Thanks for posting this Tom. This should be required reading. This reminds me a lot of another article which I think was posted by you about a year ago or so. It was called The Third Wave about a social experiment which turned a bunch of students into Nazis by forming an "elite" class on campus.

Both experiments are very telling and very disturbing about how close to the surface our (speaking collectively for humans in general) ability to become elitist and sadistic are. Nobody just suddenly becomes a Nazi or a sadist, but under the right influences it seems it can happen rather quickly. This should be a lesson to us all to keep certain responses in check and to question ourselves of how deeply indoctinated into a certain philosophy we may have inadvertantly become. Moderation is key in my opinion, and I think there has been far too little of that from both sides of the political spectrum. The Habitablezone is not exempt.

Thanks again Tom.

-Steve G.