Silver Clouds, Dark Lining.

Alright. Let's see how brief I can keep this because I have better things to do than write about stuff I find fascinating that others may find boring...assuming people actually read this.

Human advancement is outpacing human evolution. I find it interesting that that is basically screwing us over.
Not that bettering human life is a bad thing. I appreciate not having to hunt or gather for food. I appreciate the roof over my head, clothes on my back, etc. Not having to worry about basic needs allows me to fill my head with other stuff...like the fact that human advancement is screwing us over.

Let's take diet for example.
We are evolved to binge eat. Back in the day, when we didn't have the means to order a Big Mac from the drive-thru window, we had to scour for food. When we kill an animal or find a berry bush, we eat as much as we can because there's no assurance that there will be food tomorrow. We have a taste for fat and sugars because they give us energy, provide us lasting nutrition, and because they were hard to come by.
Hunting and gathering led to fences, which encloses animals in one place allowing you to kill and cook at will. Soon, land became a big deal because you need it to fence in animals. Agriculture was discovered, so you don't have to go out and gather nuts and berries anymore. Large scale farming was developed. Factories to produce mass quantities of food came into being. Groceries stores, restaurants, and fast food chains began popping up practically everywhere there is people. In a couple thousand years, we went from having to search for nourishment, to eating as an enjoyable passtime.

To quench our affinity to fats and sugars, our foods are loaded with it. To satisfy our food-cravings, our urges to binge, we have supersized everything.

The result? Obesity.
Diabetes. Heart disease. High cholesterol. We have overshot our bodies' dietary limits. By making food more available, we are becoming sicker.

And that's not the only side effect. People are hitting puberty sooner. While at one point in time, boys' voices don't start cracking until they are 16 years old, they are now experiencing puberty at 14 at the latest.
So what?
Well, I have to do more research on this, but in the case of women, going through puberty at a younger age puts them more at risk of breast cancer. On purely evolutionary point of view, societal expectations and regulations aside, hitting puberty means one is ready to have sex. Something about pregnancy and the hormones involved (estrogen, progesterone, oxytocin, what have you) protects women against breast cancer. In the modern society, pregnancy is being put off later and later. While girls are ready to have a child at age 14, women don't have kids until 35. Now, a shocking 1 in 8 are at risk of breast cancer.

Scientists are studying how the pill may prevent breast cancer, actually. The hormones in the pill simulate the hormones during pregnancy.

I'm not saying that we should go back to living on mere subsistence. I'm sure as hell not saying that kids should have sex right when they hit puberty. I'm not offering any solutions to these public health issues either.

I just find human advancement so...stunning. It's crazy what we can do, how far we've come, what we've become as a race. But at the same time, our obsession with making things bigger, faster, and more convenient could have pretty averse side effects that ripples across the world and through generations. From a pessimistic viewpoint, but really because it rhymes and sounds like a line from a dystopia film, our quick innovations may very well lead to our slow destruction.

On a somewhat related note, watched 9 the other day. It was interesting. And depressing. I recommend it.