terrence mckenna talked of this
what if the next stage of evolution was the brain pumping out beta carbolines and tryptamines leading to a heightened awareness

everyone peaceful, enlightened and understanding

people would be at one with nature and profit and greed would dissapear

people would work for better good because they would be under influence of new chemical levels

leading to the food distribution that is possible, science boom to solve problems and no urge for material grain and hoarding


the traits of buddhist enlightment would be shared by all, betacarbolines would perpetuate the higher tryptamines,

this wont happen but is it not an interesting take on the next possible level of human evolution, evolution has happened before, if it is to happen drastically again then maybe this way, but on the tree of knowledge mckenna entertains something like this

i personally believe it is possible, unlikely soon, and a good plot for a novel

i seem to recall a certain mandatory grade school read, by an author named huxley...the utopian ideal was quite similar, and their drug was soma.

fiction is fun, sometimes. the fantasy world seems a lot more interesting than the real one.

Hi brainsand, what you describe sounds like a boring world to me.



Now, this sounds frightening - peace, enlightenment and understanding are only appreciated under the light of conflict, shallowness and non-understanding




Nature has it's own ways of thinking and acting, anyone who claims to know what is better for Nature is just talking bollocks. Nature is as peaceful, serene and beautiful as it is violent, turbulent and hostile. Now, seriously, what if Nature's workings also include the generation of self-destructive species (like ourselves to name one) that, as a part of their activities destroy themselves AND part of the natural world, giving the opportunity for Nature to regenerate and enter new circles of development?



I really do not know if that is possible, these processes are far more complicated in action than, say, enlightening thoughts post a mushrom / SLD trip like "yeah, the solution is soooo simple, just distribute love and food to everybody!"

If I were a political analyst, economist and or market researcher I would be able to have much stronger arguments on this issue...



Fair point, Utopian thoughts are very beautiful and the best tendency is to try to move towards their realisation! Now, I'm a bit confused about which is the next level of human evolution, can you explain me which was the last?? Again, remember Nature's ways are still unknown to us so She will decide, not us! (that is to say we might be able to force our own evolution, yet Nature will be the judge of the outcome!)

.....and I really dislike this terrence mckenna guy, he makes too many unsubstantiated wild speculations, he's a brilliant speaker though, that I can admit for certainty!

I like the romance of this notion. We'll all be blissed-out trippin' grocknobs all the time! Fabulous machines will do the labour required for keeping a huge population of incapacitated large mammals alive. Perhaps if we ever have such machines this kind of evolution would be possible. If seeing a majestic lattice of snakeskin/totem-pole/mayan mask caziness all over everything could somehow increase your adaptive fitness. . .

This notion is a little backwards from a biological standpoint tho. It has actually taken evolution a long time to clear all the trippy shit from our vision. Our visual system is not exactly 'heightened' by dosing carbolines and tryptamines because the aformentioned matrix of caziness in not really there, seeing it will never be necessary for you to breed. You must be able to mate and provide for your children sufficiently so that they do the same. If anyone does this they cast their vote for the future of human evolution.

The next stage of human evolution will depend on how the planet changes. We are adaptive generalists in an ecological sense. We are currently the most diverse single species ever. The earth is intrinsically unstable so a major contortion of environmental parameters is inevitable. When such a cataclysm happens some human populations, by chance, will have the adaptations to survive. The species will bottleneck and bloom. This happens to a lot of generalist populations and There is evidence that this has happened before during human evolution. This is one mechanism that allows evolution to go FAST.

food distribution would work
it takes 20-30 pounds of grain protein to equal one pound of meat

so ration meat by 50 percent and have 10 times amount of food
and the food can be hempseed and sunflower seed not rice

it would take a little work to get it to the mouths,

if everyone began pumping out dmt and betacarbolines and became blissed they would work for better good of everyone, it would be enlightenment shared by all

everyone would be a buddha

buddha's are lazy. they sit around meditating all day and depend on other people to provide them with food (they dont eat much but still). how is that an evolutionary advantage? not that i don't think meditation is a useful tool to use in your daily life. but if its all you do? plus the whole no sex thing wouldn't work either.

but you are right we can feed the world technically. but it also depends on how unstable nations decide to deal with their problems. you may argue that its the role of the UN or some other supra national organization to feed these poor people but then you look at whats going on in these countries when we do give them food people just rob it and hoard it and let their populations starve. or they kick all the white people who were producing food for the country out of their farms and replace it with war buddies (kind of like whats going on zimbabwae (i cant spell)). not to mention that most of these supra national organizations the WTO world bank IMF UN EU are all part of the problem.

freedom is the solution. womans rights, freedom from power hungry lunatics, freedom from religious dogma, freedom from other people owning your rights to operate a business. and if DMT or a big dose of beta carbolines is what people need to wake up and see that then thats the only evolutionary advantage it provides. psychs did it for me might not work for everyone though.

the majority of buddhists meditate all day, meditate as they work, 8-12 hours in the rice fields, then 4 hours of sitting meditation and then sleep, they lose themselves in their work, that is how they meditate
i could not keep up the work pace of a buddhist

so? its easy to lose oneself in ones work. im just fed up with religion looking for handouts or getting much undeserved respect.

edit: but yea i dont want to get into a debate about religion again hehe so ill stop

it's not biological evolution in the darwinian sense you could expect resulting, during this life, in a 'better human race' and therefore a better world. But a cultural evolution, an evolution of ideas can go much faster. Darwin actually based the concept of biological evolution on the then already and at that time popular concept of cultural evolution. Recently, thinkers like Richard Dawkins started talking about how ideas might spread and evolve in the same way as lifeforms do, using the term 'memes' instead of 'genes'. Like the budhists say every idea you have will have some effect on you and therefore on what you do, and therefore on the world. Thinking positive does matter. Positive thoughts will have an impact.

Fundamentally changing steady state levels of potent chemicals in the brain will require real genetic change = darwinian evolution. Cultural evolution could, in principle, lead to a world where everyone waskas all the time but it could not lead to dramatically increased endogenous production of DMT and carbolines.

Maybe we could invoke this scenario tho: In a culture where dosing all the time was the norm perhaps those individuals with higher endogenous levels would be more able to breed and this would drive humanity towards Buddhaness. An interesting, romantic scenario. The problem is that our community would have to become evangelical again and this really hurt the acceptance of psychedelics last time around.

Survival of the fittest is pretty much dead in first-world countries by now so the gene pool is getting weaker and weaker. The smartest and most physically fit used to be the ones to live to reproduce but now anyone can have children provided they have the money. Due to this fact, I think human evolution as a species is slowing down, I don't know about culturally.