The nature of exploitation and the ratio of bad states to good states makes it impossible for a good future to exist in a highly rational society. This is because rationality leads to Moloch. The reason not all of human history has been terrible is due to how good taste prunes Molochian elements by assigning them a lower value, or directly preventing ways of thinking which leads to the discovery of such strategies in the first place. Laws and ethics are insufficient because the attack/defense asymmetry cannot be overcome. There's no difference between felling the rainforest, scamming old people, or using research to improve your dating profile. That some people will disagree with the latter is my argument that this community values "optimality" in a molochian manner.
Destruction is so much easier than creation that it cannot be defended against, which means that the set of possible worlds is constrained by its agents. Many destructive actions allows the agent to extract some value for itself in the process. If the agents lack good taste, then there exists no set of laws or principles which can save them.
Irrational agents can build worlds that rational agents can not, and some of these irrational worlds are superior from a human perspective (the average human - not necessarily the reader which has spent years dismantling their natural tendencies)
Coordination is hard. "Assigning Molochian elements a lower value" is a kind of coordination. Making rules, and punishing people when they break them is another. Even if attack is stronger than defense, the punishment could be stronger yet (because it is a kind of attack). I agree that it is difficult, not sure if impossible.
It doesn't require conscious or direct coordination, but it does require a chain of cause and effect which affects many people. If society agrees that chasing after material goods rather than meaningful pursuits is bad taste, then the world will become less molochian. It doesn't matter why people think this, how the effect is achieved, or if people are aware of this change. Human values exist in us because of evolution, but we may accidentally destroy them with technology, through excessive social competition, or through eugenics/dysgenics.