Why the Survival of the Early Man is not a Big Deal
I've been coming across contents that are fond of comparing the early man with mankind of this generation. These contents always extol certain virtues they think the early man must have had, virtues like persistence, valour, strength, immunity, etc. They'll talk about all the challenges the early man faced in the prehistoric age and how the early survived them all in order to produce offsprings like me and you.
At the end of it all their main aim is usually to talk about how mankind today does not meet the standards of strength, valour and persistence (etc) that the early man set. They usually end up saying mankind today is just a bunch of weak lazy bastards overly dependent on technology and that our ancestors would be ashamed to see that they braved all those challenges of their days just for us to be born and waste our lives playing video games, masturbating and smoking weed.
You may have seen contents like these too. Really brutal and unforgiving takes, these people have and quite funny too.
Now, there's a lot more consideration and diving into detail that is to be be done when comparing the early man with today's man and I'll cover that in some other post. If one thing is certain it is that people who make those content don't take so many factors into consideration and their arguments don't dive deep enough. For this post, though, I'm going to show how the survival of the early man produce us his offspring is not a big deal at all.
Not a Big Deal at All
This is not to downplay all the challenges the early man went through back when there wasn't good enough technology and knowledge to aid navigating life, but it is simple to state the truth about survival, which is it is pretty easy! How?/Why?
Because it Was Just Sex!
As simple as that. All the early man had to do to survive and keep birthing till today's man was birthed was just have sex. People could be dying in great numbers, but as long as more are getting born regularly then the specie is sure to survive. And reproduction boosts population in geometric progression, so...
One man with 4 women at his disposal can birth 30+ children, even if 20 die the other 10 can produce 50 and the other 20 who died may have produced 100 before they died. Because all they had to do was have sex! And they didn't have to be so old to have sex, reproduction began at a much earlier age for the early man. Teenagers of 13 - 15 were having sex and birthing children like nobody's business.
For all the praises we mount on the early man we always forget that the major thing he had to do for the survival of the specie was have sex. Yes he had to fight diseases, predators, etc but as long as he kept having sex then he could fail woefully but the species would still survive because he planted 100 seeds to live after him before he died through the simple pleasurable act of sex.
And Sex Was Way More Accessible, Rampant and Common Place Back Then
I already mentioned that people were having it at younger ages. This is easily verifiable because even as recently as the 20th century child marriages and sex was very common place. Even up till today child marriages are happening in so many societies like in Islamic societies. Children of 9 years old are getting married (mostly young girls marrying older men). And they're giving birth at ages 13-15 too. So imagine what it must have been for the early man.
Here are more reasons sex was more accessible, rampant and common place:
Rape: Might Was Right:
Might was right and the strong man usually had his way. Nowadays a strong man who wants females would have to woo them, buy gifts, etc. And at the end of the day get only a few girls. In the days of the early man with lesser civilization goodluck stopping the strong from getting as many girls as they want.
When they go to war with their neighbours the winners always end up with more women.
Polygamy:
Polygamy was the order of the day. Whether there was formal marriage or not what I mean here is that one man had many women to birth children with and it was the rarest thing to find a man who only birthed children with one woman.
Photo of pregnant early women
Children Were Easier to Cater For:
These were simple days, all a person need was simple shelter, simple clothing and food. All of which were gotten from the environment, one didn't have to save up money for it. One didn't have to pay for school and the so many technology which we can't do without today.
Since children were this easy to take care of they were birthed without any control whatsoever. Societies even wanted more children to give them strength in numbers and to ensure survival. Perfect didn't wonder about birth control, they even strained their brains thinking of ways to birth more children.
So, with all these, take a minute to imagine the peace of mind with which the early man gave birth to children. No worries about raising them and all. On second thought, I'm sorry, you'd need more than a minute to fully grasp the extent.
How all the Challenges Don't Stand a Chance Against Geometric Progression
For those who may not know, geometric progression is progressing from 2 to 4 to 8 to 16 to 32, rather than progression from 2 to 3 to 4 to 5. Geometric progression is progressing at a fast pace. That's what reproduction does, that's how reproduction progresses.
When a population is progressing at that rate due to how easy and common place sex is what can stand a chance against them? Remember I'm not saying they have to thrive, all they have to do is just survive. The major challenges they faced were predators and diseases. Let's take them one by one:
Predators:
Can predators finish them off? They're not just sitting ducks, they can run, hide in cages, fight these predators, etc. They're also not the only prey in the jungle so predators don't have to starve until they eat a human being, in fact a predator might overlook them because he's so filled up after having a deer or buffalo or antelope, or goat, or.. you get the point.
Predators would succeed in getting them sometimes but can never get all of them as they are also fighting. Furthermore, as predators get them they're increasing in geometric progression so they're sure to survive and leave seeds behind before they die.
Diseases:
How many can diseases kill off? They're also not sitting ducks as they're trying different herbs and treatments. Also some people might develop immunity and lastly if all fails remember leaving a seed and tens of seeds before dying is there to back them up.
Conclusion
At this point you're probably beating yourself up for ever being impressed with the survival of the early man, but you shouldn't, the things discussed here do not easily come to mind when you think about it.
Remember, when you hear "the early man survived" your mind is usually deceived into taking it like the early men all survived and lived long even with all the challenges. Your mind doesn't realize that "the early man survived" simply means he reproduced and has nothing to do with one man surviving for so many years in the face of challenges.
It would have been impressive if and only if a man had to reach age 60 before he can pass his seed, if the early man had to survive that long to keep the specie alive then his survival would need a commemoration but since they could reproduce as early as 14 years in most cases then let's celebrate the early man for something else but definitely not for surviving.
Roll with @nevies, I run a Humor, deeper thoughts and sex talk blog here on Hive🌚
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