I don't think separating these is that relevant here. People get told that certain things are good and right, which they then mostly do, these things have chang

I don't think separating these is that relevant here. People get told that certain things are good and right, which they then mostly do, these things have changed over time, I would claim to the better, and this is the claim I'm debating. Generally, such memetic evolution arises from competing drives to be adversarial or cooperate with others. Over time, people have found that cooperation is better in a vast variety of environments and economic or technological conditions. We are very slowly solving the Prisoner's dilemma. Even if the goal of maintaining hegemony doesn't change, the people being occasionally bombed with drones will still prefer that situation to being conquered by Gengis Khan. Maybe one day the hegemon will only need to brainwash them using propaganda instead of bombing them, and then maybe one day just have a reasonable discussion with them and still be able to achieve the goals. This in my view constitutes progress. Neither am I claiming that this progress is monotonous, eternal or inevitable. It's an observation about human history.