I’ve read Darwin, and from what I remember (and was capable of understanding,) he is often misinterpreted to have defined natural selection as “the survival of the fittest.” Untrue (again, as I recall.) What he actually advocated for was an evolutionary process that favored species that were better at adapting to their environment than their competition. Meaning; even if you’re pretty badass, not being able to change up your game when conditions require is a pretty good indication that you’re screwed.
Humans tend to push the boundaries of this developmental maxim thanks to our almost unique ability to force the environment around us to adapt to our needs and wants as we see fit. Sometimes. At least before social media came around and weaponized human stupidity to a degree heretofore unknown in the history of humankind. Now, do not mistake me; human stupidity is as old as humanity and endemic to our species. However, it was often isolated, which meant that when stupid people did stupid things, the results kind of solved the problem itself by creating a genetic dead end as necessary. Then came TikTok.
And to be fair, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and I’m sure we could go all the way back to MySpace to find proportionally ancient social media-fueled outbreaks of stupidity that would curl the toes of old Darwin himself. But now, stupidity not only has a platform, it also has an audience of willing consumers more than happy to place aside any remnants of rational thought and logical reflection in pursuit of likes or clicks or whatever it is that drags forth endorphins by the bucket load from their feverishly atrophied brains.
I have children and have had to specifically tell them to not do any of the things they see other people doing on these social media sites because these things could very likely get them killed. The modern parent’s version of “if your friends all jumped off a bridge…” To their credit, they rolled their eyes, disregarding both what I said as well as myself as a whole in that affectionately condescending way only your offspring can. But I don’t know that means they won’t ingest household cleaning products at the behest of a person they’ve never met but who has hundreds of thousands of online followers, making them infinitely cooler and more believable than my kids will ever find me.
I’d like to think that, eventually, we as a species will grow out of this type of behavior. After all, the internet is still incredibly new in the timeline of humanity, so maybe we’ll come to properly contextualize its power and influence at some point soon. But if not, all I have to say is, “come on Darwin, do your stuff.”