Moridinamael is right about self-confidence, it is really important in fast reacting, even more than practice.
When I joined the military as a private in Russian army my performance during certain stressfull tasks was significantly lower during approximately first six months. As time passed, sertain situations became less stressfull, and I became to outperform lots of my peers as I gained more self-confidence and was finally able to think clear and fast.
(Practice is most essential in ability to react fast and cooperatively. To effectively cooperatively rea...
Read Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Stanislav Lem, Robert Sheckley, that's just the first names that came to my mind.
As for a parent post, society is more dependent on it's economical system more than on anything else. And technology advancements, as history teaches us, don't always define social structure. Ancient Greece and Roma are the great examples of enormous scientific and technological advancements living side by site with an underdeveloped dead-end social structu... (read more)