I think you're going a bit too hard on the truisms now.
There are forms of prosperity that are not part of a zero sum, and instead increase the total sum instead. Primarily technical innovations, but even social structures can be more efficient than others and reduce lost or wasted resources. Until we build a Dyson sphere or something there are myriad ways in which energy is being used ineffectively, and not everything that learns to grow faster has to be a cancer.
And sure life isn't fair, the universe is seemingly indifferent to our existence, but I'm talking about people. They can be fairminded, or they can be decidedly not. And as for the subjectivity, if the instinctive feel of what is and isn't fair is a biological predisposition, then there will almost certainly be others who share the same or close enough to be compatible feelings. Those are your people. As a people with a shared vision of fairness it is in your interest to advance your collective position over any other subjective position to the point that your desires, like changes to felony gun laws, are implicitly understood and desired by those running the state, rather than having to try and force the hand of leaders who don't share your values. The benefits of a shared, implicit moral framework are huge, and if your sense of fairness includes being able to trust even felons with a gun post-punishment, absolutely vital to living in a society you feel is fair.
But the earth isn't a closed system, it's an open system in approximate equilibrium. Averaged over the course of a day it gains about 120,000 TW from the sun and radiates about that much back out to the rest of the universe every second. And in an equilibrium system adjusting environmental factors can easily shift that equilibrium point of constant energy up or down. Indeed in our current period of geological warming the earth is gaining about 460 TJ a second from the slight imbalance between incoming and outgoing. And all of that is moot anyway because available energy doesn't translate 1:1 to human material wealth. We waste plenty of energy on making hyper consumerist slop that is designed to fail after 3-5 years and throw everything away, instead of designing to last for 50+ years with occasional replacement of minor wear parts for a similar cost. And competent, motivated engineers could cut the energy required to manufacture the same in half compared to slothful token hires. Even if it were a closed system our efficiency of converting energy into work is still waaaaay away from a perfect 1:1, so there's plenty of net gains to be made still. And so far in history harmonious, cooperative societies with a strong shared sense of purpose have proven to be the most efficient converters of effort into results.
And yeah it's more or less true that people you could identify as white would still be most likely to share your same biological traits, even extending to a theoretical inherent sense of fairness and community duty. But only most likely to, not guaranteed. Whiteness is only a rough proxy for the values that actually matter for a successful society, especially now, after 60 years of melting pot theory dominating America even among the people who still appear white they are varying degrees of admixture, even just one great grandparent of a different ethnicity that proxy measure becomes much less reliable. And which whites are you keeping, only the Northern
European ones? Italian and Spanish immigrants have their own histories of being disproportionately violent and criminal too after all. And conversely Scandies have a history of being unbearably smug fucks. If you're planning to exclude those people too just to be sure, then you're probably going to look at removing more tham 50% of the population now which is a near untenable goal. The inverse of that proxy is true too, if a black guy keeps a strong, respectable moral character in spite of the cultural rot that is african american culture trying to drag him down specifically, he probably has a stronger inherent sense of those values than a white guy with that same character, but with the help of positive cultural influences.
The lines have been muddied and blurred too much now, to have a harmonious cooperative society with a shared inherent purpose you would need some sort of crucible that tests those civic and personal values directly to sort the good from the bad. Or tease out the actual measurable biological factors and go by those directly instead of a faulty proxy.
I think you're going a bit too hard on the truisms now.
There are forms of prosperity that are not part of a zero sum, and instead increase the total sum instead. Primarily technical innovations, but even social structures can be more efficient than others and reduce lost or wasted resources. Until we build a Dyson sphere or something there are myriad ways in which energy is being used ineffectively, and not everything that learns to grow faster has to be a cancer.
And sure life isn't fair, the universe is seemingly indifferent to our existence, but I'm talking about people. They can be fairminded, or they can be decidedly not. And as for the subjectivity, if the instinctive feel of what is and isn't fair is a biological predisposition, then there will almost certainly be others who share the same or close enough to be compatible feelings. Those are your people. As a people with a shared vision of fairness it is in your interest to advance your collective position over any other subjective position to the point that your desires, like changes to felony gun laws, are implicitly understood and desired by those running the state, rather than having to try and force the hand of leaders who don't share your values. The benefits of a shared, implicit moral framework are huge, and if your sense of fairness includes being able to trust even felons with a gun post-punishment, absolutely vital to living in a society you feel is fair.
But the earth isn't a closed system, it's an open system in approximate equilibrium. Averaged over the course of a day it gains about 120,000 TW from the sun and radiates about that much back out to the rest of the universe every second. And in an equilibrium system adjusting environmental factors can easily shift that equilibrium point of constant energy up or down. Indeed in our current period of geological warming the earth is gaining about 460 TJ a second from the slight imbalance between incoming and outgoing. And all of that is moot anyway because available energy doesn't translate 1:1 to human material wealth. We waste plenty of energy on making hyper consumerist slop that is designed to fail after 3-5 years and throw everything away, instead of designing to last for 50+ years with occasional replacement of minor wear parts for a similar cost. And competent, motivated engineers could cut the energy required to manufacture the same in half compared to slothful token hires. Even if it were a closed system our efficiency of converting energy into work is still waaaaay away from a perfect 1:1, so there's plenty of net gains to be made still. And so far in history harmonious, cooperative societies with a strong shared sense of purpose have proven to be the most efficient converters of effort into results.
And yeah it's more or less true that people you could identify as white would still be most likely to share your same biological traits, even extending to a theoretical inherent sense of fairness and community duty. But only most likely to, not guaranteed. Whiteness is only a rough proxy for the values that actually matter for a successful society, especially now, after 60 years of melting pot theory dominating America even among the people who still appear white they are varying degrees of admixture, even just one great grandparent of a different ethnicity that proxy measure becomes much less reliable. And which whites are you keeping, only the Northern European ones? Italian and Spanish immigrants have their own histories of being disproportionately violent and criminal too after all. And conversely Scandies have a history of being unbearably smug fucks. If you're planning to exclude those people too just to be sure, then you're probably going to look at removing more tham 50% of the population now which is a near untenable goal. The inverse of that proxy is true too, if a black guy keeps a strong, respectable moral character in spite of the cultural rot that is african american culture trying to drag him down specifically, he probably has a stronger inherent sense of those values than a white guy with that same character, but with the help of positive cultural influences.
The lines have been muddied and blurred too much now, to have a harmonious cooperative society with a shared inherent purpose you would need some sort of crucible that tests those civic and personal values directly to sort the good from the bad. Or tease out the actual measurable biological factors and go by those directly instead of a faulty proxy.