By DONALD NEEPER
Los Alamos resident 1968-2014

John Bartlit’s column of Oct. 26 (link) reviewed medical measurements which showed that political choices are set more by brain history than by logical choice. The measurements could support the idea that the desire for group acceptance is an inherited feature that enhanced the survival of early Homo sapiens.

In my recent book on our societal polarization, I reviewed numerical models based on the shifting internal rules of behavior that we each carry. The models, published in 2021, predicted irreversible polarization in America.

On a continental scale, human group behavior today is similar to that of recent centuries or of the last hundred thousand years. We relish winning, being right by making others wrong, projecting identity, looking good, and loyalty. The internet greatly enlarged the size of the group from which an individual receives input, making society more complex.

I concluded that one way around our destructive polarization is to talk with (not to) each other, sharing time with neighbors rather than with digital devices, and letting our children explore via their own neighborhood games rather than being sent to organized competitive sports.