[extropy-chat] Robert Wright: How cooperation (eventually) trumps conflict

[Damien Broderick]

At 10:27 AM 4/14/2007 -0700, Jef wrote:
>I just discovered this video (posted 2007-01) of Robert Wright arguing
>the arrow of morality more concretely and (I hope) more persuasively
>than I do.
>
><http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/68>

It's mordantly funny. But a friend makes the following cautionary comments:

<It's true that things will get better and for many of the reasons he 
cites.  But it's all so dumbed-down...  His 'business class' example 
is laughable.  As a butler, I've stood by listening to the business 
class fliers of the world talking openly about destabilising the 
economy of an African country in order to firm up access to the 
silver supply.  And the way they talked of it, and its broad 
acceptance, signified to me that it wasn't unusual.  Arms dealers 
also think of themselves as reasonable people.  These people don't 
speak of other nations as less than human, but they act as if they 
are.  Is that progress?  Merely hypocrisy.>

I think that's going too far. But the relationships involved are 
still far too close to the colonial and imperial.

Damien Broderick