The rare person is still interested in new advances when they are adults. There is possibly a correlation with intelligence. In any case, you have to be fairly bright to keep learning and changing attitudes as you get older.

Perhaps teachers should be instructed in a program where they lie to their students on a regular basis to sharpen up their skills at detecting lies.

Children do not have to learn that streets are dangerous places by potentially fatal trial and error.

Successful cult memes induce intense social interaction behaviour between cult members. This trips the attention detectors.

People repeat behaviour that leads to flooding their brains with pleasurable chemicals. The short-term reward loop acts over hours to years, and the long-term reproductive success loop over generations.

Most of the suicide hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, a place not lacking in wealth. But due to rapid population growth, the wealth per capita has fallen by about half in a generation.

As for leadership, I am the kind who leads reluctantly and more by example than anything else. Someone had to be on the incorporation papers as president.