“The competition of cultural evolution pushes us towards values that work best in each phase of energy production.” Ian Morris

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“With sport competition it is possible each time to say who wins and who loses, but in a real fight, until someone dies it is very hard to say who wins.”Yamaguchi Gōgen

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“It is true that the earth is the cradle of humanity, but man cannot remain in the cradle forever. The solar system will become our kindergarten.” Konstantin Ziolkowski

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Symphonic Breath - The unworldly man invites the world with a “configuration of purity and egoism”.

Adorno deals with the fictional character of Lucien de Rubempré aka Lucien Chardon, who was born rejected but loved for his beauty. He sees in the son of a man of low social stature and an aristocrat who has fallen into the dog of bourgeois society the embodiment of a fallen Angelus Novus... a swarming braggart whose pleasant nature literally hands him opportunities. A new type is emerging in Lucien: the precariously living, elegantly writing flaneur-columnist. Journalistic smouldering coincides with a lack of bourgeois gravity. Lucien wastes himself as a gigolo and accomplice of masters of machinations.Lucien initially appears to the world to be as witty as he is subtle. He is the begging king of an idiosyncratic regime. He refuses to take the “bourgeois oath”. That is why the world pushes him below the bourgeois. It ploughs him under and “degrades him to a scoundrel”. The thin ice of idealism breaks and Lucien falls through into slavery and parasitism. He finally succeeds in the role of the “abominable”.

Adorno sees Lucien as just a “fungible figure” because of whom nothing happens that the actor should take personally; while he takes everything personally. I don’t want to say that Adorno was taking his cue from a rival in academic and amorous areas. But if he did have Walter Benjamin in mind when he went through the rejection of “the jungle paths of bourgeois equivalence”, then you won’t know it from me. I’m staying out of it.

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The universe is carefree. On a cosmic scale, we can also be carefree. We are survival machines. Life has no other function than to sustain itself. All emanations of the second evolutionary cycle also serve only this purpose. The conditions for our survival were written millions of years ago in routines that we are largely unable to decipher. We have information older than humanity. All bodily responses have genetic roots that are millions of years old. They are constantly at work, almost uncontrollably. As soon as we become aware of this power, we are suddenly stronger than before. We then understand that we are focusing all our thoughts on the wrong targets, on things that burden us, that increase our alienation. We only need to be aware of this in order to be superior to all those who see their existence as a social affair.People don’t even know that they have these powers. They are so undermined in the second evolutionary cycle that they think they are much weaker than they are.People don’t understand this because they think the second evolutionary cycle is natural. They don’t understand the genetic survival advantage until the first evolutionary cycle has been unlocked for them.

The most original information is found in the wetlands of familial organization. One is amazed at how small the groups were that survived our beginnings in the upper Pleistocene. Nomadic prey communities practiced (weaponless) continuous hunting according to the principle of constant alarm. The game was hunted until it succumbed to exhaustion. Even today, isolated Ju/’Hoansi groups in north-eastern Namibia rush animals to death.

“The best people keep their bare butts,” said Paul Theroux. The “golden-colored” Ju/’Hoansi appeared with Asian characteristics in their traditional distribution areas as descendants of migrants. It is not known who they displaced, but their European and indigenous persecutors are known. They survived by avoiding serious conflicts as specialists for arid areas, only to end up destitute in rags from German used clothing collections on the outskirts of cities.

Human values have biological roots. They are products of adaptation. They are functionally linked to evolutionary requirements. The historian Ian Morris distinguishes three general lines of our development: freebooters - farmers - users of fossil fuels.

He sees each form of life as dependent on the legitimate energy production at the time. This reminds me of a remark by Paul B. Preciado. The philosopher says that the first machines were slaves. From their energy, archaic-agrarian societies drew the surpluses that ensured their existence on the energy-culture-technology axis.

Quotes from Ian Morris, “Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels”

For the longest time, we have existed nomadically. We have been hunters for much longer than we have been users of fossil fuels. Twenty thousand years ago, we were all hunters and gatherers. According to one of the main opinions of anthropologists, today’s hunter communities, far removed from civilization, stand in the social shadow of fossil fuel users and have no connection to their prehistoric predecessors. Academic subjunctives are rife. Morris believes the following is indisputable. The living space determines demand without alternative. Calorie consumption decreases with proximity to the equator. It is highest at the poles. The time and effort required to generate energy are subject to rationality.

Our beginning

Small groups, flat hierarchies, hardly any private property, large territories: two to eight relatives reproduced with stronger groups. Together they jumped into the gene pool.

There were variants. Rich hunting grounds favored sedentarism. Sedentarization favoured the accumulation of immobile property and the establishment of hierarchies. The stationary trapper anticipated the farmer.