I see society as an emergent entity, as the computer emerges from the transistor.

Our decisions are not ones that are separate from the mechanics of the machine, but are a part of it, and those who make the strides in society, who push for great new things, are part of the mechanisms that allow society to adapt to new challenges, rather than people reaching out and truly creating change.

The difference is subtle, but it is there. In the latter, it is driven by a drive for a true moral good, for doing what is right. In the former, it is an instance of society always picking what's best for it.

Imagine society making a decision on some issue as a network of nodes, each node effecting one another's state. Each node observes it's variables and picks 1 or 0. However each node effects those around it.

As variables change, the way people enforce each other to keep the same tends to resist the ability for rash or sudden action. However, as these forces cause some of the more sensitive nodes to swap sides, despite the input from their peers. Eventually, as the forces continue to increase, enough sensitive nodes change, and begin having enough force to overwhelm their peers that were enforcing the old standard, and thus the new ideal cascades through society and becomes newly enforced.

It's a thinking machine distributed over continents, and each group of people holding similar opinions, who are connected to one another, and tend to change within this cascade form a "culture" such as "the west". Before technology it was a nation, and before that a tribe.

That's what I refer to when you talk about the many times people have fought for change and brought it about. Yes, the change was good, and moral, but it only came about because the enviornment society was in allowed that change to become strong enough to "cascade".

Without the industrial revolution changing our demand from hard labor to semi-intelligent factoryworker dealing with easily broken machines, the forces changed. When global warming starts effecting us, the forces will change.

That's what I mean. My point is not at all that we cannot make change. No, it's important we have those people out there who are sensitive to things, who do shift before the group, and ignore the common ideal of morality. However, ultimately our opinions and goals are driven by our biases, and those are formed by what we see and learn are right and wrong. This means that practical/enforced morality depends more on what benefits society or what doesn't, rather than how the individuals in society feel.