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On Epigenticism
Epigenetics--the theory that behavior can cause changes to genes. On my walk I gave my mind permission to run with this. I started thinking conceptually of the emergence of two new human species based on the social structures that have led to new human behaviors. I would like to introduce them to you.
On Homo Automobilus
As a myrmecologist E.O. Wilson identified 418 species of ants. Were the differences between any of these species behavioral and not phylogenetic?
On the second segment of the walk, I experienced blaring sounds in my head for most of the day. These loud, unhealthy noises came from the reverberating exhaust of high performance cars being driven by auto enthusiast that echoed through the canyons. The sound was unrelenting.
David Berkowitz the serial killer known as Son of Sam blamed the unrelenting barking of a chained dog to drive him mad enough to murder. We live in an ocularly biased society and forget that ears are direct pathways into our bains. Our sanity is based on the ability to tune out noises of modern society, the sirens, the cars, the jets, the alarms, the refrigeration compressor hums, all of it. We subconsciously and very expertly tune it out in order to stay mentally healthy. I suspect that schizophrenia is related to the inability to tune out ambient noises. Without this ability to tune out the noise around us, the noise that is not natural, we would all go nuts.
This noise was also out of place. I was high on the ridge of the Santa Monica mountains with expansive view of the valley below. On my way to the trailhead, I passed a group of auto enthusiasts preparing for a group drive, not to go or get anywhere but to drive for the sake of driving--a subculture of dominant driving culture.
On a recent hike I observed a male child, that seemed too old to be operating a rugged RC (remote control) car on the trail close by the parking lot. The image stayed with me, I kept thinking about it. A couple of weeks later I saw a different male child, on a different trail, who also seemed a little too old operating a rugged RC car.
The ophiocordyceps fungi enters an ants brain and then takes control of the ant. It then gets the ant to do very un-ant like things, like using its mandibles to leave the forest floor and climb upward exposing the ant to predators. Then it kills the ant and fungi spores explode through the ants head to propagate the fungi.
I thought I was observing something similar here, the automobile, gets control of human brains from a very young age and never cedes control. I realized the reason the image stuck in my head was because I wasn’t observing the kid controlling the car with his remote control, I was observing the car controlling the kid.
The all day noises was a further manifestation of cars controlling humans.
Sociologists have recently began to look into the cultural issues of what they call “automobility”. Interesting-ish writing, but I think they all miss the mark. What if we started from a different place.
Imagine intelligent life coming upon earth and observing for a while from above before making contact. What would they see? The would observe billions of cars, they would see habitat around the world destroyed and paved for these automobiles to travel on. They would see massive amount of space for the storage for automobiles everywhere. They would see giant straws stuck miles deep into the earth pulling out resources for these automobiles to drink from. They would see humans sitting in these cars for long period of times moving them from one place to another. They would see humans toiling to care for and feeding these automobiles. When the intelligent life form decided to make contact they may very well ask the first human they meet to introduce them to the dominant life forms that controlled the humans and were radically modifying the planet.
On my walk I was thinking of epigenetics. When changes in behavior cause changes in biology, i.e evolution. So, while it may be interesting to think of automobiles as an invasive poiesis. I think a more interesting question is when does phenotype become genotype?
The behavior of humans changes noticeably when they become drivers. Observationally they lose empathy which explains why in the city of Los Angeles drivers can drive by humans suffering in a humanitarian crises without any feeling. Observationally they also lose their ability to act socially for the benefit of the group. We observe and expect selfishness by drivers in all aspects of driving. From someone not allowing a lane merge to extreme acts of violence that is so common there is a phrase for it, ‘Road Rage’. We see aggressiveness by drivers against humans everywhere drivers and humans interact.
The human body is designed to move bipedally. The basic design of being human is subverted when operating an automobile. A humans personality goes through observable changes when they drive sometimes to the point of being unrecognizable to those who know them. The change in behavior towards a more aggressive behavior is so extreme that it is accepted that they will become killers of other drivers and humans (pedestrians) as 1 million humans are killed in auto related crashes yearly.
It is quite common to observe a dependency on the automobile. This dependency manifests as changes in anatomy. Knowing that they can transport themselves as drivers they stop walking with many becoming obese. Those that smoke continue to smoke as respiratory issues prevent them from walking, instead of stopping smoking so that they continue to walk.
They organize their lives spatially around accommodating their car. Builders build garages instead of communities that engender human social connections.
The most human thing that we do is walk. Drivers give up their humanness and driving becomes their dominant means of movement. Drivers seek social status by the type of cars they drive, rather then their contributions to society.
We are scientifically known as Homo Sapiens. Homo being man and Sapein from the latin of knowledge, to be knowledgeable or to be wise.
To give up the physical qualities that make us human, to change our anatomy, to change our personality. To do it for a transportation system that has destroyed humans crowning achievements the building of our cities and is destroying the planet is not wise.
An ant is an individual but the colony behaves as an organism. What ants and bees share with humans is our eusociality. The social behavior of drivers is so distinct from humans that it can be considered separate. Thus, the culture of cars can be seen and understood as separate from human culture. If the culture around cars isn’t human, then all the sub-culture around cars would not be human as well.
All of this is so distinct from Sapiesm, what makes us human, that I propose a new species called Homo Automobilous.
As humans we have always killed competing species to ensure our survival. While I am not suggesting that the remaining humans kill the new emergent species of Homo Automobolious. I am suggesting that in order to ensure the survival of the species that we must kill the culture of cars that allows for the emergence of Homo Automobolius.
On Homo Consumeralis
Consumerism has hijacked and is suffocating the human spirit. Our economy turned humans into economic units of consumption. Our economic system which defines our social relationships is not designed to serve human needs rather to profit of humans by selling them things they don’t need.
We have also become completely disconnected from our own biology. When we became shoppers and consumers we forgo who we are and what our needs are.
At the start of the pandemic people knew that that they had do something. Many went to big box stores and filled oversize shopping carts with toilet paper. So many people did this that the country ran out of toilet paper. We knew we needed to do something but we were so disconnect from our own humanness that we ended up filling shopping carts with toilet paper. Why toilet paper? I suspect because it is cheap and has volume so the carts are filled up and thus the feeling of doing something by buying something is satisfied.
Hoarding is a recognized mental illness. What is not recognized is that hoarding is a spectrum and our entire society suffers from it all of us falling somewhere on the spectrum. We all have too much stuff. Stuff we don’t need. Stuff that we think will make our lives better but instead acts as anchors. Stuff that infects our brains.
There are physical manifestation of this beyond the filled drawers and closets and garages in our shelters. We see buildings in cities and in the landscape to store stuff we no longer need, no longer use but don’t know how to let go of. There is even a popular show on television about the abandonment of these spaces and the hunting for treasure (though its mostly junk) called Storage Wars.
Our minds have been taken over by consumerism. Although plants create the oxygen we breathe and all the food we eat. We can identify more corporate logos than plants. We can recognize more cars on the road than animal prints in the ground. We aspire to things we don’t need, that that make no rational (or irrational sense), that harm the planet.
There are built in behaviors around consumption that have normalized insanity. An example of which is our use of single use plastic. Your avocados don’t need to be protected by single use plastic to get from the grocery to your home. Consumerism extends beyond stuff into experiences. We think its normal to ride stationary bikes indoors going nowhere and paying for the experience.
Most people participate in false rituals of aspiration and status seeking subconsciously.
Yet it is undeniable that we have ceased being humans and have become consumers.
In a consumer society social connections are transactional. They have been cheapened and weakened and made as disposable as the single use plastic cups and forks that are accepted by the trillions without questioning the insanity of.
The physical manifestations of this are everywhere in our built environment. It’s just not the big box stores with their acres of parking lots. It’s at every intersection and you can see it for your self if you ask the question “humans could have built anything and the choose to build this?”
As this is so removed from who we are as a species both as individuals and a society, I propose another new species called Homo Consumeralis.
As humans we have always killed competing species to ensure our survival. While I am not suggesting that the remaining humans kill the new emergent species of Homo Consumeralis. I am suggesting that in order to ensure the survival of the species that we must kill the the social structures that allows for the emergence of Homo Consumeralis.