“From single-celled to pluricellular to multicellular organisms or from hunter-gatherers to the EU, the history of evolutionary forces that resulted in human society is a history where cooperation has emerged at increasingly large scales.”
I often hear claims like this, but I’m not sure these things are really all that analogous beyond the superficial ‘smaller → bigger’ aspect. For instance, there is no intentionality with the single-celled organisms, only chance and natural selection, whereas there seems to be intentionality in the latter example.
While I tend to agree that this is the overall trend, there are numerous counterexamples, such as empires decolonizing, the cession of individual rights by Leviathans, and perhaps even entropy on a physical level. So the deck may be even more stacked against us than we think.
“From single-celled to pluricellular to multicellular organisms or from hunter-gatherers to the EU, the history of evolutionary forces that resulted in human society is a history where cooperation has emerged at increasingly large scales.”
I often hear claims like this, but I’m not sure these things are really all that analogous beyond the superficial ‘smaller → bigger’ aspect. For instance, there is no intentionality with the single-celled organisms, only chance and natural selection, whereas there seems to be intentionality in the latter example.
While I tend to agree that this is the overall trend, there are numerous counterexamples, such as empires decolonizing, the cession of individual rights by Leviathans, and perhaps even entropy on a physical level. So the deck may be even more stacked against us than we think.