Does anyone else wonder what we would have been tweeting/posting during WWII?
Every time I listen to a history podcast, I'm further affirmed in the feeling that people haven't changed much. And then I wonder what, if anything, could actually be done to coax greater kindness and courage from the world writ large. Is it possible for human beings to collaborate internationally with longterm success - or is our best bet rebuilding the global through improved local action? (Or are we just effed? 🙃)
@MLClark: It is not possible for an permanent, ongoing international, national, or regional, often even local collaborative anything, and that's because of human nature and because humans don't individually live long enough... and those who do live long enough are either corrupt AF, apathetic AF, or not at all listened to by younger people because "you're old and don't what things are like now" or "you got us INTO this".
Hence "the more things change, the more things stay the same."
@MLClark: It's also why "here comes the new boss, same as the old boss".
Humans have egos and ids, and those are both good things and really bad things. Most people do not learn to balance them, and they confuse them with identity. Varying degrees of hilarity ensue.
@MLClark I find some comfort in evolutionary biology - that evolved reciprocal altruism and evolutionary stable states (where 'hawks and doves' will balance in any society, eventually) will see us through, both locally and internationally, if we don't let nativist forces strip us of our shared humanity.
@peter_by_the_sea That's a huge "if", Peter, but an important one to lean into all the same. 👌🏻
I fear it's that last thing, @MLClark 🤔