Douglas Mercer
January 4 2025
The silicon chip inside
Your head it points
To the North
The word super in English means above or beyond as in supersede. The first known instance of the word superman came in German when Nietzsche created the concept of the ubermensch (overman, superman). For the philosopher man was something to be superseded so the next phase of life could begin. Three years after Nietzsche’s death Shaw popularized the term superman in his play Man And Superman in which he posited that by means of creative evolution man could become the helmsman of his destiny and steer along the path to become higher and, presumably, celestial beings. As parasites the Jews turned the concept of superman into a cartoon with a figure who had powers that excited small children and immature adults and it became synonymous with the banal phrase truth, justice and the American way. In this way the Jews as parasites deflected an idea and turned it into syndicated franchise of movies which continue to titillate the ill educated millions and so (they thought) cut it down to size.
Now, research shows for the first time that competition was fundamental to speciation – the rate at which new species emerge – across five million years of hominin evolution. The study, published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution, also suggests that the species formation pattern of our own lineage was closer to island-dwelling beetles than other mammals. We have been ignoring the way competition between species has shaped our own evolutionary tree, said lead author Dr Laura van Holstein, a University of Cambridge biological anthropologist at Clare College. In other vertebrates, species form to fill ecological niches says van Holstein. Take Darwin’s finches: some evolved large beaks for nut-cracking, while others evolved small beaks for feeding on certain insects. When each resource niche gets filled, competition kicks in, so no new finches emerge and extinctions take over. Van Holstein used Bayesian modelling and phylogenetic analyses to show that, like other vertebrates, most hominin species formed when competition for resources or space were low.
The pattern we see across many early hominins is similar to all other mammals. Speciation rates increase and then flatline, at which point extinction rates start to increase. This suggests that interspecies competition was a major evolutionary factor. However, when van Holstein analysed our own group, Homo , the findings were bizarre. For the Homo lineage that led to modern humans, evolutionary patterns suggest that competition between species actually resulted in the appearance of even more new species – a complete reversal of the trend seen in almost all other vertebrates. The more species of Homo there were, the higher the rate of speciation. So when those niches got filled, something drove even more species to emerge. This is almost unparalleled in evolutionary science. The closest comparison she could find was in beetle species that live on islands, where contained ecosystems can produce unusual evolutionary trends. The patterns of evolution we see across species of Homo that led directly to modern humans is closer to those of island-dwelling beetles than other primates, or even any other mammal.
Risk is the game of global domination.
At the end of April 1945 Adolf Hitler knew that the curtain was falling on his act of history and that it was incumbent on him to determine both that Germany should be burnt to the ground so something could rise from it ashes and also that he must kill himself to go down with the ship. In the bunker many of his most loyal followers were dejected and he gave them great comfort; he told them first off never to be kind to their enemies. When one man who was particularly crestfallen suggested that he too might take his life Hitler forbade it. But the man asked what do I have to live for? Why the coming man Hitler told him, the one that I portend. They say that Hitler saw this coming man in his dreams from time to time and that what he saw was monstrous and it frightened him.
Michael Stipe has the speaker in a poem say that he is superman, that he knows what’s happening, and that he can do everything. The speaker says that if you go one million miles away he will track you down; and that he knows the pathway to the heart. Tori Amos also avers that she knows what is happening and that she gleaned this knowledge from what she calls her encyclopedia (akashic record). She also mocks a figure whom she calls the man with the golden gun and she intimates that he does not know nearly as much as he thinks he does. David Bowie wrote a poem in which the speaker alludes to a puzzled man who questioned what we had come here for, indicating that he was the golden one who found the golden books; the young folk in the song are part of the coming race and as such no longer belong to the species Homo Sapiens (The Coming Race, Bulwer-Lytton).
On December 19 2024 as their swan song the last remaining members of the Fabulous Four played at the O2 Arena in London, England. Paul told Ringo “to get on your kit lad” and as their final message to the public they decided to play Sgt Peppers (it’s getting very near the end) and Helter Skelter (it’s miles above you, she’s coming down fast).
From Crowley and Burroughs Paul learned the method of back masking, or secreting messages which would only be heard if the song was sung backwards. This led to all kinds of conjecture and rumor up to and including that Paul died on August 29, 1966 in a death taxi while he was being fleeced by a woman’s caresses and was replaced in the lineup by a man named William Sheperd. Whether this is a hoax or a leg pull or a cosmic coincidence or pure verisimilitude is unknowable and undecidable (aporia) given the current state of the public record as the various parties have stayed mum as they are either being coy, or cowardly, or don’t have the ability or the intelligence to speak their minds frankly, and so all the cards are not on the table.
Nietzsche said that none of us, none of us mind you, have the courage to say everything we know in print; and that we had not had a new god in some 2000 years. But this is outmoded now and has become old hat.
Paul claims that once in London two perfervid fans told him they heard some words when they played one of the Fabulous Four’s songs backwards. He was so intrigued that he brought the pair along and when they showed him what he heard was the words that superman is going to fuck you. Nonplussed and surprised he had to admit that it was there.
Take this my brothers may it serve thee well; or go ask Alice she’s bound to know.
***
Notes:
Before the performance at O2 McCartney was asked to assess the Beatles ultimate significance in the cultural history of Western Civilization. He begged off answering by saying "oh, it was just a laugh.”
We are your overlords
On we sweep with threshing oar
Our only goal is the Western Shore
The West Is The Best
Then the this-little-bit-if-you-play-it-backwards stuff. As I say, nine times out of ten it’s really nothing. Take the end of Sgt. Pepper, that backward thing, We’ll fuck you like Supermen. Some fans came around to my door giggling. I said, Hello, what do you want? They said, Is it true, that bit at the end? Is it true? It says We’ll fuck you like Supermen. I said, No, you’re kidding. I haven’t heard it, but I’ll play it. It was just some piece of conversation that was recorded and turned backwards. But I went inside after I’d seen them and played it studiously, turned it backwards with my thumb against the motor, turned the motor off and did it backwards. And there it was, sure as anything, plain as anything. We’ll fuck you like Supermen. I thought, Jesus, what can you do?
