People can undergo a sudden change of thinking and loyalties under threat of death or intense social pressure and isolation from friends and family.

The rare person is still interested in new advances when they are adults. There is possibly a correlation with intelligence. In any case, you have to be fairly bright to keep learning and changing attitudes as you get older.

I can't think of anyone who is up on evolutionary psychology and related areas who is deluded enough to be called a utopian.

I much prefer the modern world.

The information that is passed from person to person and from generation to generation is the primary factor that gives humans a competitive advantage over other animals.

Genetic studies in Iceland have found that many of the women who were the founding stock of Iceland came from England and what is now France. Some were probably captured and carried off in Viking raids only 40 generations ago.

Cult recruiting methods based on dosing victims with the brain chemicals released during capture bonding would make cults even more of a problem than they are now.

Evolution acts slowly. Our psychological characteristics today are those that promoted reproductive success in the ancestral environmen.

I suspect that a substantial fraction of human problems in the world today, not just cults, result from the mismatch between the current environment and the environment in which we evolved.

Could people be trained to be less gullible? Or are you as stuck with gullibility as you are with skin colour?

People repeat behaviour that leads to flooding their brains with pleasurable chemicals. The short-term reward loop acts over hours to years, and the long-term reproductive success loop over generations.

Even small cults are a serious cost on the world economy, to victims, their families, employers, friends, and credit-card companies.

People can undergo a sudden change of thinking and loyalties under threat of death or intense social pressure and isolation from friends and family.

Fighting hard to protect yourself and your relatives is good for your genes, but when captured and escape is not possible, giving up short of dying and making the best you can of the new situation is also good for your genes.

Primates will continue to play social games without the least insight into what is killing them.

Anyone who has ever had the feeling of being higher than a kite after giving a public speech is well aware of the effects of attention.

Cults, or related social movements such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, result in massive military expenses.

Most of the suicide hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, a place not lacking in wealth. But due to rapid population growth, the wealth per capita has fallen by about half in a generation.

Action leads to Attention. that in the short-term releases Rewarding brain chemicals and in the long term improves reproductive success.

Successful cult memes induce intense social interaction behaviour between cult members. This trips the attention detectors.

High status males had multiple wives or additional mating opportunities in the ancestral environment.

Children do not have to learn that streets are dangerous places by potentially fatal trial and error.

Brigham Young had 47 children, and over 50 women as wives.

The drug or cult has major if not exclusive sources of brain rewards.

People under the influence of cults is similar to that we observe in addicts. Typical behaviour for both includes draining bank accounts, neglecting children, destroying relations with family and losing interest in anything except the drug or cult.

Attention is the way social primates measure status. It is highly rewarding because it causes the release of brain chemicals such as dopamine and endorphins.

Some people recovering from drugs or alcohol stay with the programs indefinitely, making the recovery program their family, a long-term source of attention rewards.

If anyone wonders why the airlines are not doing well it is because flying has been made such an unpleasant and degrading experience.

Lie detection is like language; there is a learning window. Telling whoppers to small children seems to be a family tradition in many families.

Humans have evolved to be exquisitely sensitive to changes in status.

As for leadership, I am the kind who leads reluctantly and more by example than anything else. Someone had to be on the incorporation papers as president.

Evolution acts slowly. Our psychological characteristics today are those that promoted reproductive success in the ancestral environment.

People repeat behaviour that leads to flooding their brains with pleasurable chemicals. The short term reward loop acts over hours to years and the long term reproductive success loop over generations.

Even small cults are a serious cost on the world economy to victims their families employers friends and credit card companies.

Could people be trained to be less gullible Or are you as stuck with gullibility as you are with skin colour

We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.

I must stress here the point that I appreciate clarity, order, meaning, structure, rationality: they are necessary to whatever provisional stability we have, and they can be the agents of gradual and successful change.

Excuses change nothing, but make everyone feel better.

So, first you have to be able to play with a metronome. Then you take your freedom. If you play in an orchestra, you got to watch the conductor, he is like a metronome, but it is more difficult because he can change rhythms.

I wouldn't change Buffy for anything and I wouldn't change the course in which she has evolved but it is nice to be able to do something that is a little different.

For example, UNICEF works with governments to change legislation such as in India where a law was passed raising the age of compulsory school completion to keep children in school and away from the workplace for longer.

Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue.

I still feel that a movie has to attempt to say something - even if it fails miserably. But I've sort of given up on believing that I'm going to change the world with every film I choose to act in.

Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while.

You don't have to be the Dalai Lama to tell people that life's about change.

I knew that my staying up would not change the election result if I were defeated, while if elected I had a hard day ahead of me. So I thought a night's rest was best in any event.

It will always be a battle a day between those who want maximum change and those who want to maintain the status quo.

Being a father, well, I don't know if this is a change, but it makes me want to get out of here faster. Get off the clock. Just 'cause the baby is my reason for living, my reason for coming to work.

A liberal knows that the only certainty in this life is change but believes that the change can be directed toward a constructive end.