Okay, so today Frank and I got into a discussion about nanotechnology (which I won’t go into here) that boils down to this: after someone successfully demonstrates molecular assemblers nothing else matters. Nothing in human history has ever had such a potential to change everything.
Except maybe for dogs.
Well, when I say that I’m not completely serious because I don’t really believe it. Nevertheless, I think that it is easy to underestimate the impact of the human/canine partnership on both species over the millennia. Take this bit of evolutionary speculation for example (If it were an extremely bloody fable you could call it “How Man Got his Chin.”):
Perhaps there were one or several ‘wolf’ wars. First, those ‘armed’ with wolves decimated those without. This taught all survivors the value of wolves, and domestication spread rapidly.
The presence of domesticated wolves could so empower humanity in general that it could allow for a population boom in the species (humanity), thereby leading to still more intensive and frequent conflicts and fighting. Note that the population boom would mainly occur among wolf owners (so even if no ‘wars’ take place, eventually the wolf owners would overwhelm the non-owners by sheer force of numbers).
The next major wolf war might have seen both sides so equipped, with the main deciding factors for a victor being attrition (victory through superior numbers, and/or better killing skills), and the quality of training and breeding (size, strength, speed, intelligence) in the wolves, and how well they and their masters worked together.
In all such wolf wars an unprotected human throat was decidedly inferior to a protected one. Thus, those with chins which could be dropped to protect the throat from wolf jaws survived more often that those without chins.
Of course, if this is how humanity acquired chins, that would signify a horrifically brutal and large scale extended conflict among most of humanity via their newly domesticated wolves. Due to a variety of factors, such conflicts likely would have had to rage for millennia to make chins appear as quickly as they did.
The actuality of thousands of years of wolf wars would also imply a larger eurasian population of humanity near the beginning of the wars than 20th century scientists will expect– because otherwise population densities would be too low to allow such intensive conflict and casualties. Another implication however is an enormous death and injury toll from the fighting, equivalent perhaps to a third or even two thirds of humanity overall, by the time the wars are winding down (a rough stalemate is reached, or else population densities drop so low that it’s difficult to find anyone to attack afterwards).
I mean, wow. How mind blowing is that? The domestication and genetic modification of canines by early humans is pretty well accepted but never had I really considered that they had such a profound influence on us as well. Anyone who refuses it to attribute it all to anyone other than the great Grandpa in the Sky simply doesn’t have enough imagination. This reminds me of reading Bill Bryson’s excellent “A Short History of Nearly Everything.” If you’re up for some excellent surf, go to An Illustrated Speculative Timeline of Future Technology and Social Change, a timeline that covers, well, everything. There’s some awesome stuff here, mostly focused on the future but if you follow the Perspectives backward you can browse the history of everything. The above speculation on the role of the domesticated wolf on the profile of human beings comes from here. The author states that this all evolved from research for a science fiction novel and is careful to provide references and make it clear where he’s speculating. I’ll probably be reading this for hours.
Go get a beer and enjoy.
Tags: No Comments
0 responses so far ↓
Like gas stations in rural Texas after 10 pm, comments are closed.