat, and lungs would burn and feel raw.

My parents and doctors would answer: it is air pollution from the burning of dirty fossil fuels that power our energy and transportation systems.

This is when I first learned what air pollution is – and how it impacts our health.

Then I would ask the adults this: if using these dirty fuels to run our society also harms our health – then why do we keep using these fuels?

They would answer with things like “It’s the smell of progress, the smell of money!” “It is just the way things are, accept it, move on, go outside, and play – oh, and stop thinking too much.”

WTF!

At the same time, I was spending around 1.5 hours a day riding to and from school on a school bus. The diesel exhaust was an everpresent aroma inside the bus. At the time I had no idea that I was inhaling concentrated toxic microscopic particulate matter originating from the combustion of the diesel fuel that powered the bus – and neither did all the other children. At the time, all I was concerned with while on the bus was staying away from all the toxic bullies I was trapped in the bus with – little did I know I was also inhaling toxic particles that were harming my health.

During this era my adoptive dad was also smoking himself to death. I said to him on many occasions – isn’t smoking just putting air pollution into your body? He said yes. He also said he knew that it was bad for his health, made him cough, poisoned and hurt his lungs, shortened his life, and cost our family loads of money. He often strongly told us kids to never ever do this terrible thing that he was doing all the time because it was harmful, dangerous, and expensive.

WTF! What was all this, all these conflicting signals? They were so very confusing to the mind of a child – and they are still confusing to the mind of an adult. (BTW: All this early exposure to air pollution during my developmental years later became allergies, asthma, and countless sinus infections.

Dad kept smoking and he died in his early 50s.

WTF! WHY?

I was dumbstruck by these apparent deep, dark, dirty problems that nobody seemed to want to change. They just kept up with the intentional, self-harming practices as if there were no tomorrow.

Again – WTF! WHY?

I then learned about all the anthropogenic pollution, global warming/climate change, the ozone hole, acid rain, species extinctions, desertification, sea level rise, etc, and the fact that all these things were tied to the uncontrolled rate at which our species was (and still is) burning fossil fuels.

During this time I also learned about addiction. I put 2 and 2 together and I realized that just as my dad had been addicted to tobacco and it had killed him, our society was addicted to fossil fuels and if we did not change – we were on the same path as my dad had been – a path that leads at best to misery and suffering and at worst – to our own extinction.

Yet again – WTF!

WTF was wrong with people???

Aren’t we Homo sapiens supposed to be the thinking apes???

If so, something is greatly wrong with our thinkers.

In middle school, high school, and later university, I learned that a great many everyday heroes were slowly and methodically working to end our toxic addiction to toxic fuels. They were inventing and putting into place new technologies and new laws that cleaned up our fuels, the atmosphere, and the waters and therefore our health and our shared futures.

Their efforts paid off and sometime in my early twenties my eyes, nose, and throat stopped burning and tingling when I would go outside in the summer – this was a direct result of the policies and technological advancements that limit and mitigate pollution from factories and power plants as well as require all fossil fuel-powered vehicles to have pollution reduction and control devices installed on their engines.

At the same time, others were inventing better energy sources based on renewable, non-polluting fuel sources that use the infinite clean energies of nature – the sun, wind, water, geothermal (and now even gravity energy) to make much cleaner energy that has far less of an impact on our health and shared future. A few years later others built modern vehicles powered by electricity – electricity that can be generated by the before-mentioned, domestically-sourced, energy-secure, renewable energy sources thereby starting the transition to a cleaner, more sustainable energy and transportation future.

Unfortunately for all of us there were and are powerful factions in government, religion, and the corporate sector teaming up and working together to spread Fear Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) about these new developments in a well-funded attempt to keep these technologies, innovations, and laws from being adopted by the masses. Why are they doing this? The answer is very simple – dirty money – and lots of it. These forces are more concerned with money than the future of all life on planet Earth. They are greedy, selfish humans whose only concern is the acquisition of as much wealth as possible at the expense of the environment and all the life it supports.

Today, and even with the greedy FUD manufacturing factions, I have even more hope for the future with renewable energy sources – especially rooftop solar – at prices, almost anyone can afford, fleets of quick, reliable electric vehicles hitting the roads, technological breakthroughs in clean energy happening almost daily, and so many great and forward-thinking people following the evidence and the science and making great and positive choices that will lead us into the future – all great reasons to continue forward and not just crawl into a hole somewhere and die.

This is why I follow the path of science and engineering – not narrow, self-serving politics, religions, and false prophets following only the profits.

This is why I let evidence, logic, and common sense be my guide to making the big decisions in my life.

This is why I am who I am.

This is why I fight for nature.

This is why I fight for the future.

This is why I teach.

Fight for change.

Be the change.

Do only good things.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to change, it’s not.” – The Lorax

MEAT

On By StevoIn anthropology, critical thinking, earth, Environment, nature, space, UncategorizedLeave a comment

“They’re made out of meat.”
“Meat?”
“Meat.
“There’s no doubt about it.
We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They’re completely meat.”
“That’s impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars.”
“They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don’t come from them. The signals come from machines.”

“So who made the machines? That’s who we want to contact.”
“They made the machines. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Meat made the machines.”
“That’s ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You’re asking me to believe in sentient meat.”
“I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they’re made out of meat.”
“Maybe they’re like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage.”
“Nope. They’re born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn’t take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?”
“Spare me. Okay, maybe they’re only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside.”
“Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They’re meat all the way through.”
“No brain?”
“Oh, there is a brain all right. It’s just that the brain is made out of meat!”
“So… what does the thinking?”
“You’re not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat.”
“Thinking meat! You’re asking me to believe in thinking meat!”
“Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?”

“Omigod. You’re serious then. They’re made out of meat.”
“Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they’ve been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years.”
“So what does the meat have in mind?”
“First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual.”
“We’re supposed to talk to meat?”
“That’s the idea. That’s the message they’re sending out by radio.
‘Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?’ That sort of thing.”
“They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?”
“Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat.”
“I thought you just told me they used radio.”
“They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat.”

“Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?”
“Officially or unofficially?”
“Both.”
“Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing.”
“I was hoping you would say that.”
“It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?”
“I agree one hundred percent. What’s there to say?”
`Hello, meat. How’s it going?’ But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?”
“Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can’t live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact.”
“So we just pretend there’s no one home in the universe.”
“That’s it.”
“Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You’re sure they won’t remember?”
“They’ll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we’re just a dream to them.”
“A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat’s dream.”
“And we can mark this sector unoccupied.”
“Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?”
“Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again.”
“They always come around.”
“And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe would be if one were all alone.”

I have no idea who wrote this, but it sure does give the reader a different perspective on our predicament as the ephemeral meatsack monkeys that we are. 

Follow Through

On By StevoIn anthropology, critical thinking, earth, nature, religion, seek, seekers, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Something I have learned by living so long:

If you always follow through and do what you say you will do, if you do good things that support others, animals, and nature, and if you do those things above and beyond what is required – more good things will come back to you in great and helpful quantities.

The Universe, Gaia, God/Ja/Allah, The Great Spirit, Karma…something far larger than we little apelike creatures, notices our good actions and supports them with even more good things.

Do only good things.

Do what you say you will do.

Follow through.

Leave things better than you found them.

One Love.

Peace.

*photo of a Monarch chrysalis on a Milkweed in my garden as an attention grabber.

What do you perceive?

On By StevoIn anthropology, climate change, conspiracy, critical thinking, earth, energy, Environment, nature, nature vs. nurture, religion, Science, seek, space, UncategorizedLeave a comment

“The freedom we seek is to use our own mind and body, to live our own life, instead of the life of the belief system.”

“Everything you perceive is being filtered through your entire belief system. And the result of interpreting everything you perceive by using everything you believe is your personal dream, an entire virtual reality in your mind. Perhaps you can see how easy it is for humans to distort what we perceive. Light reproduces a perfect image of what is real, but we distort the image by creating a story with all those opinions and beliefs that we learned. We dream about it with our imagination, and by agreement we think that our dream is the absolute truth when the real truth is that our dream is a relative truth, a reflection of the truth that is always going to be distorted by all the knowledge we have stored in our memory.”

“The dream of life is really an illusion, and everybody lives in the reality he or she creates – a virtual reality that is only true for the one who creates it.”

“The truth is that beliefs and ideas only exist in one place: the human mind. They are not “out there” in the world, but rather the filter by which everything we perceive gets sorted.”

“Life as you perceive it is a reflection of your perceptions and beliefs. It is not real, but rather a dream. To some this may sound negative, but in fact it is positive because if your life is a dream, and you become aware of the fact that you are the dreamer, then you can consciously create the dream you want to see and live the life you want to live.”

“The dream you are living is your creation. It is your perception of reality that you can change at any time.
You have the power to create hell, and you have the power to create heaven. Why not dream a different dream? Why not use your mind, your imagination, and your emotions to dream heaven?”

~Don Jose Ruiz

(Art by ‘Felipe Posada’)

There are no rules other than those we create that say we must follow a belief system, be it religious or political or any other, in order to live on this planet in this time.  

True freedom is found only by freeing your mind from the ancient control systems devised by those who want to control you, your time, your energy, your money, and your consious.  Free your mind and use your finite amount of uptime to think for yourself and do good things for others, and for our planetray life support system.

Heavy Thought Time

On By StevoIn anthropology, critical thinking, earth, Environment, nature, nature vs. nurture, religion, Science, space, UncategorizedLeave a comment

To create a life is rather easy, people do it all the time.

To create good people, that is possibly the most difficult thing we will ever do.

We have all heard about the nature vs nurture debate, and from where I stand as an observer of nature, I see many deep connections between all living things everywhere I look – connections that run like fungal mycelium throughout the deep-time tapestry of life.

These ancient genetic connections are incredibly apparent to me because I see them in myself. I was adopted as a newborn and spent the next several decades with wonderful, loving parents who nurtured and cared for me, giving me a comfortable home, an education, and most of all, the ability to think for myself. They let me choose my own path – they did not force on me any specific religion, politics, or any other worldviews – they let me choose for myself who I was to become. They were the nurture side of the coin that I received in this coin toss called life.

On the nature side of the coin: From a very young age, my curiosity about the natural world around me was incredibly strong. I have always had a deep empathetic nature and a deep connection to animals, nature, wildlife, and the silent teachers that exists in the forest, an endlessly flowing river, the rolling ocean waves, and the deeptime knowledge that exists in every rock, tree, mountain, water drop, and in our own DNA – these are teachers that only some of us can hear.  Due to these deep connections to the natural world I always wondered if I had inherited this intense love and focus on nature from my biological family.

Then, in 2018, I used the tools of science to find my genetic family and my suspicions were confirmed – my love of nature was indeed genetic – my father and all my family members were great lovers of nature and all things wild and wonderful. My father and I shared so many things in common – even down to things like favorite foods, TV shows, music, vehicles, wildlife, it is really astounding how many deep connections we share.

So for me specifically, the nature vs nurture argument is no longer a debate – i am a product of both of these things.

From my point of view, and from my lived experience – I believe that at birth we carry within our genetic code, a singular sequence specifically written by the experiences of our parents, grandparents, great grandparents and far far back into deeptime, to a time before we gave ourselves names, before we harnessed fire, before we were even human. This ancient code sequence is the nature side of the coin. It is a hard written instinct stamped into our DNA by the experiences of all our ancestors. This ancient code is expressed,  like it or not, by our consciousness.  But what the heck is consciousness anyway?

In an attempt to answer this age old question we need to flip the coin back over to the nurture side again and ask – what about our consciousness?  Where does it come from?  What is it that allows us to look in the mirror and say “Hello me, i recognize that i exist…i think therefore i am.” 

Where does the consciousness  originate?  Some say it is all in the mind…and maybe this is so.  However, I sometimes wonder if it comes from outside the body…another realm of existence that we have yet to identify.  Maybe we and all life on earth are part of this unique and massive energy field…this Singularity…and we are greatly limiting ourselves when we think that we are separate, apart, alone individuals.  But in reality…a reality we have not discovered yet because we are not yet ready, not evolved enough to experience that reality and understand it…maybe we are all connected deeper than we could ever imagine.  Maybe when our body exhausts itself and ceases to exist, maybe our unique consciousness – our soul – retreats back into this unknown realm, this undiscovered country, to rejoin with the rest of the whole where it then shares its lifetime of experiences with its “peers” afterwhich it is reset, and then born again as another lifeform on earth…or another planet in the vast cosmos – and the cycle continues.

I do not believe in omnipotent beings – a god or gods – and therefore i do not believe a devine creator being gives us each a unique consciousness – at soul – at birth.  I have this hypothesis that at birth, our consciousness is a blank clean slate…like a new computer waiting to have is blank but eager to learn storage drives filled up with all our unique photos, music, stories, history – the unique things we save close to our hearts and minds – the things that make us, us.

Maybe we are all born with this same basic, “blank slate” consciousness.  Maybe this blank slate consciousness is exactly the same for everyone – it is a carbon copy of whatever the first one was, whatever the first human being was.  Then, as we live and grow and are exposed to our family, friends, society, the media, religion, politics, science, culture, war, love, hate, bullies, hippies, laughter, passion, sickness, trauma, etc – maybe it is only after this exposure to all these unique outside experiences and influences, coupled with the genetic expression of our instinctual nature knowledge passed down from our unique evolutionary lineages, does our unique consciousness truly becomes ours, and only ours.  It becomes unique to each human due to the unique experiences each of us has experienced as well as the deep genetic connections we brought forward in time from our unique ancestrial DNA.

Maybe the “me” and “you” parts of our thinking brains are exactly the same until they experience life, the universe, and everything around us during our first few years of life – and then we become the unique individuals that we are – we become the you and the me that we see in the mirror.

If all this is so, then to guide an innocent young human into adulthood as a parent, teacher, or mentor, is possibly the greatest responsibility one could ever hold.

Choose wisely.

Think before you speak.

Be a good human.

Do good things.

Another Thought Experiment

On By StevoIn anthropology, climate change, critical thinking, earth, Environment, nature, religion, Science, space, UncategorizedLeave a comment

If a highly advanced, long-lived, extraterrestrial species from another galaxy landed on Earth today and told us we were all part of a long-term planetary biology/evolution “lab” experiment designed and implemented several million years ago in the attempt to discern the direction biological evolution would take under the unique environmental conditions offered by this planet and its star…

…and/or…

If Jesus (or any other religious prophet) returned and/or appeared – and he was a dark skinned, barefoot, long haired, “herb” smoking, robe wearing, bisexual, “hippie” “dude” whose pronown was “whatever man” and he was asking all of us to destroy our walls, weapons, governments, religions, superficial labels and divisions, and all coexist and live in harmony…

Recent events suggest that many people who call themselves religious would probably deny the flesh and blood evidence standing in front of them, and cry “demon,” “witch,” ” infidel,” “imposter,” – and then try to crucify and/or dissect them.


Sadly, the fearful, preconceived notions of what many believe their god and/or extraterrestrial visitors should be are far too limiting and microscopically small, to allow them to see the grandeur of the cosmos as it actually exists, and all the amazing possibilities it may hold.

We are our own most limiting factor.

Your 3rd eye is watching you

On By StevoIn anthropology, critical thinking, Environment, nature, religion, Science, space, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Some of us have the rare ability to look ourselves in the mirror and reflect on our choices, make changes, look at the past as a learning experience and never do it again, and then go on with life.


Some do not have that ability and need help from those who do.


All of us need to forcefully pry open our third eye to see the violence inherent in the system, step outside of it, and see the religiopolitical matrix for what it really is: a manufactured control machine designed to keep us down by any and all means, so the dangerous, mean, rich and powerful – and those dumb as a bag of steaming fresh scat – remain in control behind the curtains pulling the strings and collecting the wealth while the rest of us scratch, scrape, and slurp to get by in this manufactured automaton we call a society.

IMHO

On By StevoIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

IMHO: The possible reason the highly superior extraterrestrials from distant star system(s) have not revealed themselves to us is simple:
We have not passed the most important test of our biological evolution.
We have yet to grow beyond our infantile, tantrum-tossing childhood.
To grow and evolve into an adult, aware, and awake species, we must abandon and delete from our time twisted genetic programming, all the fear-driven, self destructive, xenophobic, hateful, self centered, greed and power focused ways of thinking and living such as but not limited to – separatist, divisive religions, toxic politics, bloody war, insane slavery, juvenile prejudice, caste systems, medical and prison industrial complexes, the burning of finite fossil fuels for energy and their associated land, water, and air pollution, resource wars, habitat destruction and so much more of the fear and greed focused genes still stuck in our DNA that feeds these ancient toxic behaviors. They worked for us in the dark past of our early ancestors, but evidence suggests they do not have a place in our genetic code any longer.
Now is the time we must choose not to fear and fight, but to respect and coexist with each other.
This will not happen anytime soon, and possibly never. Current events suggest we may forever remain infants in our development as a species.
We may be just another failed evolutionary experiment…or a virus that just has to run its course before the planet can heal and make room for the next attempt at something unique.
No matter what the case may be, I know that what we are doing to ourselves, to each other, and to the planet that supports us – cannot end well unless we all work together to repair the heinous damage to the system, delete the current systemic infection, and strive to learn from the mistakes of our childhood, and never ever repeat them again.
Consciously choose to do good things.

Buckle Up

On By StevoIn climate change, conspiracy, critical thinking, earth, Environment, NASA, nature, Science, space, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Hurricane Helene and now just a few months later – this terrible flood in Texas.

This is yet another horrible and avoidable tragedy.
Please do all in your power to help those in need.


Shifting gears a bit –
Here’s the thing: when I was in college, I learned from my professors, and from my own research in the campus library and online, all about anthropogenic climate change/global warming or whatever you choose to call it. I learned why it is happening, I looked at all the evidence, and all these data, evidence, and facts, they needed no support – they stood alone. It was so obviously real that it made it past my logic and reason filters – and guess what, I understood and accepted it all as peer-reviewed reality.

Here’s the other thing: everything all those scientists (NASA, NOAA, NWS, etc, and all the independent scientists all over the planet studying the issue said would happen – is now coming to pass- heck it has been happening for decades.

I have watched as the climate has noticeably warmed – we didn’t need fans in our home until the mid 1990’s, or air conditioning until 2010 – and now, when the HVAC fails (due to the storms, power outages, etc.), all the floor and ceiling fans and our bodies own built-in cooling systems (sweat glands) can barely keep us from dangerously overheating.

The sea level has visibly risen on the beaches I have been visiting over the last 50+ years of my life.

The once frequent snows of “winter” have turned into cool and sometimes even warm rains…or super-concentrated cold spells – aka Polar Vortexes…vortices? – that have been colder than any cold I can remember.

I have watched springs and creeks dry up and trees die due to the unusually long periods of heat-induced drought.

Almost every year, I have witnessed more frequent and intense wildfires, as well as the unbelievable air pollution the fires bring.

Then there are the hurricanes – (Andrew, Katrina, Harvey, Helene!!!) – more and more powerful every season, more and more rain, wind, destruction.

We then have the wildlife species that never lived in my region, migrating into the wilds near my home – some examples include but are not limited to: the Coyote (the earliest to arrive), the Nine-banded armadillo, Fire ants, Bedbugs, mosquitoes, ticks, and, needless to say, many different nasty diseases – two of these are tick-vectored diseases that I have contracted and still suffer symptoms from – Rocky Mountain Spotted fever and Ehrlichia.

Anthropogenic climate change is an evidence-supported, peer-reviewed fact.

If you choose to not believe me or the thousands of climate scientists and researchers, then just watch and/or read the horrific headlines from the climate change-induced/exacerbated storms, floods, heatwaves, droughts, polar vertices, wildfires, toxic air and water pollution, sea level rise, etc, etc.

Or just walk yourself outside and wait a while.

This climate change thing is not a political plot or ploy to make the Democrats, “leftists” and “greenies” rich, that is ridiculous and you know it. Nor is this some sort of scam cooked up by “the Chinese” – this shit is real so please just keep your political (and religious) BS out of the important business of discovering the impacts of our species on the the evidence-supported peer-reviewed findings and facts of the natural world and its systems that support us all.

But even if still choose to ignore the evidence, the science, and the new reality of the dangerous situation we have made for ourselves by burning copious amounts of fossil fuels over the last few hundred years – say what you will and believe what and who you choose…but your belief in something or someone does not make your choice a fact – unless it has the evidence to back it up.

Like Evolution by Natural Selection, Climate Change has mountains of supportive peer-reviewed evidence. If you choose to not believe all these mountains of evidence, from all over the planet and even satellites orbiting in space…then all I can say to you is buckle up buttercup, and “enjoy” the ride because we are all riding on this crazy train of life together. There is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide and the cold beauty that some call mother nature is as mad as hell at the dumbass “thinking” ape clan for fukin up the planet – and I fear this is only the beginning and there is going to be some serious hell to pay.

Please remember – nature does not give one single hot puckered rodent arse about any of us, so you better learn how to take care of yourself. Be ready. Stay vigilant. Be prepared. And above all, do good things to help others in need around you, because we are all riders on the same 4.5 billion-year-old planetary boat afloat in the vast ocean of space and time.


One Love.


Namaste

Ancient Clues

On By StevoIn anthropology, critical thinking, Environment, nature, religion, ScienceLeave a comment

The more I learn about archeology and anthropology, the more I discover that primates and violence seem to go hand in hand.


It may be that our unique primate opposable thumb+big “thinking” brain combination – while an incredible engineering and survival tool kit – has a great and fatal flaw.
That great flaw often leads us to believe things and then do things, not because they are true and supported by evidence, but because we want them to be true, we need them to be true, possibly to satisfy some ancient need, or qwell a fear that exists only in the past. Sadly, it seems that for many Modern humans, believing something is true is easier than working to find out if it really is true.

Sadly, this fact, encoded in our DNA, and in the DNA of every human walking the earth today going all the way back to our humble beginnings on the African savanna – is a deepset part our our own evolutionary history.

This great and fatal flaw may in fact be the undoing of our species, leaving us as just another fossilized animal deposit in the rock strata of deep time.

Honestly, I hope I am wrong on this, but the evidence from the last few hundred decades suggests otherwise.
Looking at the fossil record of our family tree we see that every single one, every one – every early human save for us, only exists, no longer in the flesh, but as ancient fossil remains recorded in the rocks. May it be that these ancestors of ours are extinct by their own hand?
Maybe the fatal flaw was their downfall?
Maybe the fatal flaw will render us extinct as it may have done for them? I hope not. We have so much potential.

Or maybe it was their strong, evolutionary survival instinct that lead to a hyper-selfish focus on surviving which, over time, selected for early humans with a lack of empathy – with only a drive and focus to acquire that which it needed to survive while pushing its own kind out of the way. Millions of years ago it was competition for food and brute strength that kept the bullies alive.

Today, it’s not food, it’s money and power they need. The vestigial fatal flaw is directing the uncaring bullies to compete.  In their minds, they are still fighting to survive – it is all their mediocre DNA will allow them to do. Instead of adapting to adopt an empathetic sharing nature that would benefit all members of their family, and species – they instead choose self over society.

Empathy, is one of the most important aspects of what it means to be human. Without empathy for others of your kind, you are just another smart, strong, competitive predator. Maybe it is empathy that is the answer, maybe it is the genetic key that unlocks the next level in our own evolution.

Will we level up…or will we damn dirty apes choose to fearfully continue to bar our teeth and bash  each other’s skulls in just as so many countless human primates stretching back millions of years into the past have done before?

Only time, and the rocks, will tell.