Way I see it,is all about resources to live,and the form to get them:
As long as humankind becomes more powerful,i.ei.develops scientific and technological improvements,it s inevitable that society comes more civilized,and it s no coincidence that the word describing "civilized" and "human"are used as synonymes of respect and comprehension and kindness,because a large organized division of work to mantain running a modern economy can not allow tribal type wars between little groups,torture,executions without process,rape and burning,slavery,etc. without being desintegrated;but as the political-economical entities gain in complexity and thus in diversification of roles,the city-state becomes a country,this an alliance of them,and then you get to a globalized world,in which most part of the members has not only never fought for his life in any sense(REALLY FOUGHT I MEAN,AS I WILL KEEP REPEATING IN THIS POST,CHECK BACKWARDS CENTURIES)but never saw a man killed by a weapon:
But the key point is that technology applied in big scale not only brings food and shelter(the original reasons for brutality and violence)but the tools to overcome more threats of any kind that the more primitive(in every sense,no coincidence here)societies,even trained in an unimaginable fierceness,could never have faced,and this is a real fine deal:
You can get safety,health,food,technological comfort,all with a larger division of work only achievable by peace and cooperation...(this is a slow process and is far from being completed but advances always nevertheless)who would want otherwise?
Avoided the need that rises the violence, the civilized enjoy the pleasure of peace in a global scale NEVER ACHIEVED IN HISTORY(each century more,and if you think the 20th as hard check any previous other:no man died without being not in one but many wars in his short-ill-provided lives)for no sound person likes the slaughtering for joy...
So,the old Darwinian brutal live-or die evolution is getting over,for we survive more and better than ever and find cures for sickness faster than any naturally evolved agent produce,and this is thanks to intelligence,than allows us to drive the sorrounding world directly to our selected goals through cooperation and enhancement of respect ;now,is obvious that having more control is more safe that having less,especially with a "mother nature"that I love so much,but is very slow and random and blind in its changes, and with which species survive and at which cost in its ruthless-decimating selection system,in few words I prefer to take care of myself than trust my life to the chance...
All here talk about enhanced intelligence and even muscles and worries about the future lack of ethics and sympathy and kindness and moral,as if some features wouldn t be as genetic as the others...
Progress is a general improvement process,or to be very graphic,and this is no dialectic coincidence, for I bet whatever that this is equal in every language on earth,the correctness in any field(to do a thing in the "right" way, from fix a car motor,to do a math problem) is synonym with the moral arrow:IS GOOD TO BE GOOD.