- #1
Nachtwolf
- 7
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Sherman Hawk, The Book of Millennium
If it be the truth that human beings, as biological organisms, are subject to the natural laws which govern other creatures, then surely it is also true that human beings, as a species, hate themselves. The one thing which has made us great, we undermine and compromise at every opportunity; the one thing which prevents us from sliding backwards into chaos and distress, we make our best efforts to attack and push away; the one thing to which we owe our humblest thanks, our deepest respect, we despise.
That thing is natural selection.
Countless millions have died to ensure our future — countless souls snuffed out to make us what we are today. Did those who were less intelligent, less cunning, less healthy, less able to survive and reproduce not think or feel? Did they not struggle and suffer? Was their desire for life and happiness so different from our own? Was their anguish at being denied these things less real than our own would be?
These men and women who died without copying their genes are not to be forgotten, not to be ignored, not to be disgraced, for these men and women who died for us are our heroes! It is to their sacrifice that we owe everything we have today, our health, our prosperity, our intelligence, our sentiment — our very lives. If they had not perished, and instead had passed onto us the legacy of their genetic poverty, then the forces of natural selection, which cannot be placated or avoided forever, no matter how long we may try, would have surely destroyed us all when we were just emerging, weak, helpless, naked, from our Eden, from the place our species was born.
Each and every great civilization we have made, from Egypt to America, has spit upon their sacrifice by encouraging its unfit to procreate. Those who would have died under the harsh system of natural selection are fed, sheltered, and encouraged to reproduce by their society. Those who would have thrived and passed on their genes were distracted by the fruits of civilization, seduced by wealth and power, addicted to the practice of thought itself, and failed to pass on their genetic wealth.
Each and every civilization before our own, believing itself above the laws of natural selection, was eventually destroyed by those laws. As harmful mutations built up, as the less able and intelligent outbred the more fortunate, as genetic poverty washed over them in ever growing waves, the fire which kindled the light of civilization dimmed, sputtered, and died, leaving anarchy and destruction and hundreds of years of ignorance in its wake.
If we are to break this dysgenic cycle of suffering, then we must respect those who died for us, respect the forces of natural selection which weeded out their undesirable genes, and, if we are to remove natural selection, we must replace it with artificial selection. There must be selection, in one form or another, and if we find death too cruel a sentence for those whose genes do not merit survival, then we must either reproduce responsibly and in a way which will leave our children with a heritage of genetic wealth, or else accept the whirlwind of destruction which overtakes us when natural selection, too long suppressed, cleanses our species in one nightmarish gesture.
If it be the truth that human beings, as biological organisms, are subject to the natural laws which govern other creatures, then surely it is also true that human beings, as a species, hate themselves. The one thing which has made us great, we undermine and compromise at every opportunity; the one thing which prevents us from sliding backwards into chaos and distress, we make our best efforts to attack and push away; the one thing to which we owe our humblest thanks, our deepest respect, we despise.
That thing is natural selection.
Countless millions have died to ensure our future — countless souls snuffed out to make us what we are today. Did those who were less intelligent, less cunning, less healthy, less able to survive and reproduce not think or feel? Did they not struggle and suffer? Was their desire for life and happiness so different from our own? Was their anguish at being denied these things less real than our own would be?
These men and women who died without copying their genes are not to be forgotten, not to be ignored, not to be disgraced, for these men and women who died for us are our heroes! It is to their sacrifice that we owe everything we have today, our health, our prosperity, our intelligence, our sentiment — our very lives. If they had not perished, and instead had passed onto us the legacy of their genetic poverty, then the forces of natural selection, which cannot be placated or avoided forever, no matter how long we may try, would have surely destroyed us all when we were just emerging, weak, helpless, naked, from our Eden, from the place our species was born.
Each and every great civilization we have made, from Egypt to America, has spit upon their sacrifice by encouraging its unfit to procreate. Those who would have died under the harsh system of natural selection are fed, sheltered, and encouraged to reproduce by their society. Those who would have thrived and passed on their genes were distracted by the fruits of civilization, seduced by wealth and power, addicted to the practice of thought itself, and failed to pass on their genetic wealth.
Each and every civilization before our own, believing itself above the laws of natural selection, was eventually destroyed by those laws. As harmful mutations built up, as the less able and intelligent outbred the more fortunate, as genetic poverty washed over them in ever growing waves, the fire which kindled the light of civilization dimmed, sputtered, and died, leaving anarchy and destruction and hundreds of years of ignorance in its wake.
If we are to break this dysgenic cycle of suffering, then we must respect those who died for us, respect the forces of natural selection which weeded out their undesirable genes, and, if we are to remove natural selection, we must replace it with artificial selection. There must be selection, in one form or another, and if we find death too cruel a sentence for those whose genes do not merit survival, then we must either reproduce responsibly and in a way which will leave our children with a heritage of genetic wealth, or else accept the whirlwind of destruction which overtakes us when natural selection, too long suppressed, cleanses our species in one nightmarish gesture.
