[kijin]

> It's hard to make a case for universal "liberal humanism" when your own people are succumbing to famines in the millions.

I already said that I'm no fan of "universal liberal humanism". If someone thinks the Irish famine was progress because everything progresses all the time, they're wrong. But just because liberal humanism has problems doesn't mean that one must run to the other extreme. "If you hate my enemy, join my side" might be a useful tactic in war, but in philosophy people will just shrug and say "No way, you're both my enemies." My opinion is that humanity sometimes progress, sometimes stagnates, and sometimes regresses.

Anyway, here's my objection:

    1. Agreed.
    2. Agreed.
    3. Nope. Human progress will be limited by the aforementioned
       limit of human knowledge, but this is a very large limit,
       so there's plenty of room for progress before we hit the limit.
       We might have already hit the limit in some areas, but that
       doesn't mean we won't keep making progress in other areas.
    4. Agreed, but there is no necessary condition that says that
       humans MUST revert to an inferior state, either.
       Maybe they'll just stagnate until evolution produces
       a superior species with higher limits of knowledge. Why not?
       Just because X isn't necessary doesn't mean that
       not-X is necessary. Usually, they're both unnecessary.