re: #164 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

It is still a hard-wired homo sapiens reaction to feel somehow threatened by people who look and act differently than what we are used to. But that is what education and culture are supposed to help overcome, not reinforce.

Based on what I’ve seen with young animals that get paired up with those from a different species (including humans), I would argue that while babies are not born with any prejudices, the survival trait quickly develops to recognize those around you as friendly. We all know that young children can quickly develop a sense of which group they belong to, and become unfriendly to those they aren’t used to. And that can get easily reinforced when they see parents react to certain people and groups negatively.

Edited to change not to and