Deep Ancestry: Inside the Genographic Project by Spencer Wells

Excerpt(s) from Deep Ancestry :

Human Speech is part of a larger suite of characteristics that probably appeared about 50,000 years ago, according to anthropologists.  The "Great Leap Forward," as biogeographer Jared Diamond calls the Upper Paleolithic transition in his book The Third Chimpanzee, represented a leap of understanding as opposed to anatomy.  The difficulties faced during the last ice age probably led our ancestors of 50,000 years ago to develop better ways of exploiting the shrinking food resources in a harsh tropical environment.  Genetic data suggest that the human population size crashed to as few as 2,000 people around this time, and archaeological data is quite sparse as well.  But coming back from the brink seemed to have involved a cultural transition unparalleled in our species' long history of upward mobility. [p.139]

While the coming collapse may not reduce human population to as few a 2,000 people, it will likely reduce population to less than 2 billion.  The question is whether enough people dedicated to "upward mobility" (the highly sensitive 15% of the population) will survive the rough times that will occur.

The system/institution described on my primary blog is designed to aid in the survival of those who are likely critical to leaping forward to the next level.