Seasons

Uhhh, suffering exists - yes, I claim that is a "given". Are you really trying to claim it doesn't exist?

No, merely that it is a human construct

So only humans can suffer? Or at least humans are the authors of all suffering in the world? I have to disagree. An abstract notion of evil might be a human construct (though I would say it reflects something less abstract - it is not without foundation,) but the conscious reality of suffering can't be.
Many animals clearly suffer pain, and yet this is not primarily attributable to human activity in the vast majority of cases. The frog one of our cats tortured to death the other day suffered in the process, I'm sure, but how could the world be otherwise? We could humanely exterminate all the predators in the world, accepting that their suffering would be transitory, and for a "greater good", but then what? With this artificially imposed imbalance, the prey species would multiply until they starved - and their suffering would be compounded, not reduced.
If humans had never evolved, or if we died out suddenly, suffering would continue while there was life conscious enough to experience it. I do believe that even ants suffer in their way - they will retreat from stimuli that might be supposed to cause pain (fire, corrosive chemicals, anteaters, etc.) and display desperately agitated behaviour if they cannot escape. It is not anthropomorphism to assume that pulling the legs off flies, or mice, or chimpanzees is likely to cause suffering.

I would not call the light "good" nor the darkness "bad".

Not literally, no, but figuratively - all dualities are by their nature inescapable. If there is light, there will be dark. If there is good, there will be evil. If there is pleasure, there will be pain. You can't have one without the other - the only option is non-existence.

The natural world can stay as it is. If it were up to me, humans should learn to live in balance with it and help each other with those aspects which make our existence more mutually pleasurable and give up trying to use others for our own benefit

Amen to that. And we will eventually (but not until this universe ends, or at least until reality can be reprogrammed to satisfactorily accommodate monopolar qualia in place of current dualities.)

(though to do this, people may have to be convinced to take "the middle way")

To "be convinced", yes and no. To become convinced, I would agree, but too often Messianic do-gooders (who are honestly and sincerely convinced that they really do know best,) interpret that as to "be coerced" (for their own good, naturally,) and to my mind that is always a mistake.

Change does not equate with struggle, suffering, or even desire.

This is true. But everything we know about evolution indicates that evolution does inevitably involve struggle and, in lifeforms possessed of some degree of consciousness, suffering. The change is not random, it is progressive - natural structures complexify, and they do this largely by competing against each other. There will always be winners and losers.
I don't say that's the way I would choose it to be, or even the way it ought to be. It's not a matter of desire - it's just the way it is.

Human history as we know it has had evidence of suffering as part of a human experience of life. We don't know if this was always the case, since if it was not, no record of these societies seems to exists at this time. It is possible that when conditions were more ideal for human growth and survival, we had a "Garden of Eden" where humans hunted and gathered and worked in small units within larger communities that helped each other.

Even if humans were perfectly sociable and altruistic, there would be suffering. Human hunters in some Elysian golden age still got toothache, sprained ankles, occasional goring by mammoths. They accidentally bruised and scalded and cut themselves, died from painful and debilitating illnesses, and inflicted suffering on the animals they hunted, just as we do today. Even if we could wave a magic wand and do away with all illness, do away with death even, make everyone perfectly altruistic and selfless, there would be suffering. I would still have got a paper cut this morning, and stubbed my toe last week.
So perhaps we should genetically reengineer ourselves to have no pain sensors? There are a few people who have a genetic abnormality that leaves them with no tactile senses, but I'm very glad I'm not one of them. Apart from the obvious problem that you don't immediately notice if you've just sat on a lit brazier (until the smell of barbecuing buttocks alerts you to that fact,) they cannot feel anything that is pleasurable either.
And some sounds are painful (not to mention the risk of distressing tinnitus,) so we should do away with our hearing? And it's painful to stare at bright lights, so we should put our eyes out? And the smell of sewage is stomach-churning, so we should give up the ability to smell the roses?
The only absolute cure for suffering is nonexistence. And, while I don't fear death, I don't think I'm suffering enough yet to seek it out prematurely.

You may also mean that humans tend to cause suffering for themselves and each other (at least so far).

As the Buddha says - life is suffering, suffering is life (though "doha" actually means something as much like "friction" or "stress" as it does "suffering".)

There are some accounts that at least some individuals found a way to move beyond suffering and embrace compassion.

Yes, but not by denying that suffering exists. Life may be suffering, but if you choose not to let it distress you, it won't. If you pretend to yourself that suffering doesn't (or even shouldn't) exist, then you are likely to become extremely distressed. Compassion may not cure suffering (in the sense of banishing it immediately,) but it mitigates it. It is, at least, an appropriate response.

Completely artificial constructs I'm not sure about (e.g. polyester)

Oh, all things must have their genii, even polyester, whether you call it a soul or a monad or something else.
But I would imagine the suffering of polyester is of lower degree than that of conventionally animate beings

where humans hunted and gathered and worked in small units within larger communities that helped each other.
Knowing humans, I don't think that this happened, at least very often. Ever go camping with a group of friends, or family. It doesn't take long for the group of friendly hunter gatherers to get ready to club somebody over the head. I don't think the heart of man has changed over time. I think man will have to work very hard not to be a selfish oaf.

Many animals clearly suffer pain, and yet this is not primarily attributable to human activity in the vast majority of cases.

OK, let's start by defining terms. Pain is th physical experience. Animals clearly feel pain. Suffering is he mental anguish associated with pain, and the way me magnify and hang on to pain in our minds.

You cat most certainly looks cruel to you as (s)he kills a frog, and the frog most likely feels pain. It is unlikely the frog even comprehended what was happening, though, much less reflected on it and magnifies the pain in it's mind. Suffering requires a certain level of consciousness and awareness, just as cruelty requires a certain capacity for empathy and appreciating your victim's mental state.

Humans have a tendency to anthropomorphize and attribute human motives and mind sets to other animals. While some animals (e.g. chimps and dolphins) may think and have languages, personalities and culture, there is no evidence that they are merely less evolved humans. I believe they think, but not that they think like us. As for emotional issues and morality, you will have to show me more evidence of this before I believe animals possess such attributes.

A cat playing with it's prey may look cruel to humans. We may think (s)he is bullying the prey and taking pleasure in it's pain, and what we imaging to be it's terror (or at least a fight, flight or freeze panic). I think it's more likely that a cat's tendency to play is an instinct for training it's skills at hunting and practicing it's moves. I doubt it thinks about the frog any more than it thinks about a piece of string.

When I was very young, I went fishing up in Wisconsin in the summer. They taught me how to step on snails, bait the hook and get a fish. I thought it was all very cool (though I did not like cleaning the fish). I did not step on the snail because I enjoyed the though of crushing that little life and making it suffer. I did not think of whether or not the snail felt pain as it was put on the hook, nor of the feelings of the fish when I caught it. I just thought it was cool that I was learning how to fish.

Maybe it's wrong for me to assume cats are more like me in my innocent precontemplative stage, but it is just as valid as assuming they are cruel like human bullies.
Being a predator is natural for predators. I do not want to change that to change that (though naturally I will try to avoid being prey). It is not pain or even death I would say I avoidable (though I will avoid both if I can). It is human cruelty and human suffering that I would eliminate.

Many predators do things humans can say is cruel. They may choose to kill in a manner which is slower, or provides them some additional benefit at the expense of the prey. I have never heard of a case where a group of even the most vicious of tigers sought out family of prey, held down the buck and raped the doe in front of the buck and faun, then , killed the faun slowly in front of the parents, then tortured the doe to death slowly, and then finally tortured the buck to death. Predators don't leave the mangled un-eaten bodies of prey on stakes to taunt the rest of the prey's family and herd. Only people do that.

You may find evidence of more complex animals (e.g. KoKo the Gorilla) exhibiting behaviors that indicate attachment and loss. You may find evidence of some times of desire. If that is your argument, then maybe it is possible for some animals to suffer, but they would need human like state of mind and a level of awareness and appreciation of their attachments and desires to have anything like what I would label suffering.

Prob123: Knowing humans, I don't think that this happened, at least very often. Ever go camping with a group of friends, or family. It doesn't take long for the group of friendly hunter gatherers to get ready to club somebody over the head.

Those are modern humans raised in modern cultures. Besides, going camping is a unusual condition for those groups unless they live in the woods their whole lives. There is a difference between growing up in a tribe or clan with a simple way of life that everyone is used to (and has developed rituals and social norms for) and going camping.

No doubt the world is full of bastards. That doesn't mean it always was and always will be. It just means that conditions were such that bastards flourished and are still in office to this day.

I think man will have to work very hard not to be a selfish oaf.

This may be. We are bound by our ego and perspective, our drives and attachments, and the limits of our understanding just as the cat who kills frogs is bound by her awareness, instincts, and perspective. Maybe there is something to "enlightened self interest" in that we band together for the good of the whole (because then by joining I benefit too). It may take work, and it may take a way of seeing the connections between "self" and other" (or maybe at times disregarding these distinctions altogether). I am not expecting humanity to change anytime soon. I just think that to say it has to be the way it is, just because it is that way now is to make assumptions I am not willing to make.

difference between growing up in a tribe or clan with a simple way of life I have never been able to find a utopia in history. I thought the Anastasie might have been, then the evidence comes out that they ate each other, and did know, if not war, murder. I think the world might reach a point where man has to learn to be "good" to survive. Then out of self interest he will change. There has always been the selfless people and the "evil". It takes a lot of work for good to win out.

I have never been able to find a utopia in history.

Me neither. That doesn't mean there wasn't one in prehistory or that there couldn't be one. But I am not exactly talking about a utopia, merely the possibility of a human society that was not based on competition.

I didn't say a non-competitive society would be perfect. I didn't make value judgments about whether it would be better or worse, or that there was nothing you would call "evil". I just said it was possible to have one based on cooperation instead of competition. It may or may not have existed. It may or may not exist on another planet. I might or might nor someday exist here. It is merely a possibility.

I am saying that you do not need competition and you do not need suffering in order to have life. I think the right chemical combination is all that is required for life (probably liquid water and carbon, but I do not know). The discussion is about whether competition, struggling and suffering is always necessary, not whether it was here now, or even if it is good or bad.

I would also argue good and evil are relative, though I try to cultivate compassion. I never said competition and suffering do not exist, nor do I assert they are not dominate in human history. I just think it is possible to have life without such things, maybe even human life.

Humans have a tendency to anthropomorphism
I would rather error in the favor of any creature and anthropomorphism. It wasn't long ago, that in many places women were considered mindless souless creatures. Look how man treated others, just because of race or religion. I think animals may feel just as much as we do, maybe more. I have known dogs mourn themselves to death after the loss of their owner. That is suffering.

Yes, I have known cats to grieve too, though not as deeply or for as long as dogs. Lizards (a dozen or so species I have had the pleasure of living with,) I would say do not. Though bearded dragons remember individuals who are removed from their hierarchy for up to several months even, and they are allowed to resume their position without having to "renegotiate" their status with the usual head bobbing and arm windmilling that accompanies a new arrival.
Their only response to death is the juniors haggling to fill the social gap.