A Sad Comment on Humanity

You can probably guess from the title what this post is about. That's right... Home Owners Associations.

I know this topic may not resonate with all imaginary readers, especially those in rural areas where the specter of these repulsive Associations is less pronounced. But this blog is for me to spew my opinions, and I happen to have one about the human shortcomings that lead to the existence of HOA's.

I find it odd that the human species evolved to thrive using social strategies, such as community agriculture, healthcare and education, yet individuals cannot live near one another without paying a full-time board of referees to resolve their disputes. And I use the term "dispute" lightly because, in this case, it includes grave matters like agreeing on what types of plants each neighbor can have in their yards, what color they can paint their front doors, and whether or not they can build a deck in their back yard. Thorny topics indeed.

There's an economic principle at the heart of the matter; the idea is that your home is more of an investment than it is a place to live, and you cannot risk the value of said investment without having some reassuring authority regulate the appearance of the neighborhood. Clearly, if Clarence down the street does not cut his grass on a regular basis, his unkempt yard could negatively affect the curb appeal of every nearby home. Possibly true, definitely absurd.

I did a quick search and learned (see for yourself: HOA statistics) that about a quarter of all Americans (including me) now live under the iron fist of an HOA. Sadly, we collectively pay nearly $100 billion per year in dues for this oversight. The average family among us pays between $200 and $300/month for the privilege of an Association that writes down how all disputes should get resolved and then steps in when anyone questions the rules.

Now, I'm no math major but I know this. The UN estimates that we could end world hunger with $116 billion (makes me wonder why we haven't done that yet, but I'll save the topic for a blog on another day). According to my calculations, we could take HOA fees for less than 14 months and completely cover the world hunger bill. Sure, if we stopped funding the HOA's, someone in your neighborhood might paint their front door a "property-value-reducing" shade of purple, but that seems like a reasonable trade-off for ending world hunger.

The unequal distribution of wealth in the world is a major problem, probably humanity's biggest current challenge. However, as I suggested in my post about relative wealth, we don't really seem very focused on reversing it. In fact, we seem much more focused on accelerating the disparity. HOA's are a visible symbol of people with a fair degree of wealth, going to great lengths, to ensure that no other person negatively affects their ongoing accumulation of even greater wealth.

The whole concept is a sad comment on humanity.

Extinction

Some of you know that I don't get too riled about the extinction of a species.

I do not condone, in any way, reckless human endeavors that endanger the environment or upset ecosystems but I accept that more than 99% of all species that ever inhabited the earth have vanished. I also accept that the millions of species currently frolicking about will also, one day, be gone.

The earth has changed radically since it first cooled into shape some 4 billion years ago and the forms of life it sustains have necessarily evolved. This is a perpetual process and it will not stop.

It goes without saying that I hope man does not contribute to these changes in any meaningful way. Like you, I would prefer ecological transformation at a slow rate, slow enough to allow evolutionary forces to perpetrate an abundance of diverse life. However, even mother nature can act quickly in this regard.

For example, a massive earthquake could trigger hyper-volcanic activity which could fill the sky with ash and plunge the earth quickly into a deep ice age bringing a rapid, mass-extinction to our era. A wily virus could devastate the earth's vegetation, deplete the atmosphere of oxygen, and kill all but the few remaining anaerobic life forms. I could go on but the point is clear; sudden change could happen through myriad, unstoppable natural phenomena.

More likely, change will continue on pace with the slow crawl of ecological time. Temperatures and sea levels will rise and fall and re-draw the shorelines of today's continents as they bump and slide across the tectonic foundations of the earth's crust. The mixture of gasses in the atmosphere will fluctuate with the consumption and production of the earth and all it's organisms. And although the earth's trajectory and proximity to the sun are not beyond alteration by the interactive gravitational forces between all of the massive bodies hurtling through space and time, it will likely remain in a sustainable orbit for billions of years to come.

So, let's do what we can to avoid the sudden changes that would render the planet inhospitable to our current evolved forms. But, at the same time, let's not forget that our species, along with every other species we know, is only here for a brief, brief time and the conditions that sustain us will certainly change.

Missing Link

Here it is folks! Very Exciting. Read more here.

Has Human Evolution Ceased?

I dwell quite frequently on the forces of evolution, particularly on how they have shaped human social behavior. This has been a life-long curiosity and a topic of more formal study and extensive reading over the past decade. For most of my adult life, I have naively accepted the notion that human evolution had essentially ceased.

The argument supporting this is easy to understand and has been almost universally accepted in expert circles during my lifetime. It goes like this:

In the past, mutations conferring a survival advantage were propagated in the gene pool while those hampering survival were pruned by the cruel forces of nature. This process wrought stark changes in human intelligence, posture, and demeanor (specifically with regards to an affinity to cooperate and to trust) and kept the wheels of evolution turning toward higher and higher standards of fitness.

Now, so goes the argument, agricultural abundance and modern medicine ensure that humans, even those who are “weaker”, enjoy survival advantages conferred by a benevolent society. As such, the gene pool is no longer driven toward increasing fitness because “last year’s DNA”, though not competitive with the latest mutations, stays in business with the help of agro-medical subsidies. Social forces have brought evolution (for our species) to a rather abrupt halt.

That is a nice little argument with a tidy conclusion. I cannot believe I never noticed the screeching logical flaw it abides.

The blind spot comes from the framework (inferred above) that “surviving to a reproductive age is a major challenge and the ability to meet that challenge is the primary driver of adaptive mutation. According to that framework, when survival is no longer difficult, then the engine driving change loses its power.

Here is a better framework that exposes the fallacy. During most of the 4 million year history of homo sapiens, death has been a serious constraint on our ability to propagate characteristics of weakness. Now that a large percentage of us gets all the food and medical care we need, all sorts of unhealthy mutations can persist in the human gene pool. From this perspective, we should be (and by many accounts are) evolving faster than at any other time in history.

Shifting Perspectives

Take a moment to look at the woman in this picture and estimate her age….

Many of you probably know where this is going as this image is a well-known optical illusion that you imaginary readers have most likely seen before. Some see a young woman whose profile is viewed from behind her left shoulder and others see an old hag from a closer, more frontal perspective. The important point is that both images project clearly and, once pointed out, you can hardly believe that you didn’t see both from the start.

This is how I feel about my new perspective on human evolution. I have recently seen it from a new vantage point and I am stunned at the obviousness of what I have overlooked for so long. Stay tuned -- that post is in my mind but not yet on paper.

I know, I know…a real cliff hanger.