While reading
This Book Is Full of Spiders today, I ran into a passage that turned out to actually be true, despite the horrifying implications. A character (Dr. Marconi) was talking about
Dunbar's Number, a study on the
neocortex of primates that
"suggests that there is a species-specific index of the social group size, computable from the species' mean neocortical volume." -Wikipedia
-which really just means that the larger the neocortex, the larger the amount of people you can reliably
care about and remember. The average amount for humans is around 150 people. Anything larger than this and our brains start to hurt. "That is our maximum capacity for sympathy...Those who lie outside the circle are not human." This is what makes us heartbroken when our pets die, but give very little of a shit when
1,833 people die in a hurricane. I mean, we say we do, we buy the damn bracelets to show our support. But admit it, you still care way more about your dead dog.
David Wong actually explains all of this much much better and funnier than I could ever hope to in his article
What Is The Monkeysphere. Read it. Go ahead, I'll wait. You didn't read it, did you? Fucker.
Anyway, all of that was to explain how reading about Dunbar's Number reminded me of this conversation I had at work. This lady, every week brings in a copy of
The Watchtower, a Jehovah's Witness tract/magazine thing. As far as I can tell, it's about how we're all living in the "end times" or some bullshit (how long do these end times last? It was first published in 1879!). I mostly just throw them in the trash when I find them laying about, but this was the first time I had actually encountered the lady.
So she hands me the thing with a smile and I have an "Aha! This is the person who plagues my counter with worthless bullshit" moment. I give her a smile that may or may not have looked sincere and said
"Okay". She then proceeded to tell me that this month's issue was about the eradication of sin. To which I probably replied,
"Oh." Cue a totally insincere smile and eyebrow raise. She somehow translated my expression to mean "Please tell me more of your insanity!" because she continued with something about how God will soon once again rid our planet of the wicked and the unworthy.
"He's already begun" she expanded, "the increase of cataclysmic events like the hurricanes and earthquakes are just a part of his cleansing power. He's done it before, in the Bible, and he's doing it again now." (I am making up some of this b/c I don't remember the word-for-word, but trust me, she did say "cleansing" which just still makes me want to vomit.) At this point I stop smiling, and I stop nodding, and I'm pretty sure the look on my face was quickly becoming a mixture of disbelief, anger and disgust.
"Okay," I say, hostility possibly seeping through my pores
"so, like the Flood? Jericho? Every man, woman, and child must go?" "Well, maybe not exactly, but essentially, yes. When there is nothing good left in the place, the wickedness will be eradicated and the world made new for the faithful. Like when God smote Sodom and Gomorrah because there were not even 10 righteous men left." "And this place had no children? No babies that maybe could have been spared the holy sulfur smiting?" "Um..." "...So,
essentially, you are okay with
mass murder? Because God approves of it. FTW I'm on a boat, muthafucka!" I
did not say, because at this point I just wanted her out of the store. So I totally sidestepped everything and said something like,
"Didn't Lot get drugged and raped by his daughters or something?" "...Uh, maybe..." "Oh, hahahaha. That was a pretty disturbing end to the story, huh? Kinda ruined the holy genocide for me." She starts backing away, and is luckily saved from my crazy eyes by another customer entering the store.
 |
| crazy eyes |
So, ya know, maybe I don't care as much about Darfur as I should. Because my brain literally won't allow me to. But at least I'm not a crazy ass bitch rooting for 90% of the earth's population to be "righteously" smote(smitten? smited?). Although I'm probably giving into my neocortex right now just by calling her a crazy ass bitch. Whatever.
