this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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If mankind started out without any negative traits that like greed, ego, anger etc., how would it shape our civilization up to this date? Would we have created the perfect utopia or made ourselves extinct long ago? Are our flaws holding us down or are they the reason our society made it to this point?

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[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Strangely, these stupid religions had a really successful path of delivering some of the most ideal traits possible. Modern, people despise religions, and feel malicious towards good intentions. But, the post-theist world - knock on wood - really knows not to use nuclear weapons. It's amazing that these religious nuts became such epic scientists, and the recipients of their awesome powers somehow maintained the insanely creditworthy ability to hang onto integrity despite whatever storm.

And weirdly, despite the storm being cult-mania mass-suicide level idiocy they were not even pushed over by a handful of demagogues coming to power in the recent right wing push.

A lot of that stuff is a freakish coincidence in a world that could have delivered it's own extinction a million times over or more already.

And there are just as many people earnestly working on removing further blights to humanity - including that of itself and the sins of its development past. Most rational people would have already killed a few million more people a year, but the religious nuts really set up a world that cherishes human life. (Probably a shame they weren't all more interested in wildlife protection)

It's eroding, obviously, as people leave religion. But they did get it to a level that's been pretty intense considering we live in a world that's normally an absolute warpath of idiot animals.