I sometimes become discouraged by what I read in the news and in magazines. Particularly stories that deal with the shortcomings of our species. How has the political life in the United States sunk this low? How have we let ourselves damage our environment and strained the earth’s resource capacities? How have we been blinded by the fickle pleasures of material wealth in creating and buying meaningless gadgets and products? The more depressing thing is that all of these issues stem from human tendencies - software that is written into our very firmware, software that while useful in the primeval savannas, is less than useless in our modern context.

Individual humans may stray from our biological hardwiring, we may valiantly lose a few pounds before our primal brains regain the cockpit and command us to stock up on cookies, fried chicken, and sodas to prepare for the evolutionary possibility that we won’t be able to forage food for the next few weeks.