There are no greater threats to the future survival of humanity than the climate emergency and militarism. From an evolutionary perspective, both are attempts at survival that have gone badly awry. They represent evolutionary annihilation points.
An evolutionary annihilation point is a term used in the scientific discipline of sociobiology and is defined as when a species’ evolution carries within it the means of its own extinction.
The discipline of sociobiology, developed by American biologist Edward O. Wilson, is the systematic study of how Darwinian natural selection shapes the biological basis of all species’ social behavior. Behavior that is advantageous in passing on the species’ genes to the next generation is, in turn, selected for transmission to the next one. However, evolution is not a straight line and can lead to the exaggeration of pre-existing structures, a phenomenon known in sociobiology as evolutionary hypertrophy.
Sociobiology also predicts that hypertrophy can also occur within the context of human cultural evolution. Cultural evolution is defined as cultural change that can be socially acquired through a Darwinian evolutionary process like with genetic evolution.
Militarism has been an aspect of human behavior since its inception. It comes out of the human male’s endowed primate instincts as a rudimentary means of survival. War is experienced as arousing and thrilling by human males and exists based on the illusion of logic as sold by propaganda – the easy vilification of the other, the false belief in one’s own righteousness, the presentation of false choices, the demanded pledge of patriotism.
Our closest cousin, the chimpanzee, shares more than ninety-nine percent of the same DNA as humans. Chimpanzees hunt in groups of males who attack and kill other chimps that intrude on their territory. Out of this species, our species, homo sapiens, evolved 300,000 years ago. Thus, the human mid-brain is instinctually pre-programmed for the same behavior. Kill or be killed. The victor in battle passes on their genes to the next generation. This is the evolutionary basis of war.
Throughout human history, warfare has culturally evolved from the throwing of stones to the creation of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons represent an example of cultural evolutionary hypertrophy, a hypertrophy that can lead humanity into evolutionary annihilation.
Militarism is driven by competition leading to fatal destruction which is antithetical to the behavior of co-operation required to address the climate crisis. Militarism is determined by what has now evolved into a definitively self-defeating schema of failed strategies of survival.
Militarism pollutes the atmosphere and negates negotiation of solutions to the climate emergency. It robs the global community by usurping the copious resources necessary for survival.
The climate crisis has redefined the notion of what human survival means. Humans have attempted through cultural evolution to fashion their physical habitats to maximize their survival. However, through the process of evolutionary hypertrophy, our species has overdeveloped our habitats to the degree that they now have become inhospitable to continued human habitation.
It is the nascent civil society environmental and peace movements which are propelling governments to address the climate and military crises.
Human survival will be determined by the capacity of the environmental and peace movements to influence governments to stand up to the vested economic interests that are detrimental to the survival of the species, especially the fossil fuel industry and the global military-industrial complexes.
