The Scout

Last time I mentioned the need for broad attention in The Wild.

Often there’s a lot going on and even those who’re trained in situational awareness techniques need help from their friends.

In The Wild, this often takes the form of scouts.

Any predator species which recognizes group identity sends out scouts who report back what’s going on where. Doesn’t matter if it’s ants, bees, coyotes, wolves, …

Group survival requires a pooling of knowledge, of information, of what happened where, when, and if possible, why.

Humans, for the most part, do not employ scouts. We call ourselves a predator species, we like to think of ourselves as apex predators, and that’s an amusing deceit we employ. Ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine percent of the population doesn’t know how to monitor situations beyond what’s for dinner, what do you want to watch tonight, how’s my job going, who’s picking up the kids when, …

These are nice, yes, and hardly qualify as survival issues.

Unless you’re under fire or threat.

Repeatedly.

Ask someone who’s a war zone, or works undercover, or in espionage, or intelligence.

They well know the value of scouts.

And as a species, as we learn more of what’s in our universe, as we discover more potential threats real or imagined, the number of scouts multiplies.

Until everyone is a scout.

Scouting on each other.

Ala 1984 or McCarthyism or … umm … (and dare I say it?) … Trump?