The kids and I are studying rocketry, and as part of that research we just got done watching this video. It's a superb and entertaining primer, other than perhaps the presenter's glossing over of how hybrid engines work. But maybe even more interestingly, and as always happens with home schooling, the video led to a divergent discussion-- in this case, regarding human evolution.

Startled at such a good example of the latter, I immediately froze the frame with the shot of the audience here, and asked the kids: describe to me what the men are doing in this shot. "They're watching and smiling; they think it's cool." Then I asked, "And what are the women doing?" "Covering their ears and faces; they look scared." I froze frame a bit later, here, and asked who were giving the more enthusiastic claps: the men, or the women? "The women", my kids answered.

This led to an explanation of how women, who were tied up having and caring for babies for hundreds of thousands of years, developed to be both risk averse, and also to highly value social harmony: they are better at empathizing, and worse at systematizing. After all, if women took risks and the babies died, or the tribe lost its mojo, it would cease to exist. Men, by contrast, were the hunters: they had to be brave and strong to overcome the risks-- so to this day, they accept and even enjoy risk, being excellent systematizers, but poor empathizers; not enough time to be all feely when you're about to get eaten.

On a note I didn't discuss with the kids, are that those lines are becoming blurred as testosterone levels plummet across the Western world: so while men are still less risk averse than women on average, their out-of-whack hormonal balances are causing them to become more risk averse, and also to value social harmony more highly-- in other words, they are becoming more like women. This is why the political balance is shifting less towards principles, rational logic, and risk taking, and more towards emotional appeals and fear. It's also why men are more willing to "cuck" these days, throwing their principles overboard to "get along": there are fewer and fewer hills they see worth dying on, so to speak, weighed against their ever-increasing woman-like desire for social harmony.