Orphans of History

[gfish]

I've been thinking a lot about the history of moral development recently, particularly the acceleration it has seen. Some byproduct of the industrial revolution (increased communication and travel?) has led to a race in moral improvement to match that of technology. We're extending what we define as human faster and faster. Which is great, but...

The more I really think about issues of moral development, the less I can identify with the past. 200 years ago was 1807. Nations openly, proudly went to war to build empires and capture resources. You could buy and sell other people. Democracy was in its rudest of beginnings, limited to the rich and the white. You could travel to any number of frontiers and spend a weekend killing natives for fun. Everyone alive was an absolute savage, a barbarian.

But how will I look in 200 years? The scary thing about exponential curves is that the farther you go, the more change there is. From the vantage point of 2207, I might end up looking a lot closer to the people of 1807 than to their own enlightened selves. How am I currently a bigot, and don't even realize it? What am I casually saying/writing/doing today that will cause them to shudder in horror?

The moral Singularity has already happened, and will continue to happen as we ride the curve upwards. We're the orphans of history, with an ever-decreasing pool of suitable role-models from the past, and an ever-increasing threat of hostile rejection from the future. From here on out, we're on our own.

Comments

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

Well society is not really on a predictable curve, is it?

[zanfur.livejournal.com]

Hunh.

That's my why-didn't-I-think-of-that? noise.

[arjache.livejournal.com]

I've often wondered what the next push for civil rights will be, but most of what I can come up with is based on stuff that's already looming on the horizon - poly acceptance, for example. Apart from abolishing binary gender, I can't think of anything that'd take anywhere near 200 years to achieve. (And come to think of it, 200 years is probably a optimistic estimate for that one.)

[sickyprincess.livejournal.com]

On a completely-unrelated-note, what is your availability and willingness to get a truck from flexcar and help me move my stuff from the storage facility under the viaduct to greenlake on Saturday or so? I'll pay for it, etc.
*smiles sweetly*

[gfish.livejournal.com]

My weekend remains planless, so I could probably be talked into that, sure. :)

[sickyprincess.livejournal.com]

Could you look into getting a truck for Saturday? We'd probably need 4-5 hours, so I don't know if it's worth it to do it hourly or for the day. Maybe the day? And then we could all go out for pizza or something after. Mmm, food.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

(Sorry, dinner went long, meant to deal with this earlier.)

I'm going to reserve a flextruck for 12:00-18:00. I can change that tomorrow if it doesn't work.

[edith-mf.livejournal.com]

I try to recognise people from the bone structure and such rather than looking at the color of their skin and more obvious racially defining characteristics first. Most times I don't live up to my goal, but every now and again I get it right.

And it is more accurate.

It is something to try for to become more like a more enlightened future person might be.

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

Aside from my disbelief in non-arbitrary morality, I would suggest that little has changed. The US invasion of Iraq is about empire and resources--it's not OK to say so openly, and many will not admit it, but it is true. You can still buy and sell people all over the world. Actual political power in the US is limited mostly to the rich, which often correlates with white. And you can still go and kill people for fun (see aforementioned invasion of Iraq, for one example.) Who knows how many people in 1807 truly opposed such behavior? Who knows how many do so today?

[ilmarinen.livejournal.com]

I sorta agree and sorta don't. Thing is, we really aren't all that far advanced. Many of the things you describe as horrible in the past still happen on a regular basis.

Yes, we have broadened the definitions of Human, the basis of most "moral" development. But there is still massive genocide, USA is a defacto Empire, and there is a good chance I own and have eaten the products of essentially slave labor over the last year.

It may well be that in 100 years, being an omnivore like I am will have been considered utterly barbaric.

It sincerely hope that the present-day foreign policies of the USA (along with much of the rest of the world's governments and corporations) will be considered barbaric. However, many people do not see the past atrocities of the US as barbaric. How many Americans actively acknowledge that our nation was founded on the active and deliberate genocide of Native Americans?

And around the world, people keep doing the same crap over and over again. Israel is building ghettos for the Palestinians, Iraqi death squads are torturing people to death for belonging to a different religious sect, etc.

And it's not like we, as a "1st World Nation" are doing a lot better once you get outside our borders. Take S. Africa. For a long time, the US official policy was that the anti-apartheid leaders were criminals and communists, etc. Don't recall if "terrorist" was in vogue then, but that label would be stuck on them these days.

Argh. The whole "moral progress" bit is just a bit much for me. Basically, there is less excuse for the evil these days--it is awfully hard to argue that only ones local village is really "human"--but the evil still happens. Not sure if that is progress.

-B.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

Thing is: in 1807, very very few people actually went to the frontiers and killed natives for fun. The vast majority of them were just trying to live as best they could, and probably treating their neighbors reasonably well -- just as we are today.
I think in 2207, or very likely even 2075, people will look back at today and think we were savages because of killing off 100,000 people a year with guns, letting children starve across much of the world, burning millions of tons of coal and oil, self-destructive things like that, which, again, the vast majority of people are not actively involved in doing.

[stolen-tea.livejournal.com]

When I've thought along those lines, my guesses are that the next "expansions" will be regarding how we treat of non-human sentients. Inter-human relationships seem to be doing what they've done for a while; there's a wide mix of views out there, but the average is moving slowly. And I doubt that the average is moving exponentially. We (in Seattle/in our social communities) are on the bleeding edge, and so while we do see exponential change, I'm not sure it indicates anything except that we live on the tip of a whip. I don't think the differences between now and 1807 are much more pronounced than, say, between 1807 and 1607.

Regarding the notion others have brought up that we've not made much progress in the last 200 years, I think we've definitely improved. There are areas in which certain types of violence rarely if ever happen any more, and they seem to be growing. And there's enough consensus about the right way to behave that when people violate the consensus, they lie about it or try to hide it. That suggests that the moral norms are universally recognized, even if they're not universally shared.

As for how we're viewed by our descendants, that's one reason why I try to look at historical figures with compassion and understanding. I don't think human beings have changed very much in the last few thousand years, so I put most of the blame and credit for moral standards onto society and history. I think that moral standards that we now think are clear, are only so because the chain of reasoning leading up to them has made them so; we stand on the shoulders of giants, and all that. I'd hope that a hypothetical future society with a more enlightened morality would have a better understanding of human weakness and strength, and would be able to judge us based on something other than unattainable perfection. (Which, by the way, is explicitly not an excuse not to do what we can.)

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

Democracy was in its rudest of beginnings, limited to the rich and the white.

...and the male.

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

Hello! I appear to be on your friends list, but, not knowing whether or how closely you read my journal, I thought I might call your attention to a couple of recent (http://orawnzva.livejournal.com/35732.html#cutid6) posts (http://orawnzva.livejournal.com/36412.html) of mine which might particularly interest you. If you're ever so inclined, your comments on wacky ideas like that last would always be welcomed, as you are a clever, geeky person who seems to do a lot of thinking about that sort of thing.