The DNA of Collapse

(Author’s note: The following essay was written as a companion piece to an earlier essay titled, ‘Collapse and Regeneration’. Both essays share a number of traits including the opening quote and the element of human interference but differ fundamentally in their approaches to making sense of the world we live in. The ‘Collapse and Regeneration’ essay leans more towards the next chapter in Earth’s history while the following ‘DNA’ document focuses more on the preceding chapter, which includes the tenuous and rather brutish Anthopocine era).

The DNA of Collapse

The Element of Interference and the Genesis of a Meltdown

Introduction:

‘An optimist looks for a light at the end of the tunnel.
A pessimist looks for a tunnel at the end of the light.
A realist takes a deep breath… slowly exhales… and
accepts that the universe is unfolding as it should’.

If someone, anyone, were to blurt out that the train-wreck occurring around us today, including the collapse of the human system and everything that system has wrought, is actually supposed to be happening, they would probably be committed or maybe run out of town. The following essay provides a plausible, science-based and historical explanation that supports the rather outrageous statement highlighted above. The document will borrow various elements from other recent related essays in order to bolster its case.

What exactly does that mean…’is supposed to be happening’? To answer this timely question the following treatise will draw a number of comparisons between the birth and evolution of a society (or civilization) and the birth and evolution of an ordinary plant. Both are organic processes and bear striking similarities to each other including (1) the dynamics of a ‘seed’ and the far-reaching properties of the DNA contained within it, and (2) that all living organisms must abide by and respect the laws of nature, (3) the foremost of those laws being consequence and causality, Answering the above question requires that we approach this subject from a different angle…a wide angle. We must step back, way way back in order to examine the laws, intricacies, overlaps and interconnections which govern human and natural history. The main objectives of this whole exercise is to first, determine how advanced modern humans managed to transform a planet that was in a relative state of balance and harmony (pre agriculture) into a catastrophic global train-wreck… in only six or seven thousand years. The second objective is to connect the dots between these two historical markers in order to show conclusively that the collapse of the human system was written right into the DNA of the seed that spawned it. That seed, being two-fold in nature, was (1) the introduction of human interference into the natural order of biological life on the planet, and (2) the subsequent invention of agriculture (both plant and animal).

(Note: It should be stated at the outset that there is no blame or fault assigned to the advanced modern humans, regardless of the awful mess we created. Homo sapiens were in fact unwitting participants in a major evolutionary quirk that quickly spun out of control and therefore no one is to blame. It is also helpful to understand as well that the laws of nature and the physical sciences do not view the world through the capricious filters of good or bad, right or wrong, ethical or unethical…or who’s to blame. These arbitrary filters (judgements) are uniquely and essentially human-specific, ideological constructs which are valid only within the extremely limited confines of the human super-mind).

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The Seed as Metaphor

The basic unit and the starting point of all organic life on Planet Earth is the seed. The seed consists of an outer shell (or membrane) that acts as a temporary vessel which carries within it the essence of life…the DNA. If the DNA is healthy and uncontaminated, the spawn (whether plant or animal) will be likewise. Conversely, if the DNA is infected or diseased, the off-spring will also be like and kind. It can’t get much simpler than that. A good example, suited to our needs, would be that of a crawling vine…if the DNA of the vine’s seed is diseased, every subsequent leaf along its wandering branches will be diseased as well. Every leaf. Even the most recent leaves will be infected and that infection can be traced directly back to the seed.

The systemic meltdown we super-humans created can likewise be traced back to a precise moment, a specific event which occurred many thousands of years back in mankind’s early history. That specific event – or seed – was the introduction of interference, human interference, into nature’s ancient system of balance and order on the planet. Unprecedented… in three and a half billion years of biological evolution…the element of interference.

War-mongering, the European conquest and colonization of the planet, the tyranny of the Catholic Church, greed and hoarding, the buying, selling and exclusive ownership of land, the global livestock, fishing, forest products and petroleum industries, the disparity between the rich and the poor, environmental degradation, the Indian Residential schools, the holocaust, the Panama papers, artificial intelligence, the New World Order, the surveillance state, Facebook and ‘Trumpism’….are each the cancerous hallmarks of advanced, modern civilizations and each cancer can be traced directly back (via DNA) to the poisons inherent within the original seed of human interference.

“The five previous extinction events were caused by either
geological cataclysms or extraterrestrial incursions.
This is the first time a planet has been brought down by an idea”

Excerpt from the Train-Wreck essay

Human interference was, at its base, another ideological construct…an idea. And the idea first reared its ugly head as the invention of agriculture and the practice of animal husbandry. Recent and related essays drone on (ad nauseam) about this fact but it is imperative (in order to make a case) that the subject of agriculture be dragged into this document as well. Why was the invention of agriculture such a monumental blunder, so much so that in only six or seven thousand years (since agriculture became the dominant practice in the eastern hemisphere) the planet went from a state of relative balance and harmony to a lethally over-populated, social and environmental meltdown. And as if the meltdown itself weren’t bad enough, the planet is also now fully engaged in (as opposed to ‘on the verge of’ or approaching) the early stages of another major extinction event. All of this occurred in only a few thousand years (a mere blink of an eye in universal terms).

The answer to the above question is elementary, in scientific terms. The long version of the explanation can be found in the larger essay titled ‘The Ideological Epoch and the Dynamics of a Train-wreck’, a link to which is provided at the end of this document. But here’s the short version…and I’ll try to condense it down into three or four paragraphs.

For three and a half billion years of biological evolution, nature (and its infallible laws) had been in control…at the helm, so to speak. The two central tenets of natural law are biodiversity and balance (balance of course referring to population management). In order to survive, all living organisms on the planet were required to adhere to and abide by an ancient set of stringent rules. If a subspecies or colony of organisms became unbalanced (over or under populated) nature would correct that imbalance via a number of tools at its disposal. These tools – which fall under the general category of ‘culling’ – included disease, starvation, forest fires, floods, drought, attrition or relocation. With nature at the controls the whole system hummed along like a fine Swiss watch.

Enter the Homo-sapien, a strange looking apparition who walked on two feet, had opposable thumbs and whose primate brain had just undergone a three-hundred percent explosion in growth (350cc to 1350cc). The same explosive growth referred to numerous times in the ‘train-wreck’ essay as a biological aberration….a ‘freak’ of nature. The creature’s aberrant over-sized brain endowed it with the ability (perhaps disability) to arbitrarily manufacture ideas. Being arbitrary, and synthesized within the closed synaptic vacuum of the creature’s super-brain, the ideas were independent and dissociated from the laws of nature, which further meant the ideas did not necessarily have to adhere to or abide by anything. This most unfortunate development summarily sealed the fate of the hapless humans…not to mention the fate of the rest of the biosphere.

(Note: It must be clarified that I am not referring to the human being as a biological aberration…only the advanced human’s super brain. The human ‘being’, like all other living, sentient organisms on the planet, is an absolute wonder to behold because it is the embodiment of the divine energy that permeates the universe…that same divine energy that Einstein identified as the ‘unified field’, and that indigenous cultures refer to as the ‘Great Spirit’. Yes, the human brain exploded, went berserk and made an awful mess of things but that doesn’t detract from the intrinsic ‘goodness’ humans – and all living beings – carry within themselves).

The Equation, the Inversion and the ‘Small to Large’ Differential

Back to the essay. The novel innovation of capturing, domesticating, mass-breeding and exploiting wild animals, plants and grains (all of which should have remained in the wilds) may have seemed like a good idea at the time but in fact it threw a major monkey wrench into nature’s finely tuned balancing act. Prior to the invention of agriculture nature had established an unwritten law, an equation, which dictated that only a small number of land based predators (humans and wolves for example) could survive on a relatively large tract of land. This equation and its ‘small to large’ differential is key. Hunting was difficult, especially for humans with their primitive weapons. But the difficulty with the hunt, combined with the oftentimes scarcity of prey ensured that an overall balance in species population was maintained for that particular tract of land or Eco-system.

‘Simply put, agriculture and animal husbandry caused the above equation to became inverted….instead of a small number of humans surviving on a large tract of land as nature intended, a large number of humans were now able to exist on a small tract of land.

Excerpt from the Train-Wreck essay

Note: The global anthropology community has pegged the world-wide human hunter-gatherer population to have been in the range of 5-6 million just prior to the invention of agriculture. That 5-6 million figure remained fairly consistent for the 25,000 years leading up to agriculture. The same anthropology community has also estimated that – had agriculture not been invented – todays global population of humans (as hunter-gatherers) would have increased by no more than one million since agriculture. That is why the terms ‘berserk’ and ‘aberration’ are frequently used when referring to the invention of agriculture.

The invention of agriculture and the practice of animal husbandry was a game-changer to say the least. The capture and mass-breeding of wild sheep and other ruminants in pens and corrals, plus the gathering and replanting of wild grains and seeds provided hunter gatherers (turned agrarians) with a steady, year-round source of meat, fur and vegetable grains which were all raised and stored in the immediate vicinity of their encampments. Having a year-round source of meat, milk products and stored vegetable grains right outside their ‘back door’ meant these early humans spent less and less time struggling to subsist by hunting and gathering. They slowly became more sedentary, cohabiting in larger encampments and villages and, what is most significant, the birth rates began to slowly increase (the increase attributed mainly to food security). It is doubtful these factors, combined with the slow and gradual transition from hunting and gathering to sedentary agrarianism even registered with the early humans of that period. But, from a wide angle view point, the factors caused a ratcheting effect on human populations, i.e., more food security, more births, increased population, more food security, more births, increased population, etc. The ratcheting effect, plus all the other factors combined quietly, almost imperceptibly, triggered an exponential process that would eventually ‘hockey stick’ a few thousand years later and see the human population explode from 5 to 6 million (pre agriculture) to 7.8 billion (current). Ouch!

Item 1: The human population is projected to reach 11.2 billion (UN estimate)towards the end of the twenty-first century….an increase factor of 2000 times the pre-agriculture numbers.

Item 2: If anyone has doubts as to the exponential ramifications of agriculture and animal husbandry, consider this. There is a city – one city – in Japan that has a population of 37 million people…six or seven times the entire human population just prior to the invention of agriculture. This happened in only seven or eight thousand years).

Item 3: Around the beginning of the twenty-first century, the human population hit the 7.2 billion mark, and assuming the above UN estimate (11.2 billion for this century’s end) is accurate, that represents an increase of roughly 4 billion. Around that same time-frame China and India’s populations were both a tad over 1 billion each. In rounding these numbers down a bit, a 4 billion increase in human population by the end of the twenty-first century is equivalent to adding two more Chinas and two more Indias to an already lethally over-populated world.

Is Supposed to be Happening

So there you have it…in a nut shell. Human interference (agriculture and animal husbandry) into nature’s finely tuned balancing act constituted the virulent poison within the original seed, within the ideological DNA itself that has subsequently infected the entire growth and evolution of modern, advanced civilizations. From a nature-centric, science-based point of view and according to the unflinching laws of consequence and causality, the universe is (for better or for worse) unfolding as it should. It is critical, at this point in time, that we understand and begin to accept these new realities, that (1) the human system is in an irreversible state of collapse and, (2) that we super-humans some how managed to careen our way into the gaping maw of yet another extinction event.

And last but not least, it is (3) incumbent upon us older foggies from the twentieth century (who caused much of the mess) to begin preparing our children and grandchildren – many of whom have their heads deeply buried in their electronic devices – for the deadly ambush they will be most assuredly stumbling into towards the end of the twenty-first century. Failure to warn our kids and grandkids (a.k.a. millennials) of the dangers they will face – on their own – would constitute a gross dereliction of duty on our part. In terms of preparation, there is no better place to begin than through the education system… perhaps at the grade three to grade four level.

Epilogue

‘When you have a group of people sitting around a circle and
they all agree with one another…you only have half a circle’

– Ancient Cree Wisdom


 

The intention of this essay is not to impose upon or to ram this rather unconventional approach to making sense of the world down anyone’s throat. Instead, the hope is that the ‘DNA of Collapse’ can add a fresh, new voice, a new perspective to the already existing circle…for its consideration.

Thank you.

Dennis Lakusta
September, 2021

For the full version of the ‘train-wreck’ essay and other related scribblings, please return to the INDEX PAGE of this website.