I sense a Randy mixing up long-term natural evolution with short-term societal evolution.
Mankind's high-earned sense of morality makes most people inherently lean towards a peaceful coexistence. But while evolution has equipped us to be peaceful towards our kin, our closer group, the tribe... it fails when applied to the greater group, outside our tribe, outside our religion, outside our kin, outside our country... outside... The others are sacrificial.... that is why there's war and conflict.
Dictators come about when a few powerful people combine their efforts into making a country which conforms to a very specific set of rules that limit greatly the remaining population's freedom. It will also often enforce strict border control. This works when the country is self-sufficient. But, in today's global economy, no country is truly self-sufficient and so any dictatorship tends to become technologically (at least) retarded.
The people also react to the limits imposed on them and, depending on the actual power of the leaders, those reactionaries are either silenced or eventually lead to a revolution deposing the dictatorship. Sometimes, the leaders themselves see the error in their ways and correct it a bit. Anyway, dictatorships always tend to eliminate the reactionaries as a way to maintain power and the people "happy" and quiet.... the more reactionaries there are, the more slaughter there is.... of course, that limit on people's liberties can extend to banning certain ethnic groups...and those people are left with few options: somehow convert to one of the accepted groups, leave, or be killed. - This happened in Europe with the inquisition; nazi Germany with the abolition of jews; the bible with hebrews taking over Israel and imposing judaism on everyone there... with reprecussions to post-WW2 Israely palestinians; and many other places from South America to China, to Japan, to the old US west. - the law comes and whoever isn't covered gets trampled.
Today's global marketplace, TV, the internet... have given some of us a global awareness of the human race.... some of us have managed to take in a global morality where we essentially extend our naturally evolved local morality to the global village. It's not a perfect system... we can still feel powerless and take little to no action towards atrocities and other problems half-way across the world... but we tend to be aware of some of it and, at least, speak out for it. Some people will actually do something - unicef, or the red cross... but it is manifestly too little and it would be nice to have some coordination with international politics.
International politics... power plays... money... control... these are some of today's largest reasons for war... morality doesn't apply, here. That's why I think that the heads of any religion are fully aware that they make people believe in BS... but, of course, they'd never admit that... it would ruin the con.
Mankind's high-earned sense of morality makes most people inherently lean towards a peaceful coexistence. But while evolution has equipped us to be peaceful towards our kin, our closer group, the tribe... it fails when applied to the greater group, outside our tribe, outside our religion, outside our kin, outside our country... outside... The others are sacrificial.... that is why there's war and conflict.
Dictators come about when a few powerful people combine their efforts into making a country which conforms to a very specific set of rules that limit greatly the remaining population's freedom. It will also often enforce strict border control. This works when the country is self-sufficient. But, in today's global economy, no country is truly self-sufficient and so any dictatorship tends to become technologically (at least) retarded.
The people also react to the limits imposed on them and, depending on the actual power of the leaders, those reactionaries are either silenced or eventually lead to a revolution deposing the dictatorship. Sometimes, the leaders themselves see the error in their ways and correct it a bit. Anyway, dictatorships always tend to eliminate the reactionaries as a way to maintain power and the people "happy" and quiet.... the more reactionaries there are, the more slaughter there is.... of course, that limit on people's liberties can extend to banning certain ethnic groups...and those people are left with few options: somehow convert to one of the accepted groups, leave, or be killed. - This happened in Europe with the inquisition; nazi Germany with the abolition of jews; the bible with hebrews taking over Israel and imposing judaism on everyone there... with reprecussions to post-WW2 Israely palestinians; and many other places from South America to China, to Japan, to the old US west. - the law comes and whoever isn't covered gets trampled.
Today's global marketplace, TV, the internet... have given some of us a global awareness of the human race.... some of us have managed to take in a global morality where we essentially extend our naturally evolved local morality to the global village. It's not a perfect system... we can still feel powerless and take little to no action towards atrocities and other problems half-way across the world... but we tend to be aware of some of it and, at least, speak out for it. Some people will actually do something - unicef, or the red cross... but it is manifestly too little and it would be nice to have some coordination with international politics.
International politics... power plays... money... control... these are some of today's largest reasons for war... morality doesn't apply, here. That's why I think that the heads of any religion are fully aware that they make people believe in BS... but, of course, they'd never admit that... it would ruin the con.
