Since life’s inception, nature has held a gun against its back to evolve whichever traits are conducive to “fitness,” an ever-shifting goalpost in ever-changing ecological conditions. The only rule of this blood-sport: Survive and reproduce. Like what is known as ‘torture breeding,’ where an animal’s welfare is neglected for the artificial selection of desired cosmetic traits, natural selection follows no ethical guidelines. It has no idealistic aim. Suffering motivates animals to avoid bodily harm and seek power and sex, so it’s selected for. Slaughtering and raping helps animals be fruitful and multiply, so it’s selected for. A degree of compassion is competitive; so is a degree of cruelty.
However, we are part of nature and part of the ecological conditions which define what kind of fitness is in fashion. We influence life’s genetic fate in everything we do, from which products we buy to whom we choose to have offspring with. If we start making choices intentionally, in view of directing evolution toward nobility, we have a shot at countering the Nihilistic force of Darwinian natural selection.
Eugenics
Eugenics refers to state-imposed evolutionary selection. It’s extremely dangerous to allow the state, so often malevolent, to dictate a species’ genetic future. Eugenics was most famously used by the Whites to further oppress the oppressed e.g. black people, disabled people. But we recognize eugenics not just as an antiquated, anomalous atrocity, but a violent exercise of authority practiced by all states and in a broader sense, by all social hierarchies, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Anti-Darwinism is therefore necessary not just against the violence wrought by natural selection, but eugenics, torture breeding, and other tyrannical iterations of artificial selection as well.
Artificial selection (by which we simply mean intentional evolutionary selection) which is not violent is already normal practice – one may elect to avoid reproducing with their genetically ill partner in order not to pass on undue misery to their children, or hopeful parents may opt for a sperm or egg donour with a record of philanthropy. A partner may even be chosen on the basis of their inheritable traits, though this risks neglecting romantic compatibility.
Grassroots Anti-Darwinism
At this stage we can only appeal to people to choose carefully how and whether they reproduce so as to favour passing on noble traits (which we describe in the next section;) reject any selfish, egoistic obsession with “passing on THEIR genes and raising THEIR (biological) child;” and treat others equitably whether they’re one’s children or distant strangers.
Our appeal currently lacks mass appeal, as most are deeply ignoble and strongly predisposed to selecting partners with ignoble traits, as well as nepotism and tribalism. However, this is our strength rather than our weakness. It would be tragic for our ideology to suddenly become a mass movement and inevitably twisted and mischaracterized, its power to do good turned into the opposite. Instead, if we can encourage and guide the rare noble among us to work hard and unite in anti-Darwinian efforts, we stand a real chance of being able to positively influence demographics.
Noble and Ignoble Genes
A new standard of fitness will be based on high moral character (integrity) and exercise of our duty as stewards toward all living beings.
Evolutionary Biology (split into separate article)
Evolutionary Conservatism
“The developmental biology of a lineage determines the range of variation.”
Evolution’s cumulative nature means our most primitive, ancestral traits are also our most fundamental and persistent. Not because they’re the ‘fittest’, but because entire organisms and phyla have evolved upon their foundation, acting as a flesh shield for ancient genetics. Selection can only act on variation, and variation of an organism’s fundamental biology is constrained by the intricate vital componentry balanced precisely on top. Natural selection is no crafty engineer or “intelligent designer;” evolution is a process of trial and error. Error in this case would be extremely costly. Variability is therefore selected against until something undermines the outer defenses genomes complacently rely on. This makes ancient genetics highly resistant, not to their environment, but to evolution itself.
[img: Castle on pillars of sand. Text: The towers and walls are constantly being repaired and refined, but attempting to replace the sand with a more solid foundation could easily topple the whole castle.]
Despite the challenge this poses in destabilizing ignoble lineages, it also offers a way to secure noble lineages. Integrity can be hardcoded deep into an organism’s biology where copying accuracy is strongly selected for and any mutations would almost inevitably result in a swift end to the individual’s life. Cloning the entire genome, as in asexual reproduction, would be unnecessary and likely maladaptive.
Natural selection may not be a crafty engineer, but humankind is.
Survival of the flattest. Create a quasi-species to resist natural selection.