We are only a few paces outside of the mouth of the cave whence we came….

Our triune brain — consisting of the amygdalae or “reptilian brain”; limbic brain or “mammalian brain”; and neocortex — is not evenly divided. The largest part, the reptilian brain, arising in our basal ganglia, provided early prehumans with the nasty components of our collective personality which allowed survival. “Us” versus “them,” fighting for one’s family, clan, tribe, was used as the basis for artificial distinctions that have been carried down through the millennia, all to our world’s detriment. And it is the reptilian brain which dominates and decimates all which come before it.

And now, we have a Narcissist-in-Chief, whose faux populism is predicated on xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia, and religious intolerance, providing cover for his base while the base is being ruthlessly exploited. And all stem from the preeminence of the reptilian brain.

So, if aliens were to come by Earth they may well utter a sad laugh as they passed us by, awaiting the extinction of all life on this blue-green speck bathing in a lightbeam, and wondering at the deep and biting irony that a species capable of seeing to the stars could not regulate itself so that it avoided the fate of self-destruction that certainly is approaching at light-speed….