OMG, Like, Our Brains are Totally Evolving, But Make it Culture, Not Genetics, Duh

Okay, so like, I just read this article and my mind is officially blown. Or, you know, as blown as it can be after staring at Jira tickets for eight hours straight. Apparently, some eggheads at the University of Maine are saying that we’re, like, evolving, but it’s not our genes doing the heavy lifting anymore. It’s culture. Like, literally culture is changing us. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, because if this is true, my TikTok algorithm is basically my new evolutionary pressure. And frankly, that’s a terrifying thought.

Is My Instagram Feed My New DNA?

So, Professor Timothy M. Waring (I’m assuming he wears tweed and drinks lukewarm tea) and his crew published this paper in BioScience, basically saying that human evolution is less about who can outrun a saber-toothed tiger and more about who can go viral. Seriously. They’re talking about things like technology, social learning, and institutions. Which, if you’re like me, means they’re talking about how quickly you can master the latest obscure coding language for your FAANG overlords, or how well you can navigate the bizarre social mores of a Bay Area tech happy hour where everyone’s trying to ‘disrupt’ something while simultaneously being utterly terrified of actual human interaction. Are we really just a collection of learned behaviors, optimized for maximum ‘engagement’? Is that why my senior dev keeps talking about ‘synergy’ like it’s a profound spiritual awakening? Because if so, I’m pretty sure we’re devolving.

The Metaverse: Our Evolutionary Apex (or Abyss)?

I mean, think about it. Our entire lives are curated, optimized, and algorithmically spoon-fed to us. We learn how to communicate, how to dress, what to care about, and even how to feel based on what’s trending. Is it really that far-fetched to think that this constant bombardment of cultural data is literally reshaping our brains? Are we developing new neural pathways just to process the sheer volume of unsolicited DMs and LinkedIn connection requests? I’m picturing future humans with, like, extra prefrontal cortex real estate dedicated solely to filtering out crypto bros and justifying why they still use a specific legacy programming language. The article talks about cumulative culture, which sounds suspiciously like the never-ending sprint to learn new frameworks and tools just to stay relevant in this goddamn industry. It’s a never-ending cycle of ‘innovation’ that feels less like progress and more like a hamster wheel made of venture capital.

My Brain is Buffering, Please Stand By

Honestly, I’m just picturing our descendants, centuries from now, with heads shaped like iPhones, communicating entirely through perfectly optimized meme-speak, and instinctively knowing how to troubleshoot a server crash with a mere thought. Their biggest evolutionary challenge won’t be finding food, but finding a stable Wi-Fi connection. And probably figuring out how to explain what a ‘tweet’ was without sounding like an ancient historian. This whole ‘culture-driven evolution’ thing makes me want to log off, throw my MacBook into the Bay, and go live in a yurt. But then I’d miss out on the next viral dance challenge, and clearly, that would be an evolutionary misstep. Ugh. The struggle is real, folks. The struggle for peak cultural adaptation, apparently.