Many of the people here are employed to fix problems. Mostly, those problems get fixed with the versatile multitool of general purpose computing using high-level programming languages. At a larger scale, we have no problem standing behind an entrepreneur to jump in, create a startup, and disrupt the status quo. Generally, those startups use the preferred solution to the smaller problem--computers--to be as efficient as possible.

That works out great for problems solvable by a new competitive option in the free market--probably the best way to handle it, actually. The people implementing the best solutions to the problem get paid the most money, and everyone is happy.

But that only works up to a certain scale. If your problem's solution requires a capitalization of more than $100M, you're not going to fix it with a hip, cool, dynamic startup tech company, with the founder-CEO right there directing traffic. At larger scales, you need a lot of people: investors, employees, and managers. You have to deal with the principal-agent problem, where the selfish concerns of an individual may be in conflict with the overarching goals of the whole group, and they have the individual authority to act on their own behalf as they act in the name of the group.

That is the realm of multinational corporate governance and governments. The essence of a government is a controlled monopoly on the uses of force considered to be legitimate. The government is a cartel enforcer. It is there to ensure that if any one person acts too much in his own interest at the expense of the public interest, the cartel enforcer may impose a penalty to encourage a better outcome for the whole cartel in the future. There is no enforcer for the enforcer. If the government becomes corrupted, it can cease to function for its intended purposes. In particular, if a portion of a government that is designed for self-repair ceases to function, there is no possible in-band activity that can reliably restore it. Even if that self-correcting element only partially ceases to function, it may still be cheaper or easier to fix the problem using out-of-band signaling activity.

That out-of-band signaling behavior for a government is all the behaviors explicitly banned by the government: lawbreaking. That can run from relatively innocuous law-scoffing, such as blocking downtown traffic for an hour without a valid municipal demonstration permit, to a full-on bloody rebellion, which is probably the most illegal thing you can do.

The important questions:

- Is the self-regulation function of government compromised? If so, how badly has it been damaged?

- What is the minimum level of unlawful behavior necessary to restore government to its proper functioning (the proper functions being a subjective judgment) as cartel enforcer?

If you maintain that government is functioning as intended, there is no problem to fix. For you. Carry on. Those who do think there are problems may attempt to work around you. They might also go through you. So it helps to be aware of your neighbors and surroundings.

If you maintain that zero amount of unlawful behavior is necessary or sufficient to fix the outstanding problems, then you can continue working within the system. If your efforts aren't yielding results, you have no choice but to double down and do all the same things even harder next time.

Violence is just one tool in the toolbox. Its the one that may still work after all others have failed, the "last argument of kings". You can't take it out of the toolbox. It's always there, even if you don't talk about it. Let us not forget that the US is the only nation to have ever used nuclear weapons on the battlefield. The US has the same order of magnitude for population size and for number of firearms. I recently got some polling results from Cards Against Humanity [0] reporting that 33% of the US population believes another civil war may start within the next decade. You don't have to believe in violence, because violence still believes in you. It believes that you will continue handing over your lunch money every day, and never fight back. It may well be that a punch on the nose, delivered too early, may prevent a chain of events ending with a stab in the back, delivered too late.

Yes, you are correct, discussions on the unauthorized use of force--whether ethical or not--are likely out of scope for HN. But I'm scared out of my mind right now, and talking about it helps me to find more reasons not do it.

[0] https://thepulseofthenation.com/