In my experience, people who think about The Game think about it in personal and tribal terms.
Separately, nerds avoid thinking about The Game (except in abstract terms), and non-nerds like thinking about it.
In either case, the Good aspect comes after: get power in The Game, and then separately use it to do Good.
Ideally, one would incorporate Good in their vision of The Game itself:
- Looking for positive-sum sub-games. Notable examples include trade agreements, and international infrastructure projects (think Eurostar or Transatlantic Communication Cables).
- Explicitly renegotiating the rules of the game. Eg: UN Charter, Hague Convention, etc.
- Raising the sanity waterline, by pushing for universal education everywhere for instance.
I see within this post several reasons you're not going to win.
Most obviously, you speak negatively of "not punishing our own when they act badly, and being overly harsh on enemies." To have a chance of winning, you must adopt a policy of having no enemies to your … well, whatever the opposite direction to Greenpeace from you is. Forgive everyone on the same side as you _everything,_ as long as they're still fighting the same enemy. And if you believe there is literally anything too harsh to inflict on your enemies, you aren't ready to fight, so stay out of the way. (Unless you're only pretending to be a moderate as a ploy, in which case, okay, you can criticize people going too far and "breaking the Law", as long as you remember you're actually lying.)
Also, the bit about morals is a severe handicap. Not insurmountable if you're much stronger than your enemy, but as it is, those are luxuries you cannot afford. Renounce them, and dig two graves.
A gut check that might help to see if you have the Will to win: imagine you hear of the brutal murder of a bunch of Greenpeace activists, your first thought should NOT be anything like "no one deserves that," it should be either "it's a shame it's so few of them," or "this is unhelpful to our cause since they'll use it to gain sympathy."
Most "enemies" aren't worth waging total war against. Someone that kills a bunch of Greenpeace activists is probably a bigger problem than Greenpeace, and I would make common cause with Greenpeace against them while still opposing Greenpeace's other views.
Hence the utility of the gut check: this make you an unreliable ally (at best).
As the post says,
> We lose whenever people trust Greenpeace, whenever Greenpeace’s brand gains more public awareness,
You making common cause with them would contribute to this, and is so much worse that it'd completely wipe out any conceivable gain from your opposition to their other views.
Well, as Churchill said, "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons."
A more recent example:
Charlie Kirk may have been a bastard, but he still didn't deserve to get shot. :P
There are some red lines that are there for good reasons, and when someone does cross them, it becomes very important for everyone else to set aside their differences and team up on the line-crosser, and if you won't, then I consider *you* an unreliable ally.
(And one of those lines is shooting people for what they say. As the saying goes, I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.)
In this case, the devil was Stalin, and Churchill actually did take stronger anti-Stalin positions during World War II than FDR did. IIRC, Churchhill wanted the American army to come up Italy to cut off the Russians instead of what it actually did, which was attack through France - he didn't want Stalin to lose to Hitler, but he also didn't want the Soviet army to march all the way from Russia to Berlin, because once it did, it would basically never leave and the entire region would be under Soviet control. (Which is exactly what happened in real history.)
What side you take when two of your enemies fight - or whether you just sit back and grab the popcorn - can be very important in the long run.
Very interesting article! I'm curious what percentage of the world thinks about The Game on this level.
In my experience, people who think about The Game think about it in personal and tribal terms.
Separately, nerds avoid thinking about The Game (except in abstract terms), and non-nerds like thinking about it.
In either case, the Good aspect comes after: get power in The Game, and then separately use it to do Good.
Ideally, one would incorporate Good in their vision of The Game itself:
- Looking for positive-sum sub-games. Notable examples include trade agreements, and international infrastructure projects (think Eurostar or Transatlantic Communication Cables).
- Explicitly renegotiating the rules of the game. Eg: UN Charter, Hague Convention, etc.
- Raising the sanity waterline, by pushing for universal education everywhere for instance.
I see within this post several reasons you're not going to win.
Most obviously, you speak negatively of "not punishing our own when they act badly, and being overly harsh on enemies." To have a chance of winning, you must adopt a policy of having no enemies to your … well, whatever the opposite direction to Greenpeace from you is. Forgive everyone on the same side as you _everything,_ as long as they're still fighting the same enemy. And if you believe there is literally anything too harsh to inflict on your enemies, you aren't ready to fight, so stay out of the way. (Unless you're only pretending to be a moderate as a ploy, in which case, okay, you can criticize people going too far and "breaking the Law", as long as you remember you're actually lying.)
Also, the bit about morals is a severe handicap. Not insurmountable if you're much stronger than your enemy, but as it is, those are luxuries you cannot afford. Renounce them, and dig two graves.
A gut check that might help to see if you have the Will to win: imagine you hear of the brutal murder of a bunch of Greenpeace activists, your first thought should NOT be anything like "no one deserves that," it should be either "it's a shame it's so few of them," or "this is unhelpful to our cause since they'll use it to gain sympathy."
Most "enemies" aren't worth waging total war against. Someone that kills a bunch of Greenpeace activists is probably a bigger problem than Greenpeace, and I would make common cause with Greenpeace against them while still opposing Greenpeace's other views.
> I would make common cause with Greenpeace
Hence the utility of the gut check: this make you an unreliable ally (at best).
As the post says,
> We lose whenever people trust Greenpeace, whenever Greenpeace’s brand gains more public awareness,
You making common cause with them would contribute to this, and is so much worse that it'd completely wipe out any conceivable gain from your opposition to their other views.
Well, as Churchill said, "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons."
A more recent example:
Charlie Kirk may have been a bastard, but he still didn't deserve to get shot. :P
There are some red lines that are there for good reasons, and when someone does cross them, it becomes very important for everyone else to set aside their differences and team up on the line-crosser, and if you won't, then I consider *you* an unreliable ally.
(And one of those lines is shooting people for what they say. As the saying goes, I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.)
Indeed, that would make Churchill a reliable ally against Hitler, but a poor one against the Devil.
In this case, the devil was Stalin, and Churchill actually did take stronger anti-Stalin positions during World War II than FDR did. IIRC, Churchhill wanted the American army to come up Italy to cut off the Russians instead of what it actually did, which was attack through France - he didn't want Stalin to lose to Hitler, but he also didn't want the Soviet army to march all the way from Russia to Berlin, because once it did, it would basically never leave and the entire region would be under Soviet control. (Which is exactly what happened in real history.)
What side you take when two of your enemies fight - or whether you just sit back and grab the popcorn - can be very important in the long run.
> Churchill actually did take stronger anti-Stalin positions during World War II than FDR did.
True, but that's a low bar.