Random jotted notes

[plutherus]

Another short jotted note that I'll never do anything with.
Really, it kind of sums up the whole story right there, and not much more is needed:

Humanity hasn't even settled the most basic of questions. Are there gods? What is the purpose of life? Even things as simple as what's the best way to govern ourselves. Every other species we've come across has come to consensus on such issues long before they reach the stars. But humans not only fail to agree to how to handle someone doing harm to the collective, they can't even agree on what the collective is or what constitutes harm to it.

I used to think this was a failing on the part of humanity. And maybe it is, but if so the failure is overshadowed by the great strength it indicates. You cannot agree, and yet... and yet, you have managed to reach the stars anyway. Among your earliest colonists were people who believed the others were morally reprobate and would suffer for eternity for not believing in their gods, and they found a way to cooperate with those who believed that nothing non-material could exist and openly disparaged anyone who could think otherwise. And somehow they founded a thriving colony without killing each other.

Without killing each other very much, at any rate.