Yet around the world this solution has largely failed, especially as private entities with enough political power (and money, as these are often interchangeable) have learned how to exploit flaws in human psychology to for their advantage. Until we fix these issues the best option is to minimize the possible harm caused by minimizing the instances where we fine violence an acceptable option.
> Yet around the world this solution has largely failed
That's a cynic's worldview and it's one that I totally reject. Take your pessimism to a hole in the ground and wither yourself away there. Let those of us invested in the progress and future of humanity get on with our work.
>That's a cynic's worldview and it's one that I totally reject.
Your rejection doesn't change the reality of how the word operates today.
>Take your pessimism to a hole in the ground and wither yourself away there.
Why? So others can continue to double down on failed policies that end up costing others?
>Let those of us invested in the progress and future of humanity get on with our work.
You see yourself as some benevolent being moving humanity forward but reject any criticism of the costs of your actions. You even immediately judge those who disagree with you as standing against humans, a tactic to dehumanize opposition instead of engaging with it. It is a dangerous mindset that has led to the deaths of tens of millions.
Why not take a lesson from nature that shows that a single entity that tries to do it all is far less likely to survive the future that many separate entities that each find their niche?
> You see yourself as some benevolent being moving humanity forward but reject any criticism of the costs of your actions.
I reject specifically your criticism, the criticism of cynics. I (obviously) don't agree with your characterization of which policies are "failed policies that end up costing others" or "how the world operates". Humans are of nature but also possess the ethical and rational systems to rise above it. We're not bound by our natural impulses; on the contrary, our gifts oblige us to be better than them.
Bluntly, I have no interest in living in a tribe with my Dunbar's number of tribespeople, organizing my thoughts and our policies under some presupposed limits of ambition. My ambition is boundless. So I say again, if you want to close ranks and subvert broad collective action and live in fear (or as you would say, some kind of steely-eyed realism) go dig a hole and do it well away from me. I've no interest in that moribund nihilism.
Government isn't separate from society, it is composed of society, and the voice with which a society enacts its will.
If government is corrupt, the solution is to fix government, not strip government of its necessary and ethical power.