Changing nature's balance

Someone told me you cannot find stray Siamese cats on the streets of Bangkok or stray Pekingese dogs on the streets of Peking. He explained that these creatures are the offspring of species artificially bred in other countries. I was shocked.

Maybe I shouldn't be. If I can't find Mee Bandung in Bandung or Mee Siam in Siam, how can I expect to find Persian cats in Persia (present day Iran)?

He said people find stubby legs and short snouts on animals cute so we grow these animals to have stubby legs and short snouts. These creatures may be cute but they will not last a week in the wild where they are easily outrun, outclimbed or outbitten by their unengineered friends. Their survival depends entirely on the food and protection given by their human masters. That is why when owners dump their pets, they die off quickly.

The original unengineered dog or cat is the result of millions of years of evolution. Its claws, teeth, fur and tail are there for a purpose. They tell me evolution is a cruel battle of the fittest. There is no compassion for the weak, no assistance for the injured, no right or wrong.

If I am not mistaken, humans went through the same experience too, if you believe in evolution.

You can say this is the law of nature and interfering with it is going against the law of nature. Can you? Whether you can or not, it is easy to confirm that we have found a way to cheat evolution.

This includes what we have become. Some of us breed and thrive under artificial conditions like special physical or economic protection. Some do well under it but when we are placed in an open world of competition, many of us do not survive. Our emotions cannot take it. We are too slow, too weak, too easily hurt to compete.

It is exactly like artificially bred animals who survive only when they are living in the house or compound where their food and protection is assured. But what happens when their house or compound is removed?

What can remove their house or compound? Many things. For example, when water rises due to global warming. A flood or fire. Earthquakes, volcanoes. Even the economy. When I was a teenager, our family's wooden hut was taken away by the authorities who wanted to build a road. There is now a shophouse over the pond where my family members used to take a bath.

During such times, the ones with stubby legs and short snouts are forced out into the wild to fight for their survival. There is a lot of fear in them. Some make it but many don't.

What I am trying to say is there is a price to pay for changing the balance of nature. I cannot say if it is right or wrong because personally I believe we and the cats and the dogs are also the product of millions of years of survival. We arrived from a place where we lived by our own two hands like others did. The only special protection we had were the crude weapons we made with our own hands. A thousand ancestors have paid the price for us to become as clever and resourceful as we are today. A tough but necessary road.

It makes me think about the question of meritocracy, about letting the rich and smart rise up and the not so smart remain as street sweepers and rubbish collectors. What is it like to have a rich but stupid and insensitive person making decisions for the poor, who are not allowed to rise simply because they are poor. If you turn it around, what is it like to have the poor or incompetent make decisions for the rich and intelligent.

Evolution has proved that the weak do not determine the fate of the strong, even if the weak is righteuos and the strong is wrong. However, there is also something objectionable about letting the raw power of nature, or might is right, determine our destiny.

There are a lot of wars and commotions happening in the world. I think this is the outcome of a struggle between the forces of evolution and forces that want to neutralize evolution. I wonder which one will win.