Never talk to strangers. If someone ever tries to take you, fight with everything you have. Scream as loud as you can. (He'd never told her what to do if the man was too strong and there was no one to hear her screaming.)

While a number of people have pointed out the various costs and drawbacks of sentience, few if any have taken the next step and wondered out loud if the whole damn thing isn't more trouble than it's worth. Of course it is, people assume; otherwise natural selection would have weeded it out long ago. And they're probably right. I hope they are. "Blindsight" is a thought experiment, a game of "Just suppose" and "What if". Nothing more.On the other hand, the dodos and the Steller sea cows could have used exactly the same argument to prove their own superioirity, a thousand years ago: "if we're so unfit, why haven't we gone extinct?" Why? Because natural selection takes time, and luck plays a role. The biggest boys on the block at any given time aren't necessarily the fittest, or the most efficient, and the game isn't over. The game is never over; there's no finish line this side of heat death. And so, neither can there be any winners. There are only those who haven't yet lost.

Cold comradeship do stars provide.They light the closer, inner sideOf night's vast weight, which, chill and clear,Pulls on us like some puppeteer.Its unseen threads to heads and heartsAttached, it acts us through our parts,From birth's first cry to bent old age,Upon our distant, tiny stage.

There is no shortage of fault to be found amidst our stars.

There is not shortage of fault to be found amidst our stars.

To be angry at the gods is to scream at the stars. Even if they hear, they will not stop shining.