The Big 5 model is incredibly limiting and is only successful _because_ of its brevity, not because it is sufficiently explanatory of the kaleidoscope of human traits. Its reductionism at it's most hubristic, and let's keep it real here, no five personality traits are adequate enough to span the dynamism of human emotive.

I believe in a thing called cosmic consciousness, and that is (albeit somewhat challenging to explain) what drives my defense of why kindness is such a pivotal factor in human social interaction. There is a line in Gladiator "what we do in life echoes in infinity" and because that resonance exists, the kindness we exhibit is important enough to outweigh other traits, and actually points to a larger issue of whether or not our judgmental, rather vindictive mindset of late is ultimately counterproductive to the existential state of civilization. In other words, when we are kind to one another, we facilitate a happier, healthier world, thus insuring the survival of those who promote that non-violent, what I would call, state of Grace.

I also think you might misunderstand what the word kindness means, as you refer to cruelty and strength as some measure of adequate relation to what would be deemed fit in some similar function.

I think it's a fairly cogent statement, as great and influential persons are, by and large, incredibly kind. Of course, if one thinks that power equates with influence, or that fitness is best represented by wealth, I would posit that there is a huge correlation between wealth, kindness, and authority. For instance, President Obama is quite obviously an incredibly kind man. William Gates, Jr., a philanthropist (read: about as far away from unkind as you can get), Her Majesty the Queen of England, the titular head of an Empire, leads a family that donates a huge amount of their wealth to the citizenry of the United Kingdom, and is as sunny as anyone in her position could possibly be (have you ever once seen her upset in public, because I haven't), these instances alone give clear indication that kindness is, indeed, perhaps an indisputable barometer of what is meant by being fit for survival.

By contrast, who do you know who is sought by society for capital punishment? The unkind, that's who. Those who are cruel are brought up before magistrates, tribunals, and high courts and told in no uncertain terms that their survival is undesirable by the masses.

Fitness in a world of more than a few is entirely dependent on symbiotic, cohesive, gentile (in the French sense, though Christ is an inordinately germane example of kindness too) behavior.

They are saying, in my opinion, that it is important to step away from the S.O.P. because by doing so we gain the clarity of insight from treating them not as cogs to fill a gear ratio, but as human beings that bring an enormous range of abilities that, for various reasons, may not communicate unless one allows them to, hence the example of a root reduction in the db search space.

Second: Your idealism is compelling, yet you overstate the facilities available to the common citizen.

Third: Pointing the finger at 'Americans' and saying 'Why don't you quit fighting so much?' only serves to feed the narrative that Americans are war-hungry.

Case in point: there is not a single military battle being fought on American soil. We, the 'war hungry' Americans, only commit to actionable defense of foreign states whose sovereignty is threatened by whatever forces are objectively creating a threat. We do so because we stand on the principle that it is better to stand up for the weak than it is to kowtow to dictators or totalitarian states. Now, we do this in a manner that is selective because geopolitics isn't a black and white decision matrix, and we have to pick battles that that we not only think we can win, but that won't serve to exacerbate the problems of totalitarianism and despotic rule.

It's not so much an issue of quality as it is brand recognition. I went to a top 20 State school, that is to say top 20 among State schools, and while, to me (if I can say so without sounding self-aggrandizing) that's a pretty good ranking, all told, not once in my life have I heard my school discussed in any media whatsoever as an intellectual powerhouse.

The top 'brands' get the largesse of the praise, and the lesser schools are left to fight for the scraps. I sense the balance shifting somewhat but nonetheless the attitude of 'if it costs more, it must be better' seems utterly pervasive.

I yearn to be proud of my education.

I yearn to be one of the 'cool kids', and I don't think it's because I have no sense of personal worth or that I am self-marginalizing. I simply think there is a crisis of hubris that we overlook in favor of pointing out instances where the 'have nots' do well.

For every kid from the hood who makes good, there are dozens, hundreds, thousands of upper management jobs handed to those who attend schools based on the meritocracy of wealth.

It is astonishing. It is the crux of why our cultural stagnation is reaching critical mass (see current President-elect for more on that topic, I mean seriously, who thinks Donny got into Wharton through acumen and not the bravado wealth affords the ineffably idiotic?).

My point is that your summary resonates hard with my own experience and I appreciate your perspective.

Functions that you define take parametrized input and use predefined logical constructs and produce some output. Self-healing (diction demands a more appropriate word, perhaps rectifying as code isn't defined ontologically as holistic, though a reordering of ethics might serve that purpose one day), so: self-rectifying code does so by working in the boundary conditions set by the logician who defines its instruction, and merely iterates through code chunks and tests against user defined output until it is successful. The big O to achieve fairly complex goals makes implementation very manageable, I presented a paper on this at my alma mater a few years ago and was a bit surprised it had yet to receive much traction. Every parameter can be included in the logic to ensure space and time complexity restraints are met, as well as code style.

Would you argue against a medical procedure that heals your cells instead of healing your organ at the tissue level?

Does wheat produce a sugar laden liquid that can be replenished by the cow every few days that is macrobiotic as all get out?

And yes, I know about beer.