It is good hear you commenting. It breaks up the usual silence in
centertao's dao tubes. It is interesting how people join the Facebook group,
though never say anything. I am a bewildered by Facebook and that Twitter,
although that's not surprising. And now we're in Disqus, whatever that is.

Does Kyle take after you?

The natural conditions for 'unity' are greater than those for 'division'. Never-the-less, the biological instinct to 'divide' still beats within us.

The question is, how will that play out in the future? My post offered some points to ponder. We are altering the evolutionary conditions species usually undergo in ways never before possible before the age of electricity began about 100 years ago.

Previously, there was plenty of external challenges to occupy mind, emotion, and body. As those diminish (thanks to electric revolution) that 'energy' must find and outlet. I'm guessing that the internal challenge will mark the next 10,000 years of human history.

Of course, if we blow ourselves up and only a handful of people are left, normal evolutionary forces will return… for awhile until we 'conquer' nature again.

I don't know what you mean by the bottle neck effect.

My parents didn't teach me to automatically spit out the words “thank you”, either, and I am grateful for that. I started saying thank you when I was about 6 years old, and it was probably not until that age that I was mature enough to know what it actually means to be thankful for something. I never (spare for those moments where white lies are “needed”) thank anyone for something I don't really feel thankful for (and yet I actually hear from people that I say thank you “an awful lot”, hehe). My parents had the same view on such things as money, clothes, boyfriends and staying out late and whatnot, and I can't begin to express how happy I am to have had the opportunity to actually learn about these things on my own instead of getting a set of unquestionable rules- I doubt that I would have been the confident and indepentent adult that I am today if my parents had been keen users of the phrase “because I say so”.

I think it is wonderful that you've given your children the same opportunity to realize the meaning of the words “thank you” on their own instead of learning it by heart and using it like an empty standard phrase. The “laissez-faire upbringing” I got as a little girl is definitely a tradition I will pass on to my own children

In the end, nothing … is said.

Unspoken words are the most powerful to use: they can be used to express your infinite joy and, behold, you are joyful!
Then you hit the mark.

My favorite shirt had a very simple, and profoundly true, statement written for all to see: “No one is born a racist!”. Like racism, the fear of the other and the prosecution and persecution of those who follow a different “way” is learned and can therefore, be unlearned.

While “no one is born a racist”, per se, being a tribal species, we are all born with the group instinct: our group versus the 'other' group. Many social species have this kind of innate push apart::pull together dynamic that helps them as a social species not all amass together as one humongous 'happy family'. There needs to be a push away 'the other' drive to keep groups spread apart enough so as to utilize resources effectively. Just imagine how unworkable it would be if a social species had only the pull together instinct. All individuals would crowd together in one spot.

So in fact, we are all really born 'racists'. Only the particulars are learned, i.e., the particular object of 'racist' instinct. Of course, this instinct need not play out in racial ways. There is politics, religion, gender, age, occupation, education, clothes, etc., with which to judge and push away others.