Cave Capitalist Part III: Neanderthal Alliance

To: Two-Grunts & One-Cluck

Dear Mr. One-Cluck,

Thank you for your request to join the Neanderthal Alliance. We here in the superior side of the species have been following, with great amusement, your attempts at cave capital and public funding for your so-called "Wheel" and "Fire" projects. And while we are convinced that homo erectus (tee-hee, we still snort with great humor when we hear those words) is destined for the dirt pile of history, we cannot help but agree with our upright cousins that what you are pursuing is nothing short of an elaborate fantasy.

"Tools," indeed. "Spears," "Fishing Nets," scraping skins off of animals to "wear" during the coming of a great "long period of cold things." Clearly being an educated homo sapien, I can hardly even fathom how you take these fantasies and turn them into reality in your round head.

I can see why you've turned to the Neanderthal Alliance to fund your far-fetched ideas. You must recognize that we Neanderthals will win the Evolutionary War and will inherit this great world, and the giant turtle shell on which it rests. We were likely your last resort. It seems that with your most recent rantings, you've managed to anger your own council of elders – especially when you grunted accusingly that they "oppose not only research on tools and clothing manufacturing, but open dialog on its scientific basis and potential consequences. In a competitive, round earth, the denialist policies of the elders place us on a path to unilateral extinction."

Mr. One-Cluck, let me make this perfectly clear. We here at the Neanderthal Alliance believe in only one thing – and that is our immediate, short-term survival and hording of existing resources. That is what "technology" is all about. This alliance was created solely for that purpose. I would suggest that you and other Neander-pretenders and Neander-incompetents take your strangely unsquare faces and go back to your own people, where you can ponder these issues with your fellow cave-loggers, Ice-Age-arians and denizens of your moms' cave holes.

Our reason for existence is our own happiness, and "science" has nothing to do with it. The truth is written by those in power, and they have rarely been cave tinkerers, nonprofit cavemen or cave futurists.

Famed Neanderthal statesman Ug von Two-Clucks once noted that the two things no one should have to suffer through seeing made are laws and animals ground up into little tubes, as you and other homo erectuses (grunt-tee-hee-grunt) have suggested.

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against you sapiens. Some of my best friends are …

Well, let me just grunt this. At one time I, too, chiseled markings on rock that predicted Neander-amputees would someday grow new limbs, but then I realized that this prospect frightens your average, voting Rock-Kicker Mom and Run-Far Dad, and does not aid in short-term enrichment of my tribe. Believe me. I'm an experienced cave relations specialist, and I believe in a "reality strategy." I don't promote nor spend much time worrying about made-up science stories about the coming "cold."

My suggestion to you, Mr. One-Cluck, is to join your brethren in gazing upon that strange black monolith near the rock quarry – and keep fighting the strange, if not good, fight for your lost cause.

Evolutionarily Yours,

Three-Squeaks
Neanderthal Alliance

Related Grunts
Wheel bad
Fire bad

Return of the Cave Capitalist

To: 2 Grunts & 1 Cluck
From: BCE ATP, Grants Processing Department
Re: Your grant proposal

Dear Mr. 1 Cluck,

Thank you for your recent funding request to the Herd Council's high-risk Advanced Technology Program. Your reputation precedes you, as we've been following your failed attempts at cave capital funding for your so-called "wheel" contraption.

Frankly, I don't know how you even got in the cave opening of a respected investment firm with your futuristic sci-fi notions. "Wheels" that just roll through our hunting and grazing land on their own power, with humans somehow aboard and moving faster than our game animals! Indeed. Don't you know that faster-than-foot travel defies the laws of physics? Please, Mr. 1 Cluck, tell me about this new physics?

Unable to secure private funding, you're now asking us to waste the herd's resources on your crackpot ideas. You're asking, in a time of wood and stone scarcity, to borrow a few sticks and rocks to experiment with creation and control of fire! Let's forget, for a moment, the serious environmental and societal consequences of such an invention (What if, for example, a rival herd or an infiltrator within our own ranks got hold of such a technology and used it irresponsibly?), and let's talk about the serious physical barriers to such a fire assembler.

We all know that fire comes only from the sky, and only in rare instances when the cloud gods are in a generous, playful or destructive mood. Such a thing occurs in nature, but only under the proper conditions and cannot be recreated through human intervention. What dry medium will you use? How are you going to replace the loss of breathable air as you orchestrate precise three-dimensional placement of spark and flame? And what are you going to do with those rocks and sticks, anyway? I suppose you can use them to club passers-by who stop to mock you.

I can only guess as to the reaction our cousin Neanderthals will have to such foolishness, as they are convinced that they are smarter and destined to become the world's dominant species.

I admit that we must seek more fire, as the weather appears to be turning much colder as the years go by, but we must be content to find it among the raw materials we are given. We all know that technological society is made only of rock, wood, flesh and bone. The control of fire is, like the "wheel," good subject matter for your entertaining cave paintings or even your irresponsible "clog" (cave log). Even there, though, such ideas corrupt our youth.

A few cycles of the sun ago, I gave a talk in front of the clan's children titled, "Be a Scientist, Save the Flat World." Leading up to my visit, the students were asked to chisel an essay on "Why I Am a Cave Geek." Of the essays I read, nearly half assumed that human-created fire was possible, and most were deeply worried about what would happen in their future as fire spread to the edge of the world. I did what I could to allay their fears, but there is no question that many of these youngsters have been told a sleep-on-the-ground-time story that is deeply troubling.

You and cavemen around you have scared our young. I don't expect you to stop, but I hope others will join with me in turning on the sun, and showing our cubs that, while our future in the real world will be cold, with a coming Long Period of Ice, there will be no such monster as the human-replicated fire of your dreams.

Sincerely,
4 Clicks, 7 Squeaks and 1 Grunt
Chief Technology Pronouncer
BCE ATP

Discuss

Cave Capitalists

To: 2 grunts & 1 cluck
From: 3 clucks & 2 funny back-of-throat noises
Re: Your invention

We over here in the Land North of the Tar Pits Venture Capital Cave were both amused and inspired by your request of funds for your "wheel" project.

Yes, we certainly believe that perpetuation of our species is linked to a wider range of migration patterns, thus the need for development of faster-than-foot technologies. But while your vision of a future in which humans routinely "ride" upon round things have certainly made for some sensational wall paintings that please our herd very much, we simply cannot provide the capital investment your company requires.

Your project is too high-risk, with little promise of return on investment within five cycles of really hot and really, really cold time periods. Plus, what you're proposing is not simply investment in a technology, but would require massive infrastructure changes that would alter transportation as we know it. A complex system of "paths" would need to be dug into the brush to accommodate the "wheels" and other related inventions you say they would enable ("carts," "bicycles" and – we were especially amused by this concept – "Hummers.")

You tell many fanciful stories about what your technology may someday do, yet this "wheel" concept is still just a theory. I realize your team believes it is close to chiseling a proper shape for such a device, but even if a prototype leaves the laboracave, it would need to undergo a series of tests required by the Herd Council before approval could be granted. And we haven't even mentioned mass-production and standardization.

Also, have you ever even considered the societal and ethical implications of such a "wheel" on our society as a whole? Those things could rip up our hunting and grazing land, and even "roll" out of control, destroying all living things in its path.

We recommend you take your funding proposal to the council's high-risk Advanced Technology Program and see if they'll be willing to dip into the herd's banana fund to pay for these far-fetched ideas.

We also recommend you study a project that our firm has decided to back: 4 Oogs and 5 Funny Sqeaky Noises recently discovered that vertical faster-than-foot travel is possible when one jumps off the rocky ledges that lie between our land and the Tar Pits. Surviving members of his company are confident that further tests will achieve sufficient horizontal escape velocity.

Thank you for contacting us, but please confine your dimwitted ideas to the three or four people who read your "clog" (cave log).

Sincerely,

Draped Fish and Jerky's Sons LLC