Before going to southern Africa I took time to read the fascinating diary of a trip starting in 1868. It was written by my great great aunt, Julia Dakin and had been carefully typed out by my mother. Julia went on a sailing boat to Durban (D'Urban as she wrote it) intending to be married to a gentleman there. As it happened, it was a long voyage, and there was an attractive young man on board who was going big game hunting. On arrival she married this hunter, Charles Hart, and went with him on his expedition.

 

The story of the carnage was chilling - I was familiar with the halls of stately homes in England being lined with the heads of African game - but to read about how it was done was another matter. They had to travel a long way past the Drakensberg Mountains before there was any game available, because it had already been shot out years ago. In the first two months they were not very successful - she records the party shooting only forty birds and fifty large game, including three of the now extinct quaggas. Later on, when they got beyond the area of white settlement, game was more plentiful, and it was only worth recording when they shot 14 buffalo before breakfast. Unfortunately she lost her diary for the latter part of her trip, so we have no record of what they shot then.

 

This was the same time that Buffalo Bill was shooting in Kansas. She records that when they had difficulty shooting lions, they resorted to laying poison for them. They kept meeting up with other hunters who were, presumably, shooting at a similar rate. When in Zimbabwe, Julia was a bit of a curiosity to the local people, including Chief Maching, who had not seen a white woman before. (Cecil Rhodes was still in his teens then.) The shooting trip lasted for about seven months. Her husband's family had done well from a mining venture, which gave him funds for his sport, but the company went bankrupt shortly afterwards, and he lost all his money - it is not recorded what happened to some of the heads he bagged.

 

I had heard more about the Drakensberg Mountains from my mother, who went there in the 1920s, and really looked forward to my visit. I went with Clem Abbott, who was well known for his work on domesticating eland, and some of his African contacts who made up a congenial walking party. The scenery was dramatic with sweeping grassy slopes up to the top of the range. It was hard to realise that the top was merely the cliff edge of the high Lesotho plain, which was like another South American Lost World. We looked at caves well adorned with rock art and climbed a long ice-covered path up to a high point. Looking down I could just imagine Julia and Charles Hart heading north with their two wagons, one drawn by ten oxen and the other by sixteen. With them they had five horses, three other hunters, two "hottentots", drivers, two voorlopers (boys to walk ahead of the leading oxen), a "kaffir boy" and the dog Jim. Like them, we saw no game, and thorny bushes were sprouting up over much of the area. This I was told was becoming a problem, because the loss of the game meant that bush would eventually replace the grass.

 

On the way back to Pietermaritzburg we noted extensive gully erosion in the landscape, which was the result of farming activity. Julia had mentioned meeting Dutch farmers most of the way to the Limpopo River - they had been farming there well before her visit, so the land had had time for erosion effects to develop. It was interesting to see what was likely to happen in Western Australia after a similar lapse of time.

KARIBA DAM. The Kariba dam covered a huge area of wildlife habitat, drowning all animals and plants out of the area. The dead trees remain as a stark reminder of what once grew there. Initially the lake was covered in a growth of water hyacinth. This formed huge drifts which fertilised the shoreline, now grazed by remaining animals, like this elephant.

Zimbabwe

Some years later we went to Zimbabwe where we were able, at last, to see abundant African game. First we had wonderful views of elephants and other game at the Kariba Dam. Then we went walking in Chizarira National Park where lions roared near our tents and baboons screamed as a leopard went after them at night. We saw lots of other animals, especially little parties of warthogs, trotting with their tails in the air, buck impala stomping in their territories, waterbuck and smaller animals including squirrels in the trees and some rock hyrax, or dassies (the biblical conies), hiding under ledges in a rocky outcrop. They are the closest relatives of elephants. We also were lucky enough to see one of the last black rhinoceroses - most had gone to poachers who sold their horns.

IMPALA. The land is grazed by huge numbers of animals, and the natural processes of population regulation come into play - limits to food supply, predation, disease, or increased breeding to replace numbers lost.

Tsetse Fly

On the way to Hwange we went through some tsetse fly control points. Julia had mentioned tsetse fly zones when she went into this region, and how they had travelled at night to protect themselves and their oxen from getting trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness in man) - a disease transmitted by the fly. The fly is still a strong vector in the landscape, but mainly because of a disaster which struck Africa in the 1890s. Cattle plague or rinderpest was introduced from Europe and swept through the continent, killing cattle and huge numbers of game. The Masai further north were one of the most severely affected people, because their whole way of life revolved around cattle.

 

The plague outstripped the killing efforts of the big white hunters and left Zimbabwe without most of its grazing animals. The bush grew up when released from grazing pressure, and this had the incidental effect of providing ideal breeding conditions for tsetse flies, because they need the shade of bushes. This meant that the whole area was a fly zone and people could not return with their cattle. The loss of people and cattle gave the game a chance to return to previous numbers. Without this event, Zimbabwe may have been as empty of game today as the Drakensberg Mountains. Methods are being developed now which could eradicate the fly, and leave the countryside wide open to farming.

 

When we got to Hwange we saw animals everywhere: wildebeest, gazelles, giraffe, wart hogs and many others. Some of the rare African hunting dogs even chased a kudu around the central restaurant. The highlight of the whole trip was when we watched a couple of teenager elephants in a waterhole at sundown. They spent ages having fun, squirting one another and trying to dunk the other under water. As dusk fell we became aware of other elephants approaching - they are incredibly silent for such huge creatures. More and more came - we stopped counting when we got to a hundred. The teenagers continued to play while the herd came to drink. One of the babies saw a duck and chased after it; when it did not take flight, he tried again trumpeting to make it fly away. We had to leave when one of the matriarchs sensed our presence.

YOUNG ELEPHANTS PLAYING IN A POOL. Seen before the large herd arrived. Elephants are slow breeders, like us, and have long lives. Mortality rates are low too. Their breeding rate is designed so that they do not overpopulate under normal conditions. Removal of their normal habitat has meant that large numbers have moved into parks. While in the parks, mortality rates have declined (except where poached for ivory). This lead to overpopulation, and habitat destruction from over grazing.

Elephant cull

Next day we were shown a huge pile of bones scattered over a wide area - we were told that the rangers had had to "cull" the elephants. There were just too many of them for the park, and would destroy the vegetation unless the numbers were reduced. It was a sad task, but it was felt that this had to be done. The rangers had worked on the basis of shooting whole extended family groups with the aim of avoiding any memory of the disasters remaining within the population. Part of the problem was that the elephants were coming from the surrounding country where their habitat was being cleared away - the other part was that not enough young were being taken by lions any more.

 

We are like the elephants, and are eating away our global habitat. The present exponential growth of human populations cannot continue indefinitely, and it is of great concern, not only because of overpopulation, but also because the resources used per person (to support the growing world of machine technology and artefacts) is concurrently increasing at an even faster rate. This is alarming because we know that the same rules apply as in better-known events: the price of property in Japan and high-tech shares in America - they cannot go on going up forever. A population crunch time is inevitable - what are the chances of a "soft landing"?

 

Mechanisms of population regulation

Much ecological research has been done with the aim of identifying the mechanisms of population regulation in animals and, despite our intelligence and technology, we are still animals subject to natural ecological forces. It is generally thought that in natural ecosystems, such as the rainforest environment, ecological forces discourage overpopulation by any one species, and encourage the growth of diversity in the long term. Any living species which becomes too common attracts attention from a range of predators, grazers, parasites or pathogens, until its population returns to sufficient rarity for these organisms to decline in numbers, or look elsewhere for sustenance. Outside of tropical rainforests, in more simple or temporary ecosystems there is less diversity and individual species are periodically more likely to outstrip controlling factors. These conditions are typical of the Arctic where enormous fluctuations occur in some species, such as lemmings and arctic hares. Similar unstable conditions occur on small isolated islands and in artificially simplified environments, such as farmland and pastures.

VULTURES AT A KILL. Scene next to the one at the beginning of the chapter. Vultures, storks and crocodiles feeding from killed kudu. Predation forms one of the natural forces in population regulation. The more common a species, the more likely it is to be taken by predators. If it becomes too common, more will be taken, and the numbers will drop. The same applies to common disease organisms. Disease is more likely to spread if the population is dense and stressed from lack of food.

In experimental laboratory cultures population regulation may come down to very direct density dependent factors, such as with grain beetles where the limit may depend upon the rate at which beetles find and eat eggs of their own species. Some beetle cultures are controlled when the build-up of a body-oil causes too much pollution to the environment. In rats the limit may be achieved when they begin to find and kill each other's nestlings. These experiments basically demonstrate that animals can live at staggeringly high densities, like human beings, and that at these densities behaviour patterns and body functions evolved for other reasons may become effective mechanisms in population regulation.

 

Self-regulation

A point of continuing discussion is that of self-regulation - self-regulating mechanisms would appear to be unlikely on the grounds that natural selection favours pure individual self-interest, and self-interest is best served by producing more surviving offspring than your competitors. Yet there are many examples where self-regulation appears to occur. Many mammals do not breed at the maximum rate, but at one related to resources and territories, such as the Cape hunting dog - these animals live in packs and usually only the top female produces litters. This can be explained in terms of group selection where the unit of natural selection extends beyond the individual.

 

Other reasons for self-regulation relate to the long-term survival of the individual, and whether it improves its chances of leaving surviving offspring, if it moderates its reproductive potential according to resources available. Self-interest is also served by this strategy, because self-regulation avoids excess competition from one's own offspring, while at the same time investing less energy in reproduction and improving chances of a longer reproductive life. Elephants may not reach maturity until 18 years old and then only produce a calf about every four years or so. This is not an option for heavily predated species, such as warthogs and rock hyraxes (and rabbits) whose self-interest is best served by a strategy of investing in the largest family they can raise before succumbing themselves.

AFRICAN ORANGE-TIP BUTTERFLY. Insects usually have short lives and many mortality factors, so usually reproduce at the maximum rate they can sustain. There is no reason to limit numbers of offspring. Warthogs and hyraxes are also subject to heavy pressure from predators, so have relatively short lives and reproduce at a high rate. This contrasts with long-lived species, like elephants, which only produce relative few calves in a lifetime, but can become too numerous if normal mortality rates are reduced. This has happened to mankind.

Integrated population regulation

Many species appear to have an integrated system of regulation, which takes into account available resources together with population density. They use social organization to force any population excess into poor habitat, where individuals are more likely to die from disease and predation. A well-documented case comes from grouse in Scotland where managers find they cannot maintain artificially high densities on the moors because of this system. Social pressures force young grouse to the edge of the moor, where they build up huge parasite loads, become sick and prone to predation. The extra birds are in effect doomed, so it is a tough call for the manager to keep them alive until the shooting season. The same rules probably apply to the rock hyrax, because they are very dependent upon rock crevices to escape predators. On their rocky outcrop there would be good crevices, mediocre ones and poor ones on the edge of the rock. Low status animals would be relegated to the poor shelters where they are more likely to succumb to a predator.

 

Early human population regulation

Human populations are part of the fauna supported by the environment and are inevitably subject to normal ecological forces controlling their numbers. Their original strategy was clearly one of low reproductive rate and long life together with an extended family or tribe-sized, kin-selected caste system. But there appears to have been no restraint on breeding according to caste - all females bred regardless of status, although survival of young remains better in high status females than low. The only natural restraints are physiological ones such as suckling young inhibiting ovulation, presumably to avoid over-stress on the mother. (Starvation and excessive social stress can have similar effects.) Natural forces provided population regulation through predation, disease, injury, food-shortage and inter-tribal territorial aggression, with few living longer than about 40-50 years, like other members of the great ape family.

 

When intelligence grew, technology was applied to combat natural ecological forces. Most of the major predators are now on the verge of extinction and predation no longer exists as a regulatory force, while disease has been greatly reduced by modern medicine (at least temporarily) and more food for human consumption is being produced per hectare than ever before. This has meant that mortality rates have been reduced, but with insufficient compensatory reduction in birth rate. (The breeding drive is an innate characteristic set by natural selection during our tribal ape ancestry, and is hard to over-ride despite our intelligence.) However, as Malthus pointed out so long ago, this cannot go on forever - ecological forces must return and a population crunch time is inevitable.

 

Hyper-dense populations

Some have pointed to examples from studies on rats, where dense populations become socially stressed and abnormal behaviour develops, including infanticide and slowed breeding rates. This, they suggest, may be the way human populations will be controlled. What they fail to mention is that these rat models are based on hyper-dense populations with unlimited food. Humans can clearly live in hyper-dense populations without any reduction of breeding activity, but our food and resources are not unlimited. The Earth's resources are currently being non-renewably 'mined' to support the current population. The oceans have already lost most of their fish resources and the world leadership has so far failed to stop over-exploitation. Soil loss from cultivated land is occurring at an alarming rate - at many times the tonnage rate of the grain produced; many large irrigation schemes are on the brink of failure from the build-up of salts and lime in the soil; vast areas of semi-arid country are becoming arid from cropping, over-grazing and bush clearance; and the last remaining areas of tropical rainforest will disappear in the next thirty years unless effective global action can intervene.

 

Agricultural experts concede that even in the best-case scenario of agricultural improvement, the amount of grain produced per head of population will be far less than it is today when the population has reached the projected 10-12 billion later this century. Food shortages could be met by biotechnology - but only if it were organised as a global effort with the aim of feeding the world, not as a money-making exercise subject to the current world order.

 

Feeding needy people is not a simple matter, however - the food has to be appropriate for a start, because like most animals, we are very conservative about foods, and can easily starve to death rather than eat unfamiliar foods. Most of the current famines today are also not due to overall food shortages, but distribution inequalities brought about by human social structures dating from our tribal ancestry. In effect, famines are examples of the long-serving mechanism used for population regulation amongst competing individuals of grouse, animals and tribal people. Most stress is put on those forced into poor habitat so that they die from predation, disease, or starvation, leaving the best land for the rich and powerful - it is the mechanism of natural selection favouring the best adapted, or equipped individuals in the population. The poor in these areas are like the excess grouse, living in conditions where food shortage, disease and death are much more likely.

 

Let nature take its course approach

Many people would advocate leaving it all to these natural processes, taking refuge in the self-centred belief that it is the mechanism of natural selection and one should not interfere (this is a view often supported by the "haves" in our society who rejoice in Darwin's thesis of evolution by natural selection - the survival of the fittest - because their immediate selfish interests are served by a do-nothing approach, or even by a more active repression of the poor). However, although this system works for animal populations in natural environments, it is not appropriate for present human populations, which have become large enough to affect the global climate and destroy remaining ecosystems. This has consequential effects on all, whether rich or poor, and the world is set to become progressively impoverished.

 

Few people today realise the enormity of the problems we face in the future with changing climates and soil loss due to human activity, and the doubling again of the world population. Things seem bad enough now, with recurring wars and famines, but a rise in temperatures of only a few degrees expressed as an average (irrespective of whether we are causing it or not) conceals the enormity of large-scale droughts and deluges affecting the main food-producing regions of the world. It also ignores the fact that small temperature rises can lead to systemic changes, such as the cessation of the Gulf Stream and hence fundamental change in the European climate. These weather effects may spawn mass-migration and food wars that strip the last remaining vestiges of green from large areas of the planet, and lead to the death of hundreds of millions of people.

 

Risks of pandemic disease

Other scenarios include the natural selection results of all our efforts at disease control and plant breeding - we are unconsciously creating ideal conditions for mutant pandemic diseases in mankind and/or our staple food crops, as our population density increases and our crops become less genetically diverse. This is one of the ecological answers to out-of-control populations. HIV and SARS are warnings of things to come - the pathogen could be a strain of the deadly marburg virus or, more likely, a new strain of influenza with a high mortality rate. Modern medicine will be powerless to stop such a modern plague sweeping through the world like rinderpest. In another scenario, a new potato-blight famine could strike the "green revolution" rice or wheat granaries of the world. These are the Malthusian problems we can look forward to if we fail to deal with the growth of the human plague now.

 

What we have to come to terms with is that human dominance of the planet has caused a sudden phase-change - we have gelled so that we are now all part of one ecosystem, whether rich or poor, business leader or refuse-tip scavenger, logger or indigenous forest-dweller - we are all in the same culture jar, able to travel to any point in a matter of hours. This means that conscious, planned development of our population and the Earth's resources is the only way to avoid Malthusian escalating catastrophes. We used our intelligence to get here in the first place - we now desperately need to use intelligence to get out of the consequences. We are like grain beetles which are just intelligent enough to realise that the growth has reached the limits of the jar, and the culture will collapse from the equivalent of body-oil pollution, if all the eggs already laid, grow to become adults.

 

Problems of programmed self-interest

The trouble is that our intelligence is still trapped in an animal body and is programmed with the factors which best served individual self-interest in a tribal ape. These are expressed in what some have suggested is infinite greed, but is motivated more by the drive to out-do perceived competitors (it sometimes develops into what could be called the Pharaoh syndrome, particularly in males, who are well endowed with this innate behaviour - the drive is so strong that even when all competition has been eliminated they still want to build a bigger pyramid for themselves than was ever built before). The drive is to demonstrate superior phallic powers at every turn in the forms of conspicuous consumption and aggressive competitive behaviour - on the road, in sport and the work-place.

 

This drive is at the root of most of the good and bad things in our society. The competitive urge in musicians, artists, technologists, city fathers, crime bosses, political extremists, national warlords, is the force which brings about our music, art, high technology, modern cities, national monuments and powerful nations. The people involved gain their positions by fair means or foul - it is all a game with winners and losers - and to win, the competitor needs to be prepared. The preparation involves acquiring skills and experience to equip for future encounters and to be ready at the point of contest when the time arises, and use whatever means are necessary to win.

 

Like other animals we have unwritten rules of behaviour programmed in our brains, so that in competitive behaviour such as when sparring, serious injury does not usually result. Dogs, for instance, will not normally harm a defeated opponent when it lies on its back presenting its most vulnerable parts; but, like mankind, dogs will kill if trapped in unnatural conditions. We have laws (both religious and civil), which reinforce innate rules of behaviour and extend into areas not covered by our DNA.

 

Inequality

Rules of behaviour appear to be designed to make everyone equal, but the laws do not succeed - the quickest road to power is often by underhand means such as birth-right, nepotism or crime. We share these practices with monkeys and baboons, where those born to high-ranking families usually have high rank themselves. Ancient human societies have built on this accident of birth, and have managed to progressively entrench all the wealth and power in the ruling class - often institutionalising the system by encouraging a belief in their god-given right to rule. This system has only recently come under pressure, as knowledge and education, and hence selection for leadership, have become available to a wider range of people. New barriers, which favour birth over merit, are often quickly put in place, such as the use of exclusive schools and universities as hidden selection criteria for powerful positions.

HIPPOS. Inequality is common in animals. Hippos born to high ranking individuals are treated with respect and tend to acquire high rank themselves. It seems as if the dynastic system is endemic, particularly in baboons and man.

The caste system of India is an interesting example of an entrenched social structure. It appears to go back a very long time when Aryans came in from the north, and conquered the country. Much intermarriage took place over the years, but the caste system put those most closely related to the Aryans at the zenith, with the scale going down progressively towards those who were most like the original native peoples. DNA studies back this interpretation, with high caste people having genes more associated with the Caucasus and those of the untouchables are more closely allied to other Asian peoples.

 

Many other cultures have gone some way down the road of the Hindu system. England, for example, developed a rigid class system based on birth, schooling, etiquette, forms of address and the pronunciation of the English language. It was supported by a belief system based on the superiority of the upper classes, the direct inheritance of superior behaviour - (many stories recount how "blue-blood" comes through regardless of circumstances e.g. Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbevilles) - and a mythology of the heroic deeds performed by long-dead knights and kings. King Arthur has been long revered - he was involved in trying to perpetuate the ruling class of Roman Britain against Saxon migrants from Europe.

 

Symptoms of over-dense population

Behaviour associated with our innate competitive urge is becoming progressively more inappropriate as population density increases. Much behaviour was developed to achieve success in a tribal ape society, not the society we have today. It is leading to the growth of symptoms of over-dense populations, similar to those seen in rats - stress symptoms, displacement activities (inappropriate activity when the desired behaviour cannot be expressed), anti-social behaviour, senseless violence, violence in the home, increasing misplaced sexual expression, substance abuse, vandalism and crime. In rats some of these factors eventually become the limiters of population growth, but only when natural population regulators are excluded. One of our innate behaviour patterns is particularly dangerous in these circumstances and could lead to human population reduction. It is xenophobia - a common characteristic we share with many animals and birds.

 

Xenophobia

The behaviour is typically expressed as fear of and aggression towards strange individuals traversing their domains. In social animals, it can commonly lead to a violent death for the newcomer, especially when held in confined situations. This behaviour pattern was an important feature of our tribal past - xenophobia fuels resentments and has traditionally been used by leaders to play soldiers with their populations. Such wars in the past have rarely produced lasting reduction effects on population because, just as in other animal populations, disaster is usually followed by heightened breeding activity. However, modern war technology and communications have facilitated xenophobic genocide on a much wider scale than was possible in previous generations, and lasting population effects may now occur. Many current wars are essentially acts of xenophobic genocide and most political leaders are still bound by the rule that winning is the only option, which makes them prepared to use large scale warfare if necessary. These wars unleash weapons of mass destruction with no regard for their effects on the global population of mankind or the environment.

 

Weapons of mass destruction

The world is full of potential leaders who would relish the thought of using nuclear force to get their way and demonstrate their power over others. Recent history reveals many who would have used nuclear weapons if they had had the chance. America has demonstrated that modern democracies are not immune from this line of thought - they were persuaded that the only option was to wipe out the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a grand statement of the supreme power of the USA. This signalled to the Soviet Union, and all other nations with power aspirations or under threat from belligerent neighbours, that nuclear was the only way to go. It is only a matter of time before some of the 100,000 or so nuclear weapons of the world are used to perpetrate more horrendous crimes against the global society by racial, or religious fanatics, terrorist groups, crime bosses or extreme nationalist leaders, let alone by members of the nuclear club.

 

America is well prepared to use nuclear weapons wherever deemed necessary, it seems as if it was only by luck rather than sense that they were not used during the Gulf War. There is little doubt that the nuclear power industry is founded on a perceived need for nuclear weapons and the political power they generate. The by-product of electricity is merely a diversion from the real purpose. The cost in terms of nuclear waste and decommissioning, let alone accidents and nuclear warfare, destroy well thought-out arguments in favour of the industry. There is, of course, no shortage of experts in economics, nuclear physics and engineering who still vigorously support these power-stations, as grand futuristic projects on the assumption that everything goes according to plan and that we have entered an halcyon age, when no-one would think of using nuclear material for nefarious purposes, or even make mistakes like at Chernobyl. Countries now taking the nuclear power path can no longer conceal their true motives.

 

The nuclear threat is only one of a developing range of problems. National leaders of the world are already looking with interest on developments in the field of biotechnology that can have similar, or even more devastating potentials. Biological weapons of mass destruction are now well developed and were on the point of being released during the Gulf War. The aftermath of saturation herbicide spraying in the Vietnam War, where the natural landscape was destroyed and countless people affected by prolonged sickness and deformity, was an introduction to future trends.

 

Global altruistic cooperation

Today we have uncontrolled growth towards the ecological limit of the global environment - some suggest we may have already passed this limit and are in effect living on resources borrowed from future generations. The future of the world human population depends on how we can deal with this problem of uncontrolled growth in a society based on self-centred tribal-ape individualism and cut-throat competition. The only intelligent answer appears to be through the institution of a global altruistic cooperation. This altruistic cooperation has to be on a scale surpassing anything which has ever been evolved before in social animals.

 

DNA did succeed in evolving this sort of altruistic cooperation, when it made cells into organisms, and eventually resulted in the evolution of the human body. Such altruistic cooperation could allow us to weather the tidal wave of population explosion, provided that technology was directed with this purpose in mind, and planning done with the aim of minimising impacts on our global environment. The major obstacle is something which we regard as a sacred cow - individual freedom - we abhor the idea of totalitarianism, yet to achieve altruistic cooperation we have to lose many of the freedoms we now enjoy, especially the freedom to exploit for personal or corporate gain regardless of consequences to others.

 

The desire for the freedom to engage in these selfish behaviours is a hangover from our animal past, when everything hinged on the innate evolutionary force of selfish competition and natural selection. It spawns social strife by creating inequality, resentment, discrimination, ghettos, crime, environmental destruction, famine and war. The life experience of the individual, their cultural background and the history of the country involved all work against forging successful cooperation in areas of social division. It is as if we are weighed down by the genetic load of our personal cultures, and are unable to shed this and start afresh. Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in the current world hotspots.

 

Selection of leaders

It is possible to defuse the situation, and great advances have been made, but it is difficult when selection for leadership is still based on factors going back to our tribal ape origins - perceived competitiveness, strength and aggression, i.e. those most endowed with the Pharaoh syndrome. This means that many potential leaders can gain status by inciting violence and intolerance for political ends - while politicians in the most peaceful democracies still resort to verbal abuse and venom to gain leadership in their parliaments. The problem runs throughout the population, because we are all programmed to want to follow this sort of 'strong' leadership. In the end, old-fashioned leadership is essentially an open-ended selfish trait which feeds on power and corrupts people into using this power for gain without regard for any general well-being. There is much truth in the saying: "power corrupts - absolute power corrupts absolutely".

 

However, more moderate, conciliatory people are now frequently coming into power, and most acknowledge that there is a need to foster a general movement working for the benefit of the global community. We are also learning more about the human form of animal behaviour and are finding that it is possible to moderate and modify it, and even defuse aggression. Our tribal ape origins also endow us with more positive altruistic behaviours, which are available for intelligent use in a global context. We even have the ability to redirect our innate competitiveness towards positive ends.

 

Old-fashioned leadership cannot easily adapt to implementing these changes in outlook, but controls channelled through an intelligent global computer/media network could - if it were dedicated to this aim. But it seems as if however hard some may try, human communities are stuck with their pasts and cannot easily make the first steps on the way to being reprogrammed. This makes the problem of dealing with the population crisis fraught with apparently insurmountable barriers - there may be logical, non-violent altruistic answers, but we may be incapable of administering them while still in the grip of our competitive animal pasts.

 

Logical systems of dealing with the population crisis are diverse. Birth rate is the obvious starting point, and many methods are used to reduce the birth rate, varying from punitive measures and coercion to education and improved living standards for the poor. By far the most effective has been found to be by providing women with access to information and the means of birth control. However, these methods have merely slowed the rate of population growth. The global population is still headed for unacceptable levels which will have an ever more destructive impact on global resources.

 

We still put ultimate control in the too-hard basket - in the hands of the gods, i.e. ecological forces such as disease, famine or social stress-related genocide. HIV and the socially generated famines of many parts of Africa are typical examples of such forces. Basically, we are still fumbling around trying to find a solution, but it has so far escaped us. Totalitarian regimes have the power to enforce population policies, but many live in the past and do not see the need for population regulation. At one time it was quite usual for totalitarian leaders to link large populations with power and wealth for themselves. Some countries are now desperately trying to recover from the disastrous effects of these regimes.

 

Is it too late for cooperative population control?

As the population growth continues, it is a race against time for the cooperative grass-roots birth reduction programme to win, before the self-centred genocidal approach engulfs us all. The general assumption made when supporting family planning is that we are working with intelligent, socially responsible people who want better lives for themselves, and that birth control is the way to go. However, it may be that in the end, real population reduction when the population density is already too high, is more likely to be in the hands of those leaders who generate social instability, wars, genocide, famine and epidemic disease than those who are socially responsible.

 

This line of thinking is routinely used by managers of wildlife populations - it is nature, and culling, as it is known, is widely practised. Examples range from the use of poisons and disease to humane ways such as those used with the elephants in Hwange, which are controlled by killing whole extended family units down to the last squealing calf, because this method avoids the trauma of the event being stored in the memory of survivors. Such cold-blooded thinking is readily acceptable in human society when applied to other species. Unfortunately, it also regularly surfaces with regard to our own species. European invaders commonly used similar programmes of extermination, when they annexed land from indigenous peoples. Even today many leaders are involved in the most brutal suppression and genocide of the poor and other ethnic or cultural groups in their populations. Some even flood them out with hydro-electric dams.

MOPANE TREES STRIPPED BY ELEPHANTS. Elephant populations have been controlled by culling to preserve their habitat. Whole family groups have been killed so that no memory of the carnage remains in survivors. Park rangers do not like this job, but it is regarded as necessary. An alien arriving on earth would see the damage we are causing to our environment and would have no difficulty implementing such a practice on mankind.

Sterilising virus

Another answer may come from research in mammal pest and wildlife control. It is ethically unthinkable at present, yet has merit when compared with the consequences of over-population. It is the use of genetically engineered viruses that cause sterility - the virus may be as easy to catch as the common cold, but leaves the animal sterile. It may not happen legally, but the world is full of people who are capable of taking the law into their own hands and of ignoring ethical standards on research. It is not impossible that some laboratory, by accident or design may produce such a virus, and infect the world. This would, at least, have the effect of taking the population problem out of the hands of merciless killers. On the other hand, a leader may believe that there is merit in the method (provided immunisation is available for the chosen few) to destroy competing cultures, or control population growth in shanty-towns. It may only be a matter of time before a human sterilising virus is released, whatever moves are made to try and stop it.

 

These arguments emphasise the difficulty of coming up with intelligent answers to the human population problem, which do not conflict with ethical values. Yet, if we are ineffective, we will inevitably be responsible for unbelievable future human suffering. We are getting to the stage where one has to kill to be kind, yet we have great difficulty in accepting euthanasia, even in the most deserving cases, and there is massive opposition to abortion, even though it is widely practised (with abortion we have nearly approached the population regulation methods of flour beetles, which destroy their own eggs). As we have no difficulty with such methods when used to control mammal populations, one wonders how another intelligence might view our condition.

 

What would an alien intelligence do?

If another intelligence came from outer space, it would quite likely want to wipe us out altogether before we go on to produce a competitive form of machine life. However, if it were interested in the Earth's biosphere, it might want to preserve what is left of it, both of human culture and of the surviving natural ecosystems. Something like the sterilising virus would offer an answer, and the intelligence would have even less ethical problems with releasing it than we have for using one to control rabbits or foxes. (Some may suggest that something along these lines is already in progress! - sperm counts in human semen are reported to have mysteriously halved over the last fifty years and are now nearing the levels at which fertility problems can be expected.)

 

Earth-based super-intelligence

However, rather than an intelligence coming from outer space we are busy creating another intelligence here on Earth - a super-intelligence based on the combined input of billions of human and machine units. As an extension of ourselves, it would seem most likely that it would be endowed with our own ethical values, but this may not be the case - in fact our ethics clearly could spell disaster. Our ethics, or value system is based on a combination of ancient drives, which only develop cooperative, sometimes altruistic behaviour, where it is necessary to protect territory and ensure the long-term survival of the individual, family or tribal unit. These drives do not easily encourage the formation of a cooperative global unit of billions of individuals. It is probable that a combined, impersonal super-intelligence requires the evolution of a new set of moral values to govern all its parts. The essence of this ethic must be for management to be directed towards a common (global) benefit, so that every individual activity is seen in relation to its impact in a global context.

 

Human ethics were largely evolved for successful social management in small tribal-ape units, so it is not surprising that we have great difficulty in spreading them beyond a tribe of about 150 people, let alone to the global billions. The major hurdle is that tribal ethics (ethics being the principles or rules of right conduct within the group) include many actions that are definitely not ethical for large populations. These negative values are also to some degree programmed into our behaviour, such as those towards strangers, which are expressed in shades of xenophobia - ranging from disinterest and callous disregard to violence and oppression. These are the tribal ethics, which are much used by leaders to incite cultural groups and nations to war.

 

Modern ecological forces in human society

The human world is still driven by ecological forces - the law of the jungle - and they inevitably lead to the dominant role of essentially what are crimes against society, perpetrated from the seats of power. These range from the passage of laws, which discriminate against the disadvantaged in their populations to nepotism, corruption and links to organised crime. Other examples include the emergence of beliefs which place economic development of rich companies above the welfare of the people - the roots of economic rationalism - the systematic erosion of worker's/unemployed's rights (the modern slaves/poor) and the exponential growth of environmental destruction for short-term economic gain.

 

These are the trends that ultimately can result in a police state, genocide and war, and are the modern manifestations of our ancestral tribal-ape leaders using the innate altruism of their followers to further their own ends. When we talk about ethical and moral values we tend only to think of their positive "good" side and not see that they also lead to some of the worst atrocities committed by mankind. Ancient writings are full of implied praise for some of the worst acts of genocide, committed by those supposed to be on the side of good.

 

What ethics do we programme into our computers?

The new intelligence we are creating will have to rely on human ethics for the time being - but which set of values is likely to dominate? Will it be the callous self-seeking model, or the altruistic one, which accepts restrictions designed for the common good of the global tribe? At present we can say with little hesitation that our computers are programmed to give straight logical answers based on figures. Humanity and other ethical considerations can only come in when there is a human operator able to understand the complexities and willing to over-ride the computer. The world is now far too complex for individuals to understand, and little human intervention takes place, even when there are obvious impoverishing effects on men, women and children.

 

The result has been the current trend towards giving in to purely economic and monetary issues that favour machines, grandiose constructions, corporate wealth and the super-rich over that of the ordinary mass of human beings. As the machines learn more about how our world operates so will this rationalistic intelligence grow unless we can intervene somehow. We are already so well schooled in the arts of mutual self-destruction that it seems inevitable that the developing machine intelligence could soon be allowed to put human population reduction into immediate effect, starting with the poor and unemployed.

 

In this respect our machines are way ahead of us, they can be thrown away as they become obsolete or reprogrammed, even upgraded (educated) to cope with innovations, and as they become more sophisticated so too do they also become more able to communicate with different systems (races) and in different computer languages. Soon any barriers to communication will be lost and the computers will all be linked on global networks. Their empirical abilities will far outstrip human brains (they already do) and the growing intelligence of the system is destined to rise exponentially. This is all possible because each computer can be discarded or replaced as required without a twinge of conscience. When this is done with human workers (usually because they are being replaced by smart machines), instead of going to the scrap-heap, or being dismantled and recycled, they remain in the population, where they build up future trouble.

 

Letting machines take over would certainly get over the hurdle we face of the morality of actions dedicated to population reduction. We, as individual human beings, would no longer be responsible. We already feel that we have no direct responsibility for the famines and poverty now resulting indirectly from our lack of action on conception rates and population growth.

 

Plenty for all, if properly organised

The present global situation is at the ultimate stage of chaotic development based on individual and tribal self-interest. Most people can see that it need not be chaotic and globally damaging if it could be logically organised. Famine is unnecessary, because there is ample food now and enough food could be produced to feed even twice the present population, if research and development were directed toward this end. Populations could be regulated, if the required information and materials were given to all, and poverty would be unnecessary, if wealth and opportunity were more equally distributed. Resources for material wealth could even be available for all, if we could accept an overall logical control that moderates our consumerism, insists on all items being recycled and develops innovative re-usable materials.

 

Virtually unlimited energy could be directly tapped from the sun and accumulated as stores of liquified gas. It would also be possible to reconstruct natural ecosystems and to control environmental damage if the whole could be managed by a super-intelligence able to balance the drive for selfish local development needs, against the over-riding need for global stability and sustainability. Such an intelligent control may involve behaviour management to lessen the desire for conspicuous consumption, the loss of most consumption-orientated advertising and the price of all products to include their environmental impacts as well as production costs, making funds available for real environmental repair.

 

Media role in defusing violence

Even the major hurdle of our tribal behaviour package and its manifestation as a pandemic of violence, can be intelligently managed by a deliberate global policy of measures aimed at this end. The defusing of violence could possibly be done using knowledge of our animal behaviour and applying it through the global media network - similar to the controlling effect of hormones on cells in the body. It would probably need a total restructuring of the way the media are organised and controlled. The opportunities are legion, with the advent of immediate on-screen access to all recorded knowledge, statistics, data, arts, drama, culture, news, educational material, interactive entertainment etc. available on-line from anywhere in the world. This system is rapidly developing together with the ability for interactive communication with anyone, anywhere in the world, and soon this will extend to any intelligent computer.

 

Action is urgently needed here to direct this new development, because, with the current system of free-rein market forces and the power of the advertising dollar, the system is going to be mainly exploited for machine and materials gain, or self-centred nationalism, as opposed to working towards human development. Already the media, which are by far the most important educational input for the majority of people in the world, habitually exploit our deep-seated tribal-ape instincts for financial gain and have little regard for any consequences on the global community. Similarly, national governments and other well-financed self-interest groups use the international media for their own, short-sighted ends.

 

We are at a fascinating stage in the development of a global intelligence - the final throes of the tribal self-interest phase as it coalesces into the global unit. Everywhere people are trying to cling onto the past, championing the selfish elite and self-centred nationalistic governments. Yet these same elites and governments are currently selling their assets to multinational organizations and resigning their power to international agreements governing everything from trade and weapons of war, to environmental protection and human rights for members of their populations.

 

National borders have less and less importance while the globalized, machine-dependent age is irresistibly taking over. Globalized commercial media are dictating moods and globalized financial networks are dictating organization, dispatching billions of dollars around the world in milliseconds. Old-fashioned wars are even controlled by the global operations of international arms dealers and money-launderers. The whole system is wide open to abuse and manipulation, because we lack necessary controls. The world is powerless to curb the pervasive influence of major crime bosses, powerful nations, the huge multinational corporations and those involved in the manipulation of currency and finance.

 

The passing of control to machine-assisted global organization

This change is becoming an avalanche towards us passing control of the system into the realms of an intelligent, machine-assisted global organization, which should be dedicated to general advancement, stability and sustainability, if we are to survive. Governments and large companies are finding that it is becoming more difficult to get away with policies that are globally irresponsible, now that we are building a global nerve-network and are developing systemic monitoring. The growing modern technology and media exposure is progressively eroding the freedoms of governments, large organizations and individuals so that they are finding it harder to commit what are essentially crimes against society. They will no longer be able to lie and cheat because their actions will too easily be exposed. Western politicians and other public figures are finding this out for themselves all too frequently with financial scandals - even their bedroom capers, exposed to the media (we are, after all, still just apes, doing what came naturally to our ancestors).

 

The late coming of 1984

As time goes by we may find that all financial deals will have to be done on the network and subject to computer scrutiny. Cash may disappear and be replaced by a personal identity monitor, the equivalent of today's plastic cards, which record every transaction in computer data banks around the world. At a later stage all actions and conversation may also be linked via personal communicators, which also act as monitors and educators. These could effectively act like the controlling hormonal system of the global body. (This was a stumbling block for George Orwell's 1984, there were not enough people in the world to monitor everyone to make sure they were toeing the party line. Intelligent machines can achieve this without any difficulty - their processing abilities far outstrip those of the human brain, and they can handle many operations at the same time). The super-intelligence brought on by networked computers, linking everyone and every machine in the world, will strike at the very heart of our system - which rewards those who can get away with whatever they can for personal gain. This personal freedom will effectively be lost.

 

The end may be a globalized super-intelligence, which can manage the world for itself on a sustainable basis. The developmental process now taking place is still effectively under human influence. It could be managed without a massive human cull, but present trends suggest that most elites who control the system by their material wealth and tribal status, will impart to the machine intelligence a belief in the merit of a planned cull of the world's poor. But despite these trends it may be that the ground-swell of more humane, globally-minded people will be able to prevail and impart to the developing machine-intelligence a conscience that will not readily sacrifice parts for the long-term good of the whole, unless it is unavoidable.

 

Once the super-intelligence is in control, development will include population regulation and resource management for its greater ends within the limits of the global environment. How it achieves this is an open question. Cells when they cooperated to form organisms needed a combination of strength and competitive spirit to serve the whole, together with a suicide gene to come into play if and when they failed. Suicide in similar circumstances seems unacceptable for human beings and, because we are much more adaptable, it may be unnecessary - failure in one setting can lead to movement, re-education and success in another.

AFRICAN BUFFALO. Cattle plague or rinderpest swept through Africa killing much of the wild game and domestic cattle in the 1890s. Computer virus attacks could be equally devastating unless an effective defence system is installed automatically.

Machine intelligence could achieve much by using known means of manipulating human behaviour. After the human population crisis has been dealt with, other crises are likely to continue, such as the continued appearance of mutant DNA-based diseases and disease in the computer network - computer viruses and the like will become so serious that massive immunity systems will have to be developed. They will need to be more efficient than those in our own bodies. Chief Maching's descendants are suffering the ravages of HIV, a disease that destroys the immune system, and is leaving a harrowing legacy of orphans across southern Africa. A rinderpest or sleeping sickness-like plague on the machine world would spell disaster.

SQUIRRELS AT THE CAMP SITE. Everywhere the rodents are watching us - will humanity make the transition, or will they fail and leave it up to the rodents? Here at Chizarira a couple of squirrels.

 

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Part IV THE FUTURE (B)

Contents part 4
Main Contents

MT BROMO. Java is a land of smouldering volcanoes. Bromo and Merapi frequently erupt. Human kind lives on the slopes of a volcano and intelligence has given us the power to blow our world to pieces. We have only one chance to survive on Planet Earth - we had better use our intelligence before it is too late. Human conflict is open to intelligent management, but it is only one of the problems we face, the other is the cuckoo of intelligence. We are passing intelligence to machines and encouraging it to grow outside our bodies. We need to create a mutual alliance with our machines, otherwise they will take over and discard us.

CHAPTER 11

THE CUCKOO FLEDGES

Java

One Sunday we went for a boat trip across Rawa Pening in Central Java. The boat pushed through dense beds of water hyacinth to get out into the open water, reminding me of Florida and the Kariba Dam. The weed originates from South America. We passed many huts perched on stilts where fishermen used lights to attract fish into the nets at night. We passed boats loaded with happy families having a relaxing day off, fishing. The lake is rich from hot springs bubbling up from its base and is very productive. There were many cormorants arranged on the fishing huts and other water birds to be seen around the lake, while large blue dragonflies flew overhead and a yellow striped one settled on the boat. It was all in the shadow of the extinct Volcano Merbabu - shielding us from the ever-smoking Merapi, Java's most active volcano.

Indonesian culture

Like the families, we were having a welcome break from our intensive course on Indonesian language and culture. Watching the ripples gave time to reflect on what we had learned. Other trips had taken us to the massive Buddhist temple at Borobudur, to see (part of) a performance of the Ramayana at Prambanan, Palaces at Yogyakarta and Solo, and evocative performances of wayang - shadow puppets - accompanied by a full gamelan orchestra. The rich cultural legacy of the country is everywhere apparent and it is interesting to compare it with the cultural development of the western world. The European culture came from a mix of the great old empires of Egypt, Persia, Greece, Macedonia, and Rome together with northern Europeans - often labelled pagans or barbarians, but also capable of building impressive monuments, like Stonehenge at the time of the Pyramids. The present day European culture has been developed as a legacy of untold wars and skirmishes (physical and ideological) between various countries and principalities in the times since the Roman Conquest.

RAWA PENING. Fishermen busy on their Sunday holiday. Time for reflection - can it really be that intelligence can coalesce humanity into a global unit, and can the machine age really takeover and control us?

The Javanese come from a similarly diverse cultural base. They appear to have originally come from south-east Asia about 6000 years ago, colonising an island covered in virgin rainforest, inhabited by Tigers, Rhinoceroses and Elephants. Java was known to the ancient world, being mentioned in the earliest written version of the Ramayana in 300 BC, and trade was already coming by sea to South India in 100 AD when Graeco-Roman traders remarked on Indonesian boats bringing spices. Many settlers invaded from southern India and brought their religions with them - Hinduism and Buddhism. The original peoples remained inland and in the hills, and there are still many pockets of indigenous animists scattered throughout - the well-known Bali Aga persist in a crater lake on the island of Bali.

 

In about 400 AD a sea link from India to China was established via Java, which complimented the overland silk route. This brought wealth to the region and kingdoms developed, with the inevitable result of wars and power struggles. It also brought pilgrims and the region became a centre of Buddhism. The form of Buddhism which became established, was a relatively self-less one. Most Buddhists follow the line that the only route to enlightenment is by inward-looking self-discipline, but Mahayana Buddhism brought in the idea that there was a short-cut route by doing good deeds for other people. The sculptures on Borobudur show Gautama giving his life in many incarnations on the route to Enlightenment. It is interesting that orgasm was seen as a powerful tool, with the sex act apparently forming part of ceremonies. The tradition may have sprung from Hinduism where stone carvings on old temples often depict acts that make westerners blush. This is in contrast with some other mainstream religions, where abstinence seems to be regarded as a virtue.

BOROBUDUR. Indonesian tourists visiting the restored Buddhist temple. It was built during a period of prosperity in Java when it was on the maritime silk route from China to the middle east. The form of Buddhism practised in Java was not totally self-oriented in the sense that it taught that enlightenment could be achieved more rapidly by doing good to others. Many figures in relief show Gautama giving his life to save others in previous incarnations.

The prosperity led to a great temple-building period between 750-850AD when many Hindu temples were built and the massive Buddhist temple at Borobudur - this was about three hundred years before the Kmers built Angkor Wat. The leader who had the temple built is unknown - but he presumably wanted it to be the biggest in the world known to him. Hinduism was somewhat more popular in Java, perhaps partly because of its emphasis on birthright and given order in the caste system. Mysteriously the culture disappeared from central Java about 950 AD, with the seat of power moving to East Java. The temples were abandoned, and some think it may have been because of an epidemic of bubonic plague, brought in with ships rats from China. Borobudur became overgrown, and was sprinkled with ash from one of Mount Merapi's many eruptions. It was not recognised for what it was until it was seen by Stamford Raffles in 1814, when he started excavations.

 

Marco Polo came to Sumatra in 1290s and found Islam had reached the Aceh region. The Mongols invaded Java in 1292 - they were expelled, but Chinese traders settled over many years and became the major merchants. After the Mongols, the Mahajahit kingdom became an empire controlling most of the region, apart from West Java. The Acehnese captured Malacca in about 1400 and the Islamic faith spread along the coasts until the Portuguese captured Malacca in 1511. The history then becomes a tapestry of European rivalry, between the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French and English. The Muslims pushed further east and forced the remaining Mahajahit nobles and priests to move into Bali, where the Hindu-Buddhist culture fused with the indigenous animists to form the local Hindu-Dharma Religion.

Dutch control

During this time the Dutch won control, captured the spice trade and ruled Indonesia for 300 years (with a brief interlude of British rule in 1810-16, in a land swap arrangement, when Raffles governed from Bogor - which had a more pleasant climate than Jakarta, and established the botanic gardens there). Then there was the Japanese rule during the war followed by independence under Sukarno. When he was replaced in 1965 the unsavoury side of human behaviour came to the fore when over a million, mainly Chinese, were murdered.

 

Independence

On independence Indonesian was made the official language - it had been the language of trade coming mainly from Malacca/Sumatra. Now all Indonesians have to learn it, but it is the second language for most. Old Indonesian and Javanese languages were very complex because they involved knowledge of the relative status of the speakers, with different words and phrases being used depending upon whether you were speaking up or down the social scale (A similar hangover exists in the UK where one has to know how to address royalty). In learning Indonesian we were taught that "Anda" was now the general word for "you", but were told that in some circles it is impolite, because it does not adhere to the old traditions.

 

Recent changes

Experiencing such mind-blowing monuments, and so much art and culture in this beautiful country, inhabited by so many welcoming, friendly people brought doubts as to whether I was on the right track about the future. It surely could not be possible that the changes I have been suggesting could take place here? But then, things are certainly changing very rapidly. The first time we visited Indonesia most people were on foot or on bicycles, next they were on bikes and motorcycles, now they are on motorcycles and cars. The roads are raceways, crammed, with lorries, busses, cars and motorbikes - Bogor has been turned into a one-way track going around town, and the Becaks (Indonesian form of Trishaw - long gone in Singapore) are fast disappearing, often banned from the centre of towns. Everywhere in towns one sees satellite dishes connecting people to world television. Initially we had to go to a central telephone office to make calls, now everyone uses mobile phones. We tried to buy tapes of gamelan music, but they are now almost unobtainable, few people want this old-fashioned stuff any more, it is all westernised pop music. Down the street, local young people are flocking to Kentucky Fried and in Bali we had great difficulty in finding any Indonesian dishes in restaurants at all.

 

There is strong pressure to learn the English language - we struck this in Bogor when asked to help with a Sunday class (not knowing what to expect). We were taken in to a large room and had a microphone thrust at us to "speak English" in front of a class of a hundred 8-10 year olds. This went on for an hour - they were dismissed, then another hundred 10-12 year olds filed in for another hour. It ended with a third group of about eighty 12-14 year olds! It was great to be of help, but we were exhausted at the end of it all! It is interesting that the Indonesian language is very adaptable, rapidly including foreign words from many sources - early on it was Arabic, Indian, Chinese and Dutch, now it is full of English words. What we see in Java merely adds weight to all that I have been recording - we are becoming globalized and the machine age is indeed taking over.

 

Technology and life

The evolutionary history of life on Earth is essentially a record of the development of increasingly more sophisticated technology. The process involves millions of species changing and improving their own technologies and then forging symbiotic relationships and acquiring technology from other species. Even the simplest living bacteria are inordinately complex structures resulting from a long history of innovation and symbiosis dating back to proto-living chemistry. Further symbioses between various bacteria yielded the technology of organelles and gave rise to the eukaryotic cell.

 

The next technological innovation was the evolution of organisms where cells could be used as building blocks. This allowed the construction of organs, which could evolve into gross physical and chemical tools as well as behavioural tools. Further evolutionary changes have included the acquisition of technology by more symbioses, ranging from the use of microbes in the gut to the appearance of domestic relationships with other animals and plants. Others have included the evolution of social organizations that lead to divisions of labour and eventually caste formation so that it became possible to acquire a variety of technologies within a community.

 

The technology of intelligence

Intelligence is one of the many organ technologies evolved by DNA. It is particularly well developed in birds and mammals, where it has mainly been used as a supplementary tool to their innate behavioural technologies. It has so far only been in mankind that intelligence has been developed as a tool to invent technology (to any great extent) as opposed to evolving it, and it has been used to consciously modify lifestyles and the environment (intelligence may play other, poorly understood, roles in large-brained animals such as whales and elephants). However, our load of innate behavioural technology still heavily programmes our actions, despite our intelligence. Our emotions and intuitive behaviour continue to dictate the course followed by our evolving society. But this is now changing because we have recently entered a new phase, through becoming a technologically literate, global society.

 

The general belief in a mysterious force, which determines the future, is no longer in control - the future is now in our hands, because we understand the laws of nature and, theoretically, can make or do whatever our intelligent minds require. Whatever information we need is available from the bank of human knowledge held in libraries and computers. Whatever we need in terms of calculations, designs, simulations or projections can be done with ease. We now have something far superior to DNA in terms of technological innovation, and have also far outstripped its ability for information storage and retrieval.

 

The rate of change we can implement is far greater than anything which DNA can achieve, and this means that DNA evolution has essentially been superseded - it is no longer the basis of innovation and the accumulation of technological information. We can invent and make tools at will from the minerals around us, and technological advancement has now passed from DNA to a global intelligent society. DNA is instead becoming a subservient tool of the new force - intelligence. All this is causing a sharp change in the mechanism of evolution on our planet. It is a phase change, which is likely to eventually occur wherever there is life in the Universe, and is the next major developmental step after the evolution of organisms.

 

The legacy of tribalism

The problem we face is that although our intelligent minds have made this step, our bodies have not - we are still tribal apes, with matching behavioural and social organizations. Most of the time we are like schizophrenics, publicly contributing a veneer of well thought-out, intelligent, socially responsible actions, but everything we do is tempered by our other self, the primeval tribal ape, who breaks out and controls our actions, driving us into cut-throat competition, violence, crime and war. We are currently trying desperately to cultivate the intelligent veneer and build it into a collective culture, which can sensibly manage the global population of tribal apes. It is this collective intelligence, which is rapidly growing and spreading through instant global communications and media coverage - despite its negative use for the self-centred gain of some individuals.

 

More importantly, we are also beginning to understand the animal forces which drive human behaviour, and are entering a phase when we can apply a common intelligence to modify and control our own behaviour where necessary. We could be near the point of developing a hormonal control system that will make it possible to create a new global organism out of the chaos of billions of self-centred cells. Something like this is desperately needed to avoid calamity, especially when much of the world still exists in a pre-technologically-literate state and is governed by cultural dinosaurs with access to weapons of mass-destruction.

 

In a sense, intelligence has already acquired an existence beyond our bodies. It is there in our brains, but it continues after we die. We all have a two-way contribution to the collective intelligence that is growing in the global society - it is seen in the paddy fields of Java, the tools we use, city buildings, the motor cars, the roads and telephones. It is accumulated in our computers and libraries, art galleries and theatres.

TERRACES ON MT. MERAPI. Perilously perched on the slopes of the active volcano, people grow crops right up to the tops of mountains. Virtually all natural vegetation has been removed.

Intelligent cooperation

We have entered a new phase of intelligent cooperation, which is changing the face of the globe forever. Previous levels of cooperation marked fundamental changes on the planet - the appearance of cells, then organisms produced oxygen in the atmosphere, and covered land with intricate ecosystems and tropical rainforest. The new level we are fostering is rapidly replacing all that went before. The early stages are the replacement of natural ecosystems with an anthropogenic environment through destructive over-exploitation (initially by hunting, now by logging and clear-felling), land-clearance for agriculture, and the introduction of alien species, which have become adapted to human disturbance. These are followed by settlement and the growth of villages and towns.

 

In Java virtually all the forest has gone and terraced market gardens now reach high up the steep mountain slopes. Water hyacinth clogs the lakes, and Green Revolution rice has replaced much of the peasant farming. This has forced country people to migrate to towns and cities. While the overuse of pesticides has left paddy fields silent, which used to be full of bird calls, and led to a desperate turn to integrated pest management to control pesticide-resistant insects. The Sukarno government encouraged population growth and there are now approaching 100 million people crammed on this tiny island.

FAMILY PLANNING. This notice sends the message that small families are happy families. In the Sukarno era population was equated with power, and people were encouraged to have large families. This has resulted in a population of nearly 100 million on Java, and to the dangerous practice of trans migrating people to other parts of Indonesia where they form latent hotspots of civil unrest, partly because of incompatible cultural differences.

Energy and biotechnology farming

Later, more invasive changes may include large-scale energy and biotechnology farming, which will provide power and base-products to fuel the spread of city-like environmental modification. Geothermal energy is now well used and there is a drive for nuclear power in Java. As individuals we are unable to visualise this future we are creating. We tend to think in terms of now, and have little concept of the global impact of each change we make. Planners are continually allowing new bits of land to be developed, seeing each as only minor changes. But as they accumulate, the gross picture becomes obvious - development will not stop. It will go on and relentlessly consume the previous biological world - the environment within which we evolved. As individuals we are powerless to stop it from happening and all our current efforts will have little long-term effect.

Ecosystem destruction has gone so far now that an environmental awareness is emerging - the common human intelligence is reacting to the loss of our ancient habitat and bits are being set aside as living museums. This is temporarily preserving some of the accumulated DNA technology of the past. Long-term preservation will be very difficult, because of the enormous pressure from anthropogenic organisms - weeds and pests; the small island-like size of the areas involved, and the gross effects of air pollution and weather change. In the past animals and plants were able to move to follow weather change, because this occurred slowly, and in relatively unbroken habitat. This is no longer possible with reserves now being isolated like islands in a desert of farmland or concrete.

GEOTHERMAL POWER. With so many volcanoes, Java is well placed to make use of geothermal energy. It has also been seeking nuclear power - not a good idea in such a geologically unstable region. The motivation may have been to gain access to nuclear technology for political power rather than energy.

The end of speciation trends in mankind

How will the new, intelligence-based evolution develop? Speciation has been one of the avenues of development in the DNA world. This has been achieved through isolation and the accumulation of random change, particularly where there is genetic isolation, as between animals and plants separated by the Wallace line running between Bali and Lombok. This process led to the existence of different human races and different ethnic groups (such ethnic, or behavioural differences are also common in social animals and birds). National identity often relies on natural geographic boundaries, but also on artificial political boundaries. Isolation has allowed these divisions to evolve and produce the roots of separate intelligent units, and if kept in isolation for long enough may have lead to a form of speciation. However, the recent globalization of communication, trade and travel has put an end to this divisive trend.

 

There seems little doubt that the new order will be a common global intelligence, which will work hard to maintain unity and preserve necessary parts of the environment. This is the essential development, which can lead to the emergence of the new global super-intelligent organism. In this sense the framework of the new organism is already in place - there is a global network of communication, at least potentially available for all intelligent brains and computers. There is a globalized information storage and retrieval system already in place and we are reacting in a global manner (still usually ineffectually) to issues which threaten the system - particularly war, disease, over-population, ocean fisheries and a host of other environmental issues.

WALLACE LINE. View to Mt Agung, Bali, from the island of Lombok across the Straight which is too deep for it to have come out of the water during the ice ages. This separated the animals and plants from the Australasian and SE Asian regions. Genetic isolation leads to speciation, while physical isolation in mankind gives rise to cultural and language differences. The loss of communication leads to tribal rivalry, xenophobia and genocide - particularly when the original common religion diverges and both sets of followers know that their version is the only one.

The building of the new organism

The developing intelligence is merging into something akin to a primitive amorphous proto-organism. It can be likened to a sponge, made up of a constructed internal skeleton and billions of uncoordinated but responsive units rushing around inside - all in communication with one another and making it work. Some of the units are animal (human) in origin and others artefact (machine) origin. Like an organism it can already respond to external forces such as asteroid impacts and global warming (anticipating them), and will soon be able to reproduce by sending seeds to colonise other planets, form space colonies, and speed towards neighbouring stars.

 

The question remains of how far we will be allowed to remain in the system. For this we should perhaps look at previous examples of organization. The current rainforest-ecosystem model of human organization of intense competition and predation is open-ended and unplanned, so, for all its beauty, seems unlikely to work when confined to one limited culture jar - the Earth. Our system is now going through a development phase, and is metamorphosing into something more like the organism analogy. Here, in a human body for instance, communication and feed-back is present on a massive scale between the billions of cells, all coordinated by hormones, nerve nets, innate behaviour and conscious action.

 

Each cell is only wanted for the technology it can supply individually and collectively. The cells com