[michaelochurch]

If you want a mean but more creative fix for a large number of society's problems in one go, here's an idea: take the 1000 richest people and split them into teams, Red and Blue, 500 on each. (Don't put immediate family on opposing teams.) Put collars on them that can kill them instantly. After one year, whichever team has fewer people alive will all be killed. (A less vicious version of this is that they lose all their money.)

If you do this, you have artificially created an irreparable cleavage in the elite. You will suddenly have unprecedented social mobility in the world (and, likely, full employment) as Red vs. Blue recruit the smartest people they can (and pay them handsomely) for their existential struggle. I can't say that this will improve the world. It may cause more problems than it solves, but it will shift power and wealth to talented people in a way that would otherwise never happen.

Conspiracy theories are a massive oversimplification of what actually goes on, but elites would rather collude. If you don't give them an immovable enemy within themselves, then their enemy becomes us (and that's not a fair fight). Obviously, this Red/Blue thing is an impractical fantasy, but it may provide insight into why the world seems to demand that wars (despite their being extraordinarily destructive and seemingly utterly undesirable) happen.

[busterarm]

> Conspiracy theories are a massive oversimplification of what actually goes on, but elites would rather collude. If you don't give them an immovable enemy within themselves, then their enemy becomes us (and that's not a fair fight). Obviously, this Red/Blue thing is an impractical fantasy, but it may provide insight into why the world seems to demand that wars (despite their being extraordinarily destructive and seemingly utterly undesirable) happen.

Thank you for explaining this in a way that won't cause the kneejerk hate-response from people. This is exactly it, but I'm a jerk and like to phrase things in ways that provoke.