/**
 * file: karbytes_28_august_2024.txt
 * type: plain-text
 * date: 27_AUGUST_2024
 * author: karbytes
 * license: PUBLIC_DOMAIN
 */

As I wait for my electronics to charge at a public outdoor electrical while watching the late afternoon sunlight grace the trees, buildings, and distant mountains at approximately 7:00PM Pacific Standard Time, I notice that a thought which I’ve had several times in the past two years taking residence in my experience: the idea that I am an animal and me having difficulty believing it (because I feel like I am something more transcendent and godlike).

I see that I have a lot of physiological similarities to other non-human animals in that we each, more or less, seem to exhibit very similar body plans (and genomes encoded in the same base-four language with more than 50% similarity (and, in some cases, more than 95% similarity)). As I know from learning about humans with prominently noticeable phenotypal abnormalities resulting from just a few genes being abnormally formed, absent, or extras of, seemingly insignificant adjustments to an animal’s genome cause very dramatic effects. I suppose then, in pertinence to what I just said, it should not be too surprising to me that I feel so different from all the other non-human animals which I know to exist.

As I write this, I cannot help but feel that I am one of the more evolved members of my species (based on observable behavior alone). I feel that me associating with other humans is akin to me socializing with chimpanzees in a zoo (because those other humans seem to behave in a more primitive animal-like manner than I do). I hence generally prefer to be alone rather than part of some group of humans (unless those humans seem particularly evolved to me). Unlike other humans, I seem to be better at entertaining myself and enjoying introspection instead of almost constantly clamoring for attention and affirmation from other humans. I also seem to be more polite and less cruel than what seems to be most of the humans around me.

I was thinking earlier today that the cost of living for humans (at least in the United States of America) is increasing over time (and so is the overall global human population). As those two numbers increase over time, the total number of material resources available to sustain human life seems to be roughly constant (but I assume it is increasingly slightly over time as a consequence of better recycling, mining, manufacturing, and agricultural techniques (and perhaps eventually mining asteroids and planets other than Earth for minerals)). Along with the increase in global human population is an undeniable increase in the amount of harmful chemicals which are released into Earth’s atmosphere, bodies of water, and soil (which eventually make their way into the bodies of humans and hence cause serious health problems). I cannot help but notice humans acting very impatient and irritable seemingly towards me whenever I write or intensively think about such matters. I think that is because what I am ultimately trying to insinuate about these trends is a bit socially controversial (but I don’t see how it’s a problem for them given that they seem much more immune to environmental pollution and radiation than I am (because they drive big gasoline powered cars which barricades them from the environment and which protects them from the force of impact (and they can easily drive over shrimps like me while taking zero damage) and they dutifully and smugly wield a micro army of minor clones of the alpha male and the alpha female in the group). They just seem to have no need to address matters which do not immediately concern them nor jive with their patriarchal “might makes right” imperialist conservative Christian culture.

What I mean to imply about the global trends I described is that it will become increasingly difficult for people who are not already well fortified (economically and socially speaking) to sustain themselves as the cost of living (for them but not for “the chosen ones”) becomes prohibitively expensive. I imagine that, several decades from now, people will have to pay for equipment or access to hermetically-sealed environments which enable them to breathe clean, breathable air instead of suffocate. I might end up plotting and executing my own suicide if I think I won’t be able to escape what I think is “too much” suffering as a result of not having the requisite socioeconomic support I need to keep renewing my “lease on life” for a long enough period of time.

Perhaps “the great purge” is looming and a large percentage of the human population (to say nothing of other Earth-dwelling species) will perish as a result of not being ready for those apocalyptic waves. After sufficiently many humans are exterminated through that process, then the global human population size will likely be an optimum size (i.e. much smaller than it is today but not too small) will be able to resume living in relatively normal environmental conditions again because some kind of equilibrium will be attained and, hopefully for an indefinitely long time after, sustained such that all surviving humans at that point in human history can enjoy a material abundance which affords them a better standard of living than what most humans can afford today. Because supply and demand can be more carefully monitored and balanced at that time, there will likely be no major social conflict due to the fact that everyone would have more than enough material resources and social and infrastructural support to live consistently very well. By then, hopefully humans will have switched to entirely renewable (non-polluting and non-radioactive) energy sources (but if humanity procrastinates on that again, another “great purge” might be induced to occur or else all the humans would go extinct).