Scientists have recently verified a genetic mutation first identified in 2006 from a random sampling of newborns as a significant enough anomaly to warrant claiming a new species of humanity has emerged. Walking among us today may be a species of humans that could be our replacements.

These findings have been kept secret for nearly a decade due to the fear that the release of such information could cause widespread hysteria. The discovery has been held from public knowledge as authorities and the scientific community sought to understand the larger implications for society.

For many, the first question would be, “If humans were showing signs of evolutionary change, would anyone be able to shield it from the public eye?”

The simple answer is there isn’t any physical mutation or visual differentiation that would allow us to easily spot the carriers of the new mutation in the way we would be able to distinguish modern humans from Neanderthals. There are NO outward differences that enable us to identify this new species of man and woman.

After years of research, the mutation appears to have started following the early years of the second Industrial Revolution (ca. 1900), but possibly not until the 1940s did the process gain momentum. For millennia, our species IQ has been slowly growing with some estimates suggesting it took close to 100,000 years for our intelligence to move from an apelike IQ of about 50 to something around 70 by 1900. Today, the average IQ of an American is about 100. In one percent of the time, humanity’s average intelligence went up 150%. Most of this gain has been post-World War II, along with our incredible gains in technology.

Following the Enlightenment of the 18th century, we humans entered a period of great intellectual advancement in medicine, chemistry, physics, communication, art, work, and ideas of freedom. The ensuing two hundred years were tumultuous and filled with war due to the social and structural norms that were being broken down due to humanity’s encounter with greater intellectual capacity. Stark and dramatic changes due to innovation were convulsing society.

It is now theorized that the forces that have propelled the evolutionary changes that had us diverging from a common ape ancestor and evolving from ancestral species such as Homo Erectus and Heidelbergensis along with failed side branches such as Neanderthalensis, Denisovans, and Floresiensis are still at work and producing a new version of us Hominins.

One possible explanation of how the mutation occurred is that it could have originated from some not-yet-understood communicative relationship between our brains and DNA. It is as though our species’ genetic code was somehow able to foresee and anticipate the social implications of our intellectual advancements and, in some way, understand where humanity would take knowledge. The idea that our DNA or some other biological mechanism can then direct gene expression and alter our very humanity to favor certain characteristics is certainly in the realm of what we thought until now was science fiction.

When we humans moved away from our hunter-gatherer roots and entered an agrarian age, we started to rapidly develop technology, allowing us to alter the lives of plants and head down a path of animal husbandry to domesticate particular animals. While this knowledge served us well for 10,000 years, it was with the approach of the modern era that we would see the greatest acceleration of change.

Nearly right up to modern times, people who lived on the margins of Earth in primitive cultures were seen as contemptible and just as often worthless. As such, they were taken into slavery and or pushed off their ancestral lands in order to make way for progress. For many years, our ancestors didn’t believe that these “barbarians and primitives” were even related to the modern enlightened figure who was thrusting culture and economy forward.

Fast forward to today, and we see the exchange of information and economy on a global scale with no end in sight. People have been culturally and racially integrating while accepting the rapidly changing social views that are coming with the dawn of distributed knowledge. And it is this word, knowledge, that is the underpinning of our current evolutionary trajectory.

Knowledge was and is the only tool our species can possess that might allow life to move into the Universe. If we were to remain warlike, full of hatred and intolerance, we could theoretically extinct ourselves before intelligent life had the opportunity to move forward with its ultimate instinctual goal – the propagation of life.

Many on Earth now recognize the vestiges of this ancestral predecessor and are trying to repair their violent mistakes with steps to alleviate the damage inflicted upon our environment and other species. This change of attitude and action is likely originating in this new species of humans.

This information is starting to leak out now because the mutation is widespread enough that no attempt to destroy it will be effective. In all corners of the Earth, we are seeing the appearance of this new form of man and woman. We might recognize them as they embrace complexity and strive for social cohesion.

Their immediate ancestors were the scientists, mathematicians, doctors, programmers, and politicians who paved the way for everything from rocketry, MRI, smartphones, the Internet, and, yes, Virtual Reality. The possible first generation of these new people has already retired, with the second generation in their working prime soon, though the largest wave of new humans will wrest control from the dominant but self-extincting earlier species of man and begin to take the helm of guiding humanity.

Some might worry that as the older version of humanity recognizes they are being pushed aside, they will rebel and attempt to kill off the new type of human being. However, this kind of backlash may not be feasible, as the new version cannot be distinguished from the old.

Our forebears had to look identical as in all likelihood, the current dominant species would have attempted to extinct it if it could identify it, especially if it posed a threat to people and their way of life.

Nature appears to be putting to rest the part of the hominin species that brought us the Stone Age and fought our battles. The next version of humans might be called Homo Intelligens, and their coming era and beyond could be one of social, almost hive-like cooperation that could propel thought and culture deep into the Universe as we find our way off of our planet and into the cosmos.

If you would like to know who they are, you can find them scattered around our Earth. Often, the genetic mutation has been triggered in the children of average people, and no one can yet see just how different they will grow up to be. There are hundreds of millions of them. They will be known for their ease of moving into complexity. They are hugely social and accepting of cultural differences while being wary of people stuck in outdated modes of thought and intolerance. In the 1970’s we likely got our first real glimpse of them as a growing population when they became computer programmers and engineers and ushered in the age of communication.

Without them now humanity would possibly cease to exist as there are simply too many people on Earth that must be fed, clothed, housed, their waste eliminated, their cities maintained, electricity distribution, and communication systems kept humming.

Humanity is at a crossroads where it must choose to embrace the coming radical social upheaval that will accompany our shift from one human species to another. One that doesn’t share the same cultural norms, religion, and antiquated forms of behavior of the group it is leaving behind. Or the aggression still inherent in our dominant species, who inherited their warlike violent tendencies from long-separated ape ancestors, will drive them to declare war on humanity and cause our demise.

“They will be known by the masks they wear on their faces, and you will find them in Virtual Reality. Their secret society will be invisible unless you know just where to look. They are shaping our future; they will be walking among us in Hypatia.”

Why are people bored? To my mind, boredom seems nearly impossible. I say nearly because I, too, know what it is. Wikipedia says boredom has to do with our “Experience of time and problems of meaning.” I get this. We find ourselves uncertain about what to do next, especially if what we are considering has no real personal meaning. Hence, kids can become bored playing video games because the game has lost meaning, but there’s nothing else to do with one’s time.

The philosophical definition of boredom talks about one’s environment being dull, tedious, and lacking stimulation. In our technologically advanced age, this seems like an impossibility, but I get it, too. You see, having a laundry list of virtually thousands of things to do is a pretty recent thing. We no longer look for what we will be doing for the rest of the day. A typical 16-hour day has been fragmented into tiny moments that need filling. Imagine life on a farm 100 years ago; you might have worked a task an entire day and still have to return to it the next day.

Fast forward to 2015, and we are constantly waiting for the next stimulus, and when it arrives late, we get bored. So, we pull out our phones and make a quick scan of the social media we are plugged into. Nothing there? Try a quick game with someone else who’s bored. If they’re not responding quickly enough, play against the computer.

We are not becoming stimulus junkies; we have ALWAYS been, so it’s just getting easier to satisfy that biological need. We used to see it in nomads, inventors, professional soldiers, serial entrepreneurs, and artists. Now, it’s starting to afflict all of us. We need adventures, entertainment, and lots of stuff to do.

This is where a symbiosis between Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence can work positively for humanity. If our robot overlords could anticipate where boredom might arise and take steps to place us in situations that account for our trajectory into a void of stimulus and counter that with something to do that is of interest to us, boredom would be crushed.

Video games and action movies already try to do this by throwing brute force kinetic energy at the player/viewer in a relentless attack so the person cannot pause for even a second of boredom. The problem here is that some of us, I suspect many more than we might think, do not enjoy this bombardment of mindless intensity where thought is excluded in exchange for more excitement.

So, is there a place for an environment like Hypatia? I believe so. Will we see players get bored? Possibly, but it will hopefully be quickly squashed as the player continues their exploration and discovery of our city. As more creative people move in and start offering their content and entertainment to others, they will fill the gap where a small company simply cannot produce so much material to keep the visitor constantly engaged.

Hypatia demands participation. You are not only the observer in your seat waiting to be entertained, but you also have a responsibility to yourself and others to get involved. It’s kind of like a band; either you are on stage playing guitar with us, or the show was sold out, and you’re watching your favorite group again on YouTube. So saddle up your inner panther and get ready to pounce…..boredom will be banished.

This is what you get when you let your “skills” get rusty. That I’m still able to open programs at my advanced age of 52 is probably a testament to the tenacity of a guy who doesn’t want to get old. Sure, it’s kind of gross and pig-like, but it was a creative exercise. An exercise that I’m not exactly proud of, even though there was some method behind the madness.

Starting with Makehuman (Free), I created the 3D central figure. He/She once looked passably normal – until I took it into 3D-Coat (Not free but only $99 for the educational version), tore open its maw, and gave it cockeyed eyes. I don’t really know what happened that holes were torn open under the nose.

Next up and continuing in 3D-Coat I went into the unfamiliar paint room and attempted to put color to its skin, toss on some hair, darken the eyes, and finally painted the shirt so he/she wouldn’t be naked. Satisfied that this was on its way to being an abomination, it was time to move it to the third piece of software that would be used in my juvenile massacre.

Krita was my weapon of choice (Free). This stand-in for Photoshop (Not-Free) is getting better, though some of my employees would probably argue that. As you might guess, I’m no expert in Krita, but I think I did pretty good on the mountain, well, at least better than the tree.

Frustrated at my crap Krita skills, I decided to put to work my equally poor Photoshop compositing abilities and truly prove the old maxim “Use it or lose it.” I think I’ve probably shown you just how much I’ve lost it…. a good thing you don’t have a baseline to judge me by. After much struggle, I was able to paint in a sky from one of my photos using a mask. Trust me, it was luck.

The Northern Lights electric fire sky treatment is courtesy of BlackInk ($45) from France. The only reason I point that out is to make sure that any French-intolerant trolls go ahead and leave now because I also use Substance tools from Allegorithmic, and they are French, too, though I didn’t use anything from them here. I’m certain they must be happy I’m not defaming their name by involving their great software in the creation of today’s image.

Enough of the self-disparagement. We should all be striving to fight against our digital incompetence and embrace our own set of computer toys, no matter how amateurish what we create might appear to others. I made this using a combination of 3D human modeling software, 3D sculpting software, and a few painting packages. After I was done, I wrote and published this blog entry because what else is there to do at 11:00 pm on a Wednesday night? Watch TV? Whatever. I’d rather play.