Escaping the Trap that Comes With the Evolution of Civilization – Part 2/5

October 9, 2010

Guest Post by K. D. Koratsky – Originally published at Living With Evolution. Due to its academic nature, this version has been edited, revised and serialized with permission from the author. 

The way individuals or civilizations compete for survival differs due to the circumstances.

Taking the tough times first, it isn’t difficult to see that when resources are short and aggression is intense, only those with the very best economic and combat skills, on average, will avoid extinction within any given niche.

In short, there will be strong selection pressure against all characteristics that lack a high degree of functionality and/or adaptivity.


America: The Coming Collapse? You Decide!

This pattern is illustrated by human history and within the fossil record at large.

In contrast, we also find that good times produce the opposite effect.

That is, instead of there being strong selection pressure for only the most functional and adaptive of characteristics to survive when resources are plentiful and are increasing rapidly, those who are not skilled economically (work or business) or in combat  may well be able to still make a living.

Hence, it is in good times that we can expect to see an increase of nonfunctional and even dysfunctional mutations in humanity that would typically be trimmed away with normal rates of evolutionary attrition.

Return to Escaping the Trap – Part 1 or go to Escaping the Trap – Part 3

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K. D. Koratsky is the author of Living With Evolution or Dying Without it: A Guide to Understanding Humanity’s Past, Present and Future. Koratsky also writes a Blog on this subject at Living With Evolution.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Escaping the Trap that Comes With the Evolution of Civilization – Part 1/5

October 8, 2010

Guest Post by K. D. Koratsky – Originally published at Living With Evolution. Due to its academic nature, this version has been edited, revised and serialized with permission from the author.

 

 

Study enough history and you will see that even the greatest, most powerful civilizations vanished. One example are the Mayans.

The Aztecs, Incas, Romans, Greeks, Persians and Egyptian civilizations all came to an end, so will the powerful empires of today.

In fact, the America empire specifically and the West generally have been in an unmistakable state of decline over the last several decades.

Meanwhile, China specifically and the East generally have risen over the same period.

In fact, Chinese civilization has collapsed and been reborn several times.  The earliest known dynasty, the Xia (2205 to 1783 B.C.), survived for more than 400 years before collapsing.

Today, We appear to be witnessing the latest examples of empires rising and falling in inevitable fashion according to some immutable law.

However, while there is indeed a tendency for empires to fall once they have arisen, this tendency can be overcome.

Repetitive Regress

Generally speaking, the falls of empires typify a regression to the mean that is the standard not only for empires, but for human families, individuals, and even nonhuman species as well.

This phenomenon is a natural outgrowth of greater evolutionary dynamics.

To understand why, we must examine the way cycles of good times and bad affect species and those within them as all compete for survival.

Go to Escaping the Trap – Part 2

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K. D. Koratsky is the author of Living With Evolution or Dying Without it: A Guide to Understanding Humanity’s Past, Present and Future. Koratsky also writes a Blog on this subject at Living With Evolution.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Challenge of Evolution – Adapt or Perish

September 17, 2010

I’m reading Living With Evolution by K. D. Koratsky.  It’s heavy reading and reminds of university textbooks that threatened to put me to sleep while words blurred and paragraphs become forgotten broken records.

My usual reading time is a half hour or so before sleep and I was getting nowhere.

Then I came up with a tactic that worked.

In the morning when I peddle three miles on the stationary bike during daily exercise, I read from Koratsky’s book and what he says is riveting even if it is like slogging through thick oatmeal.

Koratsky has done his homework and the in-depth weaving of details covers the beginning of life billions of years ago and builds to today.

Too bad for the devoutly religious, who firmly believe that the universe and all life started about six thousand years ago with the wave of God’s magic wand.

It baffles me how people hold onto such beliefs. It must be fear and/or denial.

There is too much evidence that says otherwise, and Koratsky’s book spells it out in excruciating detail.

In addition, idealists who believe humanity can evolve into a peace-loving global community where no one suffers or goes hungry while crime is nonexistent and everyone is having fun is in for a BIG disappointment.

In chapter five, Koratsky writes about what happened after North America and South America bumped into each other millions of years ago and fused.

South America has been isolated for millions of years and there hadn’t been much of a challenge for the species that developed there so they had not evolved.

However, life forms in North America had been forced to evolve to survive contact with Asia and Europe and were stronger because of it.

Evidence shows that life from South America couldn’t compete with life from a stronger North America and was all but wiped out.

What I read caused me to think of the West’s invasion of China, which started with the Opium Wars early in the 19th century. 

Then for more than a century, the Chinese struggled to survive as the British Empire, the French, Germans, Portuguese, Russians, Japanese and Americans poured in and waged war with Chinese Culture threatening it with extinction.

To survive, China had to evolve or be swallowed by Western culture becoming a second class citizen.

After the Communists won the struggle against Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalists in 1949, the metamorphosis began. Under Mao, China wove a cocoon around itself cutting off the world with the bamboo curtain.

During the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, China went through drastic and painful changes to evolve into a different civilization—one strong enough to survive in a brutal, complex, competitive modern world.

Some will disagree.  He or she will ask, “How can the horrors that took place in China under Mao be called part of the evolutionary process of survival?”

However, once you read about how species that cannot adapt with drastic environmental changes perish, the skeptics might understand what happened. 

Evolution and Mother Nature do not care about humanity or how many suffer. 

When the global environment changes drastically, death, destruction and extinction are a byproduct and humanity is not exempt from that process. 

See The Roots of Madness

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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