So what's the motivation? Selflessness?
"Would it remain that way, or would you go for taking over the world once powerful enough to? Owning the world could give complete dominion over progress if you handle it well enough."
I do not know, i do not think i would have enough power with my nation to do it. And i need to convince people it makes sense. War seems to put people on edge. But if i had the motivation, which at that point i should have, and i had the ability, i would do it.
"Why? Don't find that sort of delving into what-ifs fun? What are you thinking about right now that carries more weight?"
I can think of something vague. Like this: Thinking you should be respected for who you are, just on the basis that you happen to belong to the human species and you exists <- this is stupid. It is also stupid to demand respect from your peers. You may try to explain it to them, you may change your ways, you may label your peers as stupid, but if it all fails and you still get no acceptance, its stupid to demand retribution. You have failed to get others to accept you, its your fault.
These kind of issues as the above create a lot of longer term problems, which have now effected the entire world and have created real problems. Such as tolerance for ethical invasions leading to dismission of your nations culture, which leads to alienation between you and your peers, which creates personal competition, which leads to corruption, which leads to less production.
And this is a quick overview, i must of missed a lot of details.
"The only way is via force. I do not see any other option."
That just risks inspiring a rebellion. They'd need to be fooled into your line of thinking that much. Hivemind possesses the fastest means of progress but has the least room for variety, while complete freedom pushes for variety while going nowhere fast from a lack of unified vision. Aiming to balance it out risks falling behind others.
It's not mystery why Faith is a run-of-the-mill exploitation to streamline that sort of thing.
"People should demand understanding."
Those in the in group won't feel the need for it, since they're already "understood". If excessively enough of a degree, they might not possess the capacity to if they have absolutely nothing they can relate to.
Already the stigma shows how it's splitting people, since one group still is capable of feeling more entitled than another through no merits of their own.
The Nazis were no more sociopaths than the typical USA hyper consumer is.
The Germans (general public) didn't really know that Hitler was exterminating people en masse.
High ranking Nazis plotted to kill Hitler because they felt he had become incompetent.
In particular check out the "Desert Fox", Erwin Rommel. He was in on the plot, and when discovered he was given the option to watch his family be murdered, or die with dignity and prestige by commiting suicide. He chose suicide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Rommel
Anyways, the Germans were in a period of hyper inflation, some say they were demanding thier paychecks upto three times a day to give their wives to buy food before the money worthless by end of day, that is how fast things were hyper inflating.
After world war I, the rest of the world put too much pressure on the Germans, and they couldn't survive.
Hitler in World War I was a trench runner, and that is the most dangerous of all the positions anyone could be in, as they had to run across no mans land and face enemy fire. They were among the most killed in the war. Hitler was really lucky. I imagine this gave him a sense of invincibility, and extreme honour and patriotism.
When the war ended, he was poor, his country failed him, and he was living out of homeless shelters. That's where he met his street gang friends. The most evil of all the Germans. Heinrich Himmler, that's the real psychopath. He did all the dirty work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Himmler
Anyways, between world wars, Hitler was thrown in jail because his "street gang" was seen as an enemy against the current political leaders of the time. They were considered dangerous criminals.
After Hitler was released, he took to politics again, and this time he made a serious move which cemented his power.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives
At least 85 people died during the purge, although the final death toll may have been in the hundreds,[b][c] and more than a thousand perceived opponents were arrested.[2] Most of the killings were carried out by the Schutzstaffel (SS) and the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei), the regime's secret police. The purge strengthened and consolidated the support of the Reichswehr for Hitler. It also provided a legal grounding for the Nazi regime, as the German courts and cabinet quickly swept aside centuries of legal prohibition against extra-judicial killings to demonstrate their loyalty to the regime. The Night of the Long Knives was a turning point for the German government. It established Hitler as "the supreme judge of the German people", as he put it in his July 13, 1934 speech to the Reichstag.
Some people call Hitler a socialist, or a conservative, whatever. He was an anarchist first. Only my opinion.
Also, when Hitler exterminated the Jews, don't forget, he killed a lot of polish people as well. Hitler killed anyone who he thought could be a threat to him and he controlled Germany in a way which guaranteed stability, at the cost of liberty, that's why he was a fascist.
That's the Nazis in a nutshell. Not all of them were bad, but a good core number of them, were originally homeless street thugs.
"I wonder what sort of thing could get around that. People are the fatal flaws in most things."
The only way is via force. I do not see any other option.
"Try teaching that to people, we're pretty much hardwired towards shortcuts."
People should demand understanding. And after that they can be judged. On what basis will the judgment be, depends. The core basis is what makes sense, but thats too complex and you can make a shortcut to some idea/ideal/set of rules that have been made from the core basis.
"Thinking you should be respected for who you are, just on the basis that you happen to belong to the human species and you exists <- this is stupid. It is also stupid to demand respect from your peers. You may try to explain it to them, you may change your ways, you may label your peers as stupid, but if it all fails and you still get no acceptance, its stupid to demand retribution. You have failed to get others to accept you, its your fault."
While I agree with the idea that people ought to not demand respect out of others, that'd only be viable if people as a whole saw everyone on an even playing field, judging others purely on matters of character alone. When the stigma gets in the way of bothering to see anything else, it's natural that they'd feel pushed and eventually aim to push back. How well they can argue their points isn't always all there is to it.
Try teaching that to people, we're pretty much hardwired towards shortcuts.
Yeah, I don't know much about Woodrow Wilson.
I do know the British got their asses kicked and Stalin basically called in a massive retreat, pulling all factories into the mountains, and sent wave after wave of ill equipped Russian farmers up against superior German machine guns.
Russians started the war with mostly horses, and single fire rifles, that's about it...
Something about Stalin being stunned at the news that Germans were invading. He froze up for a week or so before doing anything. He didn't expect it at all...
I think they lucked out with their T-34s...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34#OperationBarbarossa.281941.29
Despite this, the Soviet corps equipped with these new tanks had lost most of them within weeks.[74] The combat statistics for 1941 show that the Soviets lost an average of over seven tanks for every German tank lost.[75][76] The Soviets lost a total of 20,500 tanks in 1941 (approximately 2,300 of them T-34s, as well as over 900 heavy tanks, mostly KVs).[77] At least half the first summer's total T-34 losses came about due to mechanical failure, lack of fuel, or abandonment, rather than direct fire from German tanks or artillery.[68] There was a shortage of repair equipment and recovery vehicles, and it was not uncommon for early T-34s to enter combat carrying a spare transmission on the engine deck.[78]
"That just risks inspiring a rebellion. They'd need to be fooled into your line of thinking that much. Hivemind possesses the fastest means of progress but has the least room for variety, while complete freedom pushes for variety while going nowhere fast from a lack of unified vision. Aiming to balance it out risks falling behind others."
A hivemind is what i want and the force is there to keep everything in order and in line. A clear set of rules and methods is always preferred.
Room for new ideas will be delicate. But there must be some process which makes ideas reach the top, without stirring trouble. One way is to keep people intelligent, aka education and not just fact based education. Then they wont jump to assumptions. But at the current times, that will have to wait a few generations, so the prejudice is weeded out from people.
Another way is to have a group of people evaluate these things, like the secret police, but they will only assassinate people as a last resort, if there is a problem, there are many other ways to deal with it, more peaceful ones that wont create big issues. This would be a good start, until people can be trusted with their own intelligence. Of course the police itself must not jump to assumptions. If they see some joke, valid criticism, etc they should only report it. But if there is direct propaganda via lies or force, they must stop it. Or if the valid criticism is expressed in a rebellious/problematic way <- in those cases you have to eliminate the rebellious problem, without removing the criticism or devaluing it. Which could be difficult.
The most difficult part would be the start, when people wont trust you and will jump to assumptions quickly. You must create a common ground for most people and yourself. Then actually do something to show them you are capable. After that it gets easier and you even get room for mistakes.
"Those in the in group won't feel the need for it, since they're already "understood". If excessively enough of a degree, they might not possess the capacity to if they have absolutely nothing they can relate to."
this is why we need intelligent people, they wont have such problems. if there is nothing to relate, then study the subject.