Barack Obama: The 44th African-American President in a Row

There are roughly 300 million African-Americans living in the United States. That's exactly equal to 100% of its population. About a week ago, a solid majority of these African-Americans elected their 44th African-American President, Barack Obama (see accurate prediction in previous post).

In fact, African-Americans have had held the seats of power in every government of every country since the birth of the nation-state.

Dats right. Because we is all black.

And I mean that in the most racist way possible.

We are all members of the same genome/species/race that originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago and we're in the process of completing a grand tour of planet Earth.

It took us a good 130,000 years to get off our collective ass and head north out of Africa to Europe and the Middle East, eventually spreading across Asia and into North America.

...and apparently as far back as 50,000 BC the Steve Fossets of the world were still unnecessarily doing crazy shit and island hopping across the open Pacific in tree-trunk canoes...

Nonetheless, human origin and migration means three interesting things related to the politics of race in America:

1. For 70% of our entire history as a species, every single human being on Earth has had "black" skin. We didn't see any significant change in skin pigmentation until we moved away from the equator about 60,000 years ago (this map claims it was 100,000 years ago, but that's outdated).

2. When skin color, eye shape, and other subtle "racial" differences did begin to develop, no one noticed. Such changes would take countless generations to happen, and humans from different "skin zones" simply didn't have the technology to travel and come into contact with each other very often.

3. This all means that evolutionarily, we aren't used to seeing other humans with remarkably different skin color, etc. (and when we did, they were undoubtedly from another tribe very far away). This makes the dehumanization of other people based upon physical characteristics a relatively easy task for most homo sapiens.

Overcoming this "easy task" is what makes Barack Obama's election so special. The idea that 57 million non-black-skinned members of our species fought this urge, got together and elected a man who 'looks like someone who lives far away' to lead their nation is truly unprecedented-- possibly in all of human history.

Through the long history of our species, and the even longer history of human evolution, the modern idea of the hyphenated nationality 'African-American' (even 'Native American') becomes totally laughable.

At the end of the day such words are actually speed bumps for cultural cohesion. Depending on your politics, this can be a very good or very bad thing. Either way, just know that if you go back far enough, every single American president ever elected to office has had family from Kenya.

Who Will Win the Election and Why (Wonderful Sex)

According to the Theory of Evolution, the only thing everyone on Earth is trying to do is get laid. Reproduction (genes getting passed on to successfully live for another generation) is the engine of life on our planet, and whether you're a fruit fly with a day to live or a newborn American female with 80.1 years ahead of you, you are inextricably tied to your purpose as a gene injection/reception device.

Now before you go ape-shit and start throwing 50,000 years of evidence at me proving that this is not always true, understand that this theory operates on a bell curve, so there will always be outliers and exceptions, but for the vast majority of our history it's provable and statistically true.

For human beings, reproduction is not as simple as a little coitus sweet tangus. Successful human reproduction requires enormous amounts of "parental investment" long after getting it on -- which is a fancy way of saying "years of protecting your kid from harm, feeding your kid, and teaching him about life so he can grow up healthy and won't act like a moron and get himself killed."

Human being babies, in fact, require some of the highest levels of this "parental investment" of any modern species. Two big reasons:

1) Human babies are always technically born 'premature' my mammalian standards so that their fat human brains can squeeze out of the mom's narrow hips without killing her; because of their premature bodies, they are largely immobile for their first several years of life, so they need to be protected and fed for a comparatively long time. Contrast this with an animal like a horse that plops straight out of his mom and is running around "like a pony" within hours.

2) Humans outsmarted their competition through a very complicated set of social skills like verbal language that take years to develop and master.

So almost half a decade after birth, humans are still pretty helpless.
Which group are you more likely to trust to survive to adulthood on their own in the forest?
a. 10,000 four-year-old human beings
b. 10 four-year-old grizzly bears

Correct Answer: b.

Okay, so if reproduction is the fundamental task of all living things, and if with humans that means feeding/protecting your kids and teaching them well, what does it have to do with the 2008 Presidential Election? I propose the following explanation!

Firstly, though we live in a democracy in which the presidency is supposed to be only as powerful as Congress and the Supreme Court, we tend to exaggerate its importance to the point of electing a "father" or "mother" for our "family" (country).

Secondly, because we innately think in terms of electing a head-of-household, we look for surprising and sometimes completely unnecessary characteristics in a president: can you relate to him on a personal level? Does he make you feel safe? How is he with kids?

(Enter the political necessity of baby kissing... a practice so old, male chimps looking to climb the social ladder have been documented spending a good deal of time kissing/grooming unrelated babies to gain support from powerful females.)

This is the first round of tests for presidents. Our brains didn't evolve for hundreds of thousands of years on the African savanna deciphering the merits of flat tax policy or Medicare premiums. We evolved to value leaders that could ensure an environment in which we could successfully mate/raise kids, and every single issue in the campaign is tied to this value. Their order of importance is based in evolutionary terms:

It's Just That The Saber-tooth Tiger Doesn't See America the Way You and I Do...
The Saber-tooth Tiger Pals Around With Terrorists

#1 Physical Safety - The quickest way to kill your chances of reproduction is to get killed or wounded by a wild animal or another human being. A war thousands of miles away in Iraq does not threaten your immediate safety, but if America were getting invaded by another country, you can bet your monkey ass that even the vaunted "economy" issue would be taking a back seat, and we'd be looking to the first guy who could viably get us out of that mess -- sub-prime mortgages are hardly a concern when your house is being shelled.

#2 Food Availability - The second quickest way to kill your chances of reproduction is to starve. "The economy" and the housing crisis is a big deal right now, but don't be fooled -- your home losing "value" is just a metaphor. A house's "value" is only important because at the end of the day, that value=money and that money=food.

#3 Direct Child Investment - Health care and education overlap as issues in this category. The idea of modern health care is not rooted in any part of your genes, but the notion of saving yourself or your child from sickness and disease is a fundamental concern of human parents. And even if you're safe, healthy, and well fed, if you never learn to feed yourself, communicate with other humans, or solve complex problems in your environment, you are also screwed.

("Education" as I'm using the term is the same in every culture, but it is brought to children in very different ways depending on the culture. Our society just happens to rely on 'schools' to accomplish it.)

Again, this is why the Evolutionary Issues are ordered as such -- early death because of improper education may take years, death by disease can take weeks or months, starving/dehydrating to death can take only 2 days, and getting your head bit off by a lion takes about 3 seconds.

ALL other issues: energy, immigration, taxes, etc. must be tied to one of the three evolution based categories above if they are to become important to the majority of the American bell curve. The issue of climate change is a great example... only a few scientists/tree huggers gave a shit about the issue until it was made evident to the public that it threatened the economic health of the nation. And for many hardcore Republicans, even that wasn't enough -- John McCain had to spin it into a national security issue just to make it click with his base.

WHO WILL WIN IN 2008:

Every election is decided on one of the above Evolutionary Issues, it's just a matter of which one of the three is the greatest threat to successful reproduction at the time of the election.

John McCain and the Republican Party poll better on physical safety issues, but most Americans see these issues as far less pressing than the current potential loss of access to food (57% ranked economy as top issue and 9% ranked terrorism as a top issue in the latest CBS News/NYTimes Poll and it continues to trend that way.)

Barack Obama and the Democratic Party poll better on issues regarding food availability, therefore Barack Obama will win this election.

Education and health care are less important than food availability (8% ranked those as a top priorities in the same poll), but a majority of Americans see Obama as stronger in those categories as well so it will add to his electoral victory.

Racism will be a deciding factor for voters only in outlying mutant populations where reproductive priorities have been retarded by extreme cultural factors. But in evolutionary terms, humans making decisions based upon skin color in times in which skin color has absolutely no effect on their access to food will, over time, eventually die out and be replaced by more responsible (and well fed) populations.

Infanticide, Jim Halpert, and Cabinet Genetics

Infanticide can occur in animal groups when a new dominant male takes a leadership position that grants him the ability to make sweet love to any young lady of his choice. In this instance, newly minted alpha males entering a foreign group will attempt to kill some or all of the infants/toddlers who were fathered by the old alpha male. This is thought to happen for two main reasons: 1) it will restart the mother's reproductive cycle and ensures she's ready to have sex with the new guy right away 2) the ex-alpha male's genes don't survive for another generation.

Infanticide Fail!


In evolutionary terms, a regular change in group leadership most often keeps the group quite fit. You don't want old busted genes floating around your gene pool, and the constant competition for the seat at the top, which gets one pleasured beyond his wildest chimpish dreams, is much like a lifelong presidential campaign that is designed to ensure that the guy or gal in charge is genetically competent.

In many species of primates and even African lions, a change of leadership within a group usually means the prior dominant male or female was too old, too sick, or simply outmatched by a stronger rival. But before you get all Barry Bonderful and start 'roiding your way to social success, know that brute size and strength does not guarantee a male attains or holds an alpha rung on the social ladder. In chimps especially, males must possess political acumen and social brains that can build friendships, alliances, and learn patience and political timing.



This the Halpertian Model of Social Dominance, named for Jim Halpert from "The Office" who successfully gains reproductive access to the widely pursued Pam Beasley utilizing three grueling years of witty inside jokes, warm emotional empathy, a garnered respect from rivals and effective friendship with nearly everyone within his group. Least important, though still necessary, was his ability to withstand the crushing physical blows of ousted alpha male and ex-fiancee Roy Anderson. (Though the writers will undoubtedly introduce another suitor or obstacle for Jim to overcome to keep his sexual access to Pam... but it keeps the storyline alive, and Jim will undoubtedly triumph in the end -- the public always enjoys the success of Halpertian model males. They're just really "good guys," you know?)

Because all American Presidents must rely on their political skill --not brute strength-- to rise to power, they can all be seen as Halpertian Males. Even Presidents like Andrew Jackson who dueled 13 times and likely killed more men on his own than any American President in history spent the overwhelming majority of his time and energy building coalitions and strategically garnering influence to rise to power.

The American government is based on frequent changes in leadership-- the only difference is access to political and economic power instead of mates (though for a few it was both). The framers of the Constitution believed such steady change would be "healthy" for the state.

So does that mean our Halpertian alpha male presidents practice infanticide when they first take control -- even though they got they're such "nice guys"??

Absolutely.

Presidential infanticide goes beyond an administration's tendency to surround the president with people from his own party. Even when the president brings in members of the opposite party to cabinet power, like Clinton did with Republican Bill Cohen as Secretary of Defense in 1996, they are still usually "genetic mutants" within their own party that share a good deal of political genes with sitting alpha male. For instance, Mr. Cohen was a centrist Republican heavily involved in Nixon's Watergate investigation and was liberal on most social issues.

The best recent example of a classic political infanticide is President Reagan's transition from Jimmy Carter's administration. He cleaned out every last speck of Carter and swept an entirely new group of cabinet members into the White House just as most non-incumbent parties had done previously. When access to the seductive wombs of power and money was involved, alpha Reagan took few chances at political cuckoldry and wasted no time killing off the political toddlers leftover from the previous administration. What a swell guy....



Such clean sweeps however, are rare in most primate groups. When an alpha male comes to power after replacing a close relative (who is a close genetic match) such as a brother or father, he is highly unlikely to engage in full scale infanticide.

A good example this in presidential terms is President H.W. Bush's takeover after the Reagan administration. H.W. Bush kept many of Reagan's cabinet members including Elizabeth Dole and James A. Baker. Bush was the closest progeny of President Reagan, and group members like Dole and Baker were directly related political siblings.

So what about poor Cheney, Rice, and the rest of George W. Bush's political progeny? The political life expectancy for any of W. Bush's ideological offspring is probably one of the lowest in American history. And though Barack Obama has promised to bring in Republicans like Chuck Hagel and Dick Lugar to his 2008 cabinet should he win the presidency, rest assured these Republicans have earned such favor with alpha Obama by sharing genes with him on specific issues like the war in Iraq, and more importantly, straying quite far from Bush's pack of genetic retards during the unhappy 2004 and 2006 mating seasons.

The Fightin' 45 !!

About 45% of Americans don't believe in the theory of evolution. In an effort to decrease this number, let's take a YouTube journey through the human genome and see if you recognize any of the following behavior as human:

Shares 93% of your DNA



Shares 96% of your DNA



Shares 100% of your DNA


Sure, it's easy to poke fun at religious nut-jobs, but my point here is based largely in the irony that the very people who most fervently reject the ideas of evolution probably spend more hours every Sunday running around like crazed chimps than any other demographic in America.

HE'S GOT A PAIR OF BIG BRASS Blongterm relationships

On November 4, 2008 you are going to choose between two pairs of gonads for president. You may base your decision on "the issues": perhaps one pair of testes has a better health care plan, one pair is stronger on foreign policy, one sack is a maverick, and the other scrotum promises change. But if you are among the 13% of Americans who still qualify as "undecided", you may be interested to know what other effects these nuts have on your judgment.

It is well documented that testosterone affects many visible characteristics in human males; in puberty and early adulthood, very high levels of the hormone create the "firm chiseled jaw line" typical of action movie alpha males and super-sculpted gay porn stars alike.

Studies show that women tend to favor men displaying such characteristics for brief sexual encounters and one night stands, but often select for conversely "feminine features" when looking for a lasting relationship (see link).

In evolutionary terms, this makes sense. If you are going to take a chance on getting someone else's genes injected into your body, and have no time to really get to know them (a one night stand), you'll go for the healthiest looking/most confident guy in the room. If, however, you are looking to start a family, you will favor someone with less testosterone -- someone who is less likely to cheat on you, who engages in less aggressive/violent behavior, and who, on average, is more likely to have honed important problem solving/social skills in the absence of brute strength.

To add to the hormonal chaos, this preference can be exaggerated if the woman is on birth control. One study found that women on birth control who were drawn to "hyper-masculine" men while on the pill, later found themselves unhappy in their relationships when they stopped the drug in an effort to have a baby.

Check it out: Russell Crowe from 2003, what a man!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2677697.stm

So what's it going to be this election season? Are you feeling vulnerable and looking for a strong-man who can protect you and then give you the night of your life? Or are you wary from a painful past relationship and looking for someone who won't screw you over a second time?

...Or perhaps you aren't satisfied with either candidate? In that case, maybe you should just grow a pair and run yourself.