So, it sounds like you're saying, @denmarkguy, that for all our enlightenment, our improved living conditions (in most of the world), our advancements in technology, our progressive social moors, our more open way of viewing the world and what truly constitutes what, that there's still at least a lingering segment of humanity, if not actually pervasive throughout the whole of it, that just refuses to evolve, but would rather wallow in the cranial pathways of the earliest Cro Magnon, if not stunted with the neural capacity of the Neanderthal?

In some parts of this world, some folks are living exactly the way they've lived for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Expecting much out of them at this point is probably an exercise in futility. For the rest of us, though, there probably aren't any excuses, which only exacerbates the situation.

I've often wondered if I really am the father of my youngest son, simply because he will come up with things, as you mentioned, I never think of. Not even when I was his age. For good or ill, that's the way it is. Fortunately, he doesn't believe or act on most of what comes out of his mouth, so there's at least that. :)

Guess I'm here to commiserate. You know more than I do about human behavior and the human condition, and what motivates people. Greed seems to be one, power and pride are others, but fear and hate, those seem to be the ones that propel people into dire acts, along with fanaticism, which has a component of inevitability (so why fight it) and being in the right, when most of the outside world believes the opposite.