should government decrease as humanity improves?

[AlexM]

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It seems that humanity progress, in direct contradiction withm AC'ers views, is, whilst not perfect, a lot better, the most laws a society has.

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False. The thing is that we make huge jumps towards freedom then slowly regress. We're far more free than we were 1000 years ago. The height of freedom in this country was after the American Revolution, the most "progressive" event to ever occur in this country.

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Compare lifestyle of 100 or 200 or more years ago with today

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I can see how a short term view would bring you to your conclusions. :P

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And, no, I don't subscribe to the romantic version of the wild west, as a desirable state, when laws were fewer.

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What romantic version? The fact that the murder rate was 10% of what it is today and lower at the time than that of the East Coast? That's a fact, not romanticism. Hollywood portrays the Wild West as much more violent than reality, not the other way around.

[pvn]

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"If men were angels, no government would be necessary."

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If men were angels, government wouldn't exist at all. Angels would have no desire to force other people to do things, no desire to commit acts of violence against others. They would have no desire to form a government in the first place. Or, if they did, governments would be limited to those fake-gotcha-governments, where two guys who decide to build a fence together, hence forming a "government".

If men were angels and government did exist, who would fear it? No government helmed by angels would engage in coercion.

If men are NOT angels, why would you want to build such an apparatus of violence and then put such flawed people at the helm?

[AlexM]

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Is humanity advancing ethically?

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Yes, but that doesn't mean that everything is always going forward. Many things move forward and many others move back, but overall we slowly better over time. Of course, if another period like the Dark Ages were to happen that would screw things up.

[Metric]

I think you're missing the point. I'm not singing the praises of government. I'm merely point out that if, as many of our friends here believe, government is necessary because people aren't perfect, then at the very least we should be progressing toward the ideal "angelic case" with less government over time. This obviously isn't happening, which forces one to confront the issue -- how much regulation would a wonderfully advanced people actually need? I.E. why do angels need MASSIVE state controls (which is apparently the endpoint of the current trend)?

Along the way, we've seen some "interesting" points of view -- apparently some people believe that angels (or that the most advanced humans) would require the MOST regulation and government. This seems utterly paradoxical, of course, but this may be a necessary belief for those who think more government would be better.

[Metric]

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Your position seems to be that as people become more "angelic", more government will be necessary. Correct?

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No, not correct at all. It seems that government acts as a behavior modificator and so makes people more "angelic" (whatever that means).

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So how is my line not correct, then? You're arguing that more government is needed to make people more ethically advanced. Thus if you want angles (the ideal case), you need TRULY ENORMOUS amounts of government control.

How is this not the most obvious conclusion from your quote above?

[AWoodside]

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I'm merely point out that if, as many of our friends here believe, government is necessary because people aren't perfect, then at the very least we should be progressing toward the ideal "angelic case" with less government over time. This obviously isn't happening...

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I think one could make a fairly strong argument that this IS happening. Sure there is short term variance, especially during the Bush Administration, but that doesn't mean the overall trend hasn't been towards more government. The US, while arguably not so today, was one of the most free governments in history at its inception. A couple hundred years before that Western Europe was awash in Feudalism. Large portions of the middle east have become much free-er during the last century, etc.

Do you think the overal trend worldwide has been less freedom over a time-scale of say, the last thousand years or so? I'm not that knowledgable about history so I could certainly be wrong, but to me it seems like the trend has been towards more freedom.

[tomdemaine]

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To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.

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-Douglas Adams

[valtaherra]

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It seems that humanity progress, in direct contradiction withm AC'ers views, is, whilst not perfect, a lot better, the most laws a society has.


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Could you rephrase this and make it understandable please?

[Smasharoo]

Could you rephrase this and make it understandable please?

I can.

'It seems that the ethical progress of humanity as a whole, while perhaps not proceeding at an ideal rate, proceeds more rapidly the more structured the legal system of a given society is. This contradicts the views of ACers.'

That being said, this would seem to imply that totalitarian state would have the most ethical populations, which depending on how you chose to define ethics might be the case.

[valtaherra]

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As for my view point, go back 400. 800, 2000 or even 5000 years you will see more laws (more refined statutes at least) and a better standard of living. In between there have been a few regressive eras, without a shadow of a doubt, but the overall is clear unless you have little information about historical living conditions.


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Could you explain how more refined statutes cause a better standard of living?