[ExI] nature's indifference to survival

[Adrian Tymes]

On Mon, Oct 26, 2026 at 6:25 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> On 24/10/2026 17:33, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> > On Sat, Oct 24, 2026 at 11:11 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat
> > <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> >> 'Mostly trying to survive and improve your own life' and 'mostly trying to tear down other people' are not mutually incompatible
> > But they are.
>
> I don't see how. They often happen together. It's the essence of a zero-sum game.

Many things are believed to be zero-sum games, that are not in fact
zero-sum games.  Most things of importance to large governments are
not zero-sum games, whether or not they are believed to be.

> >> What are the Israelis doing by trying to wipe out the Palestinians?
> > Tearing them down.  Building them up - so the Palestinians don't get
> > raised on "our primary purpose in life is that Israel must die" -
> > would involve education, providing actual security, and other stuff
> > that seems harder than simply killing them as justifications arise.
>
> Exactly. The israelis are improving their own lives by tearing down the palestinians. They get more territory and security by destroying palestine.

More territory, by itself, does not always improve their lives -
certainly not as much as using what territory they have better would.

As to security: they're just pushing the problem outward.  The people
who are raised to kill them are still on their borders.  Education,
providing those people actual security, et al would change it so their
neighbors don't want to kill them nearly as much.

> Ok, the same principles apply to individuals as to collections of individuals, when we're talking about zero-sum situations.

This is the core disconnect.  We're not mostly talking about zero-sum
situations.