No entity can evolve
To fit all environments,
Adapt well to everything.
Costs are inevitable,
And what fits you to one niche
Makes you that less suitable
For another. Still, humans
Have given it quite a go,
Infiltrating the planet
From pole to pole and playing
At adapting to orbit,
And maybe after that, Mars,
All without improving much
On the basic body plan,
The obligately social
And frequently quarrelsome,
Vengeance-prone apes that began
The whole acceleration,
So some costs must have been paid.
Consider how much culture
Has diversified while brains
Carrying and transmitting
Cultures have remained the same,
Negligibly different,
One from any other one,
Sampled from across cultures.
Humans aren’t generalists.
Humans have evolved to be
Hyper-fitted specialists
Of a single niche, cultures
Of changing technologies,
Without which, everyone dies.
Culture’s the new animal,
Earth’s latest innovation.
Humans, old friends and old foes,
Are now mitochondrial.
Friday, December 22, 2023
Just Part of the Package
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