You have to work with the world as it is, not as you'd wish it to work (especially that it likely couldn't possibly work that way anyway). "State of nature" sucks, because nature sucks. All the nice and good things come from building systems, social or otherwise, on top of the natural state of things - systems that work with our natural inclinations, instead of pretending they don't exist.

Right but nature doesn't suck. You make humans sound incapable of cooperation when this evidently isn't true. In this world uncooperative behavior is mostly a choice. Particularly in the west.

To the extent humans fail at cooperation, that's nature at work. When we cooperate, we defy nature.

> To the extent humans fail at cooperation, that's nature at work. When we cooperate, we defy nature.

Well that seems a little silly, no? Humans are social creatures; cooperation is just as natural as any other human behavior (including fallibility). It seems almost a little christian in its doomful profession that humans are only our worst attributes.

Violent conflict between human beings is inevitable. It stems from our conflict with nature.

We're all winners here and that's far better than the alternative.

Peace and love is all well and good until your crops have failed for the third year in a row. Your food stores are empty. You killed and ate all of the livestock last season because there was nothing left to feed them. There's nothing wild to hunt. Your village has resorted to eating anything it can scavenge, even if it's inedible or even poisonous. People are gnawing on their fingers.

And it's like this for your village and your neighboring village and their neighboring village and so on.

Tell me about it when your neighboring villages' adult men are charging down the hill at you, filthy, starving, crazed and screaming at the top of their lungs, axes in hand.

Sure, but we are capable of more cooperation than your fantasy admits. Let's wait until there's no alternative to misanthropic behavior to indulge.