My ex believed in progress.

My ex girlfriend believed in progress, and thought that humans were on the road to moral perfection.

Before she died, she decided that the evidence pointed the other way. We are all hell bent on our own destruction– so full of pointless spite that we’ll blow up the world rather than let some other tribe run it. But I don’t think it’s pointless spite. We behave the way we do because our biology is shaped by natural selection.

There’s the same evolutionary basis to hostility towards other groups as there is to love in families and cooperation within the group. Behavior like that was good strategy for thousands of years. We’re not limited to what worked for our ancestors. We can overcome our tribal tendencies. But the effort must be made over and over, since our biology does not change. Consider traffic. Incidents of road rage? That was how Oedipus killed his father: in a fight over the right of way. Rude driving infuriates us, but it happens against a background in which most drivers, most of the time, cooperate beautifully in helping others get where they are going.

That’s Progress!