Well, it did after I read this, though the line “our blind iniquities and inequities may produce a biological Armageddon and end our life sentence with a full stop” made me set down the pom-pons a moment, but still.
Look at it this way: We are constantly changing to adapt to our environment. Our current environment — economically speaking — sucks gerbils through a drinking straw (I think that’s the technical description for it). And so we adapt, because we want to survive, and once we’ve adapted, well, we survive.
See? Simple. I feel better. Don’t you?
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Iniquities and Inequities is the name of my forthcoming book.
I used to think “All the Good Titles Are Taken” would be a good title of a book, but I like yours better now and am sitting down tonight to start mine. Consider your title stolen.
I believe it was Arthur C. Clarke who pointed out that there was as yet not enough evidence to state that intelligence has any survival value at all.
Why did I laugh when I read this? Could it be that wide streak of fatalism?
People hate it when I bring this up at work – there is no correlation between higher educational attainment and improved communities.
Imagine a place where the average attainment in terms of percent of adults with at least a four-year degree is nearly double the national average….hmmm…I know, Northern Virginia.
* traffic is a nightmare
* the number of accidents and costs of insurance are extraordinary
* truly poor people continue to abound and live at the fringes
* crime is still a significant problem
* isms…particularly brownism abounds
* housing is still hideously expensive
* medical care is great — if you can afford it
* yes, the working poor earn more, but they are still impoverished…they just have better quality “shacks” to live in.
* local government still basically sucks….people still vote their personal interests and biases
Ed attainment is not the same as intelligence…but there is a reasonably strong correlation.
I’d like to agree in the vernacular of my youth (straight from the mouth of my Grandma Marrs, Smartest Woman Ever): Jes ‘cos ye got a DEgree don’t make you smart.