Publisher's Synopsis
"Adaptive Society" explains why current civilization does not "fit" human needs and what humans can do about it. We can see failures of fit in such things as warfare, the 80% of diseases that are caused by the industrialized lifestyle, exaggerated wealth differentials, the disruption of family life in divorce, greatly diminished birth rates, the widespread corruption of governments, and the excessive consumption of alcohol and drugs. In the Stone Age, the excellent "fit" between humans and their natural habitat resulted from evolution. In the 19th century, Charles Darwin explained the process of inheritance, variation and natural selection, by which all living things continually adapt to their environments. But when the unique human brain evolved, it gave rise to technologies such as stone tools, control of fire, clothing, and artificial dwellings. In the modern age, human inventions are created so rapidly that Darwinian evolution cannot possibly alter humans fast enough to fit their habitat. That simple fact creates nearly all of the problems that humans face. However, in principle, nature has already solved the problem of creating an adaptive "fit" between humans and their technological civilization. Scientists have realized that industrialized society itself is evolving, and, for the most part, maintaining adaptive conditions. Evolution has been "inverted" so that, instead of the human species evolving to adapt to its natural habitat, the artificial habitat, based on technology, is evolving to provide mostly adaptive conditions for humans. But there is one kind of technology that social evolution cannot cope with - the technology of government, in the form of the nation state. Nation states were created by warfare, and are maintained today by brute force and propaganda. Under the state, the human freedom and egalitarianism that existed in the Stone Age were replaced by hierarchy, including slavery. From a biological perspective, all modern governments are coercive parasites, practicing "tax-farming," and exploiting their host populations as "human livestock." The solution is for all humans to unite and reverse the destruction of their biological heritage. "Adaptive Society" provides the first scientific description of the crisis in human adaptation, and what must be done to remedy it.
