This is a linkpost for http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2017/03/dreaming-of-political-bayescraft/
the world I live in people crush each other's skulls for power and wealth on a very very regular basis and such practices don't seem to be going away.
Yes, but I'm thinking that if they knew of some clever plan to get the same amount of power and wealth but without the skull-crushing, a lot of people would take it.
The mainstay of government power -- including in the West -- is still the explicit threat of violence.
Unfortunately, that part's never going away: might makes right. But as people and systems made of people continue to exert optimization power on the world, it tends to become increasingly counterfactual violence: if you can predict the outcome of a conflict, you and your adversary can just implement that outcome without bothering to pay the cost of actually fighting.
These men are very clear about the difference between your suffering and their suffering.
Yes, it's probably more profitable for you to model them as extensions of "the government" rather than agents in themselves.
if they knew of some clever plan to get the same amount of power and wealth but without the skull-crushing, a lot of people would take it
Some would, yes. But there is a slight problem -- such people want more power than what's freely available ("there can be only one"). This means there's competition for power and at this point willingness to crush skulls becomes a rather important advantage.
it tends to become increasingly counterfactual violence
Careful with terminology. That's not counterfactual violence -- that's potential violence. It i...