The socialist revolutionaries, democratic socialists, and assorted reformers here seem to think that once the system is changed according to their prescriptions, life will get better because people will make more rational and compassionate decisions. Inequality will disappear.
Technology will only be constructive, not destructive. Sustainability and durability will replace short-term avarice and rapaciousness.Blah. What's to stop the powerless of today, once they overthrow the powerful, from becoming oppressors themselves? Isn't it possible that the traits of lust for power, selfishness, greed, and indifference to the suffering of others when faced with one's own desires are INTRINSIC to human beings? Aren't we the dominant speices because we're the most vicious, the most willing to obliterate anything and everything that gets in our way, including members of other human tribes? Are the Frenchys and Doc Cruels of this world mere aberrations, or banal examples of the human race? Given mankind's history -- one of unrelenting violence and cruelty -- why the sense of optimism here?
Perhaps our self-destruction is inevitable.
I recognize that mercy, selflessness, and a desire for beauty are also constant threads running through humanity, but I fear that those threads are thin and bland, while the destructive threads are so wide and bold that they become the distinguishing colors of our kind.
-- MDG, glum from having read the morning's news.
