STer

This is, from what I've read, an oversimplification. And this is why I so highly recommend The Evolution of Cooperation. It gets into the science behind the dynamics of these incentives. And it is simply not the case, at least according to that research, that corruption is always less effective than honesty. The book delinates exactly when corruption is and is not an advantage and what has to happen to make sure it is at a disadvantage.

That has always been something I've thought about. I wonder so often if the focus on statism is really missing the point for the reason you mentioned. If it's possible to make people virtuous, then governments, even if they did form, would be virtuous. I find it more useful to focus on exploitation itself, recognizing some governments as examples of that, just as there are countless others. The focus on one form of exploitive structure, to me, can be worthwhile, but not as the fundamental issue.

As you point out, the fundamental drive to exploit and dominate hasn't gone away. It has just been channeled from some strategies and structures to others. The key question is "Can that fundamental drive be reduced to the point of triviality?" Stef's theory seems to be that yes it can since it only comes about due to bad parenting and that, with healthy parenting, hardly anyone would have such a drive. My understanding is that such a drive is one of the main forces, along with cooperation, driving evolution and we'll always have to accede to its existence and develop structures that are inherently able to keep such forces in a healthy, sustainable balance.

There is one fundamental difference in viewpoint between myself and Stefan that I think is relevant here to this thread. I may be oversimplifying his view, but, it seems like Stefan views the harmful activity of humans as a consequence of things like poor parenting which, when improved, will lead to an overall improvement in the level of peacefulness of the species. With this improved version of humanity will come, organically, healthier, more sustainable systems. I, on the other hand, view evolution as a timeless battle between forces of cooperation/peace and deception/exploitation. I don't expect this battle to ever stop. It is one of the driving engines of evolution. So to me the question is not "How do we once and for all improve the species' level of morality" since I doubt this is possible (though perhaps I'm wrong). The question is, given the fact that this battle between cooperation/peace and deception/exploitation will inevitably continue, how do those of us who value the former best advocate for those conditions to prevail more often? I address this issue somewhat in my piece: Some Thoughts on Anarchism & Psychopathy The one resource I really recommend for those interested in this is the book The Evolution of Cooperation, which really goes into detail about studies and simulations showing what conditions must hold for the cooperators to maintain greater influence than the exploiters. I think, if I'm framing this correctly, this could delineate a couple fundamental categories among those of us who advocate for what we see as a better world. There are those whose strategy is based on something like improving the species in an overall way, whom we might call something like "The Human Improvement" crowd. And then there are those whose strategy is based on an acceptance that there will likely always be a dynamic evolutionary interplay between cooperation and exploitation and that we will always have to work to maintain an advantage for cooperation. Perhaps this latter crowd can be called something like "The Eternal Cooperation Maintenance" crowd. I think a better name could be given to these, but perhaps that's a start.