Somewhere between sensitive and obvious, Neanderthals fell without the benefit of warning; a particular group of their descendants became Homo Sapiens.
It's probably no surprise to some that the Fall of Man, depicted in famous art works and by theologians since - well, the Fall - is best equated with the phasing out of the Neanderthals, probably by a remarkably successful group of their offspring. Of course the transition then from the Neanderthals was not marked by specific, egregrious, onerous and insufferable violations of God's laws as the events during the most recent few thousand years which signaled the fall of Mankind. Stories like that of Cain and Abel are sufficiently equivalent to be of similar import: they may refer to groups, even very large groups, constituting species, as well as to individuals.
This has some meaningful real-world implications. Neanderthals fell, and the Church says that Man has already fallen. It's only a matter of time before the next group of dominant creatures, probably much like us in some ways, will have such different genetic codes in its chromosomal nuclei that no mating between the two would be possible. Wondering why I felt like an old coot, it's not just me after all.
Nothing symbolized the current Fall more distinctly than the Crucifixion of Christ, nor the rise, both preceding and following it, of great constructions and inevitably (because it was an evolutionary and instinctive goal) the attainment of the Moon.
Attainments and failures by the Neanderthals, while identifiable as an ability to survive almost anywhere and wielding materials in tools and weapons that were too big and clumsy, do not involve such distinct events. Even so, some of the same patterns exist. Modern humans can survive anywhere and already do, yet are extravagantly wasteful of massive quantities of the Earth's resources, and unconscionably savage in the rapacity with which the Earth's living creatures are slaughtered by industrial machinery for foodstuff as if they are so much dirt.
The parallels must be drawn more carefully and completely than is possible by this one author. It is vital from the beginning to equate any extinction of the human species with the Fall of Man described by the priests, because first, that is the eternal theater or arena which is compreheded by religion and it is already highly sophisticated at exactly that; and second, because human beings are now setting out (even though their children are now wireless) to begin a million or ten million years of Planethood, easy.
If the scenarios are well coordinated so that they can be presented as potential yet differing pre-concepts, then the concept can emerge without specific written dedications - as it should, because new people must be born in liberty. If the scenarios are neglected or ignored or badly presented, they will do nothing of value, and the next species of human beings will be clumsy in some other unredeemable way only to find itself in its own Fall, and watching its children doing something new which their parents don't understand.
The measures of the Earth, its people, and other factors are already being understood and compiled well. It only requires being tolerant of those setting out in the new directions. This is not so easy as it sounds for an old warlike civilization with a lot of blood on the hands of its species. Men still worry whether their kids will be good soldiers or better yet, generals and admirals. They worry whether their children are going into space rapidly enough.
Instead, it has to be taken into account that the great space adventures are thousands of years in the future, potentially more. The Solar System has nothing worth hurried development of, except for aggression against somebody else on Earth. On the Moon and other planets in this our Solar System there is no farmland arable or not; no breathable air, no open water, no life of any sort. Only the Moon and Mars even have solid surfaces on which to stand at temperatures that will not kill within minutes, and neither of them has any significant atmosphere.
To comprehend the scale on which no evidence has been found of any signals from transmissions in space almost requires a degree in electronic communications. The sensitivity of the receivers is astonishing, and they continually and minutely scrutinize every wavelength in existence.
This does not mean that those facts must be ignored forever, but the plain real actual honest truth is, there is no good reason to waste money going to the Moon or Mars or any other place in the Solar System, while Earth has the problems that it has. To be obsessively complete, there is no way to even TRY to reach any other star system yet.
Many, many people, apparently all fools, stack ifs like they were layers of cake and popcorn, to conclude that despite those facts, nations should be heavily or not, investing valuable money, time, coordination, human dreams, imagination, cooperation and planning in going to the Moon and Mars with the intention of colonizing those places. The most urgent schedule that can be made for flights to these two places at the present time is to solidly and believably confirm, for the benefit of all the people on Earth, that the reports by the United States, Russia and Japan are true. Gaining that credibility by the sheer integrity of each nation that goes visiting there is truly and vitally important for the whole world's peace of mind.
Beyond that, little more importance can be given to space flight beyond the Moon, a reasonable preferred limit to human space flight for now. Robots to the planets are okay; they seem to endanger no one and tend to be increasingly successful. Eventually when it is a piece of cake, human flights will take place throughout the solar system, but they could wait until technological development reaches a sophistication not yet met by human beings. For instance, exploration of the solar system wants a space ship with the resources to roam at will if necessary, and dispatch landing craft to the surfaces of other planets and moons. It would have to be equivalent preceptually to, say, fusion powered interplanetary space ships with antigravity, or something like that.
Orbital flight around the Earth already pays for itself and is certainly worth its investments in communications, weather, soil, land surface and oceanic surveys and every other kind of knowledge about the Earth. It's not at question. Strangely, it should not be necessary to fend of defensive people who obsessive so much about the need for massive human aggression into space that they attack even on just thinking about the factors involved in making policy. Some seem obsessed with the idea that space aliens must be lurking in every Moon shadow. Still others are utterly convinced the United States is lying about the Moon in its meticulous and candid reports, and falsifying information about nonexistent alien spacecraft, life in canyons or caves, and other crap. I know one person who insists there must be an inner world within the Moon where gardens exist, in which zebras, monkeys, antelopes, animals and crocodiles and alligators must surely live.
Yeah, right.
Some of the most surprising nations are among the most offensive in filling the entertainment world's fertile imaginations with an insistent regime of dogma that we must hurry to prepare defenses against - you can probably see it coming - space aliens. The worst is our own parent, England, which has given some kind of licence to the British Interplanetary Society to trump up UK sovereignty over all the Earth on the basis that only England can provide the sophisticated moral basis for government and negotiations with the new Galactic Empire. Oh, good.
Russians are not bad about developing such nonsense themselves, but they never call it down even when it misleads millions of people. Americans are possibly the most difficult though maybe I see it that way because I am one. We not only tolerate the British invention of fantastically funny, imaginative plot lines like Dr. Who and Red Dwarf, but add to it bathtub plunges like Stargate SG-1...n and weird journeys through tunnels. These and other superviolent shows provide the Pentagon with lots of material to spice up arms and weapons development, which was already way way way way WAY over the top in 1946. But just in case, The War of the Worlds, The Day the Earth Stood Still, the Martian Chronicles, and other Doom From Space theater is available so that Christians can deal with any competing religion.
The problems are so big, Man, that the only path from this species to the species that rules the Earth for millions of years will be through the worm tunnel.
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