I don’t mean to follow you around and pester you, but this:
Like, man, yes, if you want to create good things you will have a lot of fighting to do, and while under the umbrella of the modern world individuals can largely get away with not having to do any literal fighting, I find myself similarly frequently frustrated when people sneer at … the appropriate competitive zero-sum-contest-winning-actions that are necessary for good things to exist...”
Seems like a crux that I didn’t understand about your viewpoint. I’m a thoroughly modern dude who, while I wouldn’t sneer at competition engaged in in its appropriate places (like between companies, where the rules of how they can compete are pretty carefully circumscribed), strongly prefer fight-avoidance in general, and will try hard to find cooperative solutions to problems. I think one of the things I like most about the world I live in, is we’ve found ways to coordinate to put various methods of conflict off-limits, and only “fight” in nice mostly harmless ways. “Have the ability to conquer, but don’t use it”, “talk softly and carry a big stick” etc. carry a lot of appeal to me. Ideally in future-utopia-according-to-me, we swear off weapons any more hurtful than big sticks, and anyone who decides to defect about that gets beaten with the sticks until they decide that maybe that was a bad plan. And “colonialism was worth it” carries strong vibes (for me) of “get the biggest weapons you can find for the side of good, and use them to conquer and defend your notion of the good”. I feel like that’s what the colonial empires were doing—trying to bring the light of Civilization as they understood it to the dark continents, by force and replacing the inferior people with superior ones. EDIT: On further reflection, this part is not something I actually think. Think of them as inferior: Yes. Think they should be replaced with people from the home country: No.
I like the umbrella of the modern world very much, but recognize it’s fragile and do not want to poke holes in it. :D I fundamentally don’t think fighting and conquering is how Good wins, whereas I think the colonialists did think that’s how Good wins (because back in the day, war between countries was expected and normal). In my view, Good wins by deterring fights (by having the capacity to fight if needed), and being appealing. I’m not sure if you’d actually endorse “Good should conquer”, but “if you want to create good things, you have to fight” might be something you’d say? If so, I’d be able to meet you at “if you want to create good things, you have to be willing and able to fight if it comes to it”.
I don’t mean to follow you around and pester you, but this:
Seems like a crux that I didn’t understand about your viewpoint. I’m a thoroughly modern dude who, while I wouldn’t sneer at competition engaged in in its appropriate places (like between companies, where the rules of how they can compete are pretty carefully circumscribed), strongly prefer fight-avoidance in general, and will try hard to find cooperative solutions to problems. I think one of the things I like most about the world I live in, is we’ve found ways to coordinate to put various methods of conflict off-limits, and only “fight” in nice mostly harmless ways. “Have the ability to conquer, but don’t use it”, “talk softly and carry a big stick” etc. carry a lot of appeal to me. Ideally in future-utopia-according-to-me, we swear off weapons any more hurtful than big sticks, and anyone who decides to defect about that gets beaten with the sticks until they decide that maybe that was a bad plan. And “colonialism was worth it” carries strong vibes (for me) of “get the biggest weapons you can find for the side of good, and use them to conquer and defend your notion of the good”. I feel like that’s what the colonial empires were doing—trying to bring the light of Civilization as they understood it to the dark continents, by force
and replacing the inferior people with superior ones. EDIT: On further reflection, this part is not something I actually think. Think of them as inferior: Yes. Think they should be replaced with people from the home country: No.I like the umbrella of the modern world very much, but recognize it’s fragile and do not want to poke holes in it. :D I fundamentally don’t think fighting and conquering is how Good wins, whereas I think the colonialists did think that’s how Good wins (because back in the day, war between countries was expected and normal). In my view, Good wins by deterring fights (by having the capacity to fight if needed), and being appealing. I’m not sure if you’d actually endorse “Good should conquer”, but “if you want to create good things, you have to fight” might be something you’d say? If so, I’d be able to meet you at “if you want to create good things, you have to be willing and able to fight if it comes to it”.