I think there’s an underlying assumption here that an advanced culture should be similar to our own.
I think the underlying assumption is much worse: that any advanced culture must be squeamish about things which the author finds squeamish, barbaric, and uncouth.
I think it is not just squeamishness, I think it is the idea that without a strongly pro-cooperation value system, how the eff does one achieve the level of cooperation to have a wide division of labor and trade and thus actually get rich and advanced?
I think the underlying assumption is much worse: that any advanced culture must be squeamish about things which the author finds squeamish, barbaric, and uncouth.
I think it is not just squeamishness, I think it is the idea that without a strongly pro-cooperation value system, how the eff does one achieve the level of cooperation to have a wide division of labor and trade and thus actually get rich and advanced?
I see no contradiction at all between having a “strongly pro-cooperation value system” and having bloody spectacles in the arena.
Humans still are great fans of bloody spectacles, it’s just that nowadays it’s easier to produce fake ones on screens.