Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson for August 25, 2013

I love Beni and his comments.

Actually, there’s no evidence that television is bad for your eyes. Or that parents are rational. Or honest.

’Tis a rare and wondrous skill, Alice! No wonder Beni is so impressed. (Why is Dill so blase?)

Dill still has some work to do to get to their level.

TV teaches how to be violent, and thats all…!

I’d be interested in knowing how much of the monthly fee goes to paying cartoonists.

You can’t see who is talking to Alice. Mom or Dad? I’m guessing Mom.

Dill is probably wondering if he could extend his eyeballs out on stalks, could he get birds to land on them.

Yes, it is WELL worth the membership fee.

@Citizen GROG! I’ve never understood why “outside” is automatically better. Every day, we learn more and more than the outside is bad for us. We (as a species) invented shelter to avoid the outside. We can ever exercise indoors now.

@Night-Gaunt49 Well, we’re born with it, but, since we’re also an intelligent species, maybe we’re not stuck with it?

I was thinking that it was possibly Petey who was talking to Alice, especially after whoever it was started in with all the six-foot optic-nerve stuff. Peter, of course, is perfectly capable of unloosing flights of fancy – probably Madeline is, too.

@JP Steve I’m not sure that would work. The Vulcans are also genetically illogical and violent. The teachings of Surak helped them control their violence and illogic. I was thinking more along the lines of education and focusing more on developing our thought process (on an individual, not evolutionary) basis.

If we accept that civilization does (or will ultimately), reward logical thinking and intelligence, illogic will eventually die out. Even today, the definition of “fittest” is quite different than it was in the caveman days.

According to http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Vulcan the Vulcans didn’t alter their minds, only their philosophy. In particular, “those who opposed logic left Vulcan and founded colonies elsewhere most notably on the planet Romulus”, suggesting logic was a individual choice, not a result of brain alteration (unless accepting a new philosophy counts as brain alteration). Of course, some Vulcans follow courses of study (eg, the Kolinahr) to become even more logical, but, again, I wouldn’t count this as “brain alternation”.