[MarsAscendant]

> Being capable of intelligence and being intelligent are not necessarily the same thing.

My argument was against what I saw as a notion that human beings must always express the intelligence we all undoubtably possess, simply because we do. I don't think that's the case. It's not about using straight logic, either: it's about empathy, and the emotions that influence (or even underline) our decisions, and the bigger picture, and whether being angry right now is worth our time...

I think we all can be like that. I think we're not encouraged enough to act that way.

There are certainly selfish motives to every single one of us – and yet, some of us are superb at overriding those motives for the sake of a better act, some struggle to the point of giving up, and others yet barely even tap into the altruistic motives.

I think it all has to do, in half, with the environment we're in. Generally speaking, fear promotes fear, and empathy promotes empathy. There's about 40 to 60% to do with genetics (the number I've seen was 55%), but that much we can't control.

We can control our environments, to an extent.