Billions

Occasionally it is forgotten that genetics are environmentally created. Within a lifetime, genetics may very well be static in terms of structural construction (never mind genetic change or deterioration within cells within a lifetime, for the moment), but on an evolutionary scale, it's obvious genetics are environmentally-induced.

Thus, the nature versus nurture debate is absurd. Nurturance is nature's purview just as much as destruction is. That's forgotten in contemporary understandings of the notion of self-interest. Yes, self-interest as a concept is expanding in scope and meaning as, say, biological knowledge illuminating how the intricacies of communality allow a species to grow becomes more and more refined. A simple sneeze can alarm us in some circumstances, even deadly:

One is driving a car, the wheel of the driver jerks as a passenger lets out an explosive sneeze causing alarm and shock, the slight jerking just enough to cause the car to veer into traffic, with every person in each vehicle dead. An accident with a cause no one may ever detect except for those who were in that car. No one is to blame. 

I could go on about how this relates to genetics, but I'm more interested in the moment in how deaths of such a sort are not tragic. Stories of tragedy, seems to me, often involve fateful acts that occurred years, decades, lifetimes in the past, acts that were, whether intentional or not, motivated by malice or some other word describing ill-will. 

In the case of the accident, without blame except for instincts, I suppose, but why would anyone want to assign "blame" to a natural act? Then again, what does that say about an act of malice? Is it, too, a "natural" act? Yes, it is. 

Blame, applied in this sense, is a myopic lens through which to discover truth. If we look at the law, we say that all civil and criminal matters come down to blameworthiness as the lens through which responsibility and accountability are decided. 

Accusation is always associated with blame. An accusation does not typically suit this statement: "How dare you do a nice thing for me without expecting anything in return!" But, within a certain moral framework, that is a violation, a betrayal of trust.

How does one go about developing such a moral framework? Well, not that differently than many other ways of developing a moral framework, but the moral framework that results in "How dare you give me a gift," is possibly best portrayed through Damian Lewis's Bobby Axelrod, one of the most intriguing geniuses ever portrayed in movies, television, and streaming series. 

In a sense, he's playing an archetype, but not a Jungian archetype. More of a Greek god archetype. But with a moral framework entirely human, because as fluid as it is, we never get to see him triumph over his internal corruption of organizing himself internally as a being who craves power and domination above all else. Dominion is mine, sayeth Bobby Axelrod.

And, yet, this is natural in the sense that choice exists, agency exists. Some wonder if there is no such thing as agency, believing we're all caught in a matrix, but that's only one type of framework that could exist within an infinite potentiality of possible frameworks. 

The question, from an evolutionary perspective, is whether the domination/submission matrix is a sustainable framework for ongoing existence in human form. Between consenting adults, couples, groups, and communities, domination/submission, BDSM, and all else of that sort provides a definitive good in society. It is an agreed upon place and time to engage in that way with one another. Forcing others into such roles against their wills is another matter entirely.

Fear, more than anything else, seems to be the driving force motivating such a moral framework, though. Guilt, blame, accusation, externally defining the other, always because we need to protect ourselves from the other instead of actually seeing within others the opportunity for expansion of themselves as well as oneself (themselves) through engagement, sometimes merely a genuine smile as an expression. 

Nevertheless, to put forth anything, even a smile, can be interpreted as an invitation for further engagement depending on a person's normative organization and orientation. But, if one and all of us understood that each person we encountered was unique, we would not be so quick to negatively judge what we perceive through the actions of another over a short time. In only a few minutes or even a few moments, we judge the other. Not everyone, not always. Commonly, though. In the United States. We positively or negatively or neutrally place others in categories to construct an approach of engagement, nonengagement, or disengagement, all in a flash. 

But if we withheld that judgment, we could be trusted to acknowledge the other internally as a profound being deserving of respect even if we pass by while walking in opposite directions without communication. But, that suggestion is a normative orientation as well. We can't escape normativity so why try? 

How does all of this play into our genetics? Because how we decide to be with one another over millennia will determine how we evolve as a species over hundreds of thousands or millions of years; it will determine the type of beings we will be able to become and how we will relate to one another and all else. 

Genetic sequencing and technology alone may not be enough or, at least, not the only way to assist humans in adaptive ways in the future. Without a profound shift in the way civilization forces human relations to be, there won't be time for civilization to adapt and survive (let alone thrive) even if the human species does. All of this is on the leaders and power brokers in the world. They alone determine how the world is constructed materially, governmentally, economically, legally, educationally, and all else. 

They really are just moving us around as pieces on a chess board. Of course, internally, we are boundless with potentiality. Environment determines how well a given genetic construction of a human will meet various potentialities. Having access to only half the caloric content a particular person's body may need to grow will determine their height, build, muscularity, etc., with the genetic range of their possibilities for growth. It's not that everyone becomes a genius in a "perfect" environment. But whatever a particular person's potentials may be, they won't be realized without a supportive environment that accounts for health. 

It's also true of aesthetic experience. Raise a child in an entirely gray environment the first 18 years of his life versus raising the same child in a rainbow full of colors those 18 years? There's no way to know how they would be different, not in totality, but what could we say about that the creative potentials within the mind that might have been sparked by radical color differentiations versus a constant gray of existence? 

Whatever could be said would be speculation, but imaginations exist so why not use them from time to time.