THE FOUNDATION

The Reciprocal Employee

HUMANS ARE A SORRY SPECIES.

We can’t lift more than our own weight, if that. We’re lousy swimmers and can’t hold our breath very long under water. We don’t run very fast or for very long. Exposed to the sun, we burn. Poorly dressed in the cold, we freeze. We bruise and cut easily. We’re unconscious one-third of the time. Our young take forever to mature. We can’t smell predators coming. We can’t fly.

We would be extinct were it not for our brains.

Our unique advantage, secured inside the closest thing we have to a shell, is a three-pound organ, wrinkled to maximize crucial surface area, sucking up a disproportionate amount of oxygen and glucose, and thinking, thinking, thinking, to keep the slow-running, ...

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