Monday 20 November 2000

Pic of the day: "Medieval" is not exactly a compliment, to most of us. Here some late medieval architecure as imagined in the role playing game Daggerfall. (I really don't want a cute nature photo with this topic!)

People were stupid

As James Redfield says: "Trust synchronicity." (Why do I feel this urge to add: "Synchronicity is your friend"? Ahem.) Anyway, look at this.

James Redfield, as some may know, believes that human evolution is accelerating. Once it was mere biological evolution, the haphazard refinement of the genes. Then came a much faster social evolution, in which knowledge was disseminated by ever growing empires and expeditions, and ideas mixed and combined to new and higher levels. Today we are in a phase of spiritual evolution, in which we are conscious of the growth process. At this level, the basic human nature is in the melting pot, and changes happen so rapidly that an individual may be thoroughly changed in its lifetime.

Today at work I had my radio on the 24 hours news channel which is broadcasted in some large cities here in Norway (and also on the Internet). (Let me add that such an institution supports the views of this entry; but let me first go on with the entry already.) The radio cheerfully proclaimed that statistics showed that Norwegian males had become 9 points more intelligent during the last generation, and that international research indicated that the same would apply to females.

I know this is not a purely Norwegian trend. I have written about it long ago, in the Approximate Truth about the Flynn effect. Nice to see that the broadcasting has also caught on. They cited reasons such as nutrition, education and information. Actually, scientists disagree as to what causes the Flynn effect. Quite a few of them (including Flynn) obviously wish it would prove to be a misunderstanding. It is however quite global and has gone on for generations now. Do 19 year old Norwegians really eat healthier than their fathers did in their childhood? Color me vaguely sceptical. And none of the countries show radical breaks that could demarcate education reforms, or the introduction of television, or computers, or the Internet. Instead, the process is almost linear and seems to move on its own momentum rather than bend to outside forces. There is a fundamental change in our entire civilization, or so it seems. A change in what it means to be human. ("Childhood's end", anybody?)

***

In a twist of synchronicity, I have just recently started reading an old classic novel, Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais. Seeing the things that he and his contemporaries took pride in, I was once again forcefully reminded on just how much change has taken place in the last few hundred years. And it appears to me that the Flynn effect, while measured only since 1914, may have started earlier. Obviously not at its current breakneck speed, or our ancestors in well documented historic times would have sported the intellect of retarded guppies... but allow me to dwell briefly on the stupidity of our ancestors.

To take a more recent custom, which was even chronicled by the famous writer Jules Verne, it was considered natural for modern men to duel to the death over some slight of honor or over the courtship of some attractive female. Excuuuze me? If you want to improve your honor ratings, you're supposed to do something honorable. Like, helping little old women across the street to their aerobics class. Or inventing Windows and giving a few hundred million to the deserving poor. Stuff like that. Not disintegrate the vitals of some poor Schmoe, thereby nullifying two decades of investment in him by his family as well as society in general.

Now while shooting or slicing up some guy is not a productive thing to do, we cannot deny its expediency in eliminating a rival for the romantic interest of a female. Except that any woman with the intellectual capability of a well fed ewe would prefer to make her own choice between the men (or in some case not) and be thoroughly miffed at the elimination of one by another. His chances of making a favorable impression on her would plummet well beneath those of the mailman or the passing vaccuum salesman. It is quite disturbing to think that only a few generations ago, the females of the European upper classes were so retarded that they docilely laid themselves down for whoever had the most blood on his hands. (I'll conveniently leave out any reference to presidential elections here. Duels were personal.)

Now as we move further back in time, to the age of the esteemed Msr Rabelais, we find other vices added to the load. The people of his age took great pride in drinking alcoholic beverages to extreme intoxication, as well as eating unhealthy foods such as salted red and fatty meat beyond the natural constraints of human digestion. To their boisterous nature they added indiscriminate fornication, and their humor tended toward any area reasonably proximate to where their legs divide. On a couple occasions of my life I have had the mixed pleasure of travelling on public transportation in the close company of a group consisting predominantly of the mentally retarded from some institution or another; and while their vocabulary is strikingly more limited than our esteemed author, the pathways of imagination seems eerily familiar.

Now before we entirely exit our time machine, I want us to step out in the early 17th century and take a broad look. Do you see the many pyres in the distance, their fire greedily stretching towards the heavens above? This is where they burned witches, and plenty of them. Contrary to popular belief, quite a few of those executed were men. While not as often accused, "warlocks" were more likely to be sentenced to the ultimate penance. It was commonly accepted by laymen and clergy alike, peasants as well as nobility, that some people had the Evil Eye and could curse and blight man and beast and crop alike by their very eyesight. By means of simple inexpensive ritual, magick of great destruction could be wrought, and demons sent to do the bidding of the witches.

Think X-men, displaced 3-4 centuries back in time. Seemingly normal (or, more probably, slightly unusual) people causing storms, collapsing buildings, or sucking the life force out of bystanders. Some would reach into the very minds of the good guys and make them do abominable things; others would assume the guise of another, or transform themselves into the likeness of an animal to avoid normal human constraints. Think! If a friend or coworker today started to believe that X-men style mutants were real and threatened their home, their bodies, even their minds ... what would you do? You would try to calm the person down to reason. Failing that, constraints and seditives until authorized medical personel got to work out the bugs in their system. Well, this was the state of mind in which Mr & Mrs Average spent their entire freaky lives, 3-400 years ago. Consider. Contemplate. Cogitate.

***

I think we can safely leave the past at this point: If we go further back, people could not even read. Unless they were monks, in which case they certainly had enough troubles elsewhere. Let us instead with all due speed zip forward to our own time and then, overshooting our target, consider what the future has in store for mankind. (Provided the Large Hadron Collider does not manage to create a microscopic black hole by 2005, in which case it is anybody's guess whether the black hole will dissipate peacefully or swallow the Earth. But let us trustfully assume that there is no disaster.)

How will our descendants view our generation? (Well, not my descendants, I don't have any, but that's a technicality.) I know that older people simply cannot accept that the younger generation is more advanced and refined, and tend to assume quite the opposite. After all, since the young ones don't appreciate that "blue eyes" guy ... Frank Sinatra, was it? ... there must be something fundamentally flawed in anyone who prefer hopping around to the sound of computers instead of savoring the timbre of that unforgettable voice. But, like it or not, the world moves on; and with breakneck speed, too.

"If we had lived at the time of our ancestors, we would not have consented with them in killing the prophets." This attitude was common among the scribes of the first century CE, according to the later so famous Jesus Nazareus. In a similar vein, the generation in power in the year 2000 may shudder at the thought of our ancestors' barbarian practices, but cheerfully ignore our own.

The time would be me too short if I should detail the layers of stupidity that rule in our own time. I shall leave that to the future. The future looks to be a fascinating place. Wish we could all be there.