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.

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

No one will deny that the excessive use of alcohol and alcoholic beverages would do more than any other single factor to make impossible a total war effort.

We used to drink an awful lot of alcohol.

A lot of victims, for example, have become addicted to alcohol and drugs. It seems to me that the church's healing ministry is going to be enhanced through this in much broader strokes. That's good, it's all positive.

I'm glad now, at age 66, that I never used alcohol or tobacco... I've buried a lot of friends who used tobacco or alcohol.

One day my wife went and saw the accountant and said she's pulling the plug. She said you guys are done. I said, how bad can it be? 10 grand? She said you're not even close. It came out to almost $50,000 in alcohol for two months.

So at the end of the day, our number 1 goal, our top priority, is to motivate American youngsters to reject the abuse of illegal drugs, tobacco and alcohol. All three of them are illegal behaviors.

There's so much fear involved in trying to do something you don't know how to do that drugs and alcohol can become a big part of your life if you have an addictive personality or are very unsure, which most songwriters are.

Two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity.

Alcohol is like love. The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl's clothes off.

Somebody said to me this morning, 'To what do you attribute your longevity?' I don't know. I mean, I couldn't have planned my life out better. By all accounts I should be dead! The abuse I put my body through: the drugs, the alcohol, the lifestyle I've lived the last 30 years!

I've never had a drink of alcohol or any drug in my life.

The stated mission at the time was simply to use the influence of the entertainment industry to do an accurate portrayal of drug and alcohol abuse. We all admit that we're not trying to censor anybody.

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.