this is so hard to explain to someone who’s just concretizing their world view. there’s a lot of philosophy and practical application involved with my line of thought, so please bear with me.

first of all, i’m pragmatic. this is not about retribution or revenge. this is about plain and simple problem solving. what’s the problem? too many things are suffering and we have the power to reduce that suffering. why can’t we do it? because there are too many people who disregard the suffering of others. it’s about altruistic vs narcissistic beliefs. i don’t believe that everyone in the world is altruistic by nature. there are certainly sociopaths who will never learn to consider anyone but themselves. modern society has enabled those people to rise to the top and influence many others.

what’s the solution? to build an altruistic society based on rational thought and logic. some people say that those concepts are incompatible, and that logic favors an individualistic society. i think that most of the people that believe this more or less see the world through an economist’s lens. but if you really look at the whole of society and its history, there have always been people advocating for an altruistic society. this is why we have the humanities as a branch of academia.

but none of that really matters because, in the end, society has been molded by the victors, and made in the image of whatever the conquerors held as their values. i propose that we, the altruists, use that same model of might-makes-right to form the society that we want to see. really, there is no objective morality, so ultimately, we’re all just beating each other over the head to get what we want. why don’t we beat each other over the head to make a lasting world that favors compassion?

you might say that those concepts are incompatible, but i ask you to take a look at the long-term, big-picture view. yes, the steps to achieve what we want look messy, but we’re talking about securing a future for untold generations to come. if you think about the lifespans of countless future generations, it more than justifies the bloody steps we would have to take now to achieve it.

in the past, i might have said “we’ll get there. the history of society has always been 2 steps forward, one step back”, but we’re now running out of time. we could see serious extinction events in this century if we don’t act YESTERDAY to get a hold of the situation. there are so many innocent creatures that don’t deserve what we’re unleashing on the world right now. furthermore, i see us only having a small window of time before the sociopaths that run the world develop the tools to keep us under their thumb for a very long time, if not forever.

so with that in mind, an ‘ends justify the means’ approach is more than justified.

i don’t think that really answered your question. you want a list of grievances? just take a look at most of the threads here on Lemmy - everything that everyone is sick and tired of. that is my list of grievances.