We used to live in a time when being “right” actually mattered for survival. If you didn’t know when to plant, or which berries were poisonous, odds are you didn’t live long enough to have offspring who could successfully reproduce.

Not just genetics, but knowledge transfer.

That transfer was word of mouth, and limited by distance. This is why both writing and the trade routes were so important — documents and knowledge could collide and synthesize into something new. Progress at the crossroads.

As trade expanded our world, and also our base of knowledge, the standard of living also rose.

Fast forward to today, where many people have ascended to a level of prosperity that hides their “stupidity.”

In our present society — if you’re white and well-off — you can believe damned near anything you want, and it won’t materially affect your survival.

Believing stupid and incorrect things is no longer fatal.

They have overcome Darwin.

What can shake these people from their illusions? It takes a failure of profound personal proportions to make them re-examine their priors. And that’s hard work, validating core principles and assumptions.

I fear that a lot of people have never learned how to start over. How to build the basic blocks for understanding the world, and human nature. All they have is a 10th generation xerox copy of something they can neither read nor properly apply.

Sadly, I’ve got no answers, no easy prescription. This is going to be a multi-generational fix, made worse by the degree to which we can pick and choose our sources of information.

I’m open to suggestions.