Small Talk
Created | Updated Sep 21, 2005
This term is employed by humans to describe the use of idle conversation in regard to relatively pointless, yet easily relatable subjects, such as the weather (It’s a nice day.), sports (Are you planning to watch the game this afternoon?), or one’s general welfare (You seem to have fallen down a fifty foot hole. Are you all right?). Humans habitually practice small talk in order to avoid potential confrontation. The instinctual reaction of any human is to act in an aggressive manner when faced with another human with whom they are unfamiliar. Small talk is a social practice used to curb this behavior. It has been developed over the course of the species’ history due to their extremely aggressive nature. Humans find it more difficult to attack someone with whom they share much in common, and small talk allows them to readily find equal ground. If you are unable to engage in small talk with a human you are unfamiliar with, the odds of a violent confrontation increase greatly. A lack of small talk often causes more volatile subjects such as religion and politics to be brought up. Under no circumstances should you ever discuss politics or religion with a human that you are not already on friendly terms with. These two subjects are the primary cause of the countless thousands of horribly bloody wars that continually erupt on the planet.
