Well, obviously the right thing to do is understand those poorly-understood processes and extrapolate future paths of development, develop a system to judge their relative value (within the limits of our current understanding), and implement way to steer our future in the chosen direction. That's what human rationality is for: finding out what we would want and then how to achieve it.
I would tend to agree. But this would completely change our public discussions on morality, far more than the transition from a very religious to a secular society. It would also shatter our shared historical narrative of moral progress.
Don't see why you use a disjunction here: can't both things happen at the same time?
Sure I directly talk about this scenario and its implications in the original post I linked to.
Also, why think in terms of patchwork rather than in terms of continuum? You appear to be using a loaded metaphor here.
I think patchwork is pretty appropriate before globalization (by globalization I don't mean modern globalization but the whole era since the Age of Discovery).
But this would completely change our public discussions on morality, far more than the transition from a very religious to a secular society. It would also shatter our shared historical narrative of moral progress.
Ohmygosh, another paradigm shift. How could we possibly cope? It's not like we've had many of those throughout history...
I have found this most wonderful (if fairly lengthy) article, and thought you would enjoy having it brought to your attention.
It is so good, I think we should include it among the references in the "Politics is the Mind Killer" wiki page. But, before that, I submit it to you, and ask you: is there anything in this article that would warrant its exclusion from this site? I mean, besides the fact that it is about politics, and written by a notorious Social-democrat (And is that in itself grounds for exclusion?).