Hello, it’s me again, Tony, from Noēsis. Thank you very much for watching. We’re going to talk about Inertia here. Now–how would inertia apply to what we do? Well, as you’ll see, it’s very central. Inertia describes the tendency to remain unchanged in the absence of an outside force. This is either Newton’s First Law of Motion, or a handy metaphor for human sustainability. Let’s make it the second one. That’s why Noēsis is here. Humans don’t understand the evolutionary triggers that give birth over and over to our repetitive – and ruinous – choices. The idea that two million years of evolutionary baggage is weighing on modern human beings is not a hard sell. Or is it?? If it’s so easy for me to point that out, and if it’s so easy for you to understand it, then why can’t we identify that phenomenon alone (evolutionary influence on modern behavior) as being at the center of all human turmoil. We now can. In fact, I JUST DID. So–look behind me, at the human evolutionary timeline. Watch me identify two major examples of inertia and then watch me pinpoint the outside force that altered both. Are you ready?? INERTIA 1. Two million years ago “Homo Erectus” first appeared in the African Congo Basin. That ensuing inertia lasted 1.7 million years. What altered that inertia? INERTIA 2: What altered Inertia 1 is you and me–human beings. Homo Sapiens first appeared in the African Congo around 275,000 years ago. We’re not certain how, but we are certain that it happened. How? Here’s a hint. I’m here and you’re there. We exist! We can all agree on that. Humans appearing on Earth altered Homo Erectus’ inertia. Homo Sapiens took over, and our subsequent migratory journey took us to all corners of the globe. Humans arrived in North America only 30,000 years ago, across the Bering Strait. This migratory inertia was also altered by a traceable event. What was it? Ask me something hard! INERTIA 3. By 20,000 years ago, (humans) settled down into increasingly larger groups. These larger groups then turned into villages. These villages turned into towns. These towns eventually turned into cities. Cities would progress to empires. ________________________________ As INERTIA 3 was forming, humans needed food to feed larger populations. An agricultural awakening took care of that. Domesticated Beasts of Burden, herded by pack animals such as dogs, would allow humans to grow ever more expansive fields of crops. Deeply baked-in migratory behaviors of Collaboration were discouraged, as behaviors of Acquisition slowly intruded upon the human experience. THIS THIRD AND FINAL INERTIA, one of ongoing, frenzied Acquisition, continues today. Let’s key in on this one and isolate a glaring concern for modern humankind, one that may end our species if not addressed. Specifically: The inertia that we humans assumed, by the events I just described, has no visible outside force that would alter it. To complicate matters, this inertia, this churn of endless acquisition, has never once succeeded. What gives Noēsis the authority to make that statement, that no human culture has survived “Acquisitive Meritocracy”? Here it is. Every human culture that featured this current inertia, one of frenzied acquisition, has enjoyed an average run of about (250) years. All of them collapsed under the weight of growing complexity, events that were eerily precise in nature, from one lost culture to the next. And we then start the whole thing over again! Any sentient being that doesn’t understand itself can never alter itself. The result is, and always has been, guaranteed failure, not by choices, but by things we don’t understand–evolutionary mechanisms way too many to count. No blame or judgment applies to the current human inertia. Noēsis is here for the job of altering this inertia if you’ll only let us! Thank you!