Someone and I were discussing the morass that infects congress and the presidency in the United States and how people can consistently be counted on to vote against their own self interest.

That got me to thinking. There’s a reason why this is so and some theoretical on my formation of this post.

How it got that way is Republicans of course – education policy is keep them just smart enough to push a pencil or push a button, but not enough to think about how they’re getting fucked at every turn. For an example, how many schools still teach civics? It was on the way out when I was younger – my political awakening happened early on as my family was heavily political and I’ve met pretty much every mayor the city has had plus governors, senators, etc. I know how the game is played and never want to be a politician – wouldn’t mind owning a few someday though.

Now in our discussion today I said it’s not so much because thinking is hard, but because it’s hard to reconcile what you know to be truth against the bovine effluent of others. You know both of us have met numerous millennials – my experience in the I.T. world had told me that most people are in fact sheep. But then in our social life there are millennials whose idea of cool is a mirror in a vintage clothing shop. Yeah, I weep for the future.

But it’s not all gloom – we can in fact tell people it’s ok to think as long as you can accept the rabbit hole that some people can go down. It’s a bit like how sausage is made. And some people are very squeamish about stuff like that – including blood which never really bothered me.

And I term it as gumption, like getting up and learning something new. I do that regularly. And people even some of the millennial generation – they do have it like I do. I know that sometime thoughts can go into the dark recesses but that’s the fun of it.

In fact what brought this up was a question on a Quora forum – what would you send back to the past. I thought for a bit and said either a Bible in the local vernacular or Darwin’s Origin of Species in very same local vernacular. Just imagine what effect that would have some 2000 years later.