Note, having industrial advantages is quite related to being “good” (in the sense of having productive coordination among individuals to produce usable material and informational goods). Having lots of manpower is also related to being “good” (in the sense of having a system that has enough buy-in from enough people that they will fight effectively on your side, and not depose you). These correlations aren’t accidental, they’re essential.
(It is, however, true that military power is not identical with goodness, and that there are “bad” ways of getting industry and manpower, although (I claim) their “badness” is essential to their disadvantages)
I agree that various advantages in power depend on productive coordination. And I think productive coordination is an important facet of being good. But I’m pretty wary of conflating them.
[epistemic status – not very well read on the history, and I haven’t thought about this too seriously since I was more proto-typical Blue Tribe member]. It seemed like a significant chunk of US industrial might depended on having lots of resources, which depended on expansion across the continent, which dependent on invasion of Native American land. Which also required lots of cooperation/coordination within the US.
The overall strategy (over centuries) seemed to be “gain lots of territory and resources via tactics that look pretty straightforwardly evil, and then come up with a new narrative afterwards where you sort of wring your hands and be like ‘eh… well, what’s done is done but now might as well use this for good’”
[epistemic status – more recent thoughts] I feel very confused about how to think about empires.
It seems like empires in general look straightforwardly evil, if the word evil is going to mean anything. it also seems like empires are a pre-requisite to doing most things that seem like ‘deeper Good according to Raemon’, and the default world without empires sure seems like it’s missing out on some important things. But, also, the people at the time didn’t know that.
Note, having industrial advantages is quite related to being “good” (in the sense of having productive coordination among individuals to produce usable material and informational goods). Having lots of manpower is also related to being “good” (in the sense of having a system that has enough buy-in from enough people that they will fight effectively on your side, and not depose you). These correlations aren’t accidental, they’re essential.
(It is, however, true that military power is not identical with goodness, and that there are “bad” ways of getting industry and manpower, although (I claim) their “badness” is essential to their disadvantages)
I agree that various advantages in power depend on productive coordination. And I think productive coordination is an important facet of being good. But I’m pretty wary of conflating them.
[epistemic status – not very well read on the history, and I haven’t thought about this too seriously since I was more proto-typical Blue Tribe member]. It seemed like a significant chunk of US industrial might depended on having lots of resources, which depended on expansion across the continent, which dependent on invasion of Native American land. Which also required lots of cooperation/coordination within the US.
The overall strategy (over centuries) seemed to be “gain lots of territory and resources via tactics that look pretty straightforwardly evil, and then come up with a new narrative afterwards where you sort of wring your hands and be like ‘eh… well, what’s done is done but now might as well use this for good’”
[epistemic status – more recent thoughts] I feel very confused about how to think about empires.
It seems like empires in general look straightforwardly evil, if the word evil is going to mean anything. it also seems like empires are a pre-requisite to doing most things that seem like ‘deeper Good according to Raemon’, and the default world without empires sure seems like it’s missing out on some important things. But, also, the people at the time didn’t know that.