I've been reading a Jane Goodall book - you know, the chimpanzee lady. She talks about PSEUDOSPECIATION, which she prefers to call Cultural Speciation.

So, this chimpanzee group split up, with a smaller group kind of taking over a smaller part of the territory the whole group had previously inhabited. After a while, the larger group pretty much declared war on the smaller group and killed almost all of them.

The idea of pseudospeciation is, once a group of humans (and chimpanzees) becomes different enough culturally - by which is intended the things that individuals learn and pass down to offspring, such that, after a while, the whole group is different enough from another group of humans, the groups can stop seeing each other as some kind of kindred, and can kill and harm each other with no inhibitions.

Thus with people. Along almost any line of cultural division, humans can come to see the other side as different enough, and hateful enough that it becomes ok to kill them and war on them. That bodes very poorly for the divisiveness that's become so prevalent in the US, in the past 10 years, or so.

It's almost like a cultural evolution/survival of the fittest group.

It looks to explain racism, war, and all kinds of other group enmities and hatreds. And, we may not be as evil as we think, because it looks like something humans and chimpanzees fall into it fairly readily. And, it's part of why we're always battling it out between morality - the care of other humans, and war.

For us, Europe is what we compare ourselves to, culturally and economically. Compared to them, we're definitely to the right.

But, compared to the whole world, I think you're right on.

True leftism isn't even on the table in the US. THAT'S the function of the 'leftist' MSM.

Meanwhile, we're maybe THE most right-leaning 'developed' country, all the while the right tells us we'll be communist - I.E., like the social democracies, which are simply more regulated capitalist countries, in Europe, any day now. It's how all those Koch-funded organizations and "non-partisan" foundations work to keep things like national healthcare out of serious consideration, even though a majority of Americans favor it.

...and which is more dangerous? I haven't seen many crazy old cat ladies engaging in any mass shootings, or attempting to prevent the peaceful, lawful change of any government leaders.

People who aren't on the right see them as batshit, alternative-fact-fueled crazies. People who aren't 'woke' see them as being overly concerned about politically correct pronouns. And, Biden was THE most middle-of-the-road candidate available at the time - that, and the glorious fact that he simply wasn't Trump, were why he was elected.

Sounds like you've stopped questioning the motives of the people that say things you like to hear. They call that "cognitive bias", and most of us, on both sides of the partisan divide, are guilty of it.

Sounds bad, on the face of it, and maybe it is. But, if the media serves the rich first and foremost, that's NOT what they're going to tell you. They're going to tell you they're fair and objective. Well, they've been telling us that all along. Maybe a documentary like this one is the best way to find out things that the MSM has a vesting interest in not telling us.

Why is it so hard Todo the same now?

Because the people who have the power to do it were funded by the people that they would need to do it to. And, a conservative SCOTUS isn't likely to step in, after they decided that money = free speech, and that dark money campaign contributions don't harm actual democracy at all.

Honestly, you have no idea how scary your question is. The fact that you, and many others, would need to even ask it, tells me how little so many people know about how our country works. That's one of the things you can thank our corporate media for. This is part of why Bernie Sanders is advocating for a government-funded, but non-partisan/independent, non-profit news organization that actually informs people about what's going on. I don't see that working all that well, because the people who would be making the appointments in such an organization are, themselves, HIGHLY partisan.

Make that "we", and I'll agree with you.

Your comment is more of the same: all those OTHER people are influenced and brainwashed.

Community and culture don't have the same agenda that the government and the corporations have.

Does something stop being a conspiracy when it's documented and discussed?

No, but it might stop being seen in the same way that a "conspiracy theory" is often seen - that is, not really believed by many people, but actually the overwrought imaginings of a mind that sees conspiracies behind every door.

Also, check out Inventing Reality, something something something, by Michael Parenti.

People don't like to think this, in a culture that touts individualism, but we really are sheep - AND THAT'S A GOOD THING. We survive because of other people. There is next-to-nothing that we don't get because of other people. We are social beings, and that is one of our major assets.

But, it can so easily be used against us.

In fact, we are INFLUENCED to prize our individuality - by other people. It's a value that we got from other people, along with all our other beliefs and values. If everybody thinks they're an individual, how individualistic is that, actually?

So, we are highly susceptible to the social engineering conducted by the people who want us to act in ways that benefit them. Media is one of the main ways in which that engineering is accomplished. Thus, what we think of as reality was presented to us, and continually corroborated by much that we see around us. Nothing that doesn't support that version of reality is presented in the MSM that serves its owners and advertisers, along with the people who they share interlocking corporate board memberships with, but is relegated to low-traffic, alternative news sources few read, and many doubt.

There IS class war, and my class is winning. - Warren Buffet.

Class war is real, and always has been. But, the media, which should be telling us a lot more about that, is owned by one of the warring sides.

You leave out the power of doubt. What we truly need is drastic change. That scares people, so anything that casts doubt on how much change we need makes it easier for people to think it's always been this way, and it always will.

Fox always lags far behind, regarding fact-checking. That is hugely more true about their "news-entertainment" programs, which are propaganda, pure and simple.

Yup, the "left" does it too. But, the right has made a science of it, and taken it to heights hitherto undreamt of. But, you have your what-about-ism to protect you from really seeing that.

The fact is, it's ALL owned by the rich, and both sides keep any information about how our country really runs out of the limelight.

Interlocking board memberships with other large, powerful corporations, and an abiding interest that the ruling class, to which they belong, continues to rule. So, for instance, we don't see anywhere near as many stories about how much influence the ruling class has in, and over, our government, to insure that the US continues to be a place where the rich can grow richer, while everybody else doesn't.

I suspect this is related to the thinking that some on the ultra-right have about sabotaging power grids and such. As in, they think creating an emergency will lead to the kind of leadership they desire, along with the repression of all that they don't desire.

You mean, OTHER than find new friends?

I wonder how they feel about raising the salaries of public workers.

Too bad a lot of hunters think it would look better dead, stuffed, and mounted on their walls.

She's always balancing on that line between the ultra-right, rabid Trump supporters and more middle-of-the-road, traditional Republicans, not wanting to offend anyone on the spectrum. Many, maybe most, political leaders don't much lead; they find out which way the wind is blowing, and run around to get out in front of it, to look like a leader.

One of the key points that I read in this thread is that computers work fine. I'm thinking that it might take a few iterations to work the kinks out, until all parties agree that it's as fair as possible. But it has to be better than putting up with, or worrying about, human partisanship.

And, I didn't have that term, proportional representation, but that's what I was basically trying to describe.

> imagine if NH selected random districts that just happened to be even more biased than the current districts.

Seems like they could redraw them regularly by computer to balance that out.

To me, it seem like the easiest way would be; if the Repubs get 49% of the votes, they get 49% of the representatives. Same with every other party. Of course, it would be necessary to adjust so that a single representative wasn't supposed to represent 49% Republicans, 49% Democrats, and 1 % Independents.

Someone gave me the term, "proportional representation." But you just know that neither Democrat or Republican party leaders want to share power with, say, the Green Party. Winner-take-all excludes that, so they won't be putting anything like it in a referendum any time soon.