Multicellular Organisms Function Better Than Modern Society

At the molecular level, it has been widely assumed that, in single-celled organisms, each cell perceives its environment — and responds to stress conditions — individually, each on its own to protect itself. Likewise, it had been thought that cells in multicellular organisms respond the same way, but a new study by scientists at Northwestern University reports otherwise.

The Northwestern researchers demonstrated something very unexpected in their studies of the worm C. elegans: Authority is taken away from individual cells and given to two specialized neurons to sense temperature stress and organize an integrated molecular response for the entire organism.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080508143317.htm

Even simple, multicellular organisms have saner systems than we humans do. How is it that mindless, individual cells in an organism can structure themselves into functional hierarchies to flourish and grow, while we, the “intelligent” humans, have to whinge about equality and freedom and watch it all collapse because it sounds nicer?

Increasingly, I’m finding that the “natural world” possesses structural models that have worked well for millenia. Rather than interrupt it with our baseless ideals, why not try to follow its example?

Dr. Albert Bartlett: Arithmetic, Population and Energy

Last night, I downloaded a lecture given by Dr. Albert Bartlett four years ago called “Arithmetic, Population and Energy”. It’s absolutely brilliant. I’ve listened to it twice today. In the lecture, he applies simple arithmetic to growth rates and displays how unrealistic the growth-obsessed really are in an incredibly profound, interesting, and objective manner. Anyone who claims that we can just go on breeding and consuming like mad without consequence has far too much faith in technology, and does not understand the basic mathematics of growth in a system of finite space and resources.

Here’s an excerpt:

In the words of Winston Churchill, “Sometimes we have to do what is required.” First of all, as a nation we’ve got to get serious about renewable energy. As a a start, we ought to have a big increase in the funding for research in the development and dispersion of renewable energy. We have to educate all of our people to an understanding of the arithmetic and the consequences of growth, especially in terms of populations and in terms of the earth’s finite resources. We must educate people to recognise the fact that growth of populations and growth of rates of consumption of resources cannot be sustained. What’s the first law of sustainability? You’ve heard thousands of people talking endlessly about sustainability; did they ever tell you the first law? Here it is: population growth and/or growth in the rates of consumption of resources cannot be sustained. That’s simple arithmetic. Yet nobody that I’m encountering will tell you about that when they’re talking about sustainability. So I think it’s intellectually dishonest to talk about saving the environment, which is sustainability, without stressing the obvious fact that stopping population growth is a necessary condition for saving the environment and for sustainability.

For more:

• Lecture page @ globalpublicmedia.com
• Download the lecture (mp3, 26 MB)
• Read the transcript

Morons Shouldn’t Have Children

A JAPANESE woman who attempted to flush her baby down the toilet has been charged with abandonment, police said.”She allegedly did not rescue the baby (from the toilet basin) and abandoned him,” a police spokesperson said.

Her attempt to flush away the baby, an 880g boy, did not succeed as he blocked the toilet, the spokesperson said. Ms Taniguchi called a repair man hours later and recovered the dead baby with his help. She told the man it was a doll but he was suspicious and called the police.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23607268-5001028,00. html

Two family friends accused of depriving a toddler of fluid for a week as punishment for bed-wetting appeared in court Wednesday to face charges in his death.

Police said 23-month-old Amari Jackson died of dehydration while Sharon Patterson and her brother Robert Patterson were caring for him in February.

Investigators said glasses around the house were laced with hot sauce to keep the boy from drinking.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Robert Patterson told police that the boy cried for his mother when he began staying with him and his sister, but “towards the end of his stay Amari was crying for something to drink.”

Sharon Patterson told police she had been drinking and smoking marijuana the day before Amari died, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. She also told them she had previously lost custody of four children because of drug addiction. Attorneys said in court Wednesday that she has mental health issues.

According to the arrest warrant affidavit, Sharon Patterson said she was frustrated with Hicks for not coming by and checking on Amari or bringing him any clothes or food. “She was planning on depriving Amari Jackson of liquids for a week and didn’t realize that Amari could get sick by dehydration,” the document said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24161815/

Call me a fascist, but people should have to earn the ability to have or even care for children. We have a large enough population as it is, and a significant portion of it is idiotic or parasitic. Let’s look towards building a better society by discouraging the multiplication of those who won’t.

Destroying Humanity

I used to favour strong people, intelligent people, and people that you could rely on to stand with you as the waves of shit approach. I used to hate all the weak, deceitful and idiotic people because they were the ones who would steer humanity towards inertia or failure. But then I thought, who really wants a better society anyway? Life is tough and nobody cares. So I’ve broken out the Linkin Park CDs and decided to hate everyone. I hate you. I hate your friends. I hate your family. And yes, like a 12-year-old who writes poetry about his broken heart, I even hate myself.

In hating all humanity, most would love to tell me that taking myself out would be a proactive beginning to what I think would be a better world. But that one final act wouldn’t be enough. I have work to do: I’m dedicated to my hatred and want to see it through. I must find a way to destroy all humans.

So, the big question is, how could I manage such a thing?

Luckily, over time I’ve realised that I don’t need to do a thing if I want to aid the destruction of humanity, because it’s doing a brilliant job itself. Thanks to liberalism – the theory that individual rights and equal opportunity for all are of utmost importance – we all think that we have the right to consume and breed as much as we want to. Whatever you want, you can have, so long as it doesn’t immediately impose on others individual rights and equal opportunity. Combine this with the consumer goals of today and we end up with a society full of people combining mainly to fulfil their own self-interest. You seek employment so you can profit, you’re employed so they can profit, and all those dollars go towards a new 62-inch HD TV screen so you can watch other people living the lives you wished you lived… in great clarity!

At first glance, this doesn’t appear to make a difference at all. In fact, if you fast forward to today, you’d think this makes my goal of eliminating the species even more difficult. The world population is around 6.7 billion (mostly morons) and continuously growing, something which is enforced by the world-governing U.N. upholding liberalism. To place strict rules to lower the population would spark emotional outcries of “Nazis!” or “fascists!”, as it means damaging the freedom of people to multiply and consume as much as they want. If there’s 6.7 billion people on the planet, then humanity is pretty safe from extinction, right?

Wrong!

Fortunately, as with all excess, there’s a catch to this approach that reaps glorious results for the fall of humanity. If we can continue with all this finance and fucking that people think creates a world of endless growth and prosperity, then something beautiful will occur to eradicate mankind without me even having to lift a finger. Ladies and gentlemen, this blessing in disguise is called overconsumption. Over time, all this consumption by masses of ugly humans takes its toll on the world, resulting in massive damage before most of those 6.7 billion morons even realise let alone act. This ecocidal self-sabotage all helps me by eventually weakening the supply of basic human resources and thus a massive global struggle for the limited stockpiles of pork snacks and Pepsi cans that remain. Basically, think Hurricane Katrina, but on an international scale.

So, I guess that the best thing to do for those of us who want to see humanity fail is to just live out the average Western life as normally (i.e., excessively) as possible. It may not seem like you’re having an effect, but you’ve got to think of the bigger picture. We’re all in this together. Killing people would actually result in less overconsumption. Don’t cut down on your own usage as that will lessen the damage. Consider having as many kids as possible. Consider throwing all your money into purchasing attention-grabbing flashy plastic shit and constant streaming entertainment so you can be constantly absorbed by the numbing reverie. Don’t think. Don’t care. Convince everyone you know to do the same. If someone tries to make you care, remember: it’s your right not to. The world is on autopilot and it’s heading for collapse, and if you truly hate humanity like I do, then you too will sit back and watch it crash instead of doing what’s inconvenient but necessary to make it survive.

Touché, Christmas quote

I was cleaning out some of the redundant shit in my drawers today when I came by a folded up piece of paper. It was really small, only an inch by an inch in size, coloured faded marone, and had reached that point of weathering where paper has become so soft that it feels more like cloth than anything. Intrigued as to what this could have been, I unfolded it to see what wisdom it beheld.

Inside, I found that it was one of those pieces of paper you find in Christmas crackers, bordered on the left and right side with Christmas trees. You know those pieces of paper with a lame joke your read aloud and everyone groans at. Or a common-sense or overly sentimental piece of rhetoric for you to disregard. And to the former generalisation, so much was true; it did have a really lame joke on there. It also had a quote on there, probably also simple and common-sense. But it is the sort of thing that parents tell their children or teachers tell students or friends tell each other without ever actually following it or having followed it themselves. It is the kind of wisdom which everybody knows but nobody can follow.

And I quote:

Self-respecting people do not care to peep at their reflections in unexpected mirrors or to see themselves as others see them.

I now realise why I kept this.

—

P.S. For anyone interested, the joke was absolutely terrible.

Q: What’s worse than when it’s raining cats and dogs?
A: When it’s hailing taxis.

-groan-

Darwin’s Not Dead

Last Saturday, I went with a friend of mine to a gig in the city. Though we knew our very lives were in danger in doing so, we caught the train in. However, only a couple of stops into our journey, we were told that the train was terminating. After my friend and I left the train and walked over to the rail replacement bus stop, we were soon joined by other people who came to realise we were in the right spot, one of whom had managed to find out what had caused this termination. Apparently, a man in his car had tried to beat a train across the tracks and had lost.

It is this that reminded me that although society fights to ensure the safety of all of its people – mothers, judges, teachers and rapists alike – nature is all-pervasive. In nature, the weakest of animals are killed off because they are unable to survive in their environment. A lion who can not stalk its prey goes hungry and dies, whereas one that can is able to survive and goes on to produce young that are as able as their parents. This is my basic understanding of Darwin’s concept of natural selection – the weak (those with less favourable traits) die off out of inability, while the strong (those with more favourable traits) go on to survive and strengthen the gene pool. This prevents a species population from regressing.

However, somewhere along the line, humanity decided to fight against the successful progressive model of nature by creating a more humanitarian morality as the basic model for social ethics. Humanitarianism considers the rights of an individual before their effects on the people around them by considering us all equal, no matter how much we actually differ. “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth,” Christ proclaimed, and we accepted it. Instead of valuing strength and intelligence, we have come to accept weakness and stupidity in the name of “tolerance.” However, many dangers exist in an industrial society for those who lack the common-sense precautions required to function in it. Somebody burns themselves while trying to drink a hot coffee from McDonalds, and somehow it is not her fault that she spilt it on herself, but the fault of the McDonalds corporation. So they have to aim at the lowest common denominator for intelligence and state the obvious “CONTENTS HOT” on the cup. Examples of catering for idiots exists everywhere: “DO NOT EAT” on a box of rat poison, “KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN” on a chainsaw, and the infamous “Do not eat iPod Shuffle.”

“So what? What does this change?”, you may say. Well, think about how far down the line this “lowest common denominator” approach is applied to simplify things such that all may understand. Education would be the best example of this – numeracy and literacy competency have reached ridiculous lows, in both schools and the national population. When you provide an environment for children where the least intelligent are the standard, the most intelligent become pruned by this standard and their learning becomes encumbered by their inability to make use of their higher thinking capability, meaning that when they get older, they may have lost that potential they had while they developed as a child. Logically, if the least intelligent are educated at their level, but the most intelligent restricted by this level, then we will end up with the majority of the population drawing closer to this standard.

But even with all these measures in place enabling those of lesser capabilities to thrive like the greats should, still some people are so stupid that they manage to sink below the “fair” and “equal” lowest common denominator and remove themselves from the gene pool. Not even the obvious warnings of bright red flashing lights, loud noises and boom gates can stop a determined idiot from driving into the path of a train, submitting to what seems like his natural progressive destiny. It almost seems like proof: natural selection is still alive – for in its pervasiveness, it can never die – but we have severely crippled it, and we will surely suffer for it.