A.I.M. Users Bulletin Board

[Conrad]

Neandertals

I read a story one day to my kid(well, not one day, it took many nights of bedtime reading): The 13th Warrior, of Michael Crichton. It is a fiction about Neanderthals in Scandinavia.

I used to think Neanderthals were Nederlanders(Dutchmen) but after that story I changed my mind.

In The 13th Warrior the Neds survived, while they lasted, by brute force and extreme cruelty. The Dutch, instead, survived by ingenuity, as well as brute force and extreme cruelty(Ref. Dutch Colonial history; Slave Trade, as exposed by non-Dutch sources!). In school I learned that we colonized Indonesia to make them Christians so would be saved(I had no idea from what), and that we gave African Negro's better lives by extracting then from the dark jungles of Africa, and exposing them to Dutch civilization was, I learned, something they would be eternally grateful for.

Years later I went to the University to study physics and so, and began to read other books as wel. I discovered that eternity is a very short time.

I agree with Rien, though: Optimists will survive, but only the cruel ones will!
Nice guys don't survive, nor will they become rich.
They simply fade away.

Nice guy,
Poor guy,