The Analogy to Explain America to a Non-American

 Basically, it's become a tribal plains area, where one-thousand-plus tribes exist in marginal states of harmony or non-harmony.

Some tribes are leftists....some tribes are rightists.  

Some tribes are pro-capitalists....some tribes are anti-capitalists.  

Some tribes are willing to promote face-to-face confrontations.....some shy away from all confrontations. 

Some tribes promote dumping your relatives if they can't participate in the tribal philosophy.  

Some tribes pretend to be something....when it's more fake than real.

Some tribes got into screwing up professional sports....some tribes voiced discontent with professional sports, and just gave up viewing.

Some tribes advocated movies as their 'lecture-vehicles'.  Some tribes advocated censoring or avoiding the lecture movies.

Some tribes took in kids....pushing their tribalism down into a 12-to-14 year old level.  Some tribes educate their kids to avoid brain-washing.

So you try to fit into some tribe, and generally hope that confrontation is not necessary. Maybe you feel sorry for your co-worker, who is obviously in a 'bad-tribe', or maybe you just laugh over his tribal unit.

In some ways, it's a sad thing to view this much tribal tendencies, and no way to bring people back to a one-tribal unit situation.  

Dying Planet Chatter

 Popular Mechanics (honestly, I have to admit that I haven't subscribed to the magazine in 15 years and kinda surprised that they still exist)....came up in the news this week.

Someone did an article for them....suggesting that various cultures existed in the universe, but all of them have 'died-off' in some self-annihilation episode.

Proof?  Well....none.

This is more of a theory to explain why we don't pick up signals or indicators of intelligent life.

First, this is one of the five basic issues with Popular Mechanics and why I eventually just couldn't read it.....crazy suggestive articles that seemed to be selling science fiction more than factual mechanics itself.

Second, taking into the consideration the size of the universe....this discussion is mostly about how you tossed a marble into the Atlantic Ocean, then trying to talk about the extent of your search for the marble.  You'd probably be more productive in painting your barn roof, or redoing the backyard.

Third and final, to go along with this idea....you have to assume some 'save-our-butts' character would have emerged (like that Tesla guy) and he would have invented a way for dozens, thousands or billions of people to escape some decaying planet.  Or maybe they did die-off because they mostly gave folks in their society a $600 stimulus check as well.....instead of the pork-bill where Pakistani folks got $10-million to learn more about gender stuff.