I am starting to have serious concerns about the survival of our species. There is no reason to believe that humans can last forever with our current anatomical design.
I mean, just consider the dinosaurs. They walked the earth for 150 million years, and might still be around today if they had been willing to grow fur coats to withstand the Ice Age. They have no one to blame but themselves for evolving into nothing more than wire and bones, confined to life in a museum. Adaptation is key to survival. Species that fail to adapt become extinct. That is why I am proposing some major changes to our current anatomy in order to survive the Technology Age. This needs to happen now – before it’s too late!
First of all, the thumbs have got to go. They have outlived their usefulness.
Thumbs as we know them were fine for our ancestors the monkeys, chimpanzees and tree-climbing sloths. While they are still useful for grasping, they are completely outdated for texting or tweeting. And what do we do more of today — grasp or text? And when was the last time you climbed a tree?
A short, fat, rounded digit is totally impractical for the speed and accuracy we now require to communicate with each other via smaller and smaller keyboards on personal electronic devices. A longer, thinner, pointier thumb would be so much more efficient. Completely possible. Didn’t fins become arms andor legs as species moved from water to land?
And once we learn how to reconstruct the thumb, I suggest refining the index finger. While it remains useful for pointing (and the guilty pleasure of cleaning one’s nostril) it is not as streamlined as it could be for maximum usage of the I-Pad keyboard, or ordering reading material on an e-reader. If you ever tried to order Stephen King and got Martin Luther instead, you know what I mean.
At this point in time, I wouldn’t tamper with the middle finger; I think it is still quite functional for its dedicated purpose.
Moving right along, I would like to recommend a third eye to be situated on the top of the head. This is to prevent homo sapiens from stepping off curbs into oncoming traffic or falling off subway platforms because their necks are bent. As a result, the two optical orbs we have long relied on for visual cues are now consistently focused downward, staring at I-Phones. Or Droids. Or what have you. Granted that with the advent of the third eye, visits to the opthamologist might take a bit longer, and baseball caps would have to be redesigned, but those are small inconveniences when you consider how many accidents could be avoided. I would hate for future species to read that our kind were made extinct due to confrontations with modern predators, like moving vehicles. Or wars brought on by angry groups of people who are constantly bumping into each other.
Also included in my master plan for reconstruction of the human anatomy is a second set of ears. Look in the mirror. There is actually room on each side of the face to place another ear above the one we currently have. Though a bit odd-looking at first, it is a very practical adaptation. We can continue to stuff one set of aural cavities with ear buds, while having the capacity to perceive important environmental sounds, like, say, the person who is shouting at you that you are about to walk into an open man-hole.
And while we are on the subject of stuffing small articles into our ear canals, why should we have to spend money on a cell phone device? Wouldn’t it be cool if when our adult teeth grew in, one of them was blue?
In the process of accommodating to a new age, there may be body parts which will fall by the wayside due to disuse. For instance, since social networking does not require actual talking with one another, vocal cords may outlive their function, and, like tail bones, eventually become a vestige of a past life.
In conclusion, although I see our newly engineered bodies as a functional improvement, we must be cautious in our expectations. Adaptation is not perfect. Consider that humans have been standing erect for six million years, give or take, and we still suffer from aches and pains because of it. Evolution has failed to perfect the spine. But maybe if we continue to keep our necks bent forward staring at I-phones for hours on end, we may eventually resume the horizontal posture of our ancestors. Perhaps some problems are best solved by going backwards.
Love the blue tooth.
Beyond funny. But I do take exception to redesigning women’s index finger. It works perfectly well for one specific function and if used more often could save on batteries.
Couldn’t agree more. My bad for not taking this into consideration. New design may require some retooling!!
amen
Susan, your blogs are brilliant and witty. When they are compiled, you have a book. If Tom Bodett had been a Jewish woman in Connecticut, he would have been you, and he hasn’t faired too poorly. Consider this next step, please. I’ll leave the light on for you!