I have a medical condition that has no name; it’s an intermittent burning sensation on the skin of my left elbow. It started a few months ago, and I’d assumed that it had something to do with my frequent exposure to salt-water. I swim in the ocean almost daily. There is no visible rash or discoloration. My assumption was that the thinner skin on that part of my body is more susceptible to the salt water.
Yesterday, I casually mentioned it to my mother, and she told me that she has the same condition (also on her left elbow), and so do several of my other relatives on her side of the family. It has nothing to do with salt-water; it’s clearly a genetic condition – and it appears to express itself only later in life.
In my early years, I’d assumed that we’re born with certain genetic dispositions, and that as we grow older, our environment takes an increasingly important role in our bodies and minds. Whatever habits we pick up, for better or worse, will impact our health. Our education, our travels, our reading, and whatever movies we watch, will all gradually shape our personalities – at the expense of whatever genetic package we were born with.
I was wrong, and the opposite is true. Our genes never go away; they continue to assert themselves – and it is THEY that determine, more often than we’d care to admit, what kind of person we grow into. Whether we like it or not, our genes shape our environment more than the other way around. We like to believe we’re agents of free-will, but the truth is that free-will is largely an illusion.
The power of our genes grows stronger with time, in a manner of speaking. I was thinking about this yesterday, after the conversation with mother, and it occurred to me that time and “space” have similar roles in amplifying the power of genes.
When I say “space,” I’m referring to large numbers of people/communities. Whatever traits our genes encourage will be amplified in a community that shares similar genes. My use of the term “Spacetime” is a shameless borrowing from quantum physics – but it is a similar concept. The cumulative effect applies whether the medium is time or number of individuals.
We’re used to thinking of evolution in terms of the individual. An individual with maladaptive genes is more likely to fail to produce offspring – but the same principle applies to communities/tribes/nations, only to a much greater extent. Since the effect of genes is amplified when large numbers of individuals share them, evolution can work more quickly and more brutally.
Witness the destruction of the West, which is occurring before our very eyes. Whatever genes are responsible for ethno-masochism are maladaptive. This means that communities where this gene set is common will adapt some form of democracy as their form of government. Open-borders and democracy will inevitably lead to the destruction of said society; it will simply be taken over by outsiders – outsiders who do NOT suffer from ethno-masochism.
The cumulative effect of genes can help us understand why different populations produce such vastly different types of societies – even when we can’t always discern large differences between individuals of the disparate populations.
Note that I am not a scientist, and my only “qualifications” are my own observations and reflections. Let my arguments stand, or fall, on their own merits.
