Bad actors who abuse power often seek to delegitimize the structures that bind us together for their own short-sighted gain. Call them fascists or whatever pejorative you prefer, but the general anti-social bent in their behavior makes it clear that they can only truly be stopped by force.
It's a shame these disputes usually end in catastrophic violence, but the aggregate behavior of humans hasn't been altered by technology, only exaggerated.
It’s been my lifetime hope that there is another way through obsolescence and irrelevance. If a people have a self-sovereign mechanism for self-defense and economic participation, then the cost of conquering them is far greater than the extractable value.
When unable to access the minutiae of some byzantine concept with my hominid navigation apparatus I often comfort myself with the knowledge that all that I know will ultimately be lost to the chaos of the universe and that the cumulative impact of everything I’ve ever done is utterly inconsequential.
> [all] will ultimately be lost to the chaos of the universe and that the cumulative impact of everything I’ve ever done is utterly inconsequential.
What would be the alternative? An universe where our changes are more "permanent"? Ignoring the paradoxes that entails would it really make them more consequential or just more lasting? It would be completely subjetive, just like is subjetive to believe something matters even if it ends in a few years down the line.
It's a shame these disputes usually end in catastrophic violence, but the aggregate behavior of humans hasn't been altered by technology, only exaggerated.