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If people's minds are their genetic inheritance then 'social systems' which create 'civilised society' are built on a completely false idea of how we, as beings, 'work' - and political systems, parties, religions, 'science', education, 'breeding'/'grooming' etc etc etc are all parts of those social systems the deluded (which means most humans, emphatically including effectively all the 'atheists') pretend 'create us' and define our minds, our personalities, etc - when this is the furthest thing from the truth, the diametric opposite. As long as people allow themselves to pretend the opposite is true (with peer pressure as the primary engine used to force them to allow this), all tyrannies can call upon the people themselves as witnesses to their, the people's, (imagined) 'need' to be controlled.

The following extract can also be read here: http://2.tvhobo.com and related material and part of the same conversation here: http://24.tvhobo.com

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INTERVIEWER: I mean, in a way, this is a rather alarming doctrine. I mean, it certainly contravenes the way we want to feel about ourselves.

CHOMSKY: Well, that may be an immediate reaction, but I think it's not the correct reaction. In fact, while it's true that our genetic program rigidly constrains us, I think the more important point is that the existence of that rigid constraint is what provides the basis for our freedom and creativity. And the reason--

INTERVIEWER: What you mean is it's only because we are pre-programmed that we can do all the things we can do?

CHOMSKY: Exactly. The point is that if we really were plastic organisms without an extensive pre-programming, then the state that our mind achieves would in fact, be a reflection of the environment, which means it would be extraordinarily impoverished.

Fortunately for us, we're rigidly pre-programmed with extremely rich systems that are part of our biological endowment. Correspondingly, a small amount of rather degenerate experience allows a kind of a great leap into a rich cognitive system, essentially uniform in a community, and in fact, roughly uniform for the species.

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