:To be led by a fool - Octavia E. Butler

I began writing the book with the thought that maybe what we needed was the biological conscience. It does seem to me that there are too many people in this world who would just as soon wipe out half their country if they could rule the other half.

I got up to leave. There was nothing more to be said. He had asked for what he knew I could not give, and I had refused.

Civilization is to groups what intelligence is to individuals. It is a means of combining the intelligence of many to achieve ongoing group adaptation.