Our friend above has reached the pinnacle of human evolution. Despite the
fact that he has found something to complain about, he must know what he
is talking about. He is not too concerned about his environment, nor the
ability of his species to survive. He is unaware that around the world,
frog populations are diminishing. Nor does he seem to be particularly
aware that colonies of honey bees are mysteriously disappearing. When a
future spring comes, and the bees are not there to pollinate the flowers,
earth vegetation will be under stress. Then there are climate changes
that are showing signs of wanting to convert wet lands into deserts and
lowlands to fish sanctuaries.
Let's check some numbers in the Bikini Wax Man's history. In the last 30
years, he has had two immediate ancestors, his parents. In the last 100
years he numbers 8 ancestors, his great grand-parents (not including his
parents and grandparents, who are destined to die soon, if they haven't
already.) The world population today is 6.7 billion. One hundred years
earlier, when his 8 great grandparents were alive, the population was 1.6
billion. Our Bikini Wax man's ancestors will double three times for
approximately every 100 years we go backwards. At the same time, the
estimated world population shrinks as we go in reverse, having risen
steadily since about 70,000 B.C. when it was estimated to be just under 1
million total. In fact, a very interesting year stands out in human
history. It is the year 1055 A.D.
In that year, the number of Bikini Wax Man's ancestors (assuming they have
doubled 3 times each 100 years) has reached 356,200,000. At the same time,
because population was on the rise, our projection of the world's
population that same year was 351,000,000. In
other words, it was possible for every living person on the earth to be a
direct ancestor of BWM. In reality, this is absurd, as BWM's ancestral
history did not reach into Australian Aboriginal tribes, North American
civilizations, and China. You would have to go back 10's of thousands of
years before the slow migration of human kind touched the genetic roots of
Bikini Wax Man.
The other aspect to BWM's history, is that of duplication of ancestors.
When cousins marry cousins, regardless of their distance from one another,
they incorporate branches of the same family. There was a recent case of
a man incarcerating his daughter and having children by her. This is an
extremely rare case in which the resulting child has the same father and
grandfather. The next rarest case is when a sibling mates with a sibling.
This has happened when siblings are adopted, grow up in nearby communities,
unaware of one another, then meet, marry and mate. The next level is
uncommon, and still frowned upon, but only if we are aware of it. This
is when first cousins marry. They have different parents, but they have
the same grandparents. As time goes by and BWM's ancestors double with
each 30-year period, the chance of his ancestors marrying into matching
lines, increases, especially when inhabitants from the same county marry.
Very simply, they just don't know what their detailed ancestral tree is,
so they are unable to identify the branch of their own family that they
are marrying into.
It appears, that for the most part, whoever BWM decides to marry, he has a
good chance of marrying a cousin somewhere between the 8th and 14th level.
Having gone back to a single line of my great-great-great-great
grandparents, I have attempted to list everyone who has descended from
them. Excluding spouses and extraneous names, like children from earlier
marriages, there are currently more than 880 individuals. The list is
incomplete, and the correct final number will be closer to 1200. At this
level, I have 64 great-great-great-great grandparents who have been
responsible for an average of 600 descendants for each. That's 1200
for the pair. If I had completed the other 31
branches (there are 32 branches of male and female pairs), it could total
about 32,000 descendants from my 64 4g-grand-parents. Of those, there are
about 40 per branch that could marry, based on their age and sex, yielding
2560 total. By about the year 1480, the total number of marriageable
opposite sex individuals once again exceeds the world population. So by
the 14G grand parents (that's 14 "great"s in front of grand parent),
you're guaranteed to marry a 14G cousin. In reality, because they
will more than likely be close to your home than across the ocean, it
could well be your 10G cousin that you're marrying.
As we marry our cousins, the closer down the line, the greater the impact.
In general we get shorter and stupider. In other words, we make Bikini Wax
Man look like a genius. He probably owns at least 1 Ipod, 1 cell phone,
which he hardly ever puts down. He receives at least 6 emails per day, all
of which makes him feel, advanced and important, even though nothing that
he has to communicate is anything more significant than the passing of
gas. In reality, BWM is virtually unproductive, and like most of his
ancestors, will be unremembered by anyone. He is mostly a consumer of
products and does more to assist the extinction of his species than to
contribute to its survival.
As cycles go, his descendants will not survive. None of the complex
species ever do. Only flies, ants, cockroaches and such, are
well-equipped to weather the assaults upon their survival. By contrast,
having befouled the waters of his planet (there are already large floating
clumps of garbage in the ocean currents), and having massively upset the
chemical balance of the upper atmosphere, not to forget contaminating his
own food supply with aluminum, mercury, and arsenic, Bikini Wax Man, is
comforted in the unspoken belief that if something goes bad, it can be
replaced by a new one. Not realizing that this is harder to do when it
comes to home planets, he is nevertheless excited by the growing interest
in science to send a man to Mars.
Something tells me that BWM is ultimately doomed, and that more than
likely Nature has already begun to design some kind of replacement for
him, which should only take a couple of 100 million years to reach the
shelves.
