Habitually, maybe, but not automatically. You have more faith in the system than I but that doesn't mean the system doesn't have systemic flaws any more than my view means the system's completely irredeemable. Boundless optimism is very reassuring; I see little indication it's anything more than that.



I remember how this thread began; I trust YOU remember that my participation in it began with snide comments agreeing with you that the premise is hogwash. My first response to you specifically was to the effect that a species ethically AND technically advanced enough for interstellar travel and value judgements about the other species it encounters is more likely to assist them breaking self destructive habits than annihilate them for displaying such habits (a point you later echoed). Not sure what more I can say about that except "sorry I didn't agree as emphatically as you'd like and/or for your preferred reasons".



I made it political in the sense of it being about people, because I think it very much is, to such an extent there's no need for me to "make" it so. For that matter, the threads premise that an interstellar species might exterminate humanity over global warming was pretty politically charged before either of us arrived. It was therefore probably inevitable we'd go from agreeing that's extremely unlikely to debating whether global warming represents an inherently self destructive impulse in our society, since we have very different views on that subject (and global warming itself; speaking of which, I did view your earlier thread on a possible new Maunder Minimum with encouragement, but it according to a follow up Wired article it looks like that offers no reprieve).