Geez Louise, MA...this whole "society" thing is a work-in-progress, fer goodness sakes. OK, we don't have it perfected yet, not by a long shot. No one does. We're still working on it.

You know what the real problem is? Human beings can't be programmed. Damned inconvenient! You can't simply do a network-wide upload of Gandhi v2.0 and have a universally non-violent world. There's billions upon billions of people out there, each with their own passionately held ideas about what's right and what's wrong, what's good or bad, what's ethical or not...and their aspirations are so often at odds.

Humanity harbors so many ideas and aspirations, with such wide gulfs between them. Generations have lived and died trying in one way or another to bring differences to an end, and they have--one way or another--failed again and again. Can we in any realistic way hope to overcome such elemental difficulties in the short-term?

I appreciate your words about authority...but I think we're all aware that in the grinding trenches of everyday life, "authority" typically has a baser meaning which often eclipses the entire concept to which you refer. I expect it'll be that way for a very long time to come. And the work-in-progress will continue.