I have brain damage from all these "mass mind" topics. All these group behaviors & group thinking systems. My brain damage centers around people acting as if mob mentality isn't a problem, a crisis, and the basis of a lot of warfare. out-group hate, national flag waving and cheering of domination of one nation over another, and general "us vs. them".

I argue that billions of years of evolution on Earth have been harsh, and it is nightmare we have to "wake up" from. We are birthed into conflict

To try and advance the topic, I guess I'll throw out a perspective I try to hold: where you are born isn't a choice. If you are born in Iran in 1985 you are going to have a different perspective than if you are born in California USA in 1985. "Iran is about 4.1 times bigger than California."

Then there is schools you went to, autism brain I have, etc. We do NOT get to choose a lot of these things. Even the spoken language and religion of our own parents.

It is a BIG MESS we are born into.

it is a RELATIVELY SHORT period of time in world-wide technology history that we have had airplanes, telephones. let's say 1825, only 200 years, that crossing the ocean and being able to send a written letter and have it translated from language to language started to become significant.

Only since 1950 have airports and telephones become something everyday people in the world start to witness and utilize. And the Apple iPhone / modern smartphone really only took off in 2008, less than 20 years

My personal respond to divorce / failed marriage and terrorism of September 11, 2001 was to focus more and more attention to "Comparative Mythology", religion to religion.

A couple of messages back I mentioned ships and airports. Sea ports and air ports. How long has it really been that people could travel to other places in the world? And everyday people could marry, divorce, and mingle? Purchase an airline ticket, go to another religion house, go visit a wedding, things like that. NOT LONG!

Back in 1999 - 2008, a big thing with my travel in RV was reading what people said on the Internet, reviews and suggestions, and comparing them to the real thing. Kind of like YouTube people who unbox products and evaluate what they are really like. But I would do this with cities, restaurants, grocery stores, public library, etc. And I wouldn't share it, I just considered it part of my adult education.

What did the travel book SAY about food vs. actual first-hand experience. Same with Chile.

I didn't go to fancy places, I didn't take a lot of photos if other people had already taken lots of photos, I didn't write reviews for places that already had plenty of reviews, etc. I mostly just wanted to see what "the Internet said" or "a book says" vs. reality.

At the time I wasn't super serous about it. It was just a motivation that I liked learning and reading and trying to get a sense of how other people related to photographs, words, pictures, TV of remote places.

My divorce in 2008 / 2009 as I'm turning 40 was a huge deal to me intellectually and religion wise. I wasn't that serious about religion as an adult, nor was my wife, but I was disappointed that my wife didn't want to communicate and change the course of our marriage. You see, I got married at age 30, my wife was 32 when she married me. We were not "young kids", this was our first marriage, and we had lived together 3 years BEFORE we got married.

I found out about my autism during my divorce.

I thought my choice to have a marriage without children was odd, but I didn't realize how much it was related to having autism my whole life. I also realized why I worked from home for the previous decade, as socially I couldn't cope with high-pressure work environments day in and day out since age 30. Long-term burnout. It wasn't a coincidence I had made the choice to work at home in late 1999, it was my then unknown autism.

ok, #RoundSparrowToDo - I can't finish this. Today problem. Worn out.

Back then in 2009 "Wrong Planet" was probably THE BIGGEST online autism support community. I got books from Amazon / public library about autism, and I read a lot of "Wrong Planet".

And having already lived in Arica, Chile (South America) and all over the USA in an RV travel working from home, I connected with the metaphor of "wrong planet". And well, my divorce, my wife just didn't want to talk about "what was wrong" and "what needed to change" - communications conflicts abounded. Autism.

I never went to remote university, I went to the Fort Wayne, Indiana branch of Purdue / Indiana IPFW for just a couple semesters. My two older brothers had gone away from home to live in dormitory and frat houses, I never had that experience. I didn't even finish university, I was a published author and had a stellar resume at age 22, I had more experience than the professors.

Austin, divorced in 2009 was like college. I spent one summer renting an apartment near the university.