I read a comment once lauding bullying as an evolutionary filter that prevented the environmentally unfit from too strongly impacting the species. This has, like many other ideas that took me aback, floated around in the back of my mind while I sorted what I thought about it.

"This also happens with animals so it is not a completely human thing."

While I don't want to, because of the off hand comment you provide above, I am forced to acknowledge that there is some truth to the idea that bullying is an evolutionary force, something that enables species - not just us small boys on playgrounds suffering from mean people - to ensure their fitness. The world is a dangerous place. All of us are actually no more than tasty meals that deliver themselves to our predators when we stumble into their hunting grounds.

The fact that other species also exhibit bullying behaviour lends support to this theory that bullying contributes to evolutionary fitness. While purely considering humanity as animals enables some justification of such social cruelty, that is not all there is to humanity. We vaunt ourselves as something more than mere animals, make reference to our spiritual beliefs, sublime arts, and scientific understanding to support a belief we are higher creatures than our fellow species on Earth.

I hope that is true of us, and that more substantial forces than physical needs are operant that justify my inherent value of kindness and mercy more highly than lust, greed, or power. The considerations I have given consciousness informed by the No Hiding theorem of physics, which suggest that our conscious minds are immortal because they are information that cannot be lost to the universe, support that hope. Our actions while we live, viewed in the light of immortal spiritual consciousnesses, become more permanent than anything carved in stone, and, unless we can ameliorate and rectify such acts in the hereafter through communicating with others, such as those we have done wrong, I can see that regretting unchangable acts forever could indeed be a hellish fate.

I appreciate your contribution to my reflections on these matters. Your insights are beneficial and substantive because you strive to be rational, honest, and beneficial to your fellows.

Thanks!