Sometimes I ask myself, why should I root for some athlete whom comes from the same nation as me? Is the common language enough reason to do it? What do I have more in common with people who are from the same country as me? What do I know of them more than we live in a more or less the same place on planet Earth? And it is not even always the case. Or maybe because we had a similar socialization. But, in fact, today when the world is getting smaller every decade, it really becomes less and less significant. So why?

What's more, maybe I could have more topics to conversation with someone who comes from another country than to some fellow countryman. Maybe we could even become friends. And we could have a lot in common and understand each other almost without words. 

What are the other similarities with someone who speak the same language as me? Related to the language we speak. Maybe nothing. I do not see many of them as a binding rule. At least nothing that could be relevant. Nothing what could make a real difference. But I clearly see an atavistic mechanism that has been in operation since our tribal life. From those old days when others were always strangers we did not understand when we saw them as the only threat to us. But today's something has changed. At least I strongly believe that it really happened. The world is different. We are different. I think we should be different. Why should we? Because we know others are just like us, very much alike. People from other places on earth have similar dreams, the same reasons for happiness, similar problems and sorrows. They usually spend lives very similar to ours, because in fact they are like us. 

Of course, I'm not entirely so naive. There are some differences. But most of them are not directly related to language and nationality. There are usually differences similar to those I encounter in my country's society. Some of them are interesting to me, some are not. With some people I want to be in touch with others, not. Just life.

Why should I root for some athlete whom comes from the same nation as me? Enjoy his victory. Should I be happy when someone from the other country loses? Is it just because he speaks a different language and we live in different places? 
I am not convinced that it should be. Would not it be better to watch sport without those emotions? Especially because nationality and patriotism are relatively new concepts. Not even three centuries have passed as we know them. They build and preserve our atavistic aversion to others. Based on deeply-rooted dividing between ‘us’ and ‘them’.

Does not that take us back into the dramatic darkness of the past? Do we really want this? 
But maybe it could be otherwise. Enjoying sports in a healthy joyful way. Similar to looking at your own children compete. Then we are only happy watching them rival and we have not any negative emotions. Would it be possible when we are watching sports competitions?

**― RW**

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Why should I root for some athlete whom comes from the same nation as me?

#### Who we are and where we are going. Are we still the slaves of the few? Which we have been for most of human history. And whether so much has changed for sure?

"We live with a bounty of communications technologies at
our disposal. Our culture is composed more of mediated experiences
than of directly lived ones. Yet we are also more alone
and atomized than ever before. Our most advanced technologies
are not enhancing our connectivity, but thwarting it. They are
replacing and devaluing our humanity, and — in many different ways
undermining our respect for one another and ourselves. Sadly, this has been by design."

"There’s a reason for our current predicament: an antihuman
agenda embedded in our technology, our markets, and our major
cultural institutions, from education and religion to civics and
media. It has turned them from forces for human connection
and expression into ones of isolation and repression."

"We are embedding some very old and disparaging notions about
human beings and their place in the natural order into our
future technological infrastructure. Engineers at our leading
tech ﬁrms and universities tend to see human beings as the
problem and technology as the solution."

"When they are not developing interfaces to control us, they
are building intelligences to replace us. Any of these technologies
could be steered toward extending our human capabilities and collective power.
Instead, they are deployed in concert
with the demands of a marketplace, political sphere, and power
structure that depend on human isolation and predictability in
order to operate."

"Social control is based on thwarting social contact and
exploiting the resulting disorientation and despair. Human
beings evolved by gaining the capacity to forge greater numbers
of social connections. The development of our brain, language,
text, electronic media, and digital networks were all driven by
our need for higher levels of social organization."

"Thinking, feeling, connected people undermine the institutions
that would control them. They always have. That’s why
new mechanisms for forging bonds and cooperation between
people are almost inevitably turned against those ends. Language
that could inform is instead used to lie. Money that could
promote trade is instead hoarded by the wealthy. Education that
could expand workers’ minds is instead used to make them more
efﬁcient human resources."

"All along the way, cynical views of humans as a mindless
mob, incapable of behaving intelligently and peacefully, are used
to justify keeping us apart and denying us roles as autonomous
actors in any of these areas of life. Our institutions and technologies
aren’t designed to extend our human nature, but to
mitigate or repress it."

  **- Douglas Rushkoff**

SOCIETY