You make many good points, Marky, and more notably make them at a time when such points need to be made. All the same I have to comment on some of the limitations of what you propose.

First, I'm not sure that history shows that human society inevitably gets better. While this pattern shows up a number of times and places, there are often some serious relapses along the way. A little external pressure can stop progress or even turn it around. Roman society, for example, made quite a few advances, and over much time gradually corrected most of its major problems . . . but the combination of several factors led to its decline and accompanying unrest. It is interesting that the same Christianity which stopped the practices of gladitorial contests and throwing victims to wild animals for public amusements, went on to produce new horrors of its own. Some might say that the message of love spread by Christianity (and other contemporaneous philosophies and religions) made the Romans less warlike and weakened their resolve, and thus left the empire ready to be conquered by its warlike neighbors, resulting in a reversion to barbarism that lasted over a millenia. On the other hand, given enough time those barbarians did learn from the Roman example, and adopted some of that civilization for themselves.

China has a long history of civilization developing, upheavals caused by being conquered by more warlike neighbors, and then civilization redeveloping as the conquerors adopted and adapted the civilization of the Han.

Islamic civilization started with conquest by the sword, then matured into a heyday of peace and prosperity, intellectual pursuits and a degree of freedom unknown at the time . . . until the Mongol invasion (that reached from China to Vienna before it was stopped) overturned all those advances and returned those lands to a barbarism that persists to this day. (Again, the Mongols adopted many of the good ideas of the civilizations they conquered, and in some respects are more civilized now than the regions they conquered.)

Within our own culture we can see continual churn - one problem gets resolved, a new one gets created, over and over and over again. Even if progress is inevitable, it sure is a bumpy ride.

Even in some of your descriptions, I see a potential for more bumps ahead. Your idea that criminals are created by society is familiar from the 1960's - but it was rejected because it turns out it often isn't so. To be sure, some criminals are created by society - especially those "criminals" whose crimes are against themselves or consenting others. Labelling does have a real impact, both for good or for ill. At the same time, we need to remember that the real problem with real criminals is not so often low self esteem as it is high self esteem - that is, they feel that they are entitled to the property of others, or entitled to make others do their will. The other major factor to criminality, at least the common kind, is poor impulse control. Frequently, the only difference between a law-abiding person and a criminal is that when the law-abiding person was so angered that they wanted to kill someone, they had the means to control that impulse. This is partly genetic and is related to intelligence, but also depends a great deal on practice at controlling one's impulses.

In this latter respect, I wonder sometimes if the long practice at impulse control forced by religion does not serve to make the population - at least those who sincerely try to obey its rules - a bit more intelligent. However, I suspect there are better ways to get this practice, and it also has some serious downsides.

Your ideas on relationships also seem to come out of the 1960's, and have also been rejected for good reason. In both cases, the pendulum has swung the other way, and is now on the verge of swinging back. If we want to seek that point of balance, we had best learn from the experiences of both extremes. The era of "free love" left many people feeling unloved. While "free love" worked well for some, it worked very poorly for others. This was partly a result of poor execution. For every proponent for whom it worked well, there were many imitators who never really "got" it - who, for example, saw it only as an excuse to have promiscuous sex, or, for personal reasons, never really felt the security that they could feel in a committed relationship. In short, for all its faults, traditional marriage is traditional precisely because it met the needs for most people for so long.

Now I believe in letting people find their own paths, and finding the path that is best for them. I don't believe that I have the wisdom and understanding necessary to direct the lives of others who are far different from myself. What works for them may harm me, and what works for me may harm them. I believe in supporting them in finding their own solutions. While I reject the idea that a traditional marriage, much less the "nuclear family" that dates from the 1950's, should be for everybody, nonetheless I recognize that for many, probably most people, it is the best solution, and as such I support it for those who want it. Same is true for many other traditional ways of doing things.

(I am also reminded of the education failures of the 1960's. From an educator I know who was there, I am informed that the revolutionary ideas in education that are now broadly rejected really did work . . . when qualified persons - educators who really understood the new ideas - put them in practice. Unfortunately, the vast majority of teachers were just given the new materials and told to teach it, but never really understood what they were doing. Much like a mule-driver being given an automobile - the new conveyance is far superior, but without driving lessons he'd be better off with his mules. So, a less efficient system that the teachers knew how to use was replaced by a more efficient system that they had no clue about. And, let's face it, educators have a reputation for being bottom-of-the-barrel anyways. Most were not ready to adapt to a new way of thinking. No wonder those reforms largely failed.)

Well, I could add some things about how order arises spontaneously from chaos, and how human ideas about order are not necessarily nature's ideas, but I think you already covered the main points. You've got some good ideas - you just need to refine them a little.