I would prefer peaceful coexistence. I'm ready to defend myself and others through violence if necessary. Never would I use it as an act of aggression to assert my dominance over someone else, and only when all attempts at a peaceful resolution have failed.

Bump

There's more to power than raw force, though force is the most obvious one. Charisma, influence, deception. These things are separate from force and yet have power all the same. And that's only one more path in the many ways of power.

I think that violence is at the core of human nature. We've always had violence. Ever since the beginning of humans, we've fought over territory, mates, food, resources, and for fun. Excessive violence is bad, but when it's contained it's a good thing. When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do was wrestle with my friends, have pillow fights, and shoot each other with nerf guns. Nowadays I live out violent fantasies in video games. These are not bad things. They have not had a negative impact on me. I have never killed anyone, robbed a store, or blown up a mall or whatever. The media will say that everyone who plays violent video games turns into a murderer. This is not true. If it was, we'd all be out killing people instead of arguing on these forums. There is a difference between fun, contained violence and excessive violence. People with sense know the difference. EDIT: please don't stop making well thought out threads...

"Remember kids, violence doesn't solve problems" -pretty much every parent ever so, you were saying.....

Violence is in destiny

[quote] It's so simple. Elegant like a knife point. It explains - this is not hyperbole, this is the farthest thing from exaggeration - Why does anything exist? No no no no no don't reach for that word. There's no 'reason'. That's teleology and teleology will stitch your eyelids shut. Why do we have atoms? Because atomic matter is more stable than the primordial broth. Atoms defeated the broth. That was the first war. There were two ways to be and one of them won. And everything that came next was made of atoms. Atoms made stars. Stars made galaxies. Worlds simmered down to rock and acid and in those smoking primal seas the first living molecule learned to copy itself. All of this happened by the one law, the blind law, which exists without mind or meaning. It's the simplest law but it has no worshippers here Imagine three great nations under three great queens. The first queen writes a great book of law and her rule is just. The second queen builds a high tower and her people climb it to see the stars. The third queen raises an army and conquers everything. The future belongs to one of these queens. Her rule is harshest and her people are unhappy. But she rules. This explains everything, understand? This is why the universe is the way it is, and not some other way. Existence is a game that everything plays, and some strategies are winners: the ability to exist, to shape existence, to remake it so that your descendants - molecules or stars or people or ideas - will flourish, and others will find no ground to grow. And as the universe ticks on towards the close, the great players will face each other. In the next round there will be three queens and all of them will have armies, and now it will be a battle of swords - until one discovers the cannon, or the plague, or the killing word. Everything is becoming more ruthless and in the end only the most ruthless will remain and they will hunt the territories of the night and extinguish the first glint of competition before it can even understand what it faces or why it has transgressed. This is the shape of victory: to rule the universe so absolutely that nothing will ever exist except by your consent. This is the queen at the end of time, whose sovereignty is eternal because no other sovereign can defeat it. And there is no reason for it, no more than there was reason for the victory of the atom. It is simply the winning play. Of course, it might be that there was another country, with other queens, and in this country they sat down together and made one law and one tower and one army to guard their borders. This is the dream of small minds: a gentle place ringed in spears. But I do not think those spears will hold against the queen of the country of armies. And that is all that will matter in the end.[/quote]

Violence is the only constant.

Couldn't have said it better.

10/10. Give this man a Nobel Prize.

“A living being seeks above all else to discharge its strength. Life itself is will to power. Nothing else matters.”

"CRIME DOESN'T PAY. GOOD CITIZENS DO THEIR PART."

Heh..... Ive often said "we can speak english or we can speak the universal language" Good to know im not crazy and your certainly levels ahead of me

I have long believed power belongs to the willing.

I agree. Sometimes violence becomes a necessary evil.

"In times of peace prepare for war"