PS

I had too much for dinner again and, having fallen asleep to KQED, woke up to an excellent episode of RadioLab sometime after 1 AM.

While it is an article of faith that the Internet will provide humankind with a nervous system that prevents the madness of homoicide on atrocious scale, I do believe there is much to support this hope.

The RadioLab episode ends with a wonderful description of the Christmas Truce. It broke out spontaneously on the Western Front during WWI with German and English soldiers coming out of their trenches to find comradeship. Had the Christmas Truce become total insubordination with replacement of the leadership on both sides, that would have been a wondrous way for European wars to end. Instead, according to the program, that 1914 opportunity ended with a dirty trick when the English played the German national anthem and then unloaded everything onto the German soldiers, many of whom were leaving their trenches to cross over and expand upon the friendly conversations. The generals, at least those on the English side, must have been very pleased. The recounting start at 54'30".

Also included in this program is an excellent explanation of the Prisoner's Dilemma Game. A computer simulation of it was the highlight of my first political science class at MIT. That starts at 40'.

Before that are stories about winners of a Carnegie medal for herioc acts of altruism.

I have not answered my question in the title. What do you think? The rather anticipated apocalyspe of 12/2012 would of course provide an opportunity for human ethics to undergo a sea change. At least the Internet will survive thanks to the thoughtful design decisions of Paul Baran. At 84, he died two weeks ago.

Please consider contributing to RadioLab. Advertising sucks. We pay for it many times over. See my previous post for evidence.