> 'intelligence' is simply the recapitulation of stuff people have already talked about and done Your definition of intelligence is simply knowledge. That's a

> 'intelligence' is simply the recapitulation of stuff people have already talked about and done Your definition of intelligence is simply knowledge. That's a shaky foundation to build any sensible reasoning. You make efforts not to call "American ingenuity" as intelligence. No, this ingenuity (which has nothing specificaly american about it) is just intelligence. The actual application of 'prejudice' to the unknown is simply ideological rambling. American exceptionalism will never stop to astound me in its vacuity. Note that European are, or at least were equally guilty of it. But americans are only starting to know what it is to be an old society. To have entrenched interests furthering inequalities and hindering innovation (divide between the golden people from california and the inner-country pop). The new age of protectionism is there and America is on its forefront. > Is it no surprise then that Americans have eschewed blind worship of an elite priesthood? "Is it no surprise that humans applied very human behaviors to employ conceptual shortcuts in trying times?" You reek of arrogance. This is pretty ironic, considering that the subtext of your comment is itself a critic of a supposed european smugness.