Haha yes, I did mean causal.

I think it’s a casual argument. People are saying pitbulls are not inherently more violent, they just tend to be the dog of choice for people who want violent (guard) dogs. They are then taught violent behaviors by their owners.

I think of it the same way as the paradox of tolerance. If a society extends tolerance to those who are intolerant, it risks enabling the eventual dominance of intolerance.

If a peaceful civilization allows the expansion of a non-peaceful society, it could spell the end of the peaceful civilization.

Issac Arthur is a fantastic YouTube channel that delves into the many possible types of alien civilizations and how they could fit into the Fermi-paradox (where is everybody?).

What you propose is generally not accepted as a likely state of the universe. If a civilization is ruthless, evil, and expanding the last thing a more powerful, peaceful civilization would want to do is allow its expansion. The logical choice would be intervention either in guiding their morality (probably hard), or just extermination (quite easy if you posses even modest interstellar space travel capability).

Fun to think about! We’ve only been broadcasting our existence for about 100 years, so it could be we’ve only recently been noticed and our doom is already en route!

Technically that is profit maximizing, where as profit is just surplus value created. Nothing wrong with profit, profit maximizing at the expense of all else is a recipe for civilization collapse.

In our tree mushroom example, if both organisms grow faster by sharing nutrients than by hoarding, they have both made a profit.

This argument doesn’t hold water. The largest demographic backing trump is the boomers who have not been in the education system for 40-50 years. You’re telling me the pinnacle of our education system was before 1960? I just don’t buy that argument.

Should we improve our education system? Absolutely! Is it the single contributor to the worldwide authoritarian pivot of the last decade? No.

I understand the current context, but I hate seeing people cheering for gerrymandering.

My old boss used to say “Hope is not a strategy.” I think that’s a pretty good philosophy.