Perhaps it's just the Earth you are restricting all our possible futures to, and that any extraterrestrial resources available, will permanently be inaccessible to us. — universeness

Currently, I'm not aware that Elon Musk is capable of lifting a colony to Arcturus, and even if he could, it wouldn't relieve much of the population pressure on available resources. So, yes, for the foreseeable future, we are restricted to Earth, which we are rapidly turning uninhabitable.
Besides, of course, what that was an answer to it has nothing to do with all possible futures but rather this:

Are you suggesting that humans would be able to create a better society, if we lived like insect species such as ants? — universeness

No, the ants are simply an illustration of how old the concept [of social species] is. Human would be able create a better society if 99% of of us were not here. — Vera Mont

Would you consider the time implied in the sentence below, to be a time when all homo sapiens alive then, were having a far superior experience of life as a human, than the average human, living on planet Earth is experiencing today, purely because there were a lot fewer of us then? — universeness

No. Distant past and distant future are neither equivalent nor applicable in the present context.

Secondly, though we may not have the same degree of communal upbringing that tribal societies have, the school system operates as a stand-in for "communal child raising" where the child has exposure to other teachings, nurturing and systematic education outside of the family unit. — Benj96

In a way, yes. And it can be a very good one. But it begins relatively late in the child's life, doesn't permit close relationships with other adults and can be - often is - repressive and oppressive. (I'm also not crazy about the artificial cohort stacking and subject dividing. But that's another topic.)

Thinking through the implications is difficult, and needs great care because the patriarchal model is the default, — unenlightened

In a given circumstance: the society be centered on the economics of property and money and the question of ownership be inextricable from DNA. Neither condition is necessary to the functioning a society.

Thus the issue you refer to would be the incel "movement". Not about the other questions above. — ssu

It's the movement that created the question. Before the internet, there were married people and single people, happy people and unhappy people, lonely people and people with active social lives, people who were successful in their relations with their preferred category of sex partners and those who were not. In society, there were couples, widows and widowers, divorced people, bachelors and spinsters (of which bachelors were the most frequently considered enviable and old maids, the least). None of these were subcultures or movements.
The whole 'incel' phenomenon started with a website.

My main point is that under 'jungle rules,' that are recorded as in common practice amongst ancient homo sapiens, such as perpetually warring with every 'group' of humans your group comes across, obtaining as much resources as you can, regardless of how much you actually need or how badly your actions affect the well being of others, IS imo, a very bad way to behave, and it always has been. — universeness

Except not jungle-dwelling human societies did live that way. What's recorded in history is conflict between civilizations, which all had a strongly united internal structure - though the co-operation was usually coerced to some extent by an elite.

What the hell have groupings of elephants, crows, dolphins or cheetahs got to do with that point? — universeness

The FACT that humans didn't DISCOVER co-operation. And are not particularly good at it in large numbers.

Are you suggesting that humans would be able to create a better society, if we lived like insect species such as ants? — universeness

No, the ants are simply an illustration of how old the concept is. Human would be able create a better society is 99% of of us were not here.

Not if you actually look at the OP, actually. — ssu

I did. Here is a more comprehensive look:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel
While IncelSupport welcomed men and women and banned misogynistic posts, love-shy.com's userbase was overwhelmingly male. Over the next decade, the membership of love-shy.com and online fringe right-wing communities like 4chan increasingly overlapped.[36] In the 2000s, incel communities became more extremist as they adopted behaviors common on forums like 4chan and Reddit, where extremist posts were encouraged as a way to achieve visibility.[23] According to Bruce Hoffman and colleagues writing in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, as "edgy" and extremist statements became more prevalent in incel communities, so too did extremist trolling and "shitposting"

If not, then what is it about, really?

I assume (maybe wrongly) that most people are raised by women in their "formative years". This suggests the influence of the mother at a time when a human being learns the most is at its highest, and in a way sets the conditions of the majority of human behaviors and impacts everything from simple relationships on down to the formation of entire societies. — NOS4A2

In healthy societies, the child and mother are not isolated: there is extended family; grandparents are an important influence very early in life, as are older siblings and cousins. In tribal cultures, the mother carries a suckling babe wherever she goes, so that it's naturally socialized, and once the child is weaned and walking, the whole community becomes involved in its development. Even in a modern, urban setting, it is greatly beneficial for babies and toddlers to have close contact with a other adults, especially the father

Researchers who study father-child attachment confirm what active, involved fathers have known in their hearts for years—that the father-child bond is no less important than the mother-child bond. Over 80 percent of studies that have examined father-child relationships have concluded that there’s a strong connection between a father’s involvement and his infant’s well-being.

Single-parent families may work out all right, but they face a lot of obstacles. The most difficult is usually money, but even if the parent can earn enough, the shortage of time is an ever ever-present problem. One person can only do so much in one day.

Then I guess the definition "a person (usually a man) who regards himself or herself as being involuntarily celibate" isn't so important — ssu

What does this mean? The thread was about this specific internet culture of promoting misogyny. There is no comparison to environmentalists, and it's not about single men who are unhappy; they're no more or less important than any other person who is unhappy about something. The designation - not definition - wasn't forced on anyone.

Okay.
Matriarchy means organized on the principles of, and ruled by, motherhood.
How do we see motherhood and fatherhood operate in a traditional family? The father protects, provides and disciplines. The mother tends, nurtures and advises. In modern families, there is considerably more sharing and overlapping of roles - and I think that's beneficial to the children and makes the family more cohesive than it was with separate spheres of influence.
A society needs both kinds of agencies to function well.

How many instances of violence by incels are there? How often does bitching and carping about their sad condition turn into assault and battery (or fatal van driving)? — BC

Fifty, documented. Nobody knows how many more are similarly motivated. More expected, because the rhetoric is increasingly vicious.

Almost 1,000 references to dehumanising misogyny or violent action are recorded each day in the “incelosphere” as the toxicity of male supremacist content continues to intensify.https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/oct/30/global-incel-culture-terrorism-misogyny-violent-action-forums

And they're not, by any stretch, all short, ugly, socially awkward men suffering from chronic rejection. We're not just picking on some poor lonely boys here.

The stigmatization should be obvious. — Tzeentch

It isn't. The label is self-assumed, not imposed. The suffering is real, as I have acknowledged more than once. Lots of people suffer for lots of reasons - illness, disfigurement, disability, phobias, depression, old age, obesity - but they don't all make a cult of it, or abuse and punish other people for it. The blame is misplaced, and as long as someone hangs on their self-identified victimhood, they won't be able to overcome it.

I was referring to the social stigmatization. — Tzeentch

Yes, and I'm asking who did that to whom, and on what basis. I was there when single women were a routine butt social contempt and ridicule; I missed where and when men became such a class of victims.

The social stigmatization, which is on full display in this thread, is probably a large part of the reason.

The term 'cycle of abuse' comes to mind. — Tzeentch

Show me who first abused single men for being single, or unattractive men for being unattractive. I can recall, not that long ago, unattractive women referred to as dog, battle-ax, hag, etc. and the perennial sex-starved spinster jokes, nun jokes, rape jokes. Women complained about that, but didn't run vans over strangers on a sidewalk.

How would anyone even know about your isolation or history of failure in romance in order to stigmatize you? Why would anyone notice or care? I'm walking in the mall or sitting at a concert, I don't look around and say : There, that guy looks like he hasn't been paid in two years, let's all make fun of him...
Incels started their own cult of exclusion, resentment and violence.

It wasn't the woman you desire and can't have that made you inadequate; it's not her job to repair your ego. Abusers usually do this - and I have some experience. They blame someone else for what they do, and want to do, that they know is wrong. "Don't make me hit you again." is the bad father's mantra.
You are responsible for yourself.

Flipping from the alleged patriarchy to an imagined matriarchy would probably yield far fewer grand results than feminists expect, everything else being equal. — BC

Nothing else is ever equal. Whatever happens, happens in a historical context; includes and is formed by all that's happened before. I haven't known any feminists who envisioned a future matriarchy - the ones I knew were only fighting for fair wages and the legal right to live their own lives.

That said, being an involuntary celibate, miserable or otherwise, does not equate to identifying as an incel; the latter would seem to entail a very special blend of viciousness and stupidity. — Janus

That's what I'm thinking. Maybe not so much the viciousness and stupidity - okay, I called it odious and loud or something - but attitude. There seems to be a choice involved, just as taking on the label is a choice - not every unattractive man or woman is beyond the possibility of being loved by someone; not every unloved person turns bitterly hateful - that has to be motivated. I think the culture of rage and hate is questing for fresh fields to conquer.

Because they're short, ugly morons — Janus

Not good enough! I've met short ugly morons in happy marriages - and not always with short ugly morons.

Under jungle rules, young females are considered property and part of 'to the victor, the spoils, rule.' — universeness

In what species? Not elephants, crows, dolphins or or cheetahs. The norm in many human situations today, of course - not so much spoils as commodities.

I don't think our species is in competition, for the credit of which species discovered co-operation! — universeness

Haven't you noticed the armed conflicts that took out a few million people? Or the ones that are currently taking out hundreds of thousands and might end the whole sheBANG if it gets out of hand?

for the credit of which species discovered co-operation! — universeness

You take credit for something ants perfected 150,000,000 million years ago, and we still haven't managed to get our heads around how it's supposed to work?

There have been more than 200 mass shootings across the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are injured or killed. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081

That's back on May 9, I don't know how many since.

Incels have stopped trying. They've given into their worst impulses of bitterness and hatred. — Philosophim

I'm wondering why. Have they sublimated their sex-drive into violent fantasy? Most of them will - I assume - never act on these impulses to "punish" women for their own inadequacy, so they'll just languish for years and die bitter old men. Why? For the brotherhood? I'm sure most of them could do a whole lot better than they're doing, be happier than they are. Why do they choose to be miserable?

He'll be OK, just needs to find his tribe, like I had to. — bert1

Very happy to hear you're on top of the situation! A whole lot of parents are bewildered.

When I expressed my personality I told her I was submissive, that her right-wing views were disgusting, that she was ignorant and unwilling to learn, and that sometimes I hated her, she dumped me. — bert1

Astonishing! You'd think the cooking would have clinched it!

t used to be a taboo to be an incel. In public, you would never have confessed your feelings of hatred and loathing at your lack of obtaining women. — Philosophim

Somehow, hatred and loathing don't sound all that enticing in a prospective date.

War is the survival of the fittest strategy that was an imperative under jungle rules, but we discovered that it's not the only way to survive. We discovered that co-operation and negotiation, CAN produce better results for all stakeholders. — universeness

Stop trashing 'jungle rules' - they worked for 300,000,000 years before we bulldozed the jungles. We didn't discover co-operation; social animals predate us by a wide margin

A new study by paleontologists indicates that the earliest evidence of mammal social behavior goes back to the Age of Dinosaurs. The multituberculate Filikomys primaevus engaged in multi-generational, group-nesting and burrowing behavior, and possibly lived in colonies, some 75.5 million years ago. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201102120055.htm

And the most notoriously co-operative behaviour is one of the oldest and most successful.

The woman embodies female values, the man embodies male values. — Benj96

Values, I'm not sure are so different. Some human traits are statistically more often and/or strongly expressed by one sex, but all human traits are present in all humans to some degree. Co-operation also tends to foster inclusion and avoid the socially abrasive resentment caused by some people feeling redundant or rejected. It seem to me, the most important thing is that every member of the society is invested in every facet of the society's endeavours: if you feel that you own a piece of it, you take better care of it.
It's obviously good for the children's physical and emotional development to see and participate in all kinds of role and activity - it gives them a wider choice of identity, mentors and occupations, and thus the opportunity to employ their talents to the advantage of their society.

Would society be better off as a matriarchy? If so, why? Or simply, would it be better off if both sexes were in balance, leading as a cooperative. — Benj96

I very much favour the latter, as practiced by Native Americans.
Efficient and harmonious use of people-potential.

Oh, that's interesting. I got the impression that kids avoided light and air before the lockdown as well, but maybe you are right. Hmm. I can't remember very well. — bert1

It does rather seem to drag on. But that guy drove the van onto the sidewalk in 2018, by when the incel movement was pretty deeply rooted, so it can't have been related to this form of isolation.

My son didn't have any friends before either, but he didn't really want any.

I hope that doesn't signal a problem. Some people need more privacy than others. Some, because their talent and interest inclines them to solitary pursuits: graphic arts, literature or academic study; some because they have matters to contemplate, ideas to work through; some due to particular fears or general lack of confidence; some because they're hypersensitive, so that their feelings and perceptions are overwhelmed by too much interaction, or more simply, they lack access to a compatible pool of potential friends - that's more likely if a child is exceptional in some way. It might be a good idea to investigate the reason - it's possible the boy could use some help. Or he may be quite content until he's ready to move on to the next phase.

My take on this is that parents are more overworked than ever, and lack their own support network to fall back on, which in previous generations was provided by for example grandparents and the extended family, perhaps even an entire neighbourhood. Again we see social atomization. — Tzeentch

The economic landscape is not helping.

Yes that would be a more positive reaction, some obviously don't have the mental strength to avoid the pitfalls... I guess what bothers me is that the total lack of attempt at understanding and empathy is deemed fine in this case, whereas generally it is literally the basis of our morality. — ChatteringMonkey

It never seemed to be an issue when spinsters were despised, even if they didn't whine about it, even when being a footloose bachelor was envied. It didn't seem to be an issue when homely women were caricatured and called names.

I don't think this is a special case of marginalizing (though it may well feel that way if you put yourself in the category. I don't mean you, personally; I mean anyone. Nobody has to assume the label; they can choose their own designation, develop their own perspective on their situation, and figure out what they can do to improve it. Punishing strangers won't accomplish that. )

It's hard to empathize with people who abuse entire classifications of other people on the basis of something like gender, race or religion; even harder when the abuse is threatening or physical. If you're unappealing, the women in your early life may be to blame, but the women you haven't met today are not. As a "culture", self-designated incels have done very little to engender understanding or sympathy and quite a lot to draw ire. Individually, men and women who lack social skills, physical and material assets or charm can be heard and perhaps helped by more adapted elders and peers. Everyone is capable of self improvement. But the problem of aspiring to an alpha mate when one is a gamma is insoluble: the number won't crunch.

Isn't the truth of that dependent on context though? What if a woman has lots of support and an independent income? Bags of security, no need of that from a partner. Might they not prioritise the fun stuff more? — bert1

That would be the minority, just as well-off, attractive men are a minority.

I'm feeling a bit queasy. That happens when I read knee-jerk, claptrap hatred for men. I'll cut Vera Mont some slack - Women lacking respect for men is run-of-the-mill. — T Clark

I have plenty of respect for the men who deserve it, just as I have none for women who don't.

here's nobody at the baseball park. They're all on their goddamn phones. My son is having this trouble. He can't attend school, but there are no children messing about outside like kids used to do, throwing stones and showing their bums to the peado in the bushes and fun stuff like that. — bert1

I don't think the incel movement started with Covid lockdowns, nor will it end with the pandemic.

The solution 'just go out and meet people' is a major barrier for the young who were caught up in this mess. — Tzeentch

They shouldn't be expected to do it all on their own. What happened to their support network? The adult mentors and community organizers, coaches, teachers, scout-masters, den-mothers, big sisters and brothers, and church-ladies?

It's a bit of a chicken or the egg problem... they don't become jerks in a vacuum, it's a bit that good old resentment playing a role here. — ChatteringMonkey

Yes, egging one another on; reinforcing resentment and blaming others for one's own shortcomings, instead of encouraging positive change. Charisma is rare and accidental and unreliable; courtesy, interest, versatility, tolerance and humour are far better assets. And of course, acceptance of the fact that everybody isn't ever going to get first pick.

Young people everywhere are struggling with developing intimate relationships (and relationships in general), and that is a serious problem. — Tzeentch

Maybe they should get off their cellphones and go out to the baseball park or volunteer to pick up roadside garbage or join go a voter recruitment drive. You won't develop intimate relationships without meeting actual people in the actual world.

No Tzeentch, society has decided that women are the victims, so it's okay to marginalize incel men. — ChatteringMonkey

It wasn't a tough decision.

Minassian rented the van some three weeks before he used it as a weapon on a major Toronto street. He told investigators he had set out to kill as many people as possible and that he drew inspiration from the misogynistic "incel" movement of mostly online groups of young men who blame their lack of sexual activity on women.
Asked by investigators how he felt about the harm he had caused, the attacker replied: "I feel like I accomplished my mission".

Nobody's marginalized for feeling unloved. They are rejected for acting like jerks - and much or worse. It's just that women who are 'marginalized" in the same way - i.e. have no sexual outlet - don't go around "punishing" - attacking - people.

But there are plenty of women online who share the same frustrated feelings of involuntary celibacy as men. These women want to have romantic and sexual relationships, but for whatever reason, are unable to do so. They call themselves “femcels,” an abbreviation of “female incel.”

But ultimately the problem is not totally solvable by acceptable means I think, there will always be those who will miss out because they are less attractive/charismatic/rich than others. A healthy society doesn't solve the frustrated desires of those. Historically this has always been a problem. — ChatteringMonkey

Then one must look to prehistory.
Physical attractiveness is not of paramount consideration for women, nor is charisma, compared to dependability, kindness and patience with children. Often men, too, prefer an affectionate, cheerful woman to a beautiful cold one. Both come in a range of appearance and character; there is no reason, if the numbers are not too skewed by unnaturally high death-rate (like war decimating a generation of young men) that all who want mates can't find one.
Look at the pictures on the wedding announcement pages of a newspaper. They're not all pretty people, nor rich, but they look happy -- for now.
More women tend to be left unmarried than men for reasons of physical undesirability, but that doesn't poie a societal problem, because spinsters perform vital services to family and community.
There might, however be rogue males that become destructive - and not only for lack of mating opportunity.; they also tend to have ego issues. In animal societies, they're simply cast out. Human societies have nowhere to put them except prison, now that the army includes females.

That is indeed the most difficult hurdle: how to convince people of the idea, but it is the only one. — Jacques

What for? Nobody cares what colour you prefer their skin to be.

Why don't we just put them down, like the males of breeding animals we have no use for? Wouldn't that be a major step towards progressive utopia! — ChatteringMonkey

Or, maybe just organize a healthier society in which to raise children, so they don't go off the rails in the first place?

So I'm concerned that if the system of dating apps, as well as social media etc is accidentally marginalising and compressing/ reinforcing negative beliefs in incel groups, they may indeed become so radicalised and extreme that what was as you said "verbal aggression" may become "physical aggression". — Benj96

Done.

The federal government on Tuesday released a study on the growing terrorism threat from men who call themselves "anti-feminists" or "involuntary celibates" and draw motivation for violence from their inability to develop relationships with women. Since 2014, attacks inspired by the "incel movement" and spanning the U.S. and Canada have left dozens dead.

As a woman sitting in your room on your own, you enter your filters, and you get a menu of 50 nice handsome men to choose from. You shag a bunch of them and maybe one stays with you, maybe not. — bert1

There is also a high risk that one robs you, one beats you up or even kills you. And no guarantee that any of those guys with a nice picture is nice in person, or literate or well-mannered - and none at all that any of them are compatible in temperament. (I don't know about you, I was never, not even when young and nubile, inclined to "shag a bunch" of virtual strangers.)

In small communities in which everyone knows each other, choice is limited and people know what each other are doing. — bert1

And you get an unacceptable rate of inbreeding, as we see in some isolated populations. Tribal peoples have been aware of this, so they held - and still sometimes do - gatherings of young people to find mates; in many cultures, they routinely exchanged adolescents of either sex or both with another group. Stratified civilizations are more restrictive in the choice of mates - selecting permissible pairings by race, caste, creed, class and even to the point of strictly brokered marriage without the consent of one or both partners.

Well the way I see it is that nature itself is creative and destructive. It's chaotic and ordered. — Benj96

I don't see chaotic behaviour in animals very often. Only if they are sick or under extreme stress.
The individual and the community are not in a natural antithesis; they are complementary. A strong, cohesive social unit is better able to protect its members, and provide for its young, than is a contentious one. Solitary animals have to do it all by themselves and can't afford inattention, random or undisciplined behaviour; among social animals, the flock, herd or pack serves both to regulate the individual's impulses and to provide some leisure time. (Geese, e.g. regularly share babysitting duty; wolves often delegate it to young bachelors and spinsters.) Social animals routinely co-operate and when they compete, its under a strict code of rules, to minimize damage.

Humans on the other hand, excel in abstraction, imagination, reasoning etc (cognition) and have one of the most complex languages to reflect that. Thus we can go against instinct if we so wish. — Benj96

And this is why we start seeing more chaotic, antagonistic bahaviour among chimpanzees. Among humans, it becomes full-scale internecine war - not merely against other other bands of one's own species, but within tribes and even families.

We can be as self serving or as socially cooperative as we like. — Benj96

Not in stratified civilizations. A lord can, a serf can't. A general can, a galley slave can't. A CEO can, a coal miner can't.

Sacrifice and suicide being prime examples of how we overcome our primal instinct to self preserve. — Benj96

Separate issues, those. Grouse hens deliberately lure predators away from their chicks; a vixen will attack a bear to protect her cubs; ants die by the hundreds to protect their hill.
Suicide is far more complicated and physically hard to accomplish. A very old or sick cat just lies down, stops eating and waits.

Yes, humans are able to suppress instinct, but at what cost in mental health, in happiness, in social and familial strife and post-damage repairs?

Because misogynists are becoming more odious and numerous and have no desire to modify their own behaviour. Under patriarchal law, they could - and in some cultures, still can - be as abusive as they want and still own a woman, or more than one. If women have a choice of mates and are free to leave bad ones, men have to make some accommodation. The ones who know how to do that make out like bunnies and the odious ones are jealous.

. You would just need to form two groups and ask one group to only have children with the darkest members, — Jacques

And they would all meekly obey - even though they didn't, under the most egregious apartheid.

"No creature can be honorably required to go counter to the law of his nature -- the Law of God." — Jacques

That's a toughie, given that the law of God as taught by most religions runs counter to the laws of nature; that good moral behaviour requires that one suppress one's animal instinct and repudiate one's animal drives.

The bible doesn't mention abortion as far I can remember nor does it mention paedophilia. — Andrew4Handel

So what?

according to the pastor who teaches from that book — Vera Mont

They just keep thumping on "Thou shalt not kill!" and fail to mention the slaughter of peoples that same god didn't like, or all the other wars, the witch hunts, the death penalty... My computer has two compartments - and sometimes a plug-in peripheral. The human mind has as many as it needs to create in order to accommodate all these incompatible categories of thinking. Remember Alice in Wonderland?

"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

As a child I think it is hard to believe that your parents would constantly lie to you about reality — Andrew4Handel

It's deeper than that. You absolutely depend on them for your survival. You are, long before you have any choice or control, invested in trusting them. In a sense, we're all born with Stockholm syndrome.

so you tend to accept their religious beliefs until it becomes untenable.

You also have no reason to doubt it, until you have reason to doubt it. And in religious (or partisan) communities, the whole social infrastructure supports their version of reality and conspires to keep any alternate versions from reaching you.

So in a sense I suppose their could be an emotional component to strong beliefs motivating them.

A HUGE one - and I do not use caps lightly.

It takes a great deal of courage and self-esteem to express doubt in those conditions. People do, and often take much punishment and abuse for doing so - the up-side of which is to confirm their suspicion regarding the coercive and oppressive nature of their programming, and motivate them to fight harder. it's a long, costly, difficult road, overcoming early indoctrination in a dogmatic belief system. Not everyone is equal to it; not everyone will even attempt it.

I find it hard to believe that people really believe extreme positions. — Andrew4Handel

They don't need to believe - or even know - the particulars, just the central tenet. If the God of the Jews in 1500 BCE said it was wrong, according to the pastor who teaches from that book, then it's wrong. And that makes it okay to blow up community clinics suspected of supplying birth control devices to poor people. And that will keep the wimmin under men's control, as Jehovah intended. (A little ego-stroking and self-interest was never a bad investment for propagandists.)

I don't believe gun advocates feel they need guns to protect against a corrupt government. — Andrew4Handel

That's different: they very well might. A lot of them have been hyped to an extreme paranoia. Remember, essentially the same political entity has been influencing them for nine generations (counting 20 years a turnover). And now it has - and now equipped with lavish financial resources, an extensive lobby and a far-reaching communication network.

What does this entail? — Andrew4Handel

I told you. Getting all the information I can, listening to all the arguments presented, and then matching up the arguments with the facts and the summary of the valid arguments with my sense of what's right, decent and fair.

I feel like a lot of thinking does not necessarily resolve an issue. — Andrew4Handel

It might not resolve the issue; it's the only viable tool I have for taking a position. When action - especially action that potentially hurts victims - will be taken, and I'm required to vote on it, I can't just keep blithering "...on the other hand...." Maybe I should, but it's not in my nature.

I feel like we don't make process without truly constructive honest debate that can get us out of entrenched positions and tribalism. — Andrew4Handel

That horse done sailed away on a dead ship, circa 1972.

So Then we rely on experts, ethicists, the government and jurisprudence to make the best legal decisions on behalf of the masses. — Andrew4Handel

Unfortunately, we don't. We rely on voters to pay attention and understand the realities, the possibilities and the available options.

Why shouldn't the same be possible again? — Jacques

Because, it happened through the slow, indirect evolutionary process, not asking or wishing. The evolutionary processes can't be duplicated, because even if we had the technology, we don't know what all the conditions, events, encounters and time periods were.
On a tiny scale, take a box of crayons and melt them in a bowl. Then try to remake all the original crayons.

I cannot empathise with people who become aligned to one set of doctrines and cannot defend any other position or question their own. — Andrew4Handel

I'll take that with a grain of salt. I tend to respect conviction and consistency more than vacillation and expedient coat-turning. Having listened to all the arguments put forth by someone with an agenda I consider wrong, I become impatient with repeating the same debate and retrying the same case over and over.
I don't decide on a position on any issue until I have informed myself reasonably well and thought about it long and hard. Having formed a conviction, I am not easily influence by the opinions of other people. I don't take sides until I'm convinced that one is more in line with my own convictions and sympathies than the other, and once declared, I retain my allegiance - unless the side lets me down, or the situation changes - in which case I have to reconsider.
And there are some positions I could not possibly entertain, due to my own inclinations.

As difficult as it is for me, I would rather give up diversity than peace. — Jacques

I don't think anything in this world is black and white - not even the colours black and white. A momentary choice may be binary - jump or hold on; go after her or stand still; cross the street now or wait. But long term choices are always more complex.

I have no hope of changing human nature, — Jacques

Human nature took a battering under civilization; the artificial constraints and pressures have altered it its shape. Civilization has turned us into domestic animals for the use of various elites. That's why it has such a bad rep. You get a rare glimpse of its real appearance in social media, a much better look in the environment of close community and local initiatives.

Who knows, maybe after a year of uniformity, I would say: Please give me back diversity, — Jacques

You can't, once this

“All we need is a voluntary, free-spirited, open-ended program of procreative racial deconstruction.... Bulworth

has run its course, there's no separating the colours again.

Yes, we need to rely on emotional humans. Moguls have not done what? How do you figure a computer that does not care will improve anything? — Athena

That quote was damaged in the transcription. This was my actual statement:

It doesn't need a better life; it is content and has no reason to prevent us improving our lives. And it can help us achieve that, as moguls, who are enriched by our impoverishment, have not done and will never do. — Vera Mont

The machine has no life and therefore does not need, want or desire to improve its own life, or make itself richer or more powerful: once the power supply is assured, it doesn't need or want anything for itself.
It has no reason to prevent us improving our lives.
The machine has access to information and the capacity for accurate calculation and prediction, which would be helpful in our efforts to improve our lives.
Emotional moguls, OTOH, have ample motive to prevent us improving our our lives, so that they can reap the benefit of our labour, keep luxuries for themselves, feel important, feel superior, show off bling to one another and control us though fear.

A better understanding of capitalism is necessary to answer your question. Research requires money and one of the most important functions of capitalism is providing the capital required for research. — Athena

You know that's a perfect circle, tight? In a capitalist system, research requires capital and when capitalism supplies the capital, research serves capital.
Capitalists promise a trickle-down benefit to the small investor in their big enterprises (and the small investor in his own enterprise, which, if it is successful enough to compete with them, they will gobble up,) and eventually, even to the minimum-wage worker who will never a get the slightest whiff of an opportunity to invest. It even more or less true. A little trickles down, while a lot is pumped up, with the net result we see today:

The wealth gap among upper-income families and middle- and lower-income families is sharper than the income gap and is growing more rapidly.https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/

What would a one-world government govern? How would it be organized? — Athena

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED
to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

Take out the Security Council of super-delegates, hand over all the military passwords and ignition keys, close the legal exception loopholes and let 'em do the job.
Didn't I say this on Page 1?
I don't envisage a single giant international government, but a democratic federation of independent states.