[quote=Foster]
Provided any misconcieved notions doesn't blind us like lemmings off a cliff, we'll do fine.
[/quote]

Awe, c'mon. Lemmings have a fairly good track record. They're still around! Maybe we need to listen to our inner lemming a bit more often. It would take care of the current population explosion. 

[quote=Foster]
Pretty much the entire moral of "To Light a Fire" aside from the value of the buddy-system... provided you're knowledgeable... otherwise you die like Specialist Wade..(subverted, in that he's shot in the liver, pretty much as garaunteed bleed-out as a heart-shot or a stab in the kidney, )
[/quote]

And now I'm cursing the lack of high speed internet in my back-woods world. I'm not sure of the To Light a Fire reference unless you mean Jack London's To Build a Fire - which I have read? Otherwise, I'm again coming up empty - though I'm sure you've a quick remedy for that. And besides, we all know that before you do anything as dangerous as walking out your front door, it helps to bring a buddy along. Preferably a slower one so that you can get to safety. 
[quote=Foster]
Our desire to symbolize things also extends to the need to personify things, a lesson we could do well to forget. Life of Pi.
[/quote]
Symbolization and personification definitely lead us to believe that we are, in some way, removed from reality. Or perhaps, puts up a barrier between us and reality. When something is symbolized, personified, anthropomorphized, etc., we can then believe our assumptions regarding the state of our own personal world view is then reality and those assumptions gain a power which, had we merely our senses to rely on and not words, they would not otherwise have. Although, having been around a goodly many of social creatures in groups (not necessarily human) I have to wonder at the truth in that. Once we become something called a social animal, our very hierarchy has a power in it that is not related to what is real. Hierarchical societies, social groups, are governed by more than aptitude and ability, but also by some strange construct of birth, allegiance, alliance, etc. Which then leads me to wonder at how much a "construct" those indeed are. Aren't they just as you said earlier (or Heinlen, actually), just more complex reactions of an organism to gain control over his survival (population pressure)? At a base level, all behaviors are the same as they were at the moment we were born, mutations to allow the organism and its get the best chances at survival. 
Dunno. Just rambling because you've given me a lot to think about. :) And it's fun to play with the ideas, as if I were someone who actually knew. 

[quote=Foster]
Natural selection itself could be said to promote Blue And Orange Morality of a sort, as it promotes behaviors that maximize an individual's genetic contribution to future generations. Period. Whether that maximization occurs through intrafamilial altruism that safeguards one's close kin at one's own expense, or through rape, infanticide, and brutally killing off one's competitors doesn't make a lick of difference, 
[/quote]

A nice way of parceling out opposite sides to the same coin and I have to say I'm in complete agreement, having sat in on many meetings where opposites cannot come to a consensus and yet, are actually fighting for the same things, are just basically fighting over semantics (or ideologies, or belief systems, world systems, etc. - symbolized views which give purpose to their arguments). I hadn't heard of it before, so thank you so much for explaining that to me. 

As for horses... heh heh... okay, so I did totally grab my all but adult son and read that aloud to him because seriously? Horse-icide to deal with flies. Brilliant.