Doug -
I firmly subscribe to the belief that people (in the aggregate)
largely get what they deserve. The lack of public outcry about LAHS's
three year old Religious Right science teaching policy tells me that
the current crop of parents up on "The Hill" have earned the right of
having fostered a new generation of educationally deprived children.
Extend this philosophy a bit: The people of the United States have
richly earned the rewards from having voted Bush into office for
subsequent terms.
Extend this philosophy a bit more: The humans of this planet have
richly earned the pleasures that our daily cesspool provides, such as
well-attended Fundamentalist-inspired 13 year old rape victim
stonings; Abu Graib; melamine-laced baby formula; teenagers breaking
into a German zoo, attacking and wounding a 75 year old blind bird;
and billion dollar golden parachutes as rewards for corrupt banking CEOs.
I agree with all of this in principle. It feeds my deepest vein of
"Morbid Fascination". But I also seek (and live by) an opposing
optimism that despite all the *unenlightened* self-interest in the
world, we are capable (in the small, if not the large) of enlightened
self interest, and I encourage and participate in it every opportunity I
see.
Let's see a mathematical model that rigorously captures all of these
societal behavior gems, and can replicate the behavior in a simulation.
In other words, true change comes from within, if you have to impose
it, it is not true change. If the race survives long enough, human
society might eventually evolve into a more civilized form, but I'm
not sure I'd bet on it.
Agreed. Let's have a beer!
- Steve
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