The theory in some particulars may be discredited—this part of the brain existed before lizards in evolution—but to describe mind-function it’s still useful. We are governed by various points of control in our complex multi-brain system including the type labeled here “lizard brain” and exemplified through aggressive irrational behavior whatever the animal, with humanity the leader in cruelty and destruction.

They don’t know shit about breast cancer.

They are assholes.

gerard - your post reminds me of my favorite fable,
“The King of the Jungle.”  One day it occurs to the
lion that he may not really be the king of the jungle
which moves him to spend his entire day killing every
living thing in the/his jungle.

When he returns home that evening he tells his wife,
the lioness, that he is indeed King of the Jungle
because he had just successfully wiped out all life
in it - no contest.  His wife, a wise lioness,
reminds him that he and she are carnivores adding
that he has just ‘successfully’ wiped out their
entire source of food, giving them about a month
before they starve to death.

Moving on, it has been argued that if we didn’t have
that ‘lizard’ brain, we’d never have left the caves.

A touching read… concerned as Mrs Fish’s resolution is not mentioned.

it’s myth, i conclude, that we are not ok. i think [or hold it as desirable,
absolutely certain truth] that we were once ok.
and i suggest we still are of if we wld banish all imams/amirs/kings, mullahs,
lords, priests, rabbis, and other ‘teachers’ from our planet or if not to another
planet then to a special place on earth, say, siberia, where they’d for the first
time in their lives do some honest work and live off it.

serious scientists or people who deeply and sincerely respect biota and
human specie do not say that we behave as we do [very badly, tho] because of
whatever is in our brain or however our nervous system is structured.

goddevil or nature gave us what it gave us; there is no more to be had than
what we have been endowned with by devilgod or nature.

but once shamanism, sorcery, wizardry, and priesthoods [followed later by
‘noble’ class] arose and began misteaching people, turning us into slaves and
against one another, we started to behave in an uncivilized manner.
unfortunately, sacerdotal and ‘noble’ class of people still teach us to turn
against one another; to exploit, slay, abuse others in name of ‘god’ flag,
‘laws’, our interests, etc.

if one wld compare life of peoples, say, american indigenes prior to the arrival
of fiercely uncivilized europeans on their soil, we wld see that they had no
priests, wizards, sorcerers, ‘laws’, constitution, jails, prostitution, standing
army, spy agencies, courts, judges, lawyers, govts, lords, kings, princes,
‘nobles, etc.—all they had was guidance/tutoring/trust.

and that’s why they had more peace, cooperation, interdependence, timocracy
than we have now or will ever have if we let these criminals rule us as
serfs/slaves.
and, i aver,  we must have had peace/serenity/security at one point of time,
but s’mwhen/s’mhow let it go over centuries or millennia w.o. our noticing it.
and the hell broke loose upon us ever since! tnx

So, if we faced the unbearable truth squarely, would we be kinder to one another, or nastier than we already are?

Our culture promotes self delusion because it makes life so much easier for the power
structure…We are fed a steady stream of fantasies about the world and our lives right
from the beginning. We are taught not to question and to accept, and to move step wise
through life. Those that don’t accept this, or cannot function in a productive way receive
the brunt of societies corrective action. Our status is based on our ability to be
productive, or in controlling the means of production, and is future based. We live in the
future, those without it have no status. And so we are a schizoid society, so far from he
real as to be unable to recognize it or accept it even when it bites us in the ass. Life is
being, not doing.  Something almost impossible to recognize from the ego of a doer.
Often humor is anger turned inside out. And anger can contain the seed of unfelt
pain…let the feelings explain themselves..don’t let some one else interpret your being…

“After all, it is precisely the absence of capital from one pocket that provides value to the capital held in another.”
  Up to a point, perhaps, but at some point the equation turns into “If I have something to sell and you don’t have any money to buy, I cannot ‘make any money’. If you are selling food, and I have no money to buy it, I will die, which removes my “purchasing power” forever—along with your “earning power.”
Eventually you will be reduced to becoming a “me.”
(Incidentally, the idea of “making money” is totally illusional and bizarre to start with. The more money the government “makes” the less value it has.)
  And what do you think will happen after all of us billions of “ordinaries” are dead from wars, starvation, disease and global warmng?  Will this 2% of idiot elites turn on themselves or on each other?
If not, why not? Who will be the last man standing, and what good will his stocks, bonds and annuities do him?  Will the Great God of Free Enterprise reach down out of Economic Heaven and beam him up?

Since human medical studies came along, we’ve tried mightily to distance ourselves from what the lizard brain does automatically in the course of our daily lives. We have tried to cram all the lousy things humans do into a category of aberrations, of the actions of human beings we don’t care for. We tell ourselves this is what happens when the brain is functioning poorly, but in truth, it’s only the brain doing what human brains do.

If human beings do it, it’s human nature—-whether we like it or not.

Having written this to a grieving friend just the other day:

There is nothing more frightening to the psyche than utter helplessness and nothing brings this into sharp focus more than the death or terminal illness of oneself or someone close. Millions of years of the organism evolving by coping are imperilled. It is a deep evolution based miasma arising from the recesses of the reptilian brain that is within us all.

....I can only say “Hear hear Mr Fish”.

H/T to “The Dragons of Eden - Carl Sagan.

I hope Jackie was being strong and heroic as she crawled across the seats to save her husband.  I like to think so.

I hope Mr Fish’s words protected his wife, too.