The Damned Human Race

[DATo]

The Damned Human Race

by

DATo


I read somewhere that men first domesticated animals about 80,000 years ago. Then in the year 0 we find Romans building aqueducts and roads. In other words it took 80,000 years from putting cows in pens to building aqueducts. It then took a mere 1969 years from building aqueducts to putting a man on the moon. The point I am trying to make is that modern man became modern man very, very quickly. Our technology has surpassed our basic primal, animal instincts for individual greed and power by leaps and bounds.

We are still Cro-Magnon Man. This is not meant as a pejorative but a fact. Our technologies, forms of government, economics and general lifestyles give us the illusion that we are more advanced than prehistoric man, but actually the opposite is true. Scientists believe that prehistoric man was, on average, much smarter than we are. He needed to be smarter to survive in the unsympathetic environment he found himself in. Those who were stupid did stupid things and died so the "smart" gene prospered through propagation and the "stupid" gene died off. This was part of natural selection, but smart does not necessarily mean moral as we would define morality.

It is a sobering thought to consider that in addition to being intelligent all of our far distant ancestors were among the most murderous, thieving, rapacious and "immoral" humanoids who ever lived ... if they hadn't been we wouldn't be here because that's what it took to survive. Those genes prospered as well. Man's technology and mode of living has advanced because a very few special people over human history created technological inventions, forms of government and law, and forms of trade. The VAST majority of the estimated 100,000,000,000 (that's billion) people who have ever lived simply used what the "special" people gave us but the rest were, down at the bone, still little more than savage animals. They were then, and we are today.

Is it any wonder then why we see so much tyranny, greed, immorality and corruption even among the world's civic leaders, religious leaders or just about anyone you'd care to name? As William Golding said in Lord Of The Flies when explaining to Simon the nature of the beast ... "I'm close. I am part of you. I am the reason it's no go."

I did not will the fingers of my hands into existence, it took millions of years of evolutionary attrition to create them, as it took millions of years for us to psychologically become what we are and unfortunately we are not going to change any time soon. Lurking silently just below the surface of our confident pseudo sophistication lies the face of the beast.

[Pompey Bum]

Congratulations, DATo, for having the courage to look the beast in the face. What you say is so obvious that I sometimes wonder if optimism--pretending our evolved nature is something other than what it is--isn't just a trick of natural selection. Maybe it's easier to "smile as you kill" (as John Lennon said) if you pretend, hey, it's all good. Or maybe it's a necessary lie if we are to live together at all. But humans are damned by their very nature, and civilization is fragile as a baby's skull.

There was no year zero, of course, but perhaps that was some literary device. :)

[YesNo]

It then took a mere 1969 years from building aqueducts to putting a man on the moon.

How do you know we put a man on the moon?

[Danik 2016]

You expose the wound, DATo. What worries me most is the amount of destructive technology the modern beast has at its disposal.

[PeterL]

The Damned Human Race

by

DATo


I read somewhere that men first domesticated animals about 80,000 years ago. Then in the year 0 we find Romans building aqueducts and roads. In other words it took 80,000 years from putting cows in pens to building aqueducts. It then took a mere 1969 years from building aqueducts to putting a man on the moon. The point I am trying to make is that modern man became modern man very, very quickly. Our technology has surpassed our basic primal, animal instincts for individual greed and power by leaps and bounds.

Your information is a little off. Apparently dogs were the first animals that were domesticated, but when that was is uncertain. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/03/mans_first_friend.html
Sheep, goats, and cattle were domesticated between 10,000 BCE and 7,000 BCE. And there was no year 0.


We are still Cro-Magnon Man. This is not meant as a pejorative but a fact. Our technologies, forms of government, economics and general lifestyles give us the illusion that we are more advanced than prehistoric man, but actually the opposite is true. Scientists believe that prehistoric man was, on average, much smarter than we are. He needed to be smarter to survive in the unsympathetic environment he found himself in. Those who were stupid did stupid things and died so the "smart" gene prospered through propagation and the "stupid" gene died off. This was part of natural selection, but smart does not necessarily mean moral as we would define morality.

Cro-Magnons were just a small tribe that hasn't existed for thousands of years. We Neanderthals dominate, and not only do we have bigger brains, but we are smarter than the later varieties of H. sapiens.



It is a sobering thought to consider that in addition to being intelligent all of our far distant ancestors were among the most murderous, thieving, rapacious and "immoral" humanoids who ever lived ... if they hadn't been we wouldn't be here because that's what it took to survive. Those genes prospered as well. Man's technology and mode of living has advanced because a very few special people over human history created technological inventions, forms of government and law, and forms of trade. The VAST majority of the estimated 100,000,000,000 (that's billion) people who have ever lived simply used what the "special" people gave us but the rest were, down at the bone, still little more than savage animals. They were then, and we are today.

Is it any wonder then why we see so much tyranny, greed, immorality and corruption even among the world's civic leaders, religious leaders or just about anyone you'd care to name? As William Golding said in Lord Of The Flies when explaining to Simon the nature of the beast ... "I'm close. I am part of you. I am the reason it's no go."

I did not will the fingers of my hands into existence, it took millions of years of evolutionary attrition to create them, as it took millions of years for us to psychologically become what we are and unfortunately we are not going to change any time soon. Lurking silently just below the surface of our confident pseudo sophistication lies the face of the beast.

The desire to gain more o everything, especially food and women, is fundamental to being human. That's why so many people are obese.

[Pompey Bum]

Cro-Magnons were just a small tribe that hasn't existed for thousands of years. We Neanderthals dominate, and not only do we have bigger brains, but we are smarter than the later varieties of H. sapiens.

Not exactly, Peter. As usual with prehistory everything is controversial and subject to change, but Cro-Magnons are usually considered the earliest known example of (our sort of) Homo sapiens found in Europe. Even if Homo neanderthalensis turns out to be Homo sapiens neanderthalensis (an old controversy) it would still only represent a subspecies. The question of whether Neanderthals bred into the Homo sapiens population (the Absorption Hypothesis) remains controversial. The first DNA results seemed negative; then other results (reported with great authority in the media) seemed to strongly affirm it; then less widely reported analyses called those results into question. We are not Neanderthals in any case, although we may (or may not) have retain some Neanderthal DNA. And to make things more complicated "our kind" of Homo sapiens existed in Africa long before the Magdalenian (Cro-Magnon) culture in Europe.

I'm sure you could find links challenging what I have written. And I could find links challenging those. The truth, of course, can only be provided by a missing link. :) (Not! I'm just making a bad pun).

[PeterL]

Not exactly, Peter. As usual with prehistory everything is controversial and subject to change, but Cro-Magnons are usually considered the earliest known example of (our sort of) Homo sapiens found in Europe. Even if Homo neanderthalensis turns out to be Homo sapiens neanderthalensis (an old controversy) it would still only represent a subspecies. The question of whether Neanderthals bred into the Homo sapiens population (the Absorption Hypothesis) remains controversial. The first DNA results seemed negative; then other results (reported with great authority in the media) seemed to strongly affirm it; then less widely reported analyses called those results into question. We are not Neanderthals in any case, although we may (or may not) have retain some Neanderthal DNA. And to make things more complicated "our kind" of Homo sapiens existed in Africa long before the Magdalenian (Cro-Magnon) culture in Europe.

I'm sure you could find links challenging what I have written. And I could find links challenging those. The truth, of course, can only be provided by a missing link. :) (Not! I'm just making a bad pun).

The only controversy in regard to "whether Neanderthals bred into the Homo sapiens population" is whether the opponents of that position have bothered doing any research or thought in the matter. You may recall that the initial major problem in the analysis of DNA of Neanderthals was finding differences between them and the so-called modern humans. The subsequent finding that most of today's humans have from 3 to 5% Neanderthal genes states that Neanderthal DNA was mixed with other varieties of humans, which means that they were of the same species. A species is defined as a group of organism that can successfully reproduce and produce fertile offspring. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/species
That 3 to 5 % of genes are Neanderthal means that some of their genes were specific, but most genes were common to both Neanderthals and other varieties or humans.

What I am wondering is where the RH positive factor comes from, because that almost certainly was picked up from a variety that was just a hair shy of being a different species.

[Pompey Bum]

Yeah, but there was a study after that (from Cambridge?) that suggested it wasn't Neanderthal DNA at all but that of a common ancestor of both groups from Africa. I don't have a position and am not especially interested. Whichever side is right, modern humans are neither Homo neanderthalis or Homo sapiens neanderthalis, so "we Neanderthals" (as you said) is not exactly correct (as I said).

[PeterL]

Yeah, but there was a study after that (from Cambridge?) that suggested it wasn't Neanderthal DNA at all but that of a common ancestor of both groups from Africa. I don't have a position and am not especially interested. Whichever side is right, modern humans are neither Homo neanderthalis or Homo sapiens neanderthalis, so "we Neanderthals" (as you said) is not exactly correct (as I said).

Yes, the common ancestor did provide most of the genetic material, and modern humans are Homo sapiens, because the race or subspecies Homo sapiens neanderthalis collapsed into the rest of the species, so that now there are no races or subspecies of Homo sapiens.

[Pompey Bum]

Works for me.

On another subject, I wonder how many people think there was a year zero between 1 BCE and 1 CE. I wonder how many people know that the decades don't go 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969 (which would require a year zero) but 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970; and that all those dummies who partied like it was 1999 back in 1999 were not celebrating the turn of the millennium but only the turn of the penultimate to the ultimate year of the 90s decade. Not that the numbers we give years are anything but arbitrary, but I still found it amusing at the time.

[PeterL]

On another subject, I wonder how many people think there was a year zero between 1 BCE and 1 CE. I wonder how many people know that the decades don't go 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969 (which would require a year zero) but 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970; and that all those dummies who partied "like it was 1999" back in 1999 were not celebrating the turn of the millennium but only the turn of the penultimate to the ultimate year of the 90s decade. Not that the numbers we give years are anything but arbitrary, but I still found it amusing at the time.

It's almost funny that people have that mistaken idea. I think it may be rooted in years being one of the few ordinal numbers that we do not use the normal ordinal ending on. Similarly, the days of the month are also ordinals. But I believe that there was a time when it was common to say the second day of the month July in the 1386th year of out lord. U winder when it started being abbreviated.

RE decades: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
That's the way it is. on the tenth day of September in the 2016th year of their lord.

[AuntShecky]

The hilarious humorist and ironically incurable pessimist Mark Twain first coined the expression" The Damned Human Race."

One of the most inexplicable features of our species is the fact that we've undeniably evolved physically and technologically, but our moral and rational natures have failed to keep up. It may be argued that some cultures have made progress in terms of ameliorating evils such as racism, but no one can truthfully say that we've eliminated everything in that sphere. Indeed, newer forms of racism, both insidious and blatant, have arisen along with problems still extant in other areas of human rights, income inequality and so forth.

One question to ask is why so many human beings are influenced if not motivated by fear. This makes those who have insufficient critical thinking skills susceptible to opportunists and tyrants.

Fear also provides fertile ground for crackpot conspiracy theories. For instance, some folks adamantly believe that the 1969 moon landing was staged. Preposterous, I know.

But I still haven't heard a satisfactory explanation of how the flag which the NASA astronauts planted on the moon's surface could be "waving."

[PeterL]

One of the most inexplicable features of our species is the fact that we've undeniably evolved physically and technologically, but our moral and rational natures have failed to keep up. It may be argued that some cultures have made progress in terms of ameliorating evils such as racism, but no one can truthfully say that we've eliminated everything in that sphere. Indeed, newer forms of racism, both insidious and blatant, have arisen along with problems still extant in other areas of human rights, income inequality and so forth.

The physical evolution has been to make humans better suited for their fundamental natures of greedy, self-serving creatures that are only interested in self-preservation.


But I still haven't heard a satisfactory explanation of how the flag which the NASA astronauts planted on the moon's surface could be "waving."

The flag on the Moon had a rod running through the top hem to hold it out, and it had been shaken shortly before the photo was taken, so that there were ripples running across it.

[YesNo]

Fear also provides fertile ground for crackpot conspiracy theories. For instance, some folks adamantly believe that the 1969 moon landing was staged. Preposterous, I know.

But I still haven't heard a satisfactory explanation of how the flag which the NASA astronauts planted on the moon's surface could be "waving."

Glad to see you posting again, AuntShecky!

I'm also glad you picked up on my Moon landing comment.

Whatever my personality dysfunctions, and I probably have my fair share, I don't think it is fear. That is a 1960s way to solve the problem of Persistent Opposing Viewpoints From People Who Won't Shut Up, otherwise known as POVFPWWSU. It helps explain why someone could be so irrational as to disagree with what is obviously true. They must be afraid of something. What they are afraid of is irrelevant.

I look at it more as humor. If those Moon landings were faked, it would strengthen DATo's case. Imagine being so gullible as to believe everything we see on TV provided some authority figure (president, astronaut, scientist, advertiser) says it is true. That's even more entertaining than going to the Moon.

[Pompey Bum]

One of the most inexplicable features of our species is the fact that we've undeniably evolved physically and technologically, but our moral and rational natures have failed to keep up.

Failed to keep up? They're running in the opposite direction. If you or I were drowning in a lake and someone swam from shore to save us, our instinct would be to shove his or her head underwater in an absurd attempt to save ourselves. Only by driving back our instinctive mind could we hope to be saved. It is possible, but it is not what we evolved to do. We evolved to kill even our would-be saviors.


One question to ask is why so many human beings are influenced if not motivated by fear.

Fear fires the adrenaline glands beside the human heart. The boost that gives means more dead cave bears, fewer chewed up cave babies, and more quality time with the savage spouse. From an evolutionary point of view, what's not to understand? The bear wasn't there for tea and muffins.


Fear also provides fertile ground for crackpot conspiracy theories. For instance, some folks adamantly believe that the 1969 moon landing was staged. Preposterous, I know.

I agree, Aunty, and you tempt me. But I'm afraid I couldn't possibly comment. :)

[Danik 2016]

[QUOTE=Pompey Bum;1326601]Failed to keep up? They're running in the opposite direction. If you or I were drowning in a lake and someone swam from shore to save us, our instinct would be to shove his or her head underwater in an absurd attempt to save ourselves. Only by driving back our instinctive mind could we hope to be saved. It is possible, but it is not what we evolved to do. We evolved to kill even our would-be saviors.=QUOTE]

I agree and I´m going to sign up to POVFPWWSU if I manage a correct spelling of it.
Some quoting problem.

[DATo]

Thanks to all who responded to this thread. I had no idea when I submitted it that it would draw so much interest.

1) Pompey Bum is quite correct. There is no year 0. An obvious gaff for which I have no excuse. It should have been "year 1".

2) AuntShecky - Mark Twain did indeed write a story titled, The Damned Human Race. It was included in a collection of short stories titled, Letters From The Earth. This is obviously a DIFFERENT Damned Human Race essay. Warner Brothers once threatened to sue over the production of the Marx Brothers film, A Night In Casablanca because of the word "Casablanca" - the name of their more famous movie. Groucho shot off a letter threatening to counter sue because the Marx Brothers had been on the earth longer than Warner Brothers and by the logic of the original complaint Warner Brothers was also in violation of copyright for using the word "Brothers". (Warner Brothers withdrew the demand that they change the title.) *LOL*

3) We are Cro-Magnon, not Neanderthal. Sorry PeterL. It has been determined that there is, at most, only 2% Neanderthal (technically a different species) genes in the current human genome.

4) YesNo - How do I know we landed men on the moon? Well, because the government told me we did. Of course the government has lied to me about so many things in the past that now I'm not so sure. ~~~~~~ A Mystery ~~~~~~~~

[PeterL]

3) We are Cro-Magnon, not Neanderthal. Sorry PeterL. It has been determined that there is, at most, only 2% Neanderthal (technically a different species) genes in the current human genome.


You may be a Cro-Magnon, but the rest of humans are not, and Neanderthals certainly were not a separate species. You might want to do some reading in the subject.

[DATo]

You may be a Cro-Magnon, but the rest of humans are not, and Neanderthals certainly were not a separate species. You might want to do some reading in the subject.

Greetings PeterL !

It is so exciting to meet a self-proclaimed Neanderthal, but of course you are wrong so stop running about claiming to be one - you're frightening the children! Neanderthals share 99.7% of their DNA with modern man, chimpanzees share 99% of their DNA with modern man; therefore, there is a .3% difference in our shared DNA with Neanderthals thus making them a separate species.

I refer you to the following article: http://phys.org/news/2014-11-neanderthals-sub-species-modern-humans.html Read the opening paragraph slowly and carefully.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum!

[Pompey Bum]

I just know this is going to end with a clubbing--which rather proves DATo's original point. :)

[PeterL]

I just know this is going to end with a clubbing--which rather proves DATo's original point. :)

Which club is who going to join?

There seems to be a general lack of understanding of some of the basic vocabulary of biology. Many people don't understand what makes species species, even though the definition is very simple and unambiguous.

[Pompey Bum]

Which club is who going to join?

There seems to be a general lack of understanding of some of the basic vocabulary of biology. Many people don't understand what makes species species, even though the definition is very simple and unambiguous.

No, I meant you two were bound to go drinking up and down Newbury Street some night. :)

As I said, I don't really have a dog in this race. But I'll take the species challenge just the same. Like any decent American boy, I learned about sex not on the streets but in barns--in my case those on my great uncle's farm in deepest, darkest Iowa. According to that trusted male mentor, a species was a group of organisms that could produce fertile offspring, and if they couldn't (and this is direct quote) they were "useless as balls on a mule."

Now my good uncle knew little of DNA science, but I'm betting the daily double here is "What is interbreeding, Peter?" Modern humans seem to have at least some DNA, and didn't there from holding hands. So we must be the same species. That was going to be your argument, right?

If so, maybe you're right. King Philip came over for gratuitous sodomy, as the old memory device goes. So yes, same species. Neanderthals would probably have been a subspecies of Homo sapiens, though, and as we agreed before, modern humans are not Neanderthals.

On the other hand, maybe you are wrong. I found 2012 article about the Cambridge University study I was remembering, which casts doubt on the interbreeding hypothesis. If it is correct, there is little reason to think that Neanderthals were a kind of Homo sapiens at all.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/aug/14/study-doubt-human-neanderthal-interbreeding

"When scientists discovered a few years ago that modern humans shared swaths of DNA with long-extinct Neanderthals, their best explanation was that at some point the two species must have interbred.

"Now a study by scientists at the University of Cambridge has questioned this conclusion, hypothesising instead that the DNA overlap is a remnant of a common ancestor of both Neanderthals and modern humans...

[Researcher] Andrea Manica said the analysis had over-estimated the amount of shared DNA between Neanderthals and humans that could be explained by interbreeding. The analysis had not taken into account the genetic variation already present between different populations of the ancestors of modern humans in Africa...

"About 350,000 years ago, the European and African ranges of this last common ancestor became separate: the European range would later evolve into Neanderthals and the African range into anatomically modern humans, who left the continent 70,000 years ago to cover the world."

The idea receives some (circumstantial) support from archaeology, which shows a thriving Magdalenian (Cro-Magnon) culture existing separately from stressed and marginalized Neanderthal neighbors. The former had a highly specialized tool technology, including ivory needles for making snugly fitting clothes. Needles have never been found at Neanderthal sites; presumably they were wearing clothes (they survived two nasty ice ages), but they may have been merely tying hides together. Near the end, when they were sharing Europe with the Magdalenians, there is evidence for intra-Neanderthal cannibalism, suggesting desperation and starvation while the Magdalenians were thriving. It is even possible that disappearance of the Neanderthals was facilitated by mad cow disease spread by the cannibalism. My source for all this information is a friend who teaches physical anthropology at the University of Connecticut.

Now read my lips: I don't care which way it happened. But I do assert my original position that controversies continue to exist about whether Neanderthals and Homo sapiens should be considered members of the same species. It is not enough to say that those who disagree with you have simply not done enough research or don't understand the terms.

And as for me, I'm not playing. I saw more than enough in the dark barns of my Iowa summers. Species be damned. In the immortal words of Mr Jinx (of Pixie and Dixie fame): "I hate species to pecies."

[MANICHAEAN]

Interesting thread. Not quite sure if I'm back to DATo's original point, or if I'm shooting further off the subject at an obtuse angle; but we are are I think comparing primitive urges and their possible eroding by modern life?

On that one I'm in two minds.

I was taught to work hard; firstly to put bread on the table, support family, then as a bonus, to get the extra's. Have the extras taken over? Do I really need the mansion in the Home Counties, the Bentley and the trophy wife? Not really. Life is more simple than that.

When growing up in immediate post war London, the father was the breadwinner, the mother was for the family, needs and values were simple, bonds were close, and we had a happy childhood. No TV, car, fridge, I-pads, mobile phones, yellow lines, central heating, double glazing or cyber sex.

And yet having spent a life time making money, and indulging to a limiting extent; all it does is to take away any worries of financial insecurity. The pleasures are still simple. If I'm hungry I eat, thirsty I drink, tired I sleep; in a crisis I focus more, still appreciate good looking women and sigh contentedly after a good bowel movement.

Fight or flee? Sorry I need the knee replacements first!

[PeterL]

1. Biology A group of closely related organisms that are very similar to each other and are usually capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. The species is the fundamental category of taxonomic classification, ranking below a genus or subgenus.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Species+(biology)

noun, singular or plural: species
(1) (taxonomy) The lowest taxonomic rank, and the most basic unit or category of biological classification.
(2) (taxonomy) An individual belonging to a group of organisms (or the entire group itself) having common characteristics and (usually) are capable of mating with one another to produce fertile offspring. Failing that (for example the Liger) It has to be ecologically and recognisably the same.

Supplement
In the hierarchy of biological classification, it is the lowest taxonomic rank and is considered as the most basic unit of classification. Genus is the taxonomic rank above the species and may contain one of more species. In order to be considered into a species rank, the group of organisms wherein two of its members are capable of reproducing fertile offspring (especially through sexual reproduction). There are certain groups though that can still be further subdivided into subgroups (i.e. subspecies, such as varieties, formae, etc.).
http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Species

[Pompey Bum]

Interesting thread. Not quite sure if I'm back to DATo's original point, or if I'm shooting further off the subject at an obtuse angle; but we are are I think comparing primitive urges and their possible eroding by modern life?

On that one I'm in two minds.

I was taught to work hard; firstly to put bread on the table, support family, then as a bonus, to get the extra's. Have the extras taken over? Do I really need the mansion in the Home Counties, the Bentley and the trophy wife? Not really. Life is more simple than that.

When growing up in immediate post war London, the father was the breadwinner, the mother was for the family, needs and values were simple, bonds were close, and we had a happy childhood. No TV, car, fridge, I-pads, mobile phones, yellow lines, central heating, double glazing or cyber sex.

And yet having spent a life time making money, and indulging to a limiting extent; all it does is to take away any worries of financial insecurity. The pleasures are still simple. If I'm hungry I eat, thirsty I drink, tired I sleep; in a crisis I focus more, still appreciate good looking women and sigh contentedly after a good bowel movement.

Fight or flee? Sorry I need the knee replacements first!

Being of two minds is an interesting way to put it. We are all of (at least) two minds, and one is the instinctive--the mind stupid and brutal enough to drown a lifeguard who is trying to save us; the mind that can be tricked into thinking that sex with a condom or even masturbation is going to make babies; the mind that tells you during a nightclub fire to throw yourself into the mass of idiots plugging the exit doorway, who are all going to burn alive, when calmly organizing a line/queue would save everyone's life.

What you are (mostly) talking about is a thin veneer or civilization. It is not that primitive instincts are "eroding modern life," but that human beings ARE (among other things) those primitive instincts and civilized life is small and (probably) ephemeral in comparison. Something like civilization (which was and still is a pretty brutal business) has existed in places for seven or eight thousand years. By comparison, the sapiens species has existed for about 200,000 years, and the Homo genus for more than 2,000,000. As far as we can tell, life was short and brutal. Natural selection had its hands full.

There is a brief prologue to the graphic novel Maus, based on the author's father's recollections of being in hiding from the Nazi's before being sent to Auschwitz. The author (as a little boy) has been shoved down, ridiculed, and ditched by his friends. When his father finds him crying, he asks him what has happened. After hearing the story, his father responds: "Friends? Your friends? If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week, then you could see what it is, friends."

This is the onion skin on which we all walk all the time.