Washington DC and Virginia has been a blast so far. I'm exhausted out of my skull; I haven't spend this much time walking around outside since my honeymoon in Rome. But it's awesome to say that I've finally seen the White House, the State Capitol, the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, and the Washington monument (helloooooo, phallus). I also got to do some sick yoga moves in front of some of the various landmarks.
We also visited the Holocaust Museum today, which touches upon the history and the sociology of genocide. They had areas dedicated to other genocides of the past and, unfortunately, in the present day. It's enough to make you despair for humanity when you realize everything that is going on.
It's frightening how we, as humans, have to be constantly reminded that the person across from us is an actual human being, with feelings and emotions and family. Genocide is an extreme example of what happens when we lose that constant reminder. What we say in text messages or how we act on the road is a more common situation. Suddenly, they;re not humans. They're assholes whose only purpose in this life is to make you annoyed. And you hope their car explodes or your text message renders them speechless (and in a bad way).
Evolutionarily speaking, it makes sense. Those who were quicker to dehumanize probably won the wars quicker, which mean less of them were killed off, which meant more genes being passed on to the next generation. There's a lot of shitty shit humans do that make perfect sense evolutionarily speaking, but that's for another time.
Like I said, it's easy to despair for humanity when you look at things this way. No wonder authors write about aliens studying humans like it's the most fascinating book in the library.
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