"You don't need it, but you're better with it. With experience comes change, the rule of nature this far has always been adapt or die."
Not all change is good. Sometimes what's experienced can be enough to break a person, whereas if it were presented in a different way or avoided entirely the person could have advanced into something greater. Think of PTSD victims, sure you'd write that off as "fear" inhibiting them, but it's fear that is directly connected to the experience that damaged them enough to hinder their future advancements. Some change is maladaptive towards growth, instead making the way for entropy or numbness.
Some people need to be protected from what's out there to not completely fall apart, either because it's too soon for them or too much to handle entirely. In such a case, it serves their interests to remain ignorant of some things if they are to become stronger.
"With enough understanding I dont see any experience as harmful towards growth, the blame in my eyes falls more so on the person affected and how they deal with it plays a bigger factor than the circumstance itself."
It's not like everyone processes things in the same way. There's some things that people typically can't handle. The progression one follows is more important than experience by itself.
"Yes, but not nearly as much as avoiding it."
That depends on the nature of their toiling versus the nature of when they're not. Toil can be mindless while avoidance of conflict can still yield much knowledge. Even reading can circumvent some of what experience has to offer.
"Relief from the concept of relief. I'll have to think more on it honestly, but I'm already seeing counter examples."
With relief also comes the potential for a greater hunger. Some monks and the like aim to avoid this hunger at all costs, stripping away the passions that'd serve to blind them from the path towards inner peace.
"Is curiosity anything more than relieving ignorance? or the circumstantial unknown?"
There's plenty who have found ways to avoid curiosity. It's an itch, but it's not necessarily one that must be scratched.
Conflict is a means to an end as you said before "They wont of course die but goals they want(assuming everyone has some competitive goal) will elude them." the idea that conflict always breeds strength or furthers your goal I see as false.
You hinge the idea of conflict being inherently good on two things:
"Experience which can be utilized to make conflict(life) easier and less threatening."
As pointed out before by others and to an extent by yourself experience when derived from conflict is not always strengthening. Realistically in order for experience in relation to conflict to be utilized positively it can't have a lasting negative impact on your emotional or physiological well being. Furthermore conflict is for many people emotional and its scars distorts that person's ability to make choices in their best interest in the future because of their often irrational, emotional relationship to the past conflict.
As with the example with the military building up a tolerance by conditioning the person to more severe conflicts this also has negative consequences to it in contrast to the positive ones. Someone who is conditioned to the degree that they can operate under extreme circumstances in which others would have gotten PTSD wouldn't be conditioned or adapted to civilian life where the same readiness and ability to go into "fight mode" in an instant is a handicap rather than a help.
"Without pain, without struggle, you cannot receive relief."
This I buy, water tastes better when you are thirsty. However like with the example of the monks abstaining for the sake of enlightenment (you can call this conflict if you want to but then it becomes more of a definition debate) we see how conflict is not the main mechanism in this positive outcome. Relativity in living conditions is. Conflict does not inherently lead to a poorer situation during it so the idea that you will appreciate things more after conflict I don't think is true.
My view is that it is a risk reward situation and conflicts should be judged on the basis on that rather than inherently goods.
My definition of conflict is the exact dictionary definition I posted at the top
"Conflict - an incompatibility between two or more opinions, principles, or interests.(v)be incompatible or at variance; clash."
Strength/Improvement/Experience serves to make conflict easier in this philosophy. Conflict being everywhere, acquiring those 3 makes life easier and prepares for a higher tier of conflicts.
edit: There is such a thing as bad experience and it comes solely because the person being affected did not have enough strength/experience/improvements to adequatly deal with the conflict
In my opinion, there are different branches that split off from the very concept of conflict.
There's conflict that makes people grow, then there's conflict that is useless to our very thriving nature. I hate the latter.
In a sense, there's conflict everywhere, but I think what we look for is a way to correct those clashes and make harmony. Otherwise, we wouldn't be conflicting in the first place. I don't think the majority seek conflict for shits and giggles.