First things first: I didn't read Durant to encourage others to read Durant. I read Durant because it's easier to get ahold of than Toynbee, who is responsible for one of my favorite quotes: Civilizations die from suicide, not from murder. Devac was insane enough to follow me up the mountain but it has to stop now. Second thing: This was a self-exploratory venture through geopolitics. It ended up being a largely rationalist venture but the rationalists are the hardest to argue with. They are the geopolitical equivalent of "reversion to the mean." If I read twenty books and came up with a rationalist point of view, odds are good that if you read the same 20 books you would end up with the same rationalist view. Really, our discussion was "read the following ten thousand pages of prose and see if you can agree with my viewpoint." You'd have come around through sheer fatigue. Doesn't mean I'm right. I think fundamentally, you're lawful good while I'm chaotic good. I vote Blue Team because they're the lesser of two evils; for lots of people (I'm guessing yourself included) "lesser of two evils" is fightin' words. I'd definitely have voted for Hillary Clinton all over again but not because she was the lesser of two evils. I think she would have done a reasonably good job... from a globalist, center-right point of view. I would much rather have had Bernie Sanders' platform in place but I remain unconvinced that Bernie Sanders would have been as good an administrator. Carter came from a place of good and I think we can both agree he made a bit of a cockup of the place. An argument for the lesser evil: every time you tug the rope a little closer to you, you're further from the fringe. But you have to grab the rope. The Democratic Socialists of America would have been a joke in the '80s - shit they would have been a joke in the '00s. Yet here we are. I would like to vote Green but at a national or even state level, I don't see it as a tenable choice. Craven pragmatism, that's me. If I could make a suggestion? You've earned a break. Join me. Just yesterday, Friedman & Co recommended Judt.