Is Truth Stranger than Fiction?

Intro

When I was very delusional the weight of the world was on my shoulders. It was my responsibility to save the world from self destruction. Like most delusions, particularly ones that lasted for many years, I find it very difficult to unbelieve them completely. I know they are probably delusions because nobody else has ever come to same conclusions. Coincidences are common in life. It is concrete reality that matters, especially dollars and cents. Am I ahead of my time in my understanding of human evolution and the dangers that result from that or am I simply jumping to conclusions with no concrete evidence to support my speculation? I just know what I believe.

In the beginning

I think at one point there was a lot of racial diversity in protohominids. Some grew to the size of Buicks, were very hairy and extremely territorial. They lived in the north. Along the south beaches and mangrove swamps lived a much smaller smooth skinned and extremely sexual variety. A slow cooling trend forced these two divergent species to mate creating the ancestors of the humans we have grown to know and love. The females have more of the smaller smooth skinned sexual apes and the men the larger, territorial, hairy apes. But that was a very long time ago. I read the Larousse Encyclopedia of Mytholgy cover to cover a half dozen times, mythology being mostly oral history, a substantial amount from before the last ice age 10,000 years ago. The mythology talks about a race of dwarfs that inhabited most of asia, and in Hindu mythology Vishnu is often pictured dancing on the dwarf king. But even I was surprised when archeologists discovered the remians of this dwarf race on an Indonesian island recently. This species of humans are only three feet high and they lived until 13,000 years ago. It's a major find in archeology, but they don't read mythology as history so they don't realize how widespread this species was before the taller Vishnu sapiens conquered and destroyed them.
Anthropology is biology and I think our evolution is shaped by relationships with certain viruses and retroviruses. One of these relationships with the Herpes virus led to the sensitivity of the female clitoris as an erogenous zone. Of probably greater significance though were certain African viruses which could only travel to the rest of the world along the Nile River. These viruses change the human brain, and perhaps just the endocrinology of particular receptors or network connections in the brain. Human evolution is occurring to keep up with virus induced changes which give a temporary evolutionary advantage to the group that is affected by the virus. It is a simulated group selection. Group selection was a compelling but completely impossible type of evolutionary theory. Evolution can only happen one individual at a time and a gene for altruism would quickly die out. If an individual valued his group more than his own life he/she wouldn't leave progeny. A classic example is World War Two. Everything about WW2 is weird, the rise of Hitler, the devotion to the Emperor, the fact the whole world was involved. It was a decidedly irrational religious war resulting from what we call the rise of fascism, that probably occurred as a result of the Spanish Influenza epidemic. The Spanish Influenza epidemic swept the world and millions died from the epidemic alone. Shortly after that Germany, Italy and Japan declare war on the rest of the world, and everybody fights it out to the bitter end. To anyone living now the idea of being a Kamikaze pilot seems somewhat less than a great honor. War is fought by people who are willing to die. It's been happening for most of recorded human history. The leaders who could organize the largest, most dedicated soldiers won the territory they invaded and expanded their empire at the expense of their soldiers. Although the virus compromises an individuals ability to survive, the temporary advantage to the group allows it to win out in an aggressive expansion of the group's territory. This temporary advantage is something that real evolution then has to compete with through actual inherited genetic characteristics. The virus per se does not become part of our genetic code. It couldn't because people affected by the virus suffer brain damage and go get killed in blind devotion to somebody else who is genetically unrelated to them.
Whenever I see hero worship and blind dedication for no particular reason, particularily if there is a strong religious component, I know I am seeing the virus at work. A recent more complicated example are the Muslim suicide bombers. Nobody can quite understand what motivates a muslim suicide bomber. Everybody is looking at the beliefs that rationalize the action, not how that individual caught a brain damaging neurovirus that set them on a self destruct path. The cause of suicide bombers revolves around the Haj to Mecca. Every muslim has to make the pilgrimage to Mecca in their life time to walk around the meteorite called Ka'bah seven times. As pilgrims come together from around the world they exchange virus strains which undergo recombination to become more powerful variants. In fact if I still thought my mission was to reduce the world's population I would fly to Turkey, find some chicken infected with 5HN1, and make the pilgrimage myself, and let the chicken go when I could touch the Ka'bah. It's only a question of time before the strain that is causing the suicide bombers recombines with the a 5HN1 strain that some pilgrim from Turkey carries. I wouold expect all hell to break loose when it does happen. Even after World War 2 when you would think people had learned not to idolize their leaders, John F Kennedy and Pierre Trudeau received almost religious adulation for anything they did, good or bad. It was almost an echo of the WW2 virus. I thought Beatlemania was somewhat more complex because the focus is not on an individual in power, but on the music several people create together. I think the Beatles probably prevented World War 3. There is no doubt that something very important happened with the Beatles driving young females to cream in their jeans in some sort of sexual rapture, but to be honest I can't quite explain it. Individual dictators might have a unique relationship to the virus, something to do with their immune system, or brain structure. No one should ever have that much power in their lifetime, but one would never have guessed the Hitler would become dictator of Germany. His first attempt at revolution was from top of a table in a tavern, and I think he was summarily tossed out of the establishment. The simple truth is that you can't build a great pyramid with slave labor. Those laborers were dedicated to their God, the man or woman they were going to enshrine. It is the Egyptian dynasties that really point to a virus originating in Africa, perhaps becoming weaker as it traveled north, a virus that in some sense causes brain damage and endangers the individual's life. They tend to die in a war shortly after they have been infected with a new strain of the virus. The Egyptian Pharaohs though ruled the Nile with deserts and oceans on all sides, a very defendable position, and they consequently ruled for a very long time, probably real evolutionary time until the evolutionary equivalent of the virus had spread to other parts of the world. I'm not saying the virus is bad in any sense. Biologists don't have any morals per se. The virus, has probably led to most of the recent unique human evolution we take for granted now, like language, writing, religion, (particularly religion), technology, music, etc.. It is pepper in the human soup, (as mentioned in Alice in Wonderland) you don't want to add too much at any given time, especially now that there are so many nuclear warheads targeting every corner of the globe. It is the main engine in the recent evolution of human culture, over the long throw. but I can't help but point out the significant impact of selective breeding in European history, where wealthy feudal landlords mate and produce progeny with however many of their female peasants they may desire. Bertolucci's film 1900 pointed that out to me.
As I realized the impact of this virus on human culture I realized that it started in Atlantis before the last ice age. Modern archaeologists will tell you there was no civilization before the last ice age, because permanent human settlements don't start until after the ice age along the coasts on river deltas. Atlantis was an island in a small lake now located at the bottom of the present Dead Sea. It wasn't a dead sea back then. They practiced intensive agriculture of some sort much like the Aztecs did in Teotiuhuacan, which translated means "the city where men became Gods".
Atlantis was known to the whole human race. The inhabitants were considered to be Gods. The only way to learn about Atlantis now is through mythology. I think the Vedas might be that old too. The last ice age 10,000 years ago completely destroyed the human civilization that existed up until that point.
Before the last ice age there was only one language. There was a unity in human culture before the tower of Babel. A lot of geographically diverse mythology has references to Atlantis, the city where men became Gods and the great flood, because there was only one human language at that time. The End of Atlantis did come suddenly. There is a volcano towards the farther end of the Red Sea, in Ethiopia that has been active recently. I am proposing that a volcanic eruption sent tidal waves that flooded the low lying land bridge that separates the Dead Sea from the Red Sea that created the Dead Sea and destroyed Atlantis. If that volcanic eruption was strong enough, it could have plunged the world into an ice age, although I think ice ages are probably cyclical, dependent the heat generated in the core of the earth. In deep mine shafts the temperature goes up the deeper you go. It could be something like the Sunspot activity cycle, just over a much longer span of time. I can't understand why geologists haven't predicted the next ice age. All you have to do is reconstruct the timeline of previous ice ages and you could predict the next one. With so much of our heat coming from the earth's core, and water holding so much heat, the oceanic temperatures would be where to look. I was convinced an ice age was imminent, and that would lead to the war to end all wars, a nuclear holocaust breaking up the continental plates, ending the world in fire and brimstone as the oceans evaporated. Since seeing "An Inconvenient Truth" starring Al Gore who should have been president, I have become reconciled to the end of humanity through global warming, although I think global warming will lead to tensions that result in a world war involving the use of many nuclear bombs. It is quite remarkable to see a similarity between the rise of Fascist Spain instead of an Anarchist Spain, and the equally great division between Al Gore and president Bush. They are diametric opposites, and that is very curious.
I remember reading "The Sexual Life of Savages" by Malinowski, and reading about the earliest pornographic film that has survived, "The Grass Sandwich", currently in one of the American Sex Institutes. I researched human sexuality through the ages a lot and came to the conclusion that women were once much more sexual than they have been in recorded history. I think that human culture was not stressed to survive in their environments before the last ice age, physically or socially. Societies were probably matriarchal then and much more sexual. Remnants of female sexual expression such as the isolated Trobiand Islanders visited by Malinowski in the late 19th century were now quite unique. The Pacific Islanders didn't have a word for work in their language. Malinowski recorded that women have their first pregnancy at about 25 years old even though "their vaginas are filled with men's semen" from a very young age to quote an elder Malinowski talked to. Malinowski couldn't figure out why the young women didn't get pregnant at age 16 like the Europeans.
Hormones are a very highly evolved, and complex system. I took an endocrinology course at university, and science understands very little about what evolutionary role hormones have. It is quite possible that age of reproductive capability would be controlled by the endocrine system as affected by environmental and social stress. It makes sense in evolutionary terms. When environmental stress increases you want a greater rate of reproduction to compensate for inevitable losses. When times are good, and what we would say is idyllic, you want reproduction to replace just the people lost to old age. Our sexuality isn't lost per se, it has been buried, and the troubles that adolescents girls have with self esteem, and eating disorders is probably dependent on how much we suppress and discourage their sexuality.
I was really struck when I became interested in the biology of sexuality that there was virtually no information on the subject in any of the university libraries I searched. There is no history of sexuality, no evolution of sexuality, and virtually no biology of human sexuality in any library in Canada. In fact very little is known about female sexuality. The female orgasm is marked by the contraction of the pubococygeus muscle and I've only felt that contraction during sex once in my life. The G-spot orgasm almost disappeared in the 20th century, probably the vaginal orgasm that Freud was so criticized for in the 1970's. Our ability to enjoy sexual pleasure has been seriously compromised around the world, which makes books like "The Sexual Life of Savages" and temples like those at "Konarak" windows to a world we otherwise couldn't imagine, at least not without public censure. I would guess that the virus upset our evolutionary balance and put pressure on endocrine systems to allow reproductive capability at an earlier age, which caused the population growth, which increased the social pressures and adversely affected the development and experience of sexuality in adolescence.
I thought the aliens controled our evolution. There are two capabilities in progress, our sexuality and our intelligence. Both were equally important to my aliens. They are the left and right steps that characterize how we walk our evolutionary path. The right step, our sexual capabilities was done before the last ice age, now we are learning to live and function without sexuality, the left step. Neither is more important than the other, but if you can't live without sexuality now, than you won't survive very well in our culture. Some people have a more highly evolved capacity for sexual pleasure and some people have a more very highly evolved intelligence. Evolution was selecting both but in a right step, and then left step process. Women are fundamentally more sexual than males. They have more than one type of orgasm of longer duration that can be repeated many more times than any male could maintain an erection. They experience a deeper more profound orgasm. They have more errogenous zones, the list goes on... and yet in our society we believe it's the men who are more sexual. In recent history it is required that the women become more like men. In various islamic societies they completely hide any sexuality. Their era, when societies were matriarchal, existed before the last ice age, when the focus of evolution was different. In our more patriarchal society the selective force is for territoriality, not sexuality. I remember in the 1960's everyone understood that blondes have more fun, but since then blondes are increasingly the subject of jokes about how stupid they are. That change illustrates the process that is the essence of our current evolution.
Another virus I was interested in is the AIDS virus. I thought it was a complimentary virus keeping homosexuality in check. I think it only erupts when you approach Sodom and Gomorrah, but I've got nothing against homosexuals per se. Everybody has some acquaintances they know are gay. I think male homosexuality is determined by the second trimester, contingent on the stress levels a mother-to-be is experiencing, in her society, and this has a direct impact on the developing fetus. I suspect female homosexuality is quite different and has more to do with the repression of female sexuality in our culture, primarily through the mother/daughter relationship. The equivalent social and environmental stress during the pregnancy of females probably would affect the development of their sexuality and leave them more asexual rather than homosexual. I thought the AIDS virus was the answer to saving humanity from extinction by overpopulation. The geological record is filled with species whose numbers increase dramatically before they disappear completely. The interesting species are the ones that still exist who became frozen in time, they haven't changed in millions of years. Humanity is not exempt from the laws of evolution, and nobody can explain how evolution works yet. As an environmentalist I realized the only real threat to the humans on this planet was overpopulation. Everyone wants two cars in the garage, but that obviously isn't be sustainable if you have 6 billion people. The population had to be reduced. The easiest way was another great plague, the fairest was one where people with a good immune system would survive. By hybridizing the AIDS virus with the common cold, you could have a rapidly transmitted disease that would kill people fairly painlessly within a week or two. I was hoping to eliminate 4 billion people. I knew that nobody would probably want to live in Canada. It could be declared a national park. In fact everyone who survived could probably live in the Caribbean or the south Pacific, maybe southern California and the French riviera. But that was just imagining where people would live if they could live anywhere. There was no superior race in my plan. It was an essentially random selection based on immune system capabilities. Before long I realized I didn't have to do anything. The AIDS virus would naturally mutate to a form where it was rapidly transmitted to the rest of the world just like the influenza virus that caused the brain damage that led to World War 2. Without a black plague that reduces population size dramatically I suspect there will be more and more conflict for scarcer and scarcer resources.
Just by way of interest there is a Hollywood movie that is based on this plot of a plague that wipes out most of humanity, "12 Monkeys", starring Brad Pitt as the mental patient suspected of having released the virus, and Bruce Willis as the reluctant time traveller sent to find out who did. It's a very disturbing movie actually. Politically I have aspired to be an anarchist in the Spanish tradition. I've aspired to be a tantric in the Konarak tradition too, but I've had to adapt to the culture I live in. That was the paradise I hoped to reestablish through the plague.
I have less and less interest in these sorts of things as time passes. If I have any mission now, it is to enjoy the remaining years of my life as much as possible. I was intrigued the first "Matrix" movie because sometimes it seems like I'm living in the Matrix. I'm not religious so I know the real world is very much different than the one we know. What I believed in psychosis probably isn't accurate, but there are evolutionary processes at work that no one can see. There are also things you are not allowed to believe, things you're not allowed to question.

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