I am sad to anounce that there is strong evidence that the species known as Homo Sapiens is extinct.
I'm sure you've all had those moments of great epiphany. Well, I was doing some research where there was discussion about the dates for the existence of homo habilis and what constituted the transition to homo erectus and then homo sapiens. It was all pretty dry stuff and nothing new. Then it hit me. We can't put an exact date on any species. There is going to be a transition period. For example, homo erectus didn't just suddenly exist and everyone walked around errect. 'Hey, guys, are you ready. January 1st we've got to be ready to walk erect because that's when we become homo erectus.'
Looking at things from this perspective I realized that we might actually be transitioning or have transitioned into something else. The more I thought about it the more I became convinced that homo sapiens, as a species, is extinct.
Homo sapiens literally means "wise man". That was my first clue that homo sapiens are extinct. There is a whole long list of adjectives that I would use to describe our species but wise (sapiens) isn't one of them. I began to wonder how this transition; this extinction of homo sapiens; came about.
I have been interested in and reading about hunter-gatherers for some time and recently started an actual research project based upon the hypothesis that we started moving rapidly toward the mess in which we find ourselves today when we ceased to be hunter-gatherers and started 'owning' land which quickly led to the development of haves and the havenots, and you know the rest of that sad story.
Yes, that could have been the beginning of a transition as a species as well because throughout our history we see the constant struggle and swing betweeen an attempt to maintain some wisdom and total lunacy. We had the Greeks trying to figure things out and the Romans who just wanted to conqueror it. We had the Mongols, whom everyone think were the monsters, who actually had some very enlightened social rules, and the Chinese, whom most people think were the enlightened one but were actually . . . . well, you all know world history. For those of you who went to college, that's the required general education history course that, if you dozed off - and you probably often did - you missed a thousand years.
There had to be some point in history where the transition was totally or almost totally complete. After considerable thought I figured that somewhere around the the time of what we call the Industrial Revolution Homo Sapiens had actually become Homo Perniciosa (L. destructive). The Greeks lost out. The Romans perfected greed and destruction, destroying most everything in their way. The Romans lost to an even more destructive social system, during which time homo sapiens made one last ditch effort at civilization. We call it the Rennaisance. In reality it failed. Greed, power, and colonization took over which was agumened by industrialization. Homo Perniciosa was now the only species. Homo Sapiens were basically gone.
Despite their great ability to practice cruelity and inhumanity, the tenure of the Homo Perniciosa was probably the shortest lived of the homo genus. From the best I can tell we are in the final days of the Homo Perniciosa. My theory is that to deal with all of the pollution of the industrial world the brain began to change. We are all very aware of the number of other animal species that went extinct because of the pollution created by the Homo Perniciosa. There is no way that the Homo Perniciosa could survive without likewise suffering brain damage. This must be the reason because it is the only explanation for how a species could have proven that it was killing itself and everything around it and still not changed its behavior to survive.
This I believe is evidence of the transition from Homo Perniciosa to Homo Vacuous (L. empty) We still have the destructive, greedy, violent characteristics of the Homo Perniciosa but we have done so much damage to our brains that we can only be described as vacuous - empty. Myopic might be another possible descriptor, but I think we are mostly vacuous. I mean, how can a thinking species know that it is overpopulating the planet and still breed faster than rabbits? How can a sapiens species know that water is life, the forest is the lungs of the world, and still pollute everything and cut 80,000 acres of forest each day? Suicide for the sake of wealth, comfort and power. You'd have to agree, it is hard to comprehend that those commiting such behaviors have anything but space between their ears, hence Homo Vacuous.
It seems evident that since Homo Vacuous is incapable of dealing with the mess created by Homo Perniciosa there will be no next species in the Homo genus. As hard as it is to admit, being one of the species, the extinction of the genus homo would probably be the best thing that could happen to the world. For our progeny, that's a real bummer.
Image courtesy of RK008 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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