From: Hubert Mania (humania@t-online.de)
Date: Thu Feb 20 2003 - 13:27:24 MST
I said about reptilian territory defense:
> >This is a very powerful ancient evolutionary program. Difficult to
> >overcome.
And John Clark asked back:
> Why would you want to overcome it? Over the last 600 million years or so
> ever since brains were invented the algorithm has proved itself to have
> considerable survival value.
It certainly had. But in this much more complex world of today, with the
cortex luxury at your free disposal, the reptile answer - much armour,
little
brain - is not adequate anymore. A certain amount of this cognitive brain
extravagance has even migrated into the armour by now: the surgical
destruction intelligence of contemporary US weapons is very impressive. And
I ask myself: if the industry that builds these weapons is only half as
influential as the American Rifle Association (or whatever it is called)
they will try their best to see their weapons applied in a real war.
These things develop their own momentum. Though Saddam can by no means pee
at any WASP snow white garden fence in Washington or even San Francisco, the
propaganda artists in DC concentrate all available information about wars of
the 20th century, Saddam's crimes and Islam terror groups in such a clever
way that makes all garden fence owners nod in agreement and send showers of
fear through their reptile brains. So this powerful ancient program spins
off and makes you react stupidly and inappropriately and makes me wonder
what the cortex actually was made for.
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