Synopsis 11/3/20
This SYNOPSIS is an attempt to condense over 70 chapters of information into a three page overview. If you find it too concentrated you might want to start with the INTRODUCTION and save this for later.
Since life began on this planet, four billions years ago, our DNA has been alive and sculpted by survival. For most of that time our most ancient ancestors lived in solitary lethal competition with everything. Half a million years ago our ancestors started running in packs, cooperating with each other and competing with everything else. Retaining past experience in traditions as well as DNA made these ancestors much more competitive. Our DNA recorded instincts that supported the dedication and conformity of traditional life. Ten thousand years ago our ancestors started raising food and stepped away from a constant struggle with survival. Today we live lives far removed from survival yet our survival instincts still govern our behavior. We live in a world where change is constantly accelerating with instincts bred for traditional behavior to resist change. Without traditions and survival to govern us, our instincts, based on conformity, bigotry, intolerance and xenophobia flail against modern societies based on diversity, tolerance and respect.
Human behavior is a combination of instinct and routine observed by a very limited rational consciousness. Where do the instincts, routines and limits come from? The instincts come from a billion years of selective breeding by moment to moment survival. Routines come from our own experience and what we have learned of the experience of others. The limits on rational consciousness have been selectively bred by the survival of our ancestors since the first thought.
Our genetic instincts come from billions of years of genes in ancestors who survived long enough to raise children who survived long enough to raise children. Our DNA has been alive since the first cell reproduced billions of years ago. Our routines come from our own experience and that of our predecessors.
The limitations on our rational consciousness is the result of being suppressed by a million years of traditional societies.
Since life appeared on Earth, survival has been selectively breeding physical characteristics and instincts that range from swimming in the seas and flying in the skies to building beehives. Most species are in lethal individual competition with other members of the same and other species. In a few instances, some have found that cooperating with each other gives a boost to their survival as individuals and as a species. Humanity seems to have gone through several stages of cooperation moving from survival as an individual to survival as a family to survival as a tribe and beyond. After billions of years in individual survival, about a million years ago, our ancient ancestors who cooperated in families had a better chance to survive than those who did not. A half million years ago our ancestors who formed groups of families cooperating in tribes had an even better chance to survive. In all that time our ancestors' physical characteristics slowly evolved and our routines evolved much faster. This brought forth instincts that supported our cooperatives. It worked so well that we became apex predators and had to war with each other to qualify individuals and groups since survival no longer qualified our gene pool.
There are very powerful parallels between the behaviors of biological organisms and sociological organisms. Both organisms prove themselves across generations by true replication. Biological organism have their definitive characteristics buried in the their DNA. Sociological organisms have their definitive characteristics buried in their traditions. Groups of biological organisms support each other's overall survival with their diversity and specialization. Groups of sociological organisms support each others overall survival with their diversity and specialization. Both strengthen each others DNA with competition. Our human ancestors burst into domination because they learned to work together and they learned to retain knowledge across generations. Biological organisms have to wait for shifts in DNA to change. Sociological organisms can change their traditions and behavior in far less time.
Until ten thousand years ago our ancestors' behavior was focused on survival. For billions of years survival had selectively bred behaviors and physical characteristics into our DNA. Survival also selected genes that could reproduce themselves accurately to maintain those survival behaviors and characteristics across generations. It takes a long time for DNA to respond to changes in the environment and even more time to be innovative. A million years ago mothers began to let their children copy their habits. Routines were passed from mother to child and again in the next generation. Innovative routines can be initiated in a single generation, much faster than DNA innovations. Consistent instincts promoted survival. Consistent routines promoted survival. When family groups were formed, children could benefit from traditional and personal experience of both the mother and father. A half million years ago when families began to cooperate in tribes, children learned from the experience of multiple family lines. The tribe combined the best of all this retained learning into the tribe's enriched traditions. Consistent behavior dictated by these traditions promoted survival. Until ten thousand years ago our ancestors were focused on survival and consistent behaviors. Experimentation was strongly discouraged. Ten thousand years ago our ancestors started planting some seeds rather than eating them. They started raising young animals rather than eating them. And survival was no longer the preoccupation of our ancestors.
Each new stage of human society expands the extent of cooperation. Each stage was committed to a single level although activities at lesser stages continued so long as they were compatible with the main stage and a primary commitment to the main stage. Family and Individual behavior still flourishes in all higher stages. Lower stage behaviors also provide the seeds for recycling failing higher stages. Any time a group failed at a stage it would disband into lower stage groups.
Most of our instinctive behaviors are toxic to a cooperative, diverse society.
Our routines work around our instincts rather than addressing the needs of a national society. Our involvement with a national society is based on rational, conscious commitments which are in direct conflict with the instincts supporting traditionalism bred into us for half a millennium.
The complexity of human society and technology long ago exceeded the capacity of individual intellect. The instincts of tribalism, particularly traditionalism, suppress intellect and innovation. Our instincts have been honed to avoid past mistakes rather than minimizing new mistakes. Our intellect has been selectively bred out of us for hundreds of thousands of years and we have no chance of catching up unless we go back to the stone age technology and societies our genes were bred for.
There are always an abundance of agents waiting to decompose biological organisms. There are also agents who serve to decompose sociological organisms. In competitive stages of societies one element of society will decompose weaker elements. In post instinctive stages of societies disruptive and deconstructive extremists constantly pressure vital societies and decompose those not strong enough to resist them.
Our DNA is full of instincts that protect us against moment to moment survival threats. Our advanced societies have almost eliminated those immediate survival threats yet our instincts still press forward without thought. The solution seems to include more extensive education, focus and awareness of the requirements of national behavior. It also includes more extensive training of children to manage more of their instincts. It primarily requires substituting the instinct to bully with a commitment to cooperate. We have instincts for immediate survival but now we must take responsibility for ultimate survival of our species and all life on this planet.