I think I “floored” a caller the other day who started to exclaim that I must be making a lot of money due to the high volume of orders going into the canneries. I interupted, since this isn’t something true, and told the caller that I was not in this business for the money and slowing down my orders was really essential. There was absolute silence on the other end of the phone.

Greed (corruption) and avarice are not commonly held by all men. Now there’s proof of this: Ruthlessness Gene Discovered

History demonstrates that the human species has survived by several factors. Cooperation and caring are essential, but so was ruthlessness. These are both still true. But take a journey of the imagination (near future) with me as you ponder these things.

Imagine a world that has abundant natural resources and a limited human population. The “ruthlessness” gene however exists, primarily in one particular segment of the population. This group practices compassion and ruthlessness, but not in equal measures. They survive primarily by simply taking what they need from everyone else.

Ownership of the land is a foreign concept to the other segments of the population, but not the “takers”. The takers believe that ownership gives them power and control and by claiming ownership of the land, they can also claim ownership of all the natural resources. And by “all”, I mean ALL, this includes the soil, water, rock, air, plants, animals and even the other human beings who live on the lands that they claim “ownership” over.

This distinction of land use and land ownership causes severe disagreement and many wars are fought. The ruthless group of takers prevails. Although the other groups that practiced compassion were defeated, they fought as viciously as they could since their very survival was at stake, but they were already defeated in actuality since their lack of “ownership” prevented them from having the technological capabilities of ensuring their success against a more technological civilization.

Thus, the “ruthlessness gene” of takers prevailed on this world, it gained both ownership and control of all the land and human populations, AND it gave them the technological superiority to ensure that they would be able to stay in charge for as long as possible.

To the other tribes and groups on this planet, this spelled absolute doom and disaster for them. Even in the ruthless tribe, this spelled doom and disaster for those in their group who did not possess the ruthless gene or found no redeeming benefits in being a taker.

They found themselves having to compete for position, stature, promotion and achievement in life. Many, if not most adapted rather well, although their genetic makeup really remained the same. Nobody can actually say whether or not they have the ruthless gene, since few were tested, but their adaptability was clearly evident as they because highly “successful” in the ruthless tribe.

Some became CEO of major corporations, or movie stars or bankers, lawyers, doctors or athletes. Their competitive “spirit” was adopted by cultural ingraining from birth, something created by the ruthless people, and their own sons and daughters, comprised of the same genetic makeup as them, also became a part of this competetive “success” and spirit.

This oft-repeated cycle of birth and death replicated itself for generation upon generation. The ruthless gene of course, still existed, intermixing with much of the population through marriage and birth, but it was not found in all humans on this world. Not everyone became polluted. Some who possessed such a gene became the truly notable humans of their era. Dictatorships and even Presidents, Vice Presidents and Secretary of State were titles often held by such people. Their ruthlessness gene helped ensure their success to these high levels of office. Even those that sought such positions could safely be said to possess the ruthless gene. Many if not most of corporations that developed as ownership of resources and lands took control of the planet were run by owners and CEO’s that had the ruthlessness gene.

The rest of the human population became their slaves, even those who also had the ruthless gene, as monetary systems were enacted to ensure that there would never be enough money to go around and create fair and equal opportunity for the planet’s population. Ownership became “essential” and buying and selling of goods, products, production, resources and even people became the only way in which all humans on the planet could possibly survive. Those that struggled for their natural or indigenous existence were simply wiped out in the name of “progress”. No group of humans on the planet were left alone to co-exist in peace, all were forced by war, torture or environmental destruction to “participate” with the cultural demands created by the ruthless. Those that possessed the gene survived best, those that didn’t, struggled the most.

The days of land use were long gone and replaced by ownership. Every square inch of the planet was divided up into tiny squares and slices of ownership pie, somebody owned it, no matter where it might be found, even in the most remote corners of the globe. And whatever was on it, whether natural, man-made or plant or animal life or even human life, was also owned and controlled by someone who we could be equally sure was of the ruthless gene. There really was no place of escape from this, what was once an idyllic paradise of existence for all living creatures, both human and non-human, was now a hellish prison of caged confines and ruthless masters who controlled and “owned” everything, even the natural things that were born and lived and died there.

They didn’t know they were owned, but to their humans masters, they were simply deemed “resources” to be exploited at their whim and demand. Even the indigenous human tribes that fell victim to this view were enraged, but that didn’t help their situation any.

The level of control over the planet became extreme, as even more technological inventions created tighter and tighter control mechanisms by the ruthless and those that cooperated with them. Cameras, papers and licenses were deployed and demanded of everyone. Even the animals themselves had to be microchipped and tagged, branded and inspected. Only certain plants were permitted to live and many others numbering in the hundreds of thousands were cut down. Many animal species were entirely wiped out and extinguished by design and by careless accident. The landscape and fauna were irreversibly altered.

The environment itself was irrevocably changed as all of this “industry” by the ruthless humans and those that cooperated with them created huge plumes of pollution in the air, soil and water. It wasn’t long before this pollution seriously affected the entire food chain and many new human diseases and sicknesses took over, killing millions and millions yearly. This was strangely often labeled “the price of progress”.

But rather then address the root problems of how and why these problems had now occurred, but not before, entire new industries sprung forth enlisting armies of humans to combat these issues and “fix” the problem, but the ruthless humans were too stupid to realize where the root of the problem occurred. Unfortunately for them, this effort of theirs didn’t work either, the issues of pollution and disease continued to advance as “industry” continued to claim ownership of all things on the planet and their problems with the environment and food chain intensified dramatically.

Yet the ruthlessness gene still prevailed, being adept at survival, which was clearly evident by the myriad of mechanisms and social controls that were enacted and still ruling the planet. The humans who possessed such a gene were already now on the top of the pile so to speak, as they ruled and controlled and owned the entire planet with ruthless abandon. All sense of reason and common sense alluded them, being replaced with greed, profit and corruption.

Still being not satisfied, they hungrily eyed the other resources owned and controlled by the other ruthless humans and wars soon commenced as they fought each other for more ownership and more control. Yet they did not fight these wars themselves, they swiftly and ruthlessly ensured that other humans would fight and die in these wars for them.

This situation lasted a long time, for thousands of years as the ruthless people gained increasing power and preeminence over the other humans on the planet. During that time, many, many wars were fought and many, many millions of humans died. Some that died were ruthless people, but most that died were actually their slaves. This caused a higher percentage of ruthless people to live then those who died and the population was affected with increasing numbers of ruthless genes. All of the land users of the planet were wiped out as the ruthless went to war with each other and all the land users, stealing their resources and reallocating them for their own personal power and profit.

In time, their industry including their war industry, had gained control and ownership of absolutely everything on the planet, but in the process, they had polluted and destroyed everything they touched. Some areas would be radioactive for ten thousand years or more. Others were so badly damaged that absolutely nothing would grow, being scoured right down to the subsurface of the soil and dumped with abandon everywhere.

Even the air, soil and water was deeply polluted, but this still didn’t stop them. The ruthless people remained arrogant and callous and utterly indifferent to the damage they were causing. A characteristic of the ruthless was to abandon reason and common sense, it did not matter to them that life itself came from the health of the environment and not its ongoing and continued destruction. They deemed ownership, power and control, the things of “wealth” much more important then the things of life.

The ruthless, although the professed “owners” of these lands, abandoned the “worthless land” they destroyed and sought more fertile ground elsewhere to begin the whole process anew. More wars were waged on the planet and more people died in their stead. There was nothing to be done about this, the battle for control and ownership had actually long been lost millennia ago when the ruthless began to wipe out all the land users.

But finally, a necessary thing began to happen as the human populations teemed with billions and billions, affecting and consuming all the natural resources on the planet. The planet itself began to reel like a drunken man, stumbling and falling as its natural cycles and rythmns were distorted or interrupted by all the human activity. And just in time too, as natural resources essential for all life on the planet were in severe depletion and ecosystems were collapsing all over the planet.

The planet itself, still far larger then all the ruthless combined, or even the whole of the billions and billions of humans on its surface, became unstable due to the severe environmental damage caused and huge cataclysmic changes began to take place. In desperation, the ruthless people tried to invent even more technological inventions to “save the planet”, which really meant that they were only trying to save themselves and their positions on top of the human heap of slaves they had created.

But it didn’t work, fortunately too, as the world began to collapse and implode in upon itself. Entire ecosystems collapsed and the essential food chain for humans and animals all collapsed with it. This caused massive, irreversible famines and starvation and billions died. The most affected were the slaves, since they were impoverished and unable to take care of themselves, having long forgotten the essential skills and techniques essential for life, they died out quickly by the billions.

This left the ruthless to fight amongst themselves and with the survivors that managed to survive the first death wave. More wars were fought and essential critical resources were squandered and wasted forever. However, the planet wasn’t done with its human hosts and its natural cycles and rhythms were many, many generations from being balanced again. This environmental adjustment would take thousands of years to settle out again and in the process, it would kill most of the humans on the surface.

The ruthless people still tried to prevail of course, and built for themselves underground bunkers and hidden cities, employing slaves by the thousands who were controlled by fear, food and torture. The ruthless had become quite adept at doing this and there was no lack of slaves to “enlist” or fight their wars of desperation.

The world’s remaining populations slowly started to revert back to their long forgotten former existence. Lands that were once owned and controlled were now largely abandoned, except for the raids and destruction still launched against them from the ruthless. Only remote areas deemed unfit for “civilized” human life were left alone, but not always. You just couldn’t ever tell where the ruthless people might strike, or whether they would steal more slaves or just decided to wipe everyone out in a fit of vengeance and frustrated impotence.

But in time, over generations, the ruthless discovered that they really lacked the control that they they thought they had all along. The resources they had heaped to themselves began to run out and the energy requirements to gather more were now gone. Worse for them, many of the resources and inventions that they had used were also now gone and they slowly began to slip from their positions of power and ownership and control. Many fought among themselves and there were even slave revolts that killed more then a few, but it was still a long time before they were finally gone from the planet.

The ruthlessness gene however, wasn’t gone, having taking millennia to develop, it was not to be wiped out in several generations. It still existed in humans, but these surviving humans had learned that cooperation was essential for life if they intended to live at all. The environment was still wildly out of balance and they came to realize it never had been under any human control, despite the many generations of effort and billions of human lives that had been spent to do so.

These survivors, both ruthless and land users, co-existed, but not peacefully. The ruthless gene remained vying for preminence in those humans that possessed it and gradually again in time, they rose to positions of powers and influence over the other humans as their disposition exerted itself over them. Many of them were killed outright, but what nature and history had permitted to exist for a million years was not so easily extinguished.

In time, human slaves were once again and ownership and control of the natural resources was the name of the game on the planet. The ruthlessness gene had prevailed, as it always had. Its survival was actually always ensured, despite the many claims to the contrary. All the writers of history were proven wrong, those that had claimed that peace would reign over the planet and that the meek would inherit. They had failed to examine the historical record of human existence, which was clear for anyone who bothered to look. The gene is what permitted human survival, but when it became too predominant, it caused the death of everything else.

Similar mechanisms exist in the human body, which when under control and in limited numbers, permit humans to live. But when diseased or when they run rampant, it causes the death of its host. The same thing happens with the planet itself, it permits the microbes on its surface to live and exist, even in harmony or in war amongst themselves. But when it becomes diseased or sickened itself, it shudders and reacts in ways which will kill all those that live on its surface.

This is the natural rhythm and cycle of events and circumstances, the cause and effect of what has been going on for millions and millions of years. There is no changing this, nor even controlling this. The human history as exemplified by the ruthlessness gene is no different. The rise and fall of our existence is no more controllable then our efforts to control the planet, or the moon and the stars.

We live in rhythms and cycles, seasons of existence and seasons of life, death, famine, disease. Our adaption to these things is the only thing we can “do”. Our desperate attempts to avoid these things are denials of reality.