Evolution, Eugenics and Transhumanism

By Eric Markhoff

During the nearly 4 billion years-old history of life on earth, the mechanisms of evolution were linked to natural selection and organic life. By creating artificial intelligence, humans could actually replace natural selection by intelligent design.

The looming transhumanism, the resurrecting monster of eugenics and the constitution of the interface between the world of humans and the world of machines must not be surrendered to the fantasies of omnipotence of super-rich and mighty persons.

• Language: English
• Publisher: tredition
• Release date: May 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9783347318441

Book preview

1. Prologue

At the beginning of the 2006 American film idiocracy, which was not very successful, the viewer gets to know Trevor and Carol, a couple of highly intelligent academics of the early 21st century. They state that the decision to get children is such an important one, that you must not rush into it. You have to wait for the right time, which is not now.

These two prototypes of modern academics are in the next scene compared to Clevon, whose wife Trish just states to be pregnant again, which makes Clevon curse and stamp his beer bottle on the table. He already has „too many damn kids" and thought she was on the pill, but probably he had confounded here with Britney. In raging jealousy Trish throws the pan after him. In the corner, Clevon’s offspring are displayed in a family tree showing 4 children with Trish and one with Britney

Back to Trevor and Carol. Five years older older than before, they again calmly sit on their well maintained livingroom sofa and head-shakingly state that at the moment they can not have kids, not with the current market-situation. Meanwhile Clevon’s wife Trish has a quarrel with her pregnant neighbour with beer bottles flying, while around them the loud chaos of the unordered lower-class family unfoulds.

Back to Trevor and Carol. Again, five years older older than before, they again calmly sit on their well maintained livingroom sofa and Carol states that they finally decided to have kids, however this does not seem to work out well, probably due to the low quality of Trevor’s sperms. Trevor apologetically shrugs and complainingly asks if Carol’s remark is helping.

Finally, a visibly aged Carol has a sad solo-appearance, in which she announces that Trevor has passed away from a heart attack while masturbating for in vitro fertilization. However, she has some eggs frozen away and as soon the right man comes along…..fingers crossed. By now, the family tree of Clevon’s offspring covers the entire cinema screen.

This 2-minute sequence at the beginning of the film Idiocracy shall illustrate, that human evolution does not automatically reward intelligence. Without natural selection pressure, evolution simply rewards thos who reproduce most, which makes the intelligent become a rare species. After the monstrous crimes that social Darwinism and eugenics had caused in the 20th century, it is however utterly delicate to point out that mechanisms of natural selection also act on Homos sapiens.

Switching off natural selection or modifying selection criteria (in the case of Idiocracy favouring those with reduced cognitive capabilities who reproduce most) may not remain without consequences over generations. Should mankind then try to intervene into its own evolution?

Mechanisms of selection in economy and trade

The mechanisms of natural selection in evolutionary biology find their correspondence in economy in competitive selection of business enterprises. Single actors in a competition-based economy carry a high risk to fail, which however minimizes the risk of failure for the corresponding branch of the economy. For systems which are not fragile, Nassim Taleb coined the term antifragile. Gastronomy may serve as an example for an antifragile branch of the economy. A single reastaurant enterprise is fragile and may quickly fail if it fails to attract clients. At the same time, one finds a good overall supply of restaurants in cities such as Hamburg. These compete with each other, which leads to a broad spectrum of restaurants with diverse kind of food and atmosphere. Although the single individual restaurant enterprise is fragile and might fail, the entity of restaurants, the restaurant system, appears very antifragile (1).

Market and market mechanisms with their selection mechanisms are thus an essential element of human trade interactions. Entirely free and uncontrolled markets (unleashed markets) however are also free of any ethical or moral judgement. If 2 market players compete, the one who makes more profit will prevail.

If the product brought to the market is good or bad for society in principle does not play a role. The economist Catherine Austin Fitts gave an illustrative example by comparing 2 tradesmen in America in the late 1940s. Both are expecting the arrival of a delivery at the docks of New Orleans. Sam trades sugar from Latin America that he refines and sells to wholesale merchants with 30% profit. After substracting costs for farming, transport and processing, Sam makes 10% profit. Dave works with a different agricultural product, for which he also imports raw materials, processes them and sells them to wholesale merchants. Dave, however, earns 50-times more für his upgraded product, cocaine. Certainly, Dave also has expenses for farming, transport, bribes and radar-equipment for circumventing coast guards. After subtracting costs from gains, Dave earns around 100-times more than Sam with each delivery. To get a feeling for the implications of these profit differences, one only has to answer to the following questions just using common sense:

Who is better in business? Sam or Dave?

Who is favoured by local bancs? Sam or Dave?

Who donates more to politicians and welfare? Sam or Dave?

Who can afford better lawyers? Sam or Dave?

Who could some day buy the company of the other? Sam or Dave?

Who could count on support from bancers and politicians when swallowing the other’s company? Sam or Dave?

Who pays more salaries of experts, opinion-makers and media-representatives? Sam or Dave?

Which business will thrive, if such developments act over decencies with compound interest effects and which business will consequently gain more influence on society? Catherine Austin Fitts, who came up with this example, explicitly appeals not to seek guidance from experts or the media when answering these questions, but only to follow your own intuition (2).

Which motivation states and governments have to forbid drugs, could also cater for an interesting discussion, however this would lead us too far away from the actual topic of this book. Here, we make do with pointing out the role opium played in the colonial suppression of China under the British Crown, or the British East India Company, to be more precise. In Bengal (India) opium was grown on large scale using slave labour and exported to Chinal by the English in order to buy Chinese silk, spices and tea. As long as opium was not more than a normal mean of payment or a bartering good, prices for opium remained on a normal level. Opium drove a lot of Chinese people into addiction and the Chinese raised import taxes on opium in order to protect themselves from the colonial opium. Finaly the Chinese emperor entirely prohibited the import of opium and Chinese custom officers destroyed incoming deliveries of opium. This led to an increase in illegal imports that even became much more profitable as the prices for (illegal) opium were much higher. The poppy plant providing for the raw opium, however had not become more precious. Not before the prohibition prices increased. Finaly the Brits send gun boats to China opening the Opium war of 1839. After 3 years of war the Chinese subdued.

One could object that drug trade per se does not have to be unmoral or unethical and that sugar consumed in high amounts also impairs health. Only the fact that legislators banned certain mind-altering drugs, but not sugar, made drug-trade such a criminal (but at the same time a very lucrative) business. Profit margins in the drug business would not be that high, if it was legal. But let us simply imagine, Dave was an arms dealer, who fuels murderous wars and thus becomes rich and powerful.

Apparently in an unleashed competition, unscrupulousness is a a competitive advantage. If, as in Idiocracy, people with low intelligence reproduce stronger and the economy favours reckless people, in the long run, mankind, will become rather stupid with reckless-unscrupulous people in positions of power. Not a very nice prospect.

Evolutionary selection-mechanisms of free markets lead to inceasing efficiency, when it comes to accumulation of capital. Efficient processes imply an optimized return of investement, meaning highest possible profist at the lowest possible effort. Chains of delivery are coordinated in a way, that a component is delivered to immediately being used, processed and built in, thus minimizing the storage capacity, storage time and storage costs (Just in time capitalism). Everything that causes unnecessary costs is being eliminated by optimization. This also applies for planning and use of personnel. An economy that selects for enterprises that pursue the least possible effort to generate profit has not reserve capacity. In the health sector a lack of reserve capacities surfaces if an epidemic occurs. By reducing overcapacities and merging of hospitals, private hospital companies made health care a profit generating endeavour. In normal mode they provide health care and pocket the profits (in contrast to public hospitals, which were planned along requirements of the population). If an epidemic (or the flu season) increases the needs for hospital capacities, the disadvantages of an efficiency-optimised health system: Hardly and reserve capacities, as these are cost-inefficient in normal mode and only cause costs. However, one should think that from the hospital operators point of view, cost efficiency should be given also during an epidemic. Actually, the cost efficiency should now even be increased as capacities (e.g. respirators) are used on a maximum level, which sounds lucrative from an economic point of view. Ironically the provision of intensive care capacities in expectation of a pandemic wave in many countries led to a reduction of normal standard health care with economic losses due to unused hospital beds and collateral morbidity and mortality, for example due to canceled medical procedures. The worldwide issued lockdowns and freedom restrictions due to COVID-19 especially damaged small and medium sized enterprises, which can be regarded as the backbone of a healthy economy that serves the society. At the same time international cooperations and monopolists increased their market power. Moreover, less and less economic transactions take place without digital interface.

In cashless payments a digital interface between the humans involved in the transaction already exists. With the raising importance of delivery services, the digital interface also intervenes in the hand-over of the purchased good. Nevertheless, the human sphere and the machine world are still clearly separated. Concerns about data that were generated in the digital sphere (still) refer to data utilization by humans or networks of humans. As long as abuse of power is carried out by humans over humans, machines remain means for ends. Once machines develop their own ends out of their own intrinsic motivation a shift of paradigms takes place.

2. The Evolution of species

Darwins „On the Origin of Species which was published in 1859, is regarded as the most important fundamental book of evolutionary biology. Evolution needs time. A perceived expansion of time with regards to the existence of the earth was crucial for Darwins insights. Until the 19th century, the age of the earth was estimated to be not older than a few thousand years based on religious texts. In the 18th century, the natural scientist Edmund Halley tried deducing the age of the earth from the salt contents of rivers and seas and concluded that the earth must be considerably older than 6000 years, but was satisfied with this notion without giving his own estimate (3). Consequently, in Darwin’s days, the age of the earth was not yet known. Independantly from external scientific doctrines Darwing must have realized himself, that the existing species on earth must have had more than 6000 years time to develop, if his evolution-theory ought to be plausible. In On the Origin of Species" Darwin estimated the age of the earth to around 300 million years. As we know now, 300 million years ago was the transition period from perm to carbon. The richt forest and swam flora of this period was the raw material for geological layers that we exploit in our days as coal. Among the animals of that period were amphibiae, who became more and more independent of water. Today the age of our planet ist estimated at 4.6 billion years.

Darwinism and Lamarckism

The French natural scientis Jean Baptiste de Lamarck (17441829) already shaped the idea of development of species. Darwin’s ideas were to some extent in the air. Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) would probably also have developed the concepts that Darwin shaped in On The Origin of Species, if Darwin had not existed. Without any doubt Lamarcks ideas show a lot of agreements with Darwin. When talking about Lamarchism, it is therefore the differences that are being stressed. Lamarckism claims that properties and capabilities acquired during life can be passed on to offspring. Such an inheritance of acquired properties would in principle shorten the required time for evolution, compared to natural selection over many generations. An illustrative example for explaining the differences between Darwins and Lamarcks theory is the giraffe: Her long neck allows her to eat leaves in heights that no other plant eater of the prairie can reach. According to Lamarck giraffes of past generations would have stretched their necks again and again thus lengthening their neck during their lifetime. This lifetime-behaviour induced lengthening would then have been passed on to the next generation. According to Darwinistic views the long neck of the giraffe is not the result of passing on training-lengthened necks to the next generation. Rather giraffes with long necks must have had better survival- and reproduction chances and thus more frequently giraffes with long necks passed on their properties to the next generation than giraffes with a short neck. Lamarck thus postulated the inheritance of acquired trained properties to be the driving force of evolution. Darwin, in contrast postulated that different probabilities to reproduce of individuals with their existing properties leading to natural selection were decisive.

What means successful in evolution?

To reduce the mechanisms of natural selection that underly evolution to Survival of the Fittest is not quite correct. Social Darwinism in its worst manifestations deduced a natural Right of the Stronger from this conceptual oversimplification. This was for example done by the National Socialists to scientifically legitimise their atrocities which they justified with the alleged superiority of their own race. Natural selection simply means that there are traits that increase the probability that the genome of an organism is passed on to the next generation completely (asexual reproduction) or 50% (sexual reproduction). These traits do not necessarily have to be traits, we commonly regard as advantageous (e.g. strength, intelligence). Decisive for evolutionary success is only the passing on of the genome to the next generation. Sometimes one hearst that in evolution traits prevail that increase the chances of survival. This may often be the case, especially, wenn survivaltime is assicated with the number of offspring. (A seasonal breeder with yearly offspring will have more offspring, if it lives longer). In some cases, behaviousr can lengthen the life of an individual however at the cost of not-reproducing. For bee drones the copulation with the bee queen is deadly as the sperm containing reproductive organs remains in the bee queen. The abdomen of the drone thus gets ripped apart and the drone dies. Drones that do not copulate live longer (until the next autum), however they do not reproduce.

Critical are thus traits that increase the reproduction probability. Generation-persitance of the reproductively successful might be more appropriate than Survival of the Fittest. The term Survival of the Fittest was coined by the English Social-philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). Spencer was the first to sonsequently apply Darwings insights to human societies thus being a founder of Social Darwinism.

3. Right from the beginning

Evolution by natural selection needs time. Therefore, we will once more set the time frame in which evolution took place. The question, what was before the Big Bang and what is ouside our universe, is something we may well leave to physicists. (They could claim that the question what was before the Big Bang? was futile, as before the Big Bang, time itself did not exist).

The Big Bang happened around 13.8 billion years ago and since then our universe expands. Our solar system with our planet earth came into being around 4.6 billion years ago. The first primitive llive forms arose around 3 billion years ago in water. About half of the time that has passed since then, life on earth remained single-celled; not until around 1.5 billion years ago one single celled organism swallowed another one, which then however was not digested, but continued living symbiotically inside the organism that had taken it up and took over partial functions of the combined organism. Such Eukaryote cells are the building blocks of multicellular organisms with the single cell in complex organisms not being autonomous anymore, but rather becoming more and more functionally specialized (organ cells).

Since then diverse form of multicellular life has developed. The 4 cm measuring Pikaia that lived 525 million years ago in water were the first representatives of the chordates known to us (we also belong to the animal phylum of chordates). Chordates have a rod in their back (the chorda) that lies over the gut and under the neural tube as a common feature. The first steps on land were undertaken by the first amphibiae around 300 million years ago. The age of the dinosaurs started around 235 million years ago, lasted for around 150 million years and ended 66 million years ago, when a meteor hit the earth. The corresponding crater was discovered in the 1990s right next to the large Mexican peninsula Yucatan, and the diameter of the comet was estimated to have been around 10 km.

To give a feeling for evolutionary time frames using a fictious day or a fictitious year is a popular approach, as these are time frames that are ascertainable to our senses. Table 1 displays some milestones of evolution in relation to a fictitious year.

Table 1: Milestones in Earth history in a fictitious year with the last day being broken down into hours, minutes and seconds

As a child I was very impressed by the French animated film Once Upon a Time….Man. In the German edition the intro theme was sung by the 2014 deceased musician and composer Udo Jürgens. This small piece of music left a strong not only content driven, but also emotional memory. The whisperingly sung Was ist Zeit (What is time) that follows the line Tausend Jahre sind ein Tag (Thousand years are a day) still as a pure memory raises goose bumbs on my skin. Therefore, I also want to use this massstab: If 1000 years correspond to one day, the dinosaurs would have gone extinct 66,000 days ago (66 million years), the last common acestor of man and chimpanzee would have lived 6,000 days ago (6 million years) and Homo sapiens would not be roaming the earth for longer than just 300 days (300,000 years), most of which as hunter-gatherer. Only 12 days ago (12,000 years) the first Homo sapiens would have settled down for farming. The use of oil as a source of energy would have started 6 hours ago (250