WEBVTT

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[ Environment ]

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"Let's take a look at old Siggy; Sigmund Freud, okay, who has definitely had his run.

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He says behavior is influenced by parents, dreams, jokes, and sex;

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not necessarily in that order. Okay, but, what does that say?

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This Is the environment camp once again, right?!"

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Many scientific researches have shown an obvious fact,

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that the behavior of a human being is created by the environment.

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If genes predispose a certain behaviour but the environment doesn't support it,

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then that behaviour won't manifest, so in this case, genes aren't important.

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"We live in a remarkable time

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the age of genomics

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Your genome is the entire sequence of your DNA

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Your sequence and mine are slightly different.

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That's why we look different.

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I've got brown eyes

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you might have blue, or gray;

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but it's not just skin-deep.

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The headlines tell us

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that genes can give us scary diseases,

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maybe even shape our personality,

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or give us mental disorders.

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Our genes seem to have

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awesome power over our destinies;

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And yet, I would like to think that

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I am more than my genes.

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Likewise, every connectome

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changes over time.

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What kind of changes happen?

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Well, neurons, like trees,

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can grew new branches,

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and the can lose old ones.

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Synapses can be created,

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and the can be eliminated;

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And synapses can grow larger,

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and they can grow smaller.

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Second question:

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What causes these changes?

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Well, it's true;

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to some extent, they are programmed by your genes.

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But that's not the whole story,

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because there are signals: electrical signals,

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that travel along the branches of neurons,

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and chemical signals,

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that jump across from branch to branch.

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These signals are called neural activity.

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And there's a lot of evidence

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that neural activity

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is encoding our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions,

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our mental experiences.

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And there's a lot of evidence that neural activity

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can cause your connections to change.

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And if you put those two facts together,

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it means that your experiences

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can change your connectome.

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And that's why every connectome is unique,

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even those of genetically identical twins.

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The connectome is where nature meets nurture.

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And it might be true

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that just the mere act of thinking

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can change your connectome;

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an idea that you may find Empowering."

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"Did you all hear that question about,

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the issue about gender being socially created, versus being biological and hormonal?

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Of course, I come down a bit more on the biological side, obviously, but..

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I now believe, having come full circle after studying biology for many years,

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and really believing in the way, that the nature nurture debate, in a lot of ways, I think...is dead,

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at this point, for the following reason:

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The brain is very, very malleable;

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We're all born with male or female predispositions,

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and then we'll have hormones that increase that circuitry

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for behavior, which is what a hormone is supposed to do.

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A hormone's job is to make us predisposed to certain behaviors.

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However, the way we're raised, for example, little boys:

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Studies have shown that little boys who were told they're not supposed to touch something,

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they often will grab it and touch it, whereas a little girl can be given a verbal demand not to touch it.

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Little boys world-wide are punished more frequently, for, transgressions.

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Little boys are told not to cry...that they're supposed to, 'Man-Up,' right?

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Even at a young age, dads sometimes are very very scared if their little boy is...

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any version of effeminate..behaviors.

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For example, I remember flying coast to coast with a guy who sat next to me.

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..He said..his 18 year old son, when he saw his sister open a present, earlier that week;

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It was a purse, she'd gotten a purse.

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She was four years old. And he said, 'Oh, can I have a purse too?'

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And he said he found himself, like someone had kicked him in the stomach,

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and he just yelled at his eighteen month old son, 'No, boys don't have purses!'

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And he was reporting to me this event..and he felt so ashamed and embarrassed afterwards;

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because he realized that his little boy wasn't expressing anything..about being effeminate or not.

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So, these things: the way we raise little boys, and we raise little girls,

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Our brain circuits are so malleable. For example..we weren't born learning to play the piano, right?

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You do practice, practice, practice.

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You can retrain brain circuits, to do a variety of things.

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And..all of our life, we are trained, gender trained, to be more one way or the other.

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Males: facial expressions for example, when they measure them and put electrodes on them,

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and show them a grizzly photograph that is supposed to make you cringe and emotional,

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their facial expressions, versus females, actually showed More emotional response

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in the time Before it becomes conscious. (Then) right After the one second level when it becomes conscious,

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they start to freeze down, their facial muscles, for frowning or smiling;

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in females, facial muscles actually Amplify, and the males' go down.

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Scientists believe, the hypothesis is, that the males have been trained to suppress, an emotional feeling.

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So, thanks for the question; it's..a moving target for a lot of our lives.

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And the ways we're raised, and what we're allowed to do, what boys are (and are not) allowed to do,

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has a lot to do with how they grow up to be men."

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Think about the way you act, your facial expression,

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the values accepted by you, the way you talk, everything,

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and remember that they are a result of your environment.

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The human brain has no mechanism to recognise what is relevant or not.

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CHANTING starts to emanate from background, then intensifies.

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CHANTING fades, and light ♪orchestral♫ MUSIC begins.

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[ I’m painting myself,

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because I want to win a girl. ]

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♪orchestral♫ MUSIC continues, no voices.

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[ That guy’s really handsome. ]

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[ When we drink blood, it makes us tough. ]

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[ Tribe meets a white man for the first time... ]

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♪orchestral♫ MUSIC slightly fades.

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There is no such thing as: bad, criminal, lazy,

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brilliant people, thieves, or racists.

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Only people predisposed to such behavior;

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but if the environment doesn't trigger them,

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the behaviour never manifests.

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Remember:

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the human brain has no mechanism to recognise what is relevant or not.

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♪orchestral♫ MUSIC resumes.

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The most extreme case is represented by feral Children.

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A feral child is a human child who has lived isolated

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from human contact from a very young age,

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and has no (or little) experience of human care,

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loving or social behavior, and, crucially, of human language.

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Feral children lack the basic social skills

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which are normally learned in the process of enculturation.

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For example, they may be unable to learn to use a toilet,

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have trouble learning to walk upright

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and display a complete lack of interest in human activity around them.

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'Oxana Malaya began her life living with dogs,

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rejected by her mother and father, she somehow survived for six years,

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living wild, before being taken into care.

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There are few cases of feral children who've been able to fully compensate

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for the neglect they've suffered.

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Oxana is now 22,

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but her future still hangs in the balance.

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Have scientists learned enough from previous cases to rehabilitate?

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For six years, Oxana Malaya spent her life, living in a kennel, with dogs.

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Totally abandoned by her mother and father,

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she was discovered, behaving more like an animal,

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than a human child.

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For two centuries, wild children have been the object of fascinating study.

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Raised without love, or social interaction,

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wild (or feral) children pose the question:

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What is it that makes us human?

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Oxana was born in November, 1983.'

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(female voice)

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"When the baby girl was born, she weighed 5 lbs., 11 ounces, and didn't have Any abnormalities."

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Genie had spent 13 years, isolated,

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in a nearly empty room, devoid of any social contact.

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Although, not suffering from any mental illness,

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because of that environment, she behaved like a mentally ill person.

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She could not create social connections,

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she could not speak; even her walking was strange.

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After a while, due to the insistence of others to rehabilitate her,

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Genie began to express herself through sign language

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and socialize with people.

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'They also took responsibility for Genie's therapy,

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attempts to help her grapple with the horror of her childhood.'

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"Okay baby, open your mouth!"

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'In this primitive role playing exercise,

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Marilyn pretends to be Genie's mother.'

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"Hurry up! Hurry up, because there isn't any time.

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Father's going to be angry."

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'Marilyn tries to ellicit memories of Genie's past.'

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(Marilyn) "I wonder what you're thinking." (Genie) UNCLEAR RESPONSE.

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Genie is the extreme evidence of environmental influence.

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'Despite all she'd been through, Genie's troubles were not over.

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In her first foster home, Genie was severely punished for vomiting.

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The experience was so traumatizing, Genie ended up back in children's hospital,

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where the Rigler's offered assistance.'

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"You couldn't help it."

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"So now you're keeping you're mouth closed so you won't vomit."

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'Genie was afraid to open her mouth.

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If you do not expose a human being to murder,

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rape, pedophilia, zoophilia, necrophilia, weapons, racism,

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then he will not know what they are.

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It's like trying to imagine

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a color you’ve never seen before.