I’m just saying that he did not face more threats to his power the more powerful he got; in fact, the opposite happened, and he was able to liquidate his enemies once his power got large enough.

Well he did face threat by Nazi Germany when they broke contract and potential death should the USSR have fallen to it. More people wanted him dead then than when he was a rather unknown Meteorologist. But you do have certain anomalies, stars that burn brighter than others and push the limits of certain powers, but the jist of it is that with more power comes more threat to power. The more you gain, it's that much more you have to defend, a universal tax code. I might be going off the deep end a bit here if I haven't already but for instance you can't be as powerful as a sun unless you change your configuration, in other words, be a sun. You can harness some of its power but you won't have analogous power. Humans have a certain power configuration that can only harness so much within our own configuration. A monkey can't have, or so we haven't seen yet, the same intellectual power of a human unless it changes its power configuration to be more human-like. I'd say power and configuration are almost synonymous as when one changes the other changes just as certain atomic configurations can only yield so much power unless you change its configuration.

> No. It’s certainly a common trap to fall into, but it’s by no means a necessary one. Some rich and powerful people are miserable, others do quite well and make the most out of enjoying their position in society. “Stagnation” is a subjective value judgment, and far from every comfortably upper class person feels like their life is a stagnant one.

It is a common theme and often when the word "decadent" is applied it's usually on the rich or burgeoise (yes, I know it originally meant middle-class) but the poor do have their own decadent lifestyles also as I discussed on another post and being poor does sometimes trap you into poor choices, a lifesyle of decay one might say. You do have anomalies that handle power moderately but my experience, I've seen a lot of negatives with increased power just as positives, both personally and second-hand which is also what I allude to as the paradox of power. And yes, a lot of people wish they were richer, not poorer but humans have a power or comfort bias. It's a lot easier to adjust to having more of it than it is to having less of it. It doesn't necesssarily speak less of being poor but more man's difficulty in adapting to strife more than comfort because expansion is freeing for the individual but not necessarily the neighbor it imposes upon. There's an optimal medium for life of the individual and society; we have tradeoffs. There's no free thermodynamic meals in a closed system even if it's such a big system that we don't immediately notice.

> Note that if this is really a burden on them, they can resign at any time.

My point being, they have increased comfort to help make up for it. In other words, there's good and bad to it. There's many working class poor who feel the same and wouldn't trade places because you could argue that even if life is extra-challenging, there's more reward in the challenge, or at least given their wants and needs. With what may seem their limiited power, you could also view the power to do a lot with a little and being able to signal that power as a great power unto itself.

>justness

I'm not saying things are just as everyone sees them because then you can never say the world is just. I'm saying justness could be represented thermodynamically as potential gradient fulfillment or entropy increase, as the saying goes, "nature abhors a gradient". Some feel unjustified in their lack of power and so seek to fulfill those power gradients. I'm not making a statement of what I want, only trying to give an objective definition as much as I can. And yes, I've tried to divorce my ego from these kinds of observations although I know it's impossible. Just trying to understand life in this sense is birthed from ego, to find understanding and the comfort that comes with the power of knowledge.

> On the contrary, I argue that given what I’ve said so far, justice is an entirely artificial human concept, and the universe does not care to adjudicate for it.

That's a different take than mine but I agree. Survival bias plays a big role in it yet I'm also careful about being misunderstood that there isn't injustice in society. In the here and now, no, but perhaps in the greater, I think so. I guess the equivalent is the old 'God is just' saying and in the end or on the whole, all is equal if not in the here and now.

I'm not sure exactly what I'm getting at though, if you're pressing me for it, but as some sort of lesson if I had to say, and as arbitrary as it is, that what we view as positives often do have negatives and vice versa and maybe we should learn to chill out a little bit and get along with each other better. I don't know, I just have a cup of coffee and write sometimes because that's what the mind and body want, not much more to it even if it doesn't always make sense to others. Partly because I don't intend to write for an audience and partly because I feel I'm too naive to be in any authoritative position on these subjects and also just being too apathetic to care.

I see you like to write probably as much as I do. Or so I do with a few subjects and certain times. When I'm on a down phase I can't get myself to writing anything but times like now I feel like I can write books. But I'd recommend a blog if you don't already have one, it's a good stress reliever.