Dream Log: Australian Uncertainty

I dreamed I was out in the countryside in Australia,  walking over green wooded hills, looking for some sign of other humans. Eventually I found a dirt road, which led to a paved road, which led to a bus stop. I boarded a bus which I thought was headed toward Brisbane, but I wasn't sure. There were two other passengers besides me, and they both were dressed as if they might be off-duty bus drivers. 

 

One of them said something I didn't understand, looked at me and asked, "Eh?" I said I didn't know, and walked to the back of the bus to get away from them. Gradually the bus began to fill up with passengers. A couple of times I saw what looked like it might be Brisbane's far-off skyline, but I wasn't sure if it was Brisbane. 

As the area we drove through became more and more urban, the bus got more and more full. As far as I could see, everyone on the bus was white. I was completely unsure whether the other people were left or right wing. I was completely alone and almost completely broke, and, generally speaking, left wing people would be more likely to help a stranger in need, because he needed help, and right wingers would be more likely to mistreat him, because he was a stranger. So I was unsure whether speaking up, drawing attention to myself, would improve my situation or make it worse. I felt my best bet was get to downtown Brisbane and take things from there.

We got downtown, and went into a place filled with buses. Everyone stood up. I assumed this was because they knew we were coming to the end of the line. I stood up, kept my mouth shut, tried to blend in. The bus stopped and everyone got out. 

I hadn't walked far when I saw a basset hound puppy standing still on the sidewalk amid all the hurrying people. It was obviously lost or abandoned. I picked it up and did my best to comfort it. I went to a store, found that I had enough Australian currency in my pocket to buy a half pint cartoon of milk, sat down on a curb and started to feed the puppy. It had been crying, but very soon, after a few gulps of milk, it was in a much better mood, wagging its tail and jumping around. 

Then, very suddenly, a large Australian woman was hugging me and crying, and the rest of her family was all around, jumping up and down and exclaiming. I couldn't make out more than one word in five, but, obviously, I had rescued their lost puppy. Suddenly my own problems didn't seem so insoluble. Then I woke up.

We Are Not All Descendants of Charlemagne, or Nefertiti

I've been looking and looking for someone who has refuted the notion that all Europeans are descended from Charlemagne,

or that all living humans are descended from Nefertiri. To my great frustration, I can't find anyone pointing out that this is nonsense. Once again, I must do everything myself.

And I don't have any training whatsoever in biology. But I think I don't need any, because I have much more than enough knowledge of history.

First of all, what does "all Europeans" mean, scientifically? It means nothing. How can you precisely determine who is and who is not a European? You can't. Ditto for African, Asian, Native American and so forth.

Secondly, the assertion that we all share ancestors who lived as little as 4000 years ago drastically, massively underestimate the amount of isolation, xenophobia and, consequently, inbreeding among many human groups. I'm referring to people in remote villages who drive off any and all furrners just as well as they possibly can, but also, for instance, the European royal family, and yes, it is one, horribly inbred family, and has been for many centuries. Not "every European" is descended from Charlemagne, but every European monarch -- a group which can be precisely defined -- is descended from Charlemagne, and every European monarch for centuries has been. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, is a radical departure from royal custom, and an extremely healthy expansion of that bottlenecked gene pool.

Now let's take the matter of geographical isolation. This really ought to be enough to let everyone see that the assertions that all living human beings share ancestors when you go back less than 5000 years, are badly mistaken.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present Exhibit A: the Western Hemisphere. Yes, genetic blending of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres has been going on for -- over 500 years. Is that enough to guarantee that every single living human being shares an ancestor less than 5000 years old? No. There may be some tribes in the Amazon which people from other parts of the world haven't found yet. There certainly were as few as several decades ago. Several decades is not enough to have gotten all of them into the mix, genetically.

Exhibit B: Australia. Stumbled across by Captain Cook in 1770. Have 249 years been enough to guarantee that there is no-one of unmixed Aborigine heritage left alive? No!

Like I said, it frustrates me greatly that I need to do this, that there aren't actual geneticists everywhere you look pointing out such elementary things with the proper scientific jargon. It's very frustrating that it has to be me, completely lacking the apprpriate vocabulary, grunting things like "Amazon forest tribes! Australia, goddamit! There's no such thing as Europeans or Asians! Aaaaaarrrgghh!"