There was once a time when the United States of America was new. In 1796, when George Washington published what is now called his farewell address, 1776 was only 20 years prior, and the Constitution had only been in effect since 1789.
Things that started before we were born often feel as though they are the way the world has always been. By the start of the U.S. Civil War, a man born in 1789 would be 72, having lived a full lifetime under the Constitution; that is about how long the Soviet Union lasted.
Succession is a tricky business:
Was the system the work of one man, tied together by his unique genius, or can it support itself?
Will successors agree to maintain the process of succession, or attempt to stop it?
Can the system of succession carry its own weight without any of its original architects?
250 years is a long time. America made it past the first few successions, and then it made it past the first lifetime, and then it made it past a second lifetime, and now a third. It pre-existed the Soviet Union, and then continued on after it.
>[not accounting for demographic dynamics and cultural hostility in 2025]
bruh, we are so cooked
This will be a bit rambling.
I think that a number of people, Argumate included, follow a philosophy that's mostly Utilitarian, but relies heavily on an unspoken rule.
Pure Utilitarianism is single-variable optimizing, so it will tend to be flattening. Just as a sketch, as I haven't done enough deep work on the matter, pain-pleasure can be viewed as a lower-dimensionality compass for orienting an agent within the environment, so reducing an agent to this axis is likely to involve trade-offs against agent capability and other agent characteristics, possibly resulting in a net loss of existence. Or something. More problematically, it suggests that the final goal is the efficient conversion of existence into Utilons, which suggests factory farming, rather than the free-spirited existence of humanity.
As this conclusion is too repugnant, and also politically problematic (defeating the point of signalling cooperation by adopting Utilitarianism), we get a rule: "No group of humans is a durably less efficient source of Utilons." This addresses two problems. First, if this rule were negated, then due to the factory farming portion above, that would suggest replacing a less efficient group of humans with a more efficient group of humans. Second, if this rule were negated, it would suggest replacing humanity itself with a more efficient source of Utilons. One would make such a strain of Utilitarianism an enemy of an entire group of people; the other would make such a strain of Utilitarianism an enemy of the entire species.
By adopting this rule, the system becomes less coherent, but more flexible and adaptive.
It isn't that hard to build this system. Simply observe one's own subjective experience, rate pleasure positively, and then assume that other human beings similarly experience qualia. If this is the source of value, then it's difficult to argue that some humans are better or more worthy than others without potentially negating the source of value, leading to a void of nihilism.
If we view people as having a conceptual network, and having "myself" as a node in that network, then the value of that node should be expected to be a pretty critical issue - if the value is too low, then this may lead to underinvestment, the acceptance of exploitation, etc.
Thus, from the perspective of the person adopting this system, the four options are this version of Utilitarianism (in which they are a good person who is cooperating with others), selfish nihilism (which negates the source that provides them with value, too), delusion (which is how they perceive religious frameworks as an alternative source of value), or despair.
If you pursue a direct confrontation, you are essentially attempting to force such a high level of cognitive dissonance that it leads to a heroic level of psychological investment, pushing the guy to fight through despair to a reach a new level of understanding. Mind you, part of discourse as a hobby is wagering belief systems, so it's part of the game, but most of the time, that's just not going to happen. The gap is too large.
This is why it's important to introduce the idea of "the labor of peace," "the labor of goodness," "the work of liberalism," etc. It's still possible to be a good person and improve the world, but rather than being a single lifting of the bar to the next rung permanently, as in contemporary progressivism, it's a result of continuous effort. Good is not something one does once, but is rather a continuous influence that one exerts on the world while one lives. It's a choice.
Rather than push to make the whole leap at once, broaden the understanding of the work of goodness to include "management is an actual job."
Long term, I think there's a lot more philosophical work to be done, though.
