I actually have to disagree with this statement. The cold war didin't cause our current predicament but was a product of it. Mankind's inherent distrust of all that is different (even, if not especially, other human beings) has been the source of many conflicts and much male/political posturing. which at the end of the day is thankfully all the Cold War turned out to be. Even if it left us with a sizable inheritance of nuclear weapons,the creation and maintanence of nuclear stockpiles since that time has been no more than continued posturing by the nations involved in order to show thier strength. Despite it having long ago passed into the realm of the absurd, though very appropriately abbriviated, Mutually Assured Destruction scenario.

Face it: When you're dispalying your milatary power by having enough weapons to destroy the world several times over, you've gone so far into the realm of stupid it's almost unreal.

Our addiction to competition has been the driving force behind a lot of human progress. Though it can at times be unhealthy it is not something we should be too quick to sacrifice.

Nor do I believe we have abandond compassion. It can still be found in man places. It's just unfortunate that polotics isn't one of them. Since the behavior of the leaders is often the standard by which we judge a society, it tends to taint our image of humanity as a whole. "We the people" are really not as bad as all that. power however is usually most craved by those who wish to abuse it. So polotics tends to be a game for the evil members of our societies.

A point you illustrate beautifully with your Iron and Tin rules. i don't know if you have ever read The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli but your arguments and others are well described in that book (one of my personal favorites). Despite being 500 years old the description of polotics and how the political game works given in that book is as accurate for todays world as it was in the 16th century. A few nations have reingd in the more brutal practices described in the book (or at least started doing them less publicly) but still most of it holds true.

The truly illuminating thing about the book of course is its age. 500 years and the game of politics has remained virtually unchanged. Despite all our technological, intellectual, even philosophical progress we still run things pretty much by the same rules. So a child is born without an appendix. It has taken thousands of years of eveolution to get this far. Politics it would seem evolves at very much the same pace.

Knowing that it is wrong and that we have the potential to be so much more than what we are, as insightful as that is, is insufficent to accelerate the rate of our evolution. Change takes time. Speeding it up would take truly monumental efforts from litterally millions of people. Knowledge does have power though. We might not be able to leave a truly better world behind for our children, but we can steer it in the right direction.