[acjohnson55]

For sure, there are hard-nosed people out there. I agree with you that arguing with these folks is a waste of time. But they are vastly outnumbered. A functional society requires those hardliners to be marginalized and the oppression they advocate to be rejected. For that to happen, there needs to be some baseline solidarity amongst diverse people who mostly simply want safety, opportunity, and justice. It's not a stable equilibrium. It takes constant work to shore up that consensus and good faith, and avoid the collapse into centralized or distributed authoritarianism.

[blazespin]

"A functional society requires those hardliners to be marginalized"

Well, that is one theory for sure. But it's a tough one to argue when the reality is that having a bigger gun generally does mean you're right.

[acjohnson55]

I agree. Many parts of the world work that way, quite explicitly. I'm pretty sure it's the human default. And yet, we have liberal democracies that are at least somewhat functional. I'm interested in how best to work within that scope. I've got a lot less to say about how you achieve progress in a society ruled by warlords, even though that's very timely issue in many places.