I can't help but feel that this generation should know better.

It should, but it doesn't and it won't. The problems with society are the same problems that have existed since society: greed, envy, self-preservation, the need to control.

We in the UK had no right to go gallivanting around the globe pillaging from other countries, but we did.

Yeah, that taxation without representation thing really chapped our hides. Seriously, if you had waited until Europe was a continental Utopia before striking out for new territories, you'd all still be there and I wouldn't be here.

Is that part of evolution?

I believe it's innate human nature. No amount of philosophical erudition will erase it.

Perhaps rivalry amongst nations is inevitable in a society of flawed beings.

I think perfection is an unrealistic goal. Therefore we must learn to deal with how we treat each other. And we must not let it deter us from other goals. We can, in a perverse sort of way, turn it to our advantage. Leonardo da Vinci did some of his best work under the patronage of a Tuscan warlord.

... we have been confined on this planet.

As we were once confined to continents, plains, and valleys. The scope of confinement is not an issue. The fact that humans by nature stretch the boundaries is.

Yes, I agree with you. But how can you convey that feeling on TV? How can you convey it to the masses?

I have no idea, unless you have Klaatu's phone number. The point is not so much that everyone ought to have that perspective as it is that some already have. And had we waited for utopia there would be no such perspective today.

I really think the problem is that we, as a people, are not trying hard enough.

I agree. We are not motivated to try hard enough, and I believe we won't unless we have a universal view of our planet, not merely a collection of arbitrary lines on the map. If we keep our vision local we just make those local problems appear so much more pervasive, when from orbit they are trivial.

We won't have Israelis and Palestinians joining hands and singing from the space station. That's not what I'm on about. But somebody has to have that perspective. We have to know that there is a real, tangible perspective outside that of our nation or world.