The Minimal Human

Instead of decrying the sedentary
Couch potato, instead of mocking stillness
Within a convenient, prosthetic cocoon,

Why not consider humans mycoplasmic
With regard to culture’s urogenital
Tracts? In such nutrient-rich environments,

Humans rarely do much foraging for food
And rarely have to do much to digest it.
Imagine your super-sedentary sloths

Not as poor excuses for free-range bipeds,
Not as pathetic slobs and degenerates,
But as lean and efficient minimalists

Who have fit themselves to their environment
And waste almost no unnecessary work
Or baroque sophistications to thrive there—

They are minimal humans, with the smallest
Viable behavioral portfolio
Of any free-living ape in the known world.

If you were free to experiment on them,
In a sort of laboratory prison,
You could knock out their behavioral options

To see what loss they could or couldn’t survive
Until you came up with the absolutely
Most minimal human being possible,

The JVCI-syn3.0 model
Workhorse for researching minimal culture.
Humans make poor batteries, good prototypes.

You may have already started this project,
But your methods are an incoherent mess
Of solitary confinement, studio

Apartments, assisted-care facilities,
And the like. There are no controls, no double-
Blind system, no clear research hypotheses.

You’re squandering all that opportunity.
But then, it’s hard for you to decide whether
You’re hoping to control them or to join them.