The Evolution of Stupidity

How does nature change us?  

Mutations.  

   The gene pool throws them out everyday as we are poured into existence.  Every kind of mutation imaginable.  Some of them kill us before we're able to walk, others give us hypothermic resistance or the ability to sense electromagnetism.  Too many fingers, big eyes, white streak in an eyebrow...anything can happen.  And of course, occasionally we get an Einstein or a Dommer as a result of subtle neurological mutations.  

Yay mutants!

Throughout the history of the world a fascinating trend has occurred.  Along with strength, speed and ferocity as needs for survival, the intellect of species has dictated their survival opportunities.  So what happens?...

   

   The dumb gazelle doesn't think to run from the big cat and he's eaten.  That stupidity mutation does not get passed on.  The gazelle who likes to eat near the middle of the herd so the others can be eaten?  She has many offspring who develop similar behaviors.  Natural selection.

   So what of humans?  

Remember that kid in school that drank Drain-O and smashed mail boxes on weekends that you knew wouldn't live to be 30?  Well, you were right.  He died in a car crash after a bottle of reds and a rum and vodka fountain drink, rest his soul, and he won't continue breeding.  The sharp kid with a sensible amount of caution and a desire to succeed will have 3 or 4 kids (though in recent decades he could have had 12) and that cautious intellect will get passed on.  Natural selection.

In 5000B.C. or even 1926 A.D, those two kids had pretty significantly different odds of survival and Nature had a fair shake at the future of their race.  The dumb die off, the smart keep breeding and intellectually, this species of animal is racing for the edge of the universe.  

But then something radical happened...

CAPITALISM.  (You like that?  I Capitalized on that)

So what?  capitalism?  What's that got to do with anything?

Well...

Capitalism was churning out riches left and right in the West.  Mostly in large industry but also in services of one sort or another.  People got very creative with it.  For awhile we humans used our common defense mechanism mutation, bullying, to create criminal opportunity like strong-arming.  If you have nothing to sell you can still sell protection.  Let folks know:  pay me and "nothing bad will happen to you".

Then we got even more creative.

We legalized it!!!

Let's sell INSURANCE!!

Insure your house.  Your car.  Your life, your teeth, your kids, your cats, your ideas, your...well, you get it.   We insured everything.  We even insure our insurance companies against lawsuits brought by the insured for failure to insure them.  Insure people against illness at a rate they can't afford and still charge them when they try to use it and insure the doctor against the patient and the company against the doctor and....   ...   ...

Enter Modern Health Care.

People will pay insane amounts of money to stay alive.  

Funny how that works.  We'll still die but would gladly give up the grandkids college tuition for another 30 minutes on life support.   Doctors and pharmaceutical companies got good!  They began extending the lives of human beings and making crazy great money at it.   

They got So good at it that a race of hairless monkeys with the kinds of genetic mutations that give way to religious cults, Baskin Robbins and Pet Rocks began living nearly THREE times their normal life expectancy!!

HOLY Crap!,,     But wait a minute...     Which ones are living longer?

Is it the smart ones?  The fast ones?  The ones that look over their shoulder for big cats?

Nope.

All of em brother!!

Screw Mother Nature and natural selection!  Doesn't matter how stupid you are!!  BREED brother, BREED!!!  You pop em out and we will keep em alive.  

Genetic failures welcome.  This is the age of 'anything goes' (and a lot of them go to Office)

Stupidity found its savior in the human race.  It found a way to succeed.  Nature is truly amazing.  While genetic mutation after genetic mutation has been tried and tested on the fields of battle for survival for Millenia, we have finally come to a point in history where greed has equalized the plight of nature and that of human desire.  Today, stupidity abounds and natural selection has been thwarted by the sheer mass of our stupidity.  

   Like a black hole, limitless in its destruction and nearly impossible to comprehend...a void that is only detected by the effects on its surroundings.  Stupidity abounds in every crevice of the human experience and it leads us into the future.  You're holding onto it tightly.  

You're afraid of what this may imply.  

You're looking around for an opinion to adopt.  Uncertainty has her hands around your throat.

You have the mutation...

just like me.