I sent several dozen letters through the USPS, but if you are sending letters from a combat zone (Iraq for example) you don't need to put postage on it, you can simply write "Free" in the upper-right corner where you would normally put a stamp.

I know what you mean. Here I am stationed in Iraq, I've got people going out every day who are possibly going to get really killed. We find explosives, get shot at, you name it. It's all VERY real. But there are enough people who are so totally insulated from this sort of thing that the EVE Online game is vastly more important to them.

On the other hand, this should spur someone from Darfur to post about the genocide there. Or one of the congo nations where life is so horrible.

What does it say about us as a species that there is such a range of lifestyles? On one end is the people where EVE Online takeovers might be the most important thing to happen to them all year. At the other end are refugees who get killed by the thousands and would have been starving and diseased anyway.

Is this disparity good or bad? Is there any limit to how much disparity is good? Would we be better off if everybody had similar worries and we were all about the same level on Maslow's hierarchy of needs?