Ro Ronalds
Introduction
From an evolutionary standpoint, Humans are symbiotes of innumerable other living things. Now, that humans are symbiotic is not a new concept, as it has for quite some time been a staple of Biological science teachings that all animals exist in a net of interdependence that is called the Ecosystem. Though the human role of depending upon this ecosystem has to a certain extent been downplayed as being secondary to the intelligence of the human species as a whole, the role of the ecological matrix that is all life has been taken into account as a way in which humans are reliant upon other species to exist. However, the crux of the matter is that human intelligence is only the indirect cause of human survival. The result of that intelligence, human ability to be symbiotic or parasitic towards other species, to choose to interlock their own survival with that of other organisms or, ever increasingly now, machines, is what has allowed the species to become so very proficient at surviving. It is here called Evolutionary Symbiosis.
Evolutionary Biosymbiosis
Human Evolutionary Symbiosis may in the present day be seen most clearly in the instance of species that are a human food source and to a lesser extent, ones that provide a necessary medicine or material. There are many examples that are useful to illustrate this, including the most visible ones of, for the livestock, cattle, pigs, and chicken, and for the food crops, grains and the plants that we now call vegetables for the very reason of their connection as our food sources. Humans have, for instance, acted upon the evolution of cattle over numerous centuries, with the human species selecting for certain traits that allow the species to better act as a human food source. Cattle are dependant now upon humans to make sure that they survive, and humans are in turn dependent upon those cattle as an available food source. It is in the best interest of the cattle to become more and more the “prey” of the humans, as the more dependent humans are upon that food source, the more man makes sure that cattle survive, and the more that those species as a whole, though not necessarily any individuals, thrive. The same effect applies to the other livestock as well, swine, chicken, etc. Competition has completely reversed its role in this instance, where the organisms compete not to avoid consumption by the prey, but the opposite. In the same manner, hunting and gathering has drastically been phased out of human society as the source for food, and has for the most part been replaced with breeding, of livestock and crops. The more this occurs, the more humans become symbiotically dependent as a race upon these “food species”.
The side effects of this human alteration of and utilization of these host species is seen in the degradation of the quality and health of many of those species as well as contamination of human lifestyles as an effect of direct contact with said species. By the definition of symbiosis the organisms must be linked, so adverse effects that happen to one partner should be mirrored to a certain extent in the other. These “food species” have a decreased need for health beyond reproduction, with livestock becoming more and more bags of flesh, while crops become leaches of soil nutrient. This is done to excess, crowding out variation and hardier crops in favor of factors relatively unconnected to health, such as taste, or even color. The state of excess detaches the food species from the ecosystem and makes them into locusts. Crops are rotated until the soil becomes barren and the livestock are rotated in the same way from feeding ground to feeding ground, leaving only barren waste behind. Humans suffer a toll from this in the nutrition of their food, but more actively in transgenic diseases, sickness that evolves to jump between species. Swine Flu is a weak form of flu among pigs that became transgenic, i.e. able to change species, developing from a “barnyard” situation, squalid conditions where many species are in close contact. The disease then transferred over to humans where it was very fatal, and the flu epidemic in 1918 that killed 675, 000 in the US and over 20 million worldwide was posthumously attributed to that source after extensive testing for viral genetic material in preserved samples, as the genetic material is quite stable for a very long time. “Mad Cow disease” or BSE, is the results of prions, infected protein that remain inert in sheep, cow, human and a few species’ brain matter after death, lying quiescent until consumed by a new host, at which point it joins the genetic matter of any of those species, able to be passed on to offspring, and subsequently begins to have the host produce the protein, which breaks down the brain matter of the carrier.
Evolutionary Mechano-symbiosis
Now humans appear to be moving towards an era where the living symbiosis is being exchanged with machines. It therefore seems that human use of machines to survive will define this next step in the process of the survival of the species as a whole. Considering the parallels between man’s relationship with machines in the present day and with animals in the past, one might come to the conclusion that that relationship is nearly identical. However, there is an integral difference between the two, and that difference is that the machines “evolve” at the pace of human ability to make it happen. That pace, as has been seen over the past century or even over the last decade, can be made to be extremely fast, and bring with it massive change. Humans can alter and improve machines quickly because there are no real fail safes for how viable a machine must be to survive. As long as resources are still available to create the parts, machines can be made to evolve faster and farther in the directions that humans dictate, and humans want strength, speed, energy, intelligence. So the machines become the speed, strength, energy, and intelligence to fill in for where the mankind’s physical nature lacks; e.g. automobiles, electrical tools, computers…
Though fast, the speed and ease of that change uncovers a flaw, in that there are no evolutionary failsafe mechanisms on the destruction that machines can cause. This is already evident in pollution, an affect of this second tier existence of machines. Living things rely upon the environment for continued survival, thus destruction of that environment is counterproductive. Machines rely upon Human creation for existence, and thus destruction of the environment does not directly alter their “evolution” to make it so that they don’t destroy. Machines also do not self-propagate, another way in which they are immune to the evolutionary blunder of mass destruction, while animals that tend to explode usually go extinct rather quickly. As long as humans exist, machines can be born. In this manner, machines that are also weapons are linked to human desires, emotions and thoughts that cause mankind’s tendency towards destruction of others. The question that faces us in the future is whether man’s symbiosis with machines will be an evolutionary dead-end, or whether this next level of symbiosis will truly act with beneficial effect upon the outcome of human survival.
Overview
It seems, altogether, that humans have become perhaps the most powerful force on the planet as a result of their initial helplessness. Humans may once have been rather like blind white worms, drowning exposed in the rain, and that essential helplessness acted, forcing man to reach beyond physical failings and establish a massive network of support, living and non-living, to overcome that original beginning. Human ability to alter environment to suit individual may eventually simply act as the rope given to mankind to make a noose out of.
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