Everyone believes their idea of what the world is, is what the world really is, unless they've had a shocking experience personally that shows them it can be otherwise, like we vets have. "It can't happen here because it hasn't happened here" is a powerful delusion that is hard to give up unless it's been torn from you. You're 42 years old, you've lived in pleasant middle class America your whole life where there's a Burger King down the road and McDonald's across the street from it. There's always been high school football, and fishing trips, and getting your oil changed, and waiting in line at the bank, and grumbling when you get a ticket, and all of the other ten million little things that make normal average American life that have always been there as long as you've been alive, and you know the world was pretty much the same before you since your parents probably had almost the exact same experiences. "Civil war" and "mass graves" and "killing sqauds" are things in black and white pictures and maybe a few grainy 5 seconds clips you saw in history class in 10th grade. They might have been real at some point, but they're not real to you. They're an abstract idea. Real American life is what you've personally experienced and it's always been there and your brain has zero reason to believe that it won't always be there.

The predictive and pattern recognition nature of the human brain is based on what that specific brain has actually experienced. There is a reason why we have to train to do things with our hands, from changing a tire to shooting a gun, to making a macro in Excel. Our brains just aren't good at reading abstract information and turning it into real intrinsic skill or knowledge to be worked into that predictive pattern matching firmware our instincts use. We can know of something, but that lizard part of our brain that interprets reality only works with the reality we've actually experienced. You know civil wars exist, but your brain doesn't truly accept that they happen here because 100% of the experiences it has processed, and that's the only thing it makes those sorts of judgement on, has been where civil war isn't happening here. Every shred of your instinct is telling you "It can't really happen here. Life tomorrow will be mostly like yesterday" because for the vast majority of us that has always been true and your brain isn't going to waste time and energy on processing scenarios that are based on a reality it's never actually experienced.

Even us, who acknowledge that yes it sure as hell can happen here and have even seen it overseas, are still going to be shocked when it does because it's going to force our brain to start rethinking the way it has compartmentalized and classified all of life before now and the assumptions and predictions it made based on all of those things.

Everyone believes their idea of what the world is, is what the world really is, unless they've had a shocking experience personally that shows them it can be otherwise, like we vets have. "It can't happen here because it hasn't happened here" is a powerful delusion that is hard to give up unless it's been torn from you. You're 42 years old, you've lived in pleasant middle class America your whole life where there's a Burger King down the road and McDonald's across the street from it. There's always been high school football, and fishing trips, and getting your oil changed, and waiting in line at the bank, and grumbling when you get a ticket, and all of the other ten million little things that make normal average American life that have always been there as long as you've been alive, and you know the world was pretty much the same before you since your parents probably had almost the exact same experiences. "Civil war" and "mass graves" and "killing sqauds" are things in black and white pictures and maybe a few grainy 5 seconds clips you saw in history class in 10th grade. They might have been real at some point, but they're not real to you. They're an abstract idea. Real American life is what you've personally experienced and it's always been there and your brain has zero reason to believe that it won't always be there.

The predictive and pattern recognition nature of the human brain is based on what that specific brain has actually experienced. There is a reason why we have to train to do things with our hands, from changing a tire to shooting a gun, to making a macro in Excel. Our brains just aren't good at reading abstract information and turning it into real intrinsic skill or knowledge to be worked into that predictive pattern matching firmware our instincts use. We can know of something, but that lizard part of our brain that interprets reality only works with the reality we've actually experienced. You know civil wars exist, but your brain doesn't truly accept that they happen here because 100% of the experiences it has processed, and that's the only thing it makes those sorts of judgement on, has been where civil war isn't happening here. Every shred of your instinct is telling you "It can't really happen here. Life tomorrow will be mostly like yesterday" because for the vast majority of us that has always been true and your brain isn't going to waste time and energy on processing scenarios that are based on a reality it's never actually experienced.