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content/inquiries/Worldview.md

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-My worldview has evolved over the years, influenced by experience and observation.  To take stock of my 'worldview' today, I've distilled my very personal beliefs into three 'observations' (I suppose I could call them 'first principles' but that seems pedantic).
+My worldview has evolved over the years, influenced by experience and observation.  To take stock of my 'worldview' today, I've distilled my personal beliefs into three 'observations' and from these a prediction of the near future that I hope to live to see.
 
 **Observation #1: (Kith and Kin)** Humans in their current form have lived on Earth for around 200,000 years, in what Paul Seabright called a society of [‘murder, reciprocity, trust, hoarding and stealing’](https://www.amazon.com/Company-Strangers-Natural-History-Economic/dp/0691146462) that arose when early man was forced from the trees into the more brutal environment of the savannahs.  To understand the [soap opera](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_opera) enveloping modern politics, academe, celebrity gossip, and war, look no further than these societies of [150](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number) or so naked apes.  Take away the technology (see Observation #3) and little has changed.  Our brains have shrunk about 10% over this period, so if anything we are a bit stupider than our forebears.  If we had truly advanced beyond primitive society, we would be solving our problems and looking for efficient ways to implement those solutions.  Instead, our first choice as the arbiter of social problems is tribal warfare (see Observation #2).  Mechanized war gives us the power to act out our grievances from the comfort of our La-Z-Boy.  We declare war on countries, but also on arbitrary individuals (terrorists and criminals, but who decides who belongs to these groups?) and even bizarrely, on abstractions (cancer, drugs, communists, hate).  Our greatest and most expensive innovations have been arbitrary, amorphous conflicts of choice.  In the boredom of modern life, [War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning](https://www.amazon.com/War-Force-that-Gives-Meaning/dp/1400034639).