For you Pessimists

I know that if we look at our history, our future as a "species" can seem rather bleak. However, all is not lost. Consider our origins. Life began as simple cells who's sole purpose was to accumulate resources to reproduce. Naturally, there were finite resources, leading to competition. Thus the ideas of Moloch [1] and "my" thoughts on competition [2] are in play. Yet that same chaotic, selfish, net-negative life led to creatures with societies in which ideas of a greater good (such as in ants and bees), challenges to corruption of authority (primates' social structure), etc. can exist. Even though I hate society, it has allowed for complex, unnatural coordination to occur as even though there are subjective in vs out groups, the organization of this competition at least leads to the possibility of ingroup domination and breaking of Moloch, unlike the self-destructive competition of many individuals. Thus even though "human" history seems rather bleak, in the context of the history of life its been quite the radical evolution. Us "humans" have ideas of justice, morality, ethics, philosophy, beauty, planning, rationality, free thought, etc. A few million years ago these ideas would've been nowhere to be found (on Earth at least). Consider how incredible the idea of science and education and even paying your taxes are. All of these we take for granted nowadays, yet none of these actions have an obvious benefit to the individual's reproductive success or even material comfort in one's lifetime, yet they have become quite ubiquitous with good in modern culture (although there is disagreement, no one is proposing a full return to bacteria-hood). Therefore there is hope for humanity. This is the strongest argument for free-will on a spectrum. As we use our free-will to fight complexity, we build more free-will, leading to life more able to live by ideals. Thus perhaps someday in the future we CAN have a utopia. We just aren't ready for it now.

[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
[2] https://listed.to/@vt/33797/competition