In the first book I told you about the amc = v equation.  Now here’s how it’s used in professional theatre.

Professional theatre companies are an excellent model of collective groups that survive or fail according to their complicity with human evolution.   This happens in two ways.  First, because professional theatre companies constantly compete against each other and with other threats to their survival, they are ruled by the law of survival of the fittest.  Second, because theatre is one of the oldest studies of human behavior in the world and people who are particularly sensitive to human behavior are naturally attracted to work in theatre, laws of human behavior are employed more intentionally and effectively in professional theatre than they are within society at large.  That is true even if those laws of human behavior are actively employed by professional theatre artists only by intuition, which is most often the case.

In effect, professional theatre companies advance their own survival interests by manipulating the amc = v equation to maximize the gross output of the company, even without theatre artists being conscious of the equation.  The best example I’ve seen was in the company at the high school where I taught technical theatre.  While it wasn’t a professional theatre company in the sense that company members were paid, the director operated it as a professional theatre company anyway, in order to maximize its gross output.  He was very sensitive to human behavior, and he had been making his living by turning human behavior into art for over 20 years.

As I’ve said already, theatre artists break dialogue down into beats. Another fundamental rule of the use of beats in professional theatre is that, if possible, beats are always positive.  This isn’t always possible, it isn’t true in real life, and it is used much less effectively in movies and television, but in theatre it serves a very specific purpose.

By every character always trying to have a positive effect on the other characters, the audience is made to sympathize with every character in the play.  That makes the conflicts in the play much more intense, because it makes the audience want every side in the conflict to win, which isn’t possible.  That pulls the audience’s emotional connections to the characters in the opposing directions of every character in the play.

Often, there is no character who is clearly right in a conflict, which makes the conflict that much more tragic to the audience.  Unlike the characters in the play, the audience members can sense that every character is trying to do what they think is right, but they are coming into conflict with each other anyway.

Even when one character is clearly a villain, by playing only positive beats the actor makes the character feel much more villainous to the audience.  While the audience members can see that he is a villain intellectually, they can feel themselves sympathizing with him emotionally anyway.  The actor plays the villain in a way that creates conflict not only within the play, but also within the audience members themselves.

The director at the high school had been using beats professionally for so long that he used them in dealing with people in real life also.  Sometimes he did it intentionally, but often he did it out of habit.  He played positive beats in dealing with people virtually all the time.  By playing his beats in ways that accomplished his own objectives in the interpersonal communication while benefiting his listener also, he evoked much more positive reactions from his listeners.  In effect, he was the exact opposite of a villain.

One example of his positive approach to communication was that he perceived all ideas as good ideas, but some ideas as better than others—that is, he inspired creativity among his students by never labeling their ideas as wrong.  Another example was the way he never used emotional aggression to try to convince students to do what he told them by diminishing their sense of self-worth.  Instead, he spoke to them as adults who possessed the intelligence to see that he was right.  Other examples were generally keeping a good sense of humor about life, rarely losing his temper when students made mistakes, and sympathizing with his students even when he had to punish them for breaking theatre company rules.

As a result, everyone who knew the director said that talking to him always felt spiritually uplifting.  By employing emotional communication that inspired the students to excel instead of using hostile or threatening emotional communication to coerce cooperation from them, he focused the combined energy of the members of the group on their mutual interests, instead of wasting energy in conflicts. As a result, when the theatre company competed against a dozen equally matched high schools at the state drama competitions every year, it had taken first place nine out of the previous ten years, and took second place the other year only because the director suffered a serious illness in the middle of the rehearsal schedule.

By setting this example of the uses of emotional communication, and showing their obvious benefits to the group, he inspired virtually all of his students to follow his example.  Within the theatre company he built a culture of cooperation, minimized conflict, and inspired his students to help maintain it, thereby maximizing the net human energy output of the theatre company.
By being aware of the amc = v equation— although not in intellectual scientific terms—the director was able to put it to active use.  In this case, he put forth a relatively small amount of his own effort to figure out how to increase the students’ desire and willingness to put forth work energy, and thereby dramatically raised the value of a from what it would have been had he not put forth that effort.  Since the equation refers to ability, motivation, willingness to put forth energy toward a goal, value of available resources, amount of available resources, cultural adaptation to available resources, and the product resulting from the combination of those factors, the basic amc = v equation applies to any endeavor, with the one difference that the value of v is only written in the person’s DNA for the search for meaning in one’s life.  In this case, the director was applying the amc = v equation to operating a theatre company—which could be referred to as amc = t.

By always being sure to play positive beats in dealing with his students, the director always interacted with them in ways they could readily perceive benefited their own evolutionary interests (mainly survival), even if they only perceived that intuitively.  If the director had played negative beats, he would’ve threatened the students.  The students naturally would’ve defended themselves by retaliating against the director, by diminishing their own sense of value of themselves to match their perception of the director’s sense of value of them, or by resorting to any other defense mechanism.  Any defense mechanism the students used would’ve diverted their attention and energy away from their performances.

By intentionally playing beats that advanced the students’ evolutionary interests compared to the way most people talk, the director increased his students’ motivation and willingness to put forth energy toward their goal, and thereby raised the value of a.  As a result, the students worked harder and won their competitions.  As a by-product of intentionally raising the value of a in the amc = t equation, he also raised the value of  a in the amc = v equation, which made people feel more satisfied with their lives when dealing with him—which was why talking to him felt “spiritually uplifting” to so many people.

This basic principle is understood throughout the business world—that productivity can be increased by minimizing conflict and motivating employees.  The reason the director was able to employ this principle so much more effectively than most business leaders is because he honestly did want to raise the value of a in the amc = v equation for the people with whom he dealt, and people could perceive that.

A business leader who tries to raise the value of a in the amc = t equation for his employees without trying to raise it in the amc = v equation won’t be able to raise a as high, because he isn’t raising the value of a at its single most fundamental level to his employees.  At best, he can raise the value of a to a lesser extent and with a greater amount of effort on his own part.   At worst, he can accidentally reduce the value of a for his employees, if they perceive that he is trying mislead them in his attempts to raise the value of a in the amc = v equation when in fact he is only trying to raise it in the amc = t equation.  (The most immediate effect is that the employer will reduce his employee’s sense of value of their lives by making them realize that their livelihoods depend on working for someone who treats them like robots.)  If the employees perceive that their employer is attempting to deceive them, it will threaten their survival instincts, which will create conflict instead of motivate them and eliminate conflict.

By putting forth some effort ahead of time to learn the uses of emotional communication and then putting them to use in creating the cultural background of the theatre company, the director greatly increased the energy output of the group from what it would’ve been otherwise.  That is, he created a system whose net human energy output exceeded its human energy input reliably and sustainably.  In effect, he built a human potential reactor.

Since the director intentionally altered the equation, and since that alteration to the equation wouldn’t’ve remained without his guidance, it can be said that he raised the value of t by raising the value of a.  In a typical professional theatre company, however, there is no single person who is responsible for altering the equation intentionally.   In that case, the company raises the value of t by raising the value of c.  Each group of people who are talented and skilled at emotional communication competes against every other group of people who are talented and skilled at emotional communication, which means the members of each group are faced with a higher level struggle for survival based on their ability to increase the value of t than are the people of any other groups that compete professionally.  Without being aware of the amc = t equation, these people who are talented and skilled at emotional communication act in the way they feel best benefits their survival.  As a result, each of them behaves in the same ways that the high school director behaved in order to raise the value of a, and by doing this collectively, they raise the value of c.  In other words, they build their human potential reactor out of shared cultural values, not out of intentional manipulation of their work environment.

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Various statements have been made to the effect that oppressed people create the most powerful music, or, “when you’re poor, you have to sing loud.”  So here’s the evolutionary mathematics behind it, and how they can be employed to benefit the evolution revolution solution.

In music all sounds fall somewhere on a continuum ranging from calm to threatening.  The evolutionary logic behind humans’ perception of “calm” and “threatening” is quite simple.  A threatening sound is an abrupt sound.  That’s caused by a physical force displacing air very suddenly.  Such a force would be a threat to humans’ survival.  A calm sound is a sound that doesn’t change abruptly. In addition to not being a threatening sound in of itself, it’s the sound of forces displacing air gently without being interrupted by sudden displacements of air.  That is, calm sounds are not only non-threatening, they also signal the absence of threat.

The calm or threatening nature of a sound has no relationship to the volume of air displaced.  That is, it has nothing to do with the volume of the sound.  Loud sounds can be calming by not displacing air abruptly, as in the case of a waterfall.  Quiet sounds can be threatening, as in the case of a one-pound rock rolling down a mountainside.

The calmness or threat of a sound used in music will cause people who hear it to react emotionally to its calmness or threateningness. The degree by which they react emotionally to the sound depends on their evolutionary interpretation of the importance of the sound based on its volume.

When singers sing to music, they add another dimension of emotional communication.  Song generally includes much more emotional communication than speech.  There are two reasons for this.  First, song turns the voice into a musical instrument, which causes it to be used for its sound-making properties more than it is in speech.  Since emotional communication is caused by the sound properties of the voice, that alone makes song communicate more emotion than speech, even if only unintentionally.  Second, singers realize this, and they use the greater emotional communication qualities of song to communicate a greater amount of emotion.

Singers can use their emotional communication to compliment or contrast the emotional communication of the music.  This will determine the overall emotional effects of the music.  (Other variables that will contribute to the overall effect of the music are technical aspects, like the acoustic quality of the performance space and the quality of the recording, but for the purposes of discussion I’m ignoring those and focusing on the performance of the music.)

My theory that emotional instincts create literal energy forces within a person’s brain (or at least, something that functions as an energy force) supports, and is supported by, the observation that oppressed people create the most powerful music.  According to the Theory of Evolutionary Relativity, the listener’s emotional reaction to the music would create this spiritual/emotional energy, and the more spiritual/emotional energy is created, the more powerful the music will feel.  Because oppressed people live in more stressful, more emotionally unhealthy conditions, they would naturally feel a much greater need to artificially alter their own emotional states than would non-oppressed people.

If you listen to gospel music sung by Whites, you will observe that it is made up primarily of calm sounds, and that that the singers always sing in positive beats.  As a result, gospel music feels spiritually uplifting to congregations of White Christians.

If you listen to gospel music sung by Blacks, you will observe that it is made up primarily of calm sounds that are much louder than those in White gospel music, and you will observe that the singers sing entirely in positive beats much more loudly than do White singers of gospel music.  As a result, Black gospel music feels much more spiritually uplifting than White gospel music.  That only stands to reason, because traditionally Blacks have had a much greater need for spiritual uplifting than Whites have.

Heavy metal primarily is made up of loud threatening sounds.  Other types of music focus on quiet threatening sounds.  Depending on his choice of positive or negative beats, the singer creates two different effects for the music.

If he sings in positive beats, he exerts great amounts of physical force that displace great volumes of air, while using his vocal emotional communication to have a positive effect on his listeners directly, or on his intended receiver of the communication (if he’s addressing the song to a particular person).  That will cause his audience to sympathize with him and identify with him.

Sweet Child of Mine by Guns and Roses is an example of a heavy metal song using positive beats.
If the singer sings in negative beats, he inflicts emotional damage on his audience.  As heavy metal fans generally agree, that either helps prepare them to withstand the emotional damage they suffer elsewhere in life, or lets them identify with the singer as someone else who has suffered emotional damage.  I think every Metallica song I’ve ever heard is made up entirely of negative beats, including their cover of the traditional Irish folk song, Whiskey in the Jar.

War Pigs, by Black Sabbath, is a ballad about something negative—greedy politicians starting a war and then sending poor people out to fight it, “treating people just like pawns in chess”— which makes it seem negative, but it’s sung in positive beats.  That makes it seem like a contradiction, and that makes it sound like Ozzy Osborne was being particularly villainous by making war sound positive.  That helps make the song memorable.  But the goodguys—meaning the poor people—win in the end, and the badguys—the greedy politicians—get their asses kicked, so by the end of the song, Ozzy’s positive beats make a lot more sense.

It must be said that for cultural reasons, resulting from emotional attachments having been made to ideas, many heavy metal fans find heavy metal calming and gospel music threatening.

Other types of music fall somewhere between gospel and heavy metal in their emotional effects.

According to the Theory of Evolutionary Relativity, oppressed people create more powerful music because it directs more emotional energy in the direction of satisfying them with their lives.  This is an example of cultural adaptation to available resources.  Presumably, in general musicians don’t consciously decide how loud they should sing in order to trigger a certain amount of spiritual/emotional energy.  Instead, they sing as loud as seems appropriate.   To oppressed musicians who need to trigger greater amounts of spiritual/emotional energy, it seems appropriate to sing louder than it does to musicians who don’t need to trigger as much emotional energy.

Since successful musicians communicate so effectively at the most primal level of humanity—emotion—a lot of their fans look up to them.  Many successful musicians realize this, they are well aware of the problems facing the world, and wish they had some answers to give their fans.  Even with no specific conclusive answers to give their fans, they can try to find temporary answers to give their fans, and can keep creating their music, to help keep their fans’ hopes up until someone does find some conclusive answers.  The benefits of an alliance between evolutionary scientists who work to find solutions to problems facing the world, and musical celebrities who try to give their fans solutions to the problems facing the world, is obvious.  By using their great abilities in emotional communication to communicate evolutionarily sound ideas to their fans, musicians can help create a cultural background that values evolutionary solutions to the problems facing the world, thereby fulfilling the goals of themselves, their fans, and the scientists.

Like I said, ROCK ‘N’ ROLL IS HERE TO SAVE THE DAY!!!!

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Every religion in the world has a belief in some form of “spiritual energy”, and a believe that if people focus enough spiritual energy in particular ways, they can affect the world metaphysically.  The fact that one group of pre-scientific people believes a certain thing to be true is scientifically meaningless.  The fact that every group of people in the world believes the same thing to be true, and has for tens of thousands of years, is scientifically significant, regardless of whether their beliefs are literally true.

Within the modern Pagan community, it is generally agreed that the best way to study the world is through all available means, including modern science and even other people’s religions.  It is also widely, if not universally, accepted that people have different ways of relating to the world, and all are equally valid.  As a result, the modern Pagan explanation for metaphysical effects people supposedly have upon the world is universally inclusive of all religions and modern science.

By studying religious rituals, two universal constants can be observed.  The Wiccan and Christian explanations for these constants fall at opposite ends of a continuum, so they make good illustrations.

First, all religious rituals involve building up some form of energy that exists within the person.  The Christian word for it is “faith”, while the Wiccan word for it could best be described as “willpower”.  Through their faith, Christians forge a strong bond with the metaphysical force that powers the universe, that created them, and that provides for them.  Through their willpower, Wiccans harness the elemental energies of the world.

Second, all religious rituals involve intentionally focusing that energy on a specific objective.  For Christians that means praying to an almighty power to make something happen.  To Wiccans that means concentrating their creative energies to make it happen personally.

By the universally inclusive Pagan explanation, these two forms of energy and their uses are identical.  Though they don’t generally see it this way, Christians forge a bond with the force that powers the universe through the use of a form of energy that already existed within them, and they use that force intentionally to try to bring about changes in the world.  That is, they prove their worthiness to their god through the amount of faith they feel, and if he deems them worthy, he will bring about the change in the world that they requested.  The faith that they perceive connects them to their god and thereby starts the metaphysical process, is a spiritual energy that exists within them; it is not a form of energy that can be supplied to them from an outside source.
Wiccans perceive themselves to be an inherent part of the world.  That lets them concentrate their spiritual energy to bring about changes in the world directly because they already forged a powerful bond with the forces that power the universe.  If they don’t forge a powerful bond with the forces that power the universe, any attempts to affect the world metaphysically are doomed before they’ve even begun.  They generally perceive that the spiritual energy exists within them and that they are able to wield it personally because they’ve learned how to wield it personally.  They don’t perceive themselves to be separate from the world in the way that Christians do, so they don’t need to direct their spiritual energy through a third party to reconnect themselves to the world.  For the same reason, they depend on artificial connection to outside forces less than Christians do (although outside forces often play some roles in rituals) because that connection to outside forces is implicit.  It is the equivalent of the widely accepted Christian sentiment: “If you have faith in God, he will answer your prayers; if you don’t have faith in God, he won’t.”  So much of that statement is implicit in Wiccan ideology that its equivalent would be something like:  “Are you a Wiccan or aren’t you?”

Both of these seemingly-opposing explanations for metaphysics lead to the same conclusion:  In some way or another, people harness a form of energy that exists within them, direct it outward, and use it to bring about changes in the world.

A third metaphysical belief shared by many, and presumably all, religions, is that metaphysical effects don’t always come about the way people expect them.  As a Christian saying puts it, “The Lord works in mysterious ways,” while various Wiccan sayings make statements to the effect, “You get what you need but not always in the way you thought you would.”  The most immediate need for those beliefs is that they allow people to continue believing in their religions, and for their religions to continue serving their evolutionary purposes, even when metaphysical effects the people attempted to invoke don’t appear.

The less noticeable effect is that in the course of the ritual the religious practitioners try to connect to the forces that power the universe, they try to make use of those forces in some way or another, and they prepare themselves for disappointment.  Even if they don’t get the results they wanted, they used their abilities to try to find a way to make the changes in the world they wanted, they used their abilities to try to make that change happen, and they convinced themselves that if the change doesn’t happen it’s a sign that the change wasn’t supposed to happen.  Therefore, by trying to change the world metaphysically, the people always succeed in changing at least one thing:  their own perception of the situation.

There have been various scientific studies conducted that support people’s ability to bring about metaphysical changes in the world, but it’s not my goal here to prove that metaphysical effects are possible.  My goal is to show that the Theory of Evolutionary Relativity does not deny the possibility of metaphysical effects, it does support that possibility, it doesn’t need to prove the possibility, and it supports the possibility in a way that doesn’t favor any traditional concept of metaphysics over any other.

The Theory of Evolutionary Relativity indicates the existence of a form of energy that is applied as a force to humans’ decision-making processes.  This force guides humans’ decisions in the direction of expending their energy in the direction of their personal survival.  That spiritual/emotional energy effectively directs people’s decision making in the direction of the survival of our species as a result of everyone possessing it by default, because everyone whose emotional/spiritual energy didn’t direct their decision making in the direction of preserving their survival died out.  Every religion in the world has a belief in some form of energy that exists within humans, that connects them to a power greater than themselves, and that provides for their survival.   These beliefs have existed for tens of thousands of years in every human society discovered.  In short, every pre-scientific group of people in the world conceived of the idea that the Theory of Evolutionary Relativity revolves around: that human instincts exert some form of spiritual/emotional energy within people’s brains.

Taken together, the facts of this section point to four important conclusions.  First, metaphysics are pivotal to every religion in the world, and an evolutionary solution to problems facing the world will have great difficulty succeeding (if it can succeed at all) if it tries to disprove metaphysics.  Second, it doesn’t need to prove or disprove metaphysics in order to succeed.  Third, there are some religions at least whose metaphysical beliefs agree with the Theory of Evolutionary Relativity directly.  Fourth, every religion in the world agrees with the Theory of Evolutionary Relativity in some way or another, whether or not they agree with it literally.

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Every religion gives its followers some system of rules to live by in order to function as a civilization.  If those rules are followed by everyone, everyone will work toward the interests of the civilization, and everyone will be able to anticipate everyone else’s actions.  Following those rules is considered “good” and disobeying those rules is considered “evil”.  Through the religious belief system, people are taught to believe that good and evil will be met with good or bad consequences.  That teaches the followers of the religion to attach positive and negative emotions to ideas that benefit or harm the interests of the civilization.

Every religion has a belief in some form of energy that practitioners can draw upon to find a way to do what is “right”.  This intentional use of spiritual energy to find the path to righteousness is similar to the intentional use of spiritual energy to bring about metaphysical effects in the world.  The one difference is that the choices the religious practitioners make based on their intentional use of this energy source are directly observable.

Whether this force is passive, as in the Christian concept of the “power of faith”, or it is active, as in the Wiccan concept of “willpower”, it always has several things in common.  First, it is always a form of energy that the followers feel within themselves.  Second, it always connects the practitioners to a higher power.  Third, that higher power always serves the practitioners’ best interests.  Fourth, it always guides the practitioner’s actions one way or another.  Fifth, the practitioners can always access this energy source intentionally in order to guide themselves to the righteous path.

Here is that last paragraph translated into Christian terms:  The power of faith exists within every Christian.  That power connects them to God.  God always has Christians’ best interests in mind.  The power of faith can always guide Christians’ actions, but if the power of faith is ignored, Satan will lead them astray.  Christians can always choose to use the power of faith to connect themselves to God and thereby find the path to righteousness.

Christians perceive “actions that cooperate with the Christian code of conduct and benefit civilization” to be influenced by the force of pure good. They perceive “actions that contradict the Christian code of conduct and harm civilization” to be influenced by the force of pure evil.  If Christians neglect their faith in the forces of pure good, their actions will be influenced by the forces of pure evil.  If they choose to use their power of faith, their actions will be influenced by the forces of pure good.

Here’s the same paragraph translated into (general) Wiccan terms:  Willpower exists within every Wiccan.  That willpower, like all their other physical and mental abilities, originated from the Earth Mother who conceived them.  The Earth Mother always has her own interests in mind, because she is the world of which the Wiccans are a part.  Wiccans are welcome to use their willpower in any way they see fit, but they are warned that anything they put forth into the world will be returned to them threefold.  Wiccans can always use their willpower to strengthen their bonds to the Earth Mother and thereby learn how to cooperate with her, the world, and consequently each other.

Among Wiccans, there is no concept of pure good or pure evil, or of divine representatives of either who try to influence people’s actions.  The Wiccan code of conduct is, in effect, contained entirely in the Law of Threefold Return: any benefit or harm they cause other people or the world itself will be justly rewarded within this lifetime.  Beyond that, the responsibility for finding courses of action that benefit others is left in the hands of the practitioners.

Here’s the same paragraph reduced to terms of the Theory of Evolutionary Relativity: The spiritual/emotional energy that propels humans’ evolutionary survival exist within every human.  That spiritual/emotional energy connects them to their evolutionary origins.  That spiritual/emotional energy has always preserved the evolutionary survival of individuals and consequently the human species.  That spiritual/emotional energy propels human decision-making in the direction of evolutionary survival.  Humans can use their intellects to find the best ways to act upon their instincts driven by that spiritual/emotional energy.

The sociological differences between the societies that gave rise to Christianity and Wicca are numerous, and illustrate the origins of their differences in interpretation of the same spiritual/emotional energy.  Christianity was born of a society that was highly agricultural, politically complex, the most technologically advanced, and the most populous of any in the world at the time.  Wicca (or technically, Witchcraft, its ancient ancestor) was born of a society that was less agriculturally developed and more dependant on the cycles of nature, that had much less political organization, that had simpler technology, and that had fewer people.  In short, Christianity originated in a society that was much more organized and much more separated from the forces of nature than was the society in which Wicca originated.

From this we can deduce what ideas the members of each group were using consciously.  From there, when the two groups of people were faced with the same questions, we can deduce what ideas they would’ve had available to them to try to find answers.  (I’ll tell you more about how information packages work in the next chapter.)

The spiritual/emotional energy that propels humans’ evolutionary survival exists within every human as a form of energy that the followers feel within themselves.  The Wiccans saw themselves as inherent parts of nature, so they would naturally perceive this to be one of the many forces of nature in the world.  The Christians were much more separated from nature due to their agricultural level, their technological level, their political organization, and their population density, so they would be more likely to perceive that spiritual/emotional energy within them as something that had been placed there intentionally by someone else.

The emotional energy force that connects people to their evolutionary origins feels like a connection to a higher power.  The Wiccans perceived themselves to be inherent parts of nature as was everything else in the world, so that higher power would naturally seem to them to be the world itself.  The Christians perceived themselves to be separate from the natural world and were much more politically organized, so they would be more likely to perceive that higher power to be a king.

That spiritual/emotional energy has always preserved the evolutionary survival of the human species, and thereby has served humanity’s best interests (or at least, the interests of the individuals who survived and wrote the history books).  The Wiccans perceived that their survival was dependant on the natural world, so they would be more likely to perceive that the natural world provided for their needs.  The Christians perceived themselves to be separate from the natural world and were more politically organized, so they would be more likely to perceive the force that served their interests to be a king who saw to the needs of his people.

That spiritual/emotional energy propels human decision-making in the direction of evolutionary survival by guiding people’s actions.   Human instincts evolved to preserve the survival of the human species (by preserving the survival of individuals) while humans lived in the wild prior to the development of agriculture, so the directions that spiritual/emotional energy propels human decision-making never apply perfectly to life in agrarian civilization.  The Wiccans perceived themselves to be inherent parts of the natural world and were less politically organized, so they would have been more able to perceive that their evolutionary instincts served useful purposes in their lives.   The Christians perceived themselves to be separate from the natural world and were more politically organized, so their living conditions were more greatly removed from the origins of their evolutionary instincts.  It would follow that their evolutionary instincts would conflict with their living conditions more greatly, and they would be less able to perceive that their evolutionary instincts served any purpose.

Humans can use their intellects to find ways to act upon their instincts propelled by that spiritual/emotional energy to guide themselves to righteous paths.  The “righteous path” defined by any religion always refers to “the path people must follow to keep the civilization functioning”. At this point any differences between religions, other than the differences between the societies in which those religions were conceived, become completely superficial. Wicca originated in a society that had little political unification, where the population was small, and where people’s lives were ruled most strongly by the forces of nature, so “the righteous path” of the Wiccans valued independence, free will, and respect for the natural world as its highest priorities. Christianity originated in a society that had great political unification, that had a large population, and in which people’s lives were ruled most strongly by governments, so “the righteous path” of the Christians valued unity, distinct social organization, and adherence to laws as its highest priorities.  In both cases, people were taught to use their intellects to interpret the best ways to act upon the forces of their evolutionary instincts, according to their living situations, rather than acting upon their instincts directly without thinking about what they were doing.  This is true of the people of every civilization in the world.  That includes hunter-gathering people of the Amazon Basin and the Arctic today, who have used their intellect to find ways to advance socially in spite of not having broken free of the original food-producing conditions of their evolution.
Naturally, once you identify that Christians would be more likely to do one thing and Wiccans would be more likely to do another, and apply that to their societies, it means a majority of people would do one thing or the other, and that in turn would create the sociological forces that drove the societies.

In every religion, the concept of “the righteous path” is that religion’s version of morality.  It is taught to followers according to Dr. Goleman’s predictions of emotional instincts being attached to ideas.  The number of ideas to which followers of religions are taught to attach emotional meaning varies by religion.  In the case of the Wiccans it is a small number of ideas, while in the case of the Christians it is a larger number of ideas.  The Wiccans had broken themselves free of the original conditions of their evolution less than had the Christians, so they needed to depend on less emotional forces being instilled in their people artificially to keep their society functioning.   The Christians had built a civilization that was much more socially, politically, agriculturally, and technologically advanced, so they needed to teach their people to make more artificial emotional connections in order to keep their civilization functioning.

In all cases, both religious and secular, morality originates in the same way: People feel some force pushing them in the direction of making certain decisions, they use their intellects to find the most preferable decisions given their situation, and they combine intellect with instinctive emotional force to try to reach a decision that will best satisfy both.

Every group of people in the world, for tens of thousands of years, has perceived a form of energy that pushes their decision-making processes in various directions, and has perceived that they can, and must, use intellect in conjunction with that energy to reach decisions that are the most advantageous to their evolutionary interests.

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Every religion in the world answers the same basic questions for its followers, which people began asking tens of thousands of years ago, so it is clear to see that evolutionary science will never be able to compete against religion as the foundation for a cultural ideology unless it can give satisfactory answers to the same questions.  Evolutionary science will be even more successful at “competing” against religion if it doesn’t try to compete against religion directly, but instead complements religion in helping people find the answers to life they’re looking for.  Furthermore, by answering the main questions of religion in scientific terms, evolutionary science would be able to fulfill those functions for anyone who bases their perception of the world primarily on science.

“What makes the universe work?”  Lots and lots of scientific principles, some of which are understood, and many of which aren’t.

Every religion shares the concept of a single force that unites the universe, so that the followers of that religion can feel like the universe makes sense somehow, even if they can’t see it for themselves.  Every religion also offers its followers some way to feel connected to that unifying force, so they can feel like they have some control over their lives.

With the notable exceptions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, it is a widespread, if not universal, belief among religions that people are inherent parts of the universe and that science itself is an inherent part of the universe.  Every religion has its own term for the oneness of the universe.  The scientific term for the oneness of the universe is “uni-verse”.

Many religions, if not most or all, conceive the soul or spirit to be a form of energy, which is severed from the physical body upon a person’s death.  Also, many, most, or all religions perceive the highest level of being to be an incorporeal spirit, disembodied consciousness, beam of light, or other such form of energy freed of the physical body.  Such religions believe that in order to reach the highest level of being—energy—a person must free himself of the bonds that confine him to his physical body—whose survival is governed by energy efficiency.

Many, most, or all non-organized religions already perceive energy to be the most fundamental unit of life, the universe, and everything (as Fritjof Capra illustrates in his comparisons between Eastern religions and quantum physics in The Tao of Physics, and as Fiona Horne indicates of modern Paganism in her book Witch—A Magickal Journey).  By now it is well understood by scientists that energy is the fundamental unit of astrophysics and quantum physics.  If anything, such non-organized religions would welcome an official scientific announcement that energy was the fundamental unit of life.

Those two basic ideas also exist in the three major organized religions of the world, with their belief that their god is the unifying force of the universe, and that he exists in everything.  Since they perceive their god to be a wielder of energy rather than a form of energy, these religions are not as compatible with the Theory of Evolutionary Relativity.  However, among members of these religions it is still basic common sense that humans require energy to live.  That means the parallels between the Theory of Evolutionary Relativity and their perception of the world still exist, albeit at a more mundane level.

Most importantly, by specifying that science has discovered some principles that govern the universe but not all of them, science doesn’t threaten to disprove anyone’s religion.  It is inconceivable that scientists could ever understand the universe completely, and certainly not within the foreseeable future, so it leaves plenty of room for religious answers to questions that are otherwise unanswerable.  That’s important for the same reasons it has always been important—so that people can feel like the universe makes sense somehow, and that they have some connection to the unifying force of the universe.

By acknowledging that metaphysical effects are possible despite the fact that they can’t yet be observed directly (as was the case for the Law of Gravity and the roundness of the Earth at other times) scientists leave people free to believe in their own explanations for the scientifically unanswerable while adopting the answers science has discovered so far.  Even in strictly Christian terms, the metaphysical corollary of the Theory of Evolutionary Relativity still applies, because “the intentional focus of faith in an all-powerful, all-loving deity” is synonymous with “the intentional focus of the energy that guides humans’ decision-making to connect them with the force that keeps humans alive”.

“What happens to people when they die?”  Science can’t answer that, because it can only measure the cessation of biological activity in the body.  Two things that can be observed intellectually are the person’s development as an individual over the course of his life, and the effects he has on the world over the course of his life.

Here is one important example of science leaving people on their own to find their own answers to the scientifically unanswerable.  The two things that can be observed intellectually are valued by most or all religions in the world: people improving themselves over the courses of their lives, and having beneficial effects on the world over the courses of their lives.  As one saying puts it, which many religions agree with, “Life isn’t a question of what you take with you when you leave, but of what you leave behind.”  Scientifically that’s true also, because the empirical effects that a person’s life had upon the world remain after the person is gone.

“How can people make themselves happy?”  By working toward fulfillment of self-fulfillment.
By satisfying all of their instincts, people eliminate conflict from their lives, which frees up energy they can put to productive use.  By feeling their lives to be complete, by eliminating conflict from their lives, and by freeing up energy to devote to activities of their choice, people can eliminate many, most, or all obstacles to happiness.  All religions value these basic things, and for many energy-based religions, fulfillment of self-fulfillment is the highest level of being.  Again, this definition leaves everyone free to define their own path to happiness.

“How can people work together to build a civilization?”  By basing that civilization on a foundation that all of its members are guaranteed to have in common, and not on the misperception that one traditional culture is better than all the others.

In the 21st century, this question refers to the global civilization, so it refers to a civilization made up of the entire human race.  The one most important thing that all humans are guaranteed to have in common is human evolution.

The laws of environmental science and physics in general also affect people everywhere, regardless of whether or not the people understand those scientific laws.  Whether people understand the scientific laws affecting them or not, a civilization can’t be expected to function as long as scientific laws have disproportionally harmful effects on some of its members.  That is, evolutionarily equal members of our species who get stuck at the losing end of scientific laws of can be expected to fight back just as hard as anyone else, regardless of how much they understand about science.

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Evolutionary science is the study of what all humans have in common and where their differences originated.  It is the only study of humanity that transcends all religious, cultural, and personal ideology, because it is the only study that depends exclusively on observable evidence.

Humans evolved as one species because the same set of biological laws affected all of our ancestors equally for all of our evolution.  By now that set of biological laws is written in our DNA, because everyone who didn’t feel like following them died out by natural selection.

Throughout history governments have succeeded or failed according to how well they’ve accommodated those evolutionary laws.  When given the choice between two sets of artificial laws, groups of people collectively choose whichever complies better with evolutionary laws under their living conditions.  The way in which democracy has been replacing monarchy all over the world for the past two centuries is a perfect example of this.  After thousands of years of monarchy, it wasn’t by coincidence that people all over the world felt like replacing monarchy with democracy over the course of two centuries.

This trend has been easy to recognize over the course of recorded history because over the course of recorded history the changes in our living conditions have been following the same trend:  from lesser to greater mastery of the physical world, including food production and the harnessing of natural resources.

The trend of political systems being adapted to compliance with evolutionary laws under their living conditions can be expected to continue, even if our living conditions stop following the trend of humanity exerting greater and greater mastery over the physical world, and begin changing in some other way.  As I will demonstrate throughout this book, that will begin happening within this century.  By anticipating how our living conditions are going to change, we can anticipate how our political systems will need to change to keep up—or else, what political systems can be expected to replace them.

The set of evolutionary laws that everyone already lives by is the Constitution of the Human Race.  It is being revealed to us through science.  Nobody has any choice but to follow evolutionary law, because evolutionary law made us who we are.  However, if evolutionary law was written down, at least people could choose to cooperate with it instead of trying to contradict it.  More specifically, people could stop creating inevitable conflict in the world by trying to force other people to contradict it.

Since the goal of globalization is to turn the entire human race into a single community, before that community will be able to function as a community, a Constitution will have to be written for it.

No set of rules for the world will ever completely eliminate conflict from the world, but by basing a Constitution of the Human Race on the original evolutionary sources of everyone’s feelings, that set of rules for the world would invite the least amount of conflict of any possible set of rules.  As long as the Constitution took into account its own inability to completely eliminate conflict from the world and gave people ways to solve their disagreements peacefully, as the Constitution of the United States does, then the effects of whatever disagreement remained would be minimized.
(This is not to say that the United States Constitution could be used directly as a template for a Constitution of the Human Race, or even that it eliminates conflict in America as efficiently as possible.  It is, after all, a set of laws that was written over 200 years ago, before the Theory of Evolution or the Laws of Thermodynamics were discovered.)

Evolutionary law applies equally to every human, and it’s beyond the ability of anyone to control.  As a result, the Constitution of the Human Race already applies equally and fairly to everyone.
Even if evolution didn’t literally happen and the world was created by an omnipotent, omniscient deity, that deity must’ve created all of the physical characteristics about people, animals, and plants that scientists can measure.  Those characteristics point to a certain course of development by which they came about, and the scientific term for that course of development is “evolution”.
Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, and other great leaders like them taught their followers to build peaceful civilizations. By studying “evolution” scientists have discovered fundamental laws of human behavior, or “evolutionary laws”.  If an omnipotent, omniscient deity created the world and it is his will that we should build peaceful civilizations, he has already given us everything we need to continue building peaceful civilizations in the modern world.

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Throughout human evolution, people have always exerted their work energy toward whatever goal they perceived to most greatly benefit their evolutionary interests.  “The perception of the greatest benefit to one’s interests” can be paraphrased with one word:  Hope.

In the modern world, money is the medium through which people convert their work energy into resources they need to serve their evolutionary interests.  People always exert their work energy in the direction of their perception of the greatest benefit to their interests, so it is clear to see that the value of money depends on hope.

An example of the loss of hope devaluing money can be seen in the economic situation of Germany in the aftermath of World War I.  Due to the war debts the Allied Powers were forcing the Germans to pay, the Germans could perceive that in spite of all their hard work their material resources and the products of the expenditure of their work energy was continually siphoned out of their economy.  They lost hope of their work advancing their evolutionary interests, and with it they lost hope that their currency could adequately convert their work energy into resources they needed for their evolutionary survival.

Darwin’s theory of the value of progressive money shows the opposite of this situation.  When people donate their work energy (whether in the form of literal money or not) to the benefit of their communities, they build hope in their communities by helping to provide for the needs of others.

The world economy is a function of the interaction between human evolution and the environment.  Throughout human evolution, humans have served their evolutionary interests by making use of material resources to help them convert energy among various forms.  Prior to the 1800s, the world’s resources were effectively infinite compared to the number of people living in the world at the time and the technological level they’d reached.  As a result, the economic system of the world was based on the reasonably valid tradition of perceiving the world’s resources as an infinite supply of materials that could be used to convert work energy among forms as efficiently as possible.

Today it is clear to see that this founding premise of the world economy is false.  As the finite amounts of the world’s resources become apparent to the people of the world, and as those people begin to perceive that their own economic system is the greatest threat to their survival, they will lose hope, and their existing economic systems will be replaced by new economic systems.

Carried to its furthest logical conclusion, on its present course the world economy can only lead humanity into World War III, and some might say it is doing that already.  If the world’s resources are depleted to the point that they will no longer sustain the survival of all the people of the world, the people will have no other choice than to fight against each other over what resources remain.  This will continue at least until the population of the world is reduced to the point that the world’s resources are once again sufficient to maintain the survival of the remaining humans.

This very catastrophe occurred on Easter Island when its population devastated its environment.  At the height of its civilization, the population of Easter Island numbered roughly 10,000 people.  Once they ate all the animals living on the island, cut down all the trees on the island, lost topsoil from erosion due to the loss of the trees, were no longer able to build canoes to fish off the island due to the loss of the trees, and were unable to escape the island in canoes due to the loss of the trees, they began fighting amongst themselves over what material resources remained.  They resorted to widespread cannibalism, and the population of the island plummeted to 2,000.  Due to the destruction of their material resource base, they had no way to rebuild their former civilization.

Clearly, progressive money is the only type of money that has real long-term value.  Unfortunately, the economic systems of the world today don’t measure the true value of progressive money, which makes regressive money more valuable as a means to advance one’s own survival and reproduction in competition with other people who use their money regressively.

If a functional worldwide economic community is going to be built, it is going to be built through the use of evolutionary and environmental science to discover a sustainable interaction between human evolution and the environment, and the people of the world must be taught what they need to know to perceive environmental sustainability to offer the greatest benefits of any course of action.

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The Systems Theory of Human Evolutionary Behavior breaks human behavior down into an interaction of five simple systems that interact with five outside factors in eight basic ways.  This gives us eighteen points of reference to define the evolutionary functions of human behavior.

The Theory of Evolutionary Relativity applies spiritual/emotional energy to those eighteen points of reference as a virtual form of energy.  The universal brain structure of our species then directs energy through those five simple systems to create our perceptions of the most effective means of preserving the survival of our DNA.

This reduction of evolutionary science carries numerous benefits for the vast majority of humanity who don’t base their perception of the world exclusively on science.  In order for an evolutionary solution to world problems to succeed, it must be presented to the public in an readily understandable manner, it must be simple enough to be easily memorable, it must prove useful within the contexts of people’s day-to-day lives, it must include clear courses of action for people to pursue to help solve world problems, and it must be able to predict good chances of success at solving those problems in readily understandable terms.  The Systems Theory of Human Evolutionary Behavior and Theory of Evolutionary Relativity do all of these things.

Based on the success I have had already at using The Theory of Evolutionary Relativity to teach evolutionary science in common sense terms to anyone who is generally open minded and interested in playing a part in helping to solve problems in the world, it is obvious that if valid evolutionary science can be brought to the public in whatever terms they do relate to the world, the success of an evolution revolution solution will be well within reach.

Any time I use the Theory of Evolutionary Relativity to give lectures on evolutionary science, whether I do it in religious or entertainment terms, my audience members always have the same two reactions:

“Oh wow, I’ve already thought of all that stuff, but you figured out how to bring it all together and put it into words,” and something to the effect of,

“All of this is so obvious, why should anybody need to write an 200,000 word book to prove it to scientists?”

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In the Introduction to this book, I said that all human behavior is the product of the attempt by the individual to preserve the survival of his or her DNA by the most effective means perceivable to him or her.  Now let me take a moment to impress upon you what “all human behavior” really means.

In the last book, every single story I told was a story about people attempting to preserve the survival of their DNA by the most effective means perceivable to them.  In every story, somebody made a choice about something, and they always made the choice that they perceived to be the most beneficial.  Well that benefit always refers to the preservation of their DNA in one way or another.

As my grandmother taught my dad and his brothers and sisters, not so much in words, but in the way she lived her life and the examples she set for them in dealing with other people:  Always assume that everyone is always doing the best they can to try to provide for their needs.   And as I showed you in the last book, the needs people feel always relate to the preservation of their DNA.

Another way to look at it is:  People always make whatever decisions seem to them to offer them the best chance of success at their goals, within their decision-making environments.  The person’s decision-making environment consists of their abilities, skills, resources, personal history, and cultural background.  Those five basic things include the person’s personality, the person’s emotional state, available information, opportunities, liabilities, and the perception of other people’s present and future actions.  The goal is always survival and reproduction—in other words, the preservation of their DNA.

The woman who gets beaten but doesn’t dare to leave her husband has Thomas Jefferson’s definition of Greek animal happiness because she’s preserving the survival of her DNA by the most effective means perceivable to her.  She doesn’t have Greek human happiness, because she can imagine better outcomes for herself, but she can’t perceive a way to make any of those outcomes happen.

The post-apocalyptic raven who went on collecting shiny things even though he didn’t need them any more to attract a mate was attempting to preserve the survival of his DNA by the most effective means perceivable to him.  His perceptions were created by his genetic instincts, and even though he didn’t need them to preserve the survival of his DNA anymore, the perceptions remained.

The cat that ran from the dog instead of standing and fighting was preserving the survival of his DNA by the most effective means perceivable to him, because he knew he couldn’t beat the dog.
The man who built his house on the sand and the man who built his house on a rock were each attempting to preserve the survival of their DNA by the most effective means perceivable to them.  They each had different perceptions of the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.  One did the job as easily as he could, and the other worked hard to produce long-lasting results.  In the end, one approach paid off better than the other.

The heroes of the vanilla ice cream civil rights movement attempted to preserve the survival of their DNA by the most effective means perceivable to them, but so did the chocolate-eating majority who founded the chocolate ice cream totalitarian society in the first place.  At first, each felt threatened by the other.  The chocolate eating majority had the advantage of numbers on their side, so all they had to do to get their way was to oppress the vanilla-eating minority.  To preserve the survival of their own DNA, the vanilla-eating minority had to figure out a way they could fight back against the chocolate eating majority and win.  To do that, first they got over their fear of chocolate ice cream, and then they figured out a new strategy and outwitted the chocolate eating majority.

Those people ate chocolate or vanilla ice cream in the first place because they perceived one or the other to offer them the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.  It probably didn’t make a difference, but that’s what each group perceived.  At its most fundamental level, people prefer the taste of one flavor of ice cream over another as a result of the chemical makeups of their bodies.  The people who preferred chocolate perceived themselves to need some chemical that was contained in the chocolate more than they needed any of the chemicals contained in the vanilla, and vice versa for the people who preferred vanilla.  The taste of the chocolate or vanilla alerted the people to the presence of the chemicals they needed.  But if the ice cream was artificially flavored, the chemicals that gave the ice cream its taste had been separated from the other chemicals in natural chocolate (cocoa beans, in other words).  That means that the taste alerting people to the presence of the chemicals their bodies need is a complete sensory illusion now.  People choose their preferences in ice cream based on which sensory illusion they prefer.  That means that the entire struggle between the chocolate-eating oppressors and the vanilla ice cream civil rights activists was a struggle between political forces that had been built up around illusions.  The people on each side were arguing about whose illusion was better than whose.  As far as actual physical reality was concerned, the entire struggle between the chocolate-eating oppressors and the vanilla-eating revolutionaries was completely meaningless.

The man who walked through the forest with the grizzly bears and ran at the first sign of anything that could indicate the presence of a grizzly bear was attempting to preserve the survival of his DNA by the most effective means perceivable to him.  The deer walking through the same forest didn’t run until he saw the grizzly bear.  The man and the deer had different mental abilities, which gave the man an advantage in perceiving the situation.  The deer survived by being able to run as fast as the bear.  The man survived by knowing that he couldn’t run as fast as the bear and running at the first sign of anything that could mean a bear was coming, whether it was actually a bear or not.

People in movies and in real life become singers, dancers, artists, doctors, adventurers, athletes, whatever, in spite of whatever obstacles stand in their way, because they perceive pursuing their interests, putting their abilities to use, and fulfilling their ambitions to offer them the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.

Nancy Kerrigan ice skates because she perceives that to offer her the most effective means of preserving the survival of her DNA, even if she gets clubbed in the knee by an ice rink a dozen times a day.

J. Guitar spent the six dollars in his pocket on guitar strings instead of food because he perceived that to offer him the most effective means of preserving the survival of his DNA.  It paid off in the end, because White Zombie kicked ass and sold two gold albums.

Gangstas blow each other away to defend their reputations because they perceive that to offer them the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.  If your reputation is the most important thing you have in life, and the thing you depend on the most to help you survive and reproduce, you don’t have a whole lot of choice but to defend it to the death.

The Hatfields and McCoys killed each other by the dozens over a pig because they all perceived that to offer them the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.  They had to defend their reputations too—or at least, they perceived  that they did.

Now for my favorite, my Celtic ancestors painted their faces blue, stripped naked, picked up their shilleghlahs, screamed bloody murder, and charged across fields at legions of heavily armed Roman centurions because they perceived that to be the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.  They believed in reincarnation, so they didn’t perceive Roman swords, spears, or arrows to be a threat to their survival.

And for my other favorite, the heavily armed Roman centurions ran away from my blue-faced Celtic ancestors like a bunch of little girls because they perceived that to offer them the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.  (And they were right!)

That mechanic saved my toaster for me and the girl gave it to me when I came back to the shop three months later because they perceived that to offer them the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.  They were probably both Mormons, so they probably don’t even believe in DNA, but they had superlative community values nonetheless.

The ancient young proto-humans carried their dead friend back to their camp and asked the wise old proto-human what happened to him because they perceived that to offer the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.  They suddenly perceived a new threat to the survival of their DNA, so they were trying to figure out what to do about it.

The wise old proto-human in the camp figured out something to tell them because he perceived that to offer him the most effective means of preserving the survival of his DNA.  The young people of his tribe were afraid and he didn’t know what to do about it, so he had to think of something.

Even that creepy family who ignored everyone else’s morals and ate their dead dog instead of letting the fresh meat go to waste did so because they perceived that to offer the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.   They didn’t share their neighbors’ morals, so they perceived the situation differently.

The Wari people of the jungles of the Amazon, who teach their people the important moral distinction that they are allowed to eat people from other tribes but they aren’t allowed to eat people from their own tribes, make that distinction because they perceive that to offer the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.

Mr. Rogers taught children to be nice to each other because he perceived that to offer him the most effective means of preserving the survival of his DNA.  If everyone treated each other the way people treat each other on Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood, nobody’s DNA would be threatened.

All those other people who cash in on lucrative business opportunities and fill the world up with military industrial complexes and prison industrial complexes and legal industrial complexes and medical industrial complexes and cigarettes and nuclear weapons and chocolate ice cream do those things because they perceive them to offer the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.  They make lots of Glorious Money out of the deal.

Western imperialists globalize the American Dream and pave over everyone else’s cultures with Wal-Marts and McDonald’s because they perceive that to offer the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.  It’s the old Glorious Cha-Ching-Cha-Ching again.

And I guess I should add that terrorists crash airplanes into buildings because they perceive that to offer the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.  If they believe that they’re going to get 72 virgins in the afterlife who’ll keep them company for the rest of eternity, then somebody has taught them to perceive that killing themselves will offer the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA that they can possibly imagine.

The Mesopotamians over-hunted their local gazelle herds and then later began planting their own food because at the times they made those choices, they perceived each of them to offer the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.  Both times, they were producing calories of food energy as efficiently as possible.

Zhu Di, Third Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, sent Zheng He out to sail the oceans because he perceived that to offer the most effective means of preserving the survival of his DNA.  The Chinese learned more about their surroundings that way, met people, and established new trade relations.  And Zhu Di won a lot of social status for both himself and for China.

Zhu Gaozhi, Fourth Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, put an end to Chinese exploration because he perceived that choice to offer the most effective means of preserving the survival of his DNA.   All that ocean voyaging took up a lot of people and ships.  Was it really worth it?

Sequoyah, the Cherokee blacksmith, invented the Cherokee syllabary all by himself because he perceived that to offer him the most effective means of preserving the survival of his DNA.  As we all know, literate societies can do a lot of things pre-literate societies can’t

Andrew Jackson sent 14,000 Cherokee marching 1,200 miles on foot in the dead of winter because he perceived that to offer the most effective means of preserving the survival of his DNA.  One way to preserve the survival of your DNA is to colonize new land and claim all the natural resources on it, and another is to kill all the people who lived on that land or else move them so far away from you and your civilization that even if they try to fight back it won’t do them any good.

That big bad wolf came charging up behind you sitting at the fire with the Inuit hunters eating your caribou meat because he perceived that to offer the most effective means of preserving the survival of his DNA.   The servile wolf who carried the ancestral man’s-best-friend genes slinked up to the fire and looked up at the hunters with big round friendly eyes because he perceived that to offer him the most effective means of preserving the survival of his DNA.  Both wolves perceived their courses of actions to offer the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA because their genes gave them different personalities, and with them, different perceptions.  One wolf got adopted, and the other got a spear through his throat.

Then the Inuit hunters domesticated the friendly wolves and started building dog sleds because they perceived that doing those things offered them the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.  People with dogsleds can do things that people without dogsleds can’t.

Those 20 people who were locked in the factory room and instructed to manufacture a certain number of their products by a certain deadline on pain of death organized themselves into the most efficient work force they could think of in order to preserve the survival of their DNA by the most effective means perceivable.  If no one in the room had a clear advantage in skills or abilities relating to the manufacturing process, they began resorting to other means of constructing a social hierarchy, even though the perceptions they were basing their unskilled workforce hierarchy on were completely irrelevant to the project at hand.  But if the least charismatic person among them was the only person who had experience at the manufacturing process, suddenly they all perceived that the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA was to appoint him leader.

My former roommate the New Age game show host moved to Phoenix and became a shiny happy religious fundamentalist because she perceived that to offer her the most effective means of preserving the survival of her DNA.  Why bother even attempting to lead an environmentally sustainable lifestyle when you can just move out to the suburbs, become a New-Age yuppie, wait around for supernatural powers to save the day, and call that spiritual enlightenment?  Although to her credit, she had a really sh*tty childhood, and the emotional damage she suffered and will carry with her for the rest of her life severely warped her perception of the world.  Her parents raised her to be a good little middle class girl, and now just like the rest of the voting majority of Americans, an environmentally suicidal lifestyle is the only life she’s ever known.  (Oops, sorry, I guess I got a little carried away there.  Two years I’ve been trying to get people to listen to me now, while the world’s situation continues to deteriorate, just like I knew it would.  Anyway, where was I?…)

Pilots kill themselves in graveyard spirals every year because they perceive that trying to pull more lift out of their aircraft offers them the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA, because they don’t realize the mistake they’re making until it’s too late.  Their perceptions of the world get thrown off because they fly into low visibility conditions and get into gradual turns without realizing it.  So when they act upon what they perceive to be the best courses of action for dealing with their situations without realizing that their perceptions have been thrown off, their decisions end up killing them.

That World War II pilot who landed on the runway that had been shelled by artillery and had the wreckage of an airplane lying in the middle of it, just so he could rescue three Americans who were stranded and under attack, did everything he did because he perceived that to offer the most effective means of preserving the survival of his DNA.  In the most immediate sense, he was probably wrong, which is why all the other pilots were retreating from the Japanese attack, instead of flying back into it.  However, in a broader sense, the pilot was right, because he set an example of heroism for his fellow military service personnel.  Even if he’d been killed in the attempt, but 1,000 of his comrades each fought 1% harder as a result, in terms of winning the war and keeping his wife, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces, and nephews safe, he was right.  For whatever reason he made the attempt, he perceived the situation differently than did his fellow pilots, which led him to act differently.  Genetic variation, and variation in general, helps species survive by producing members who are equipped to deal well with different situations, and this is an example of that.

The people who decided to award the pilot with the Medal of Honor made that decision because they perceived it to offer them the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.

The other pilots acted in the way that was most effective to preserving the survival of their DNA under the conditions they lived in most of the time.  The war was not the condition the pilots lived in most of the time, so that change in situation made another type of behavior most appropriate.  The heroism variation that this heroic pilot had that all the other pilots didn’t was precisely the type of variation that was needed in fighting a war.  The people who awarded him the medal changed the situation even further in the direction of making heroism the most appropriate course of action, by helping the pilot preserve the survival of his own DNA by giving him special recognition for his heroism, and by making the other pilots perceive that heroism offered an extra benefit the survival of their DNA also.

When that tribe of people knew they were going to be walking through the forest where the grizzly bears lived and performed the elaborate grizzly bear ritual to prepare themselves for it, they were acting upon what they perceived to offer them the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.

When those two bored cartoon characters were sitting on their old couch watching music videos and one turned to the other and said, “This sucks,” he was attempting to preserve the survival of his DNA by the most effective means perceivable.  It doesn’t even matter that he was a cartoon character who doesn’t have DNA.  You were able to understand why he was saying what he was saying because if you heard a person say that in real life, they would be attempting to preserve the survival of their DNA by the most effective means perceivable.  In this case, he was helping to preserve the integrity of his interpersonal tribe.

When I cried for three hours about my mother cutting my whole sandwich in half, I was attempting to preserve the survival of my DNA by the most effective means perceivable to me.  I was using my instinctive emotional communication to try to get her to make me another sandwich so I could use my abilities to their fullest potential in making a life for myself and earn social status out of the deal.  My mother didn’t do it though, because I was 3 and she was 32, so she realized that eating a whole sandwich wasn’t nearly as important as I perceived it to be.  She perceived that making me another sandwich would jeopardize the survival of her DNA, because I’d grow up to be a spoiled brat.  And she was probably right.

When I spent two hours climbing half a city block along that Addams’ Family wrought iron fence outside the abbey, I did it because I perceived that to offer me the most effective means of preserving the survival of my DNA.  My mother let me do it because she perceived it to offer her the most effective means of preserving the survival of her DNA, because it would help me grow up to believe that I could succeed at anything I set my mind to, if I was willing to work hard enough and long enough at it.  Once again she was probably right.

Hell, I’m not even half way through the book yet…

Okay, when my grandparents abandoned the rat race in southern California and moved away to the Redwoods where they liked to vacation, they were attempting to preserve the survival of their DNA by the most effective means perceivable to them.  They liked going to the Redwoods, so they decided they should live there all the time.

When my dad dropped out of college and set out to see what there was to see in America, he was attempting to preserve the survival of his DNA by the most effective means perceivable.  That’s how he met my mom, so I guess it paid off.

When my mom moved away from the coastal fishing village where she’d lived in Maine and set out to see what there was to see in America… oh, never mind, you already know how that story turns out.

When my brother decided not to pursue a career as an artist and instead moved to Colorado to be a wise old hermit who lives on a mountaintop, he was attempting to preserve the survival of his DNA by the most effective means perceivable.   Just like my grandparents, he moved to where he most wanted to be and did what he most wanted to do.

When I didn’t get up and go watch the teacher and the principal break up the fight outside, like all the other kids in my classroom did, I was attempting to preserve the survival of my DNA by the most effective means perceivable.  It worked out in a way, because they all got into trouble and I didn’t.

When my dad figured out how to diffuse the riot by singing Give Peace a Chance, he was attempting to preserve the survival of his DNA by the most effective means perceivable to him.

The people who were trying to start the riot were trying to start it because they perceived fighting against the war to offer them the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.  All the people who were reluctantly joining in the riot were attempting to preserve the survival of their DNA by the most effective means perceivable to them, because they all wanted to help stop the war, and this seemed to be how was going to be done.  But when my dad offered them an alternative, they joined him instantly, because now they perceived a way to protest the war that wasn’t going to get them beaten up and arrested.

When I sat there in my battered Starbuck’s chair on New Year’s Eve, watching 50 riot police marching straight at me, I was attempting to preserve the survival of my DNA by the most effective means perceivable to me.  This was something I’d never seen before, and it might offer me the opportunity of a lifetime.  I was sure to see something that all the people who were backing away from the cops were never going to witness.

Then when the riot police parted before me like the Red Sea, they were attempting to preserve the survival of their DNA by the most effective means perceivable to them.  I was just one person sitting there minding my own business, and there were hundreds of people to either side of me.

Then when the one cop came over and shoved the mace can in my face and shouted, “You! Get the f*ck out of the square!  Now!”  he was attempting to preserve the survival of his DNA by the most effective means perceivable to him.  If he could beat me into submission with all that emotional aggression, that would be the easiest way to get me out of the square.  But by trying to impress me by acting like a savage with a badge and a gun, it didn’t pay off in the long run quite the way he was hoping.

And when I put up my hands and calmly walked away, I was preserving the survival of my DNA by the most effective means perceivable to me.  There was a savage with a badge and a gun shoving a mace can in my face, after all.  But that was okay, I’d learned something new from my adventure, and I could put it to good use, so my mission had been a success…

When my dad put out the fire in my brother’s room, he was attempting to preserve the survival of his DNA by the most effective means perceivable to him.  When he went back to the kitchen, hung up the fire extinguisher, and went back to his game, again he was attempting to preserve the survival of his DNA by the most effective means perceivable to him.  The fire was out, the house was safe, and my brother wasn’t there to tell about it, so my dad didn’t perceive anything else that needed to be done besides going back to what he was doing.  When my brother came home, my parents didn’t lose their tempers because they perceived that not losing their tempers offered them a more effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA than losing their tempers.  Once again, they were probably right, because they were setting examples for my brother, and he grew up to be a level headed guy, instead of an emotional crybaby who worried about useless things all the time.  And he preserved the survival of his DNA by the most effective means perceivable to him by cleaning up the mess and not making that mistake again.

Now I’m telling you all this because I perceive this to be the most effective means of preserving the survival of my DNA.  If you learn something from this and it helps you makes sense of the world and be a more emotionally healthy person, that will make my community function better.  The better my community functions, the less taxes I have to pay for police and jails, the less I have to worry about you drinking and driving, or getting addicted to crack and mugging me, etc., etc..
(And just for the record, “a community that works well” isn’t synonymous with “a community where everyone follows all the currently existing laws”.  “A community that works well” is one where people don’t perpetually threaten each other, live in fear of each other, and feel like they have to kill or be killed.  In general, when that starts happening in communities, people start passing more laws and hiring more police and having to pay more taxes.  On the other hand, “making a community work better” also means getting rid of laws that don’t serve any purpose and nobody wants to follow and don’t do anybody any good except for the police and lawyers and prison guards who get jobs out of the deal.  If laws are just implements by which people threaten each other and make each other live in fear and feel like they have to kill or be killed, that just makes society function worse.  And then they start hiring more police and passing more laws and building more prisons and raising taxes to try to clean up the mess…  Oh, but I’m getting ahead of myself again…)

Well that’s it.  The end of the story.  If you want me to retell the entire first book in terms of individuals attempting to preserve the survival of their DNA by the most effective means perceivable to them, too bad.  Do it yourself!

Oh, and by the way, my whole reason for writing this section was to show how easy this is to do.  Any time you see anyone make any decision, whether it’s in real life or on TV or in the movies or in a novel or in a stage play or anywhere else, the person is always making that decision because they perceive it to offer them the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.  That means that in order to understand why they made the decision they made, all you have to do is to use what you know about human behavior to decipher why they perceive that choice to offer them the most effective means of preserving the survival of their DNA.

Filed under: x: 42 Vol. II by Ezra
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Any time you interact with anyone, whether you realize you’re doing this or not, you make a mathematical prediction of how the other person will react to you.  You go into the interaction wanting the person to react in a certain way, and you use your emotional communication to try to evoke that reaction from them.  That’s the definition of beat playing I’ve talked about so much already.  You decide to play your beat according to what type of emotional communication you perceive to offer the most effective means of preserving the survival of your DNA.

When people use statistics to try to predict other people’s behavior, in order to try to make as much money or win as many votes from the people as possible, they make these mathematical predictions intentionally and consciously.  When people make these predictions in everyday life in interacting with other people, they make these predictions passively and subconsciously.

As I’ve said so often, now that the people who turn other people into statistics intentionally and consciously have gotten so good at it, if the people who don’t want to be statistics want to keep from being controlled by those people, they’ll have to learn how to do what their enemies are doing well enough to level the field.  In the last book I talked a lot about learning to predict your own behavior better than anyone else could, and about learning to predict what other people want well enough to help them get what they want as a result of your interaction, so that you’ll both find the interaction beneficial.  An interaction that all parties find beneficial is the definition of cooperation, while an interaction that some parties find harmful is the definition of conflict.  Cooperation creates, while conflict destroys.

As you can see, despite what a lot of people think at first, predicting other people’s behavior can have a positive result, because if you can eliminate conflict from both of your lives simultaneously by cooperating somehow, the two of you can work together instead of against each other, and keep conflict from spilling over into other areas of your lives.

And that benefits the survival of your DNA for both of you.

Filed under: x: 42 Vol. II by Ezra
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