ok...
Standing armies: True, most of them are small and relatively insignificant, but thanks to the peace treaties they've formed with their neighbours they don't have to worry about being invaded. You'll notice that this is not something that's common to all human history but something that's come about with modern diplomatic processes.

Protest: I think both Bush's and Blair's popularity demonstrate what happens when politicians ignore popular opinion. Protest is a good political tool to help sway public opinion, it might not stop the polital act but it can change what they do in the future. Bush has the lowest popularity rating of any incumberent president. He didn't get that by people sitting back and letting him get away with it.

Idealism: I like the way you think it's some sort of black and white system - either some sort of perfect idealist utopia or a dark world of corrupt political machinations when actually it's somewhere in between. The reason it's somewhere in between is because when people do uncaring, nasty things there are people willing to pull them up on it rather than lie down and let them do it. You said yourself that mankind became dominant by fighting, why did you stop?

Tools: We do use tools to kill things such as predators - it was a sensible precaution to protect the early tribes. Killing predators and hunting is a very different thing to war, and generally speaking, killing other members of the same species is not a good recipe for long-term species dominance.

Clash-of-ideals: Absolutely there are people with very different ideals, but it wasn't so long ago that most countries refused to accept members of non-state religions to practice their faith and atheists were jailed. Now we have fairly peaceful co-existence in quite a few parts of the world - it's called progress.

Too busy: You dismiss the people who are fighting the good fight as teenage idealists but I'd like to see you dismiss the great work of people like Amnesty and the many other charities, pressure groups, political parties and educational establishments as hopeless. People who've gone through childish idealism, through teenage cynicism and out the other side to a more rounded, long-term viewpoint - one person can't save the world tomorrow, but a lot of people making their voices heard can move the world in the right direction, one step at a time. And that seems like something worth fighting for, however busy you are.

That sounds like a far more grown-up viewpoint to me.
( chenobble rocking his explorer beard on, Mon 30 Jun 2008, 17:02, Reply)