THE RATIONALITY OF REALPOLITIK

I, Fugger, the people's blogger, was recently invited to address the RAND Corporation. The topic of my talk was The Rationality of Realpolitik. I had a white board and coloured markers and everything. My talk went down very well. I'm providing a transcript below for you to enjoy. I kept it nice and short because in an era where everybody is busy Twittering their hashtags, it's best not to keep them long. Anyway, here's what I said:

We are 'rational actors' in a system that provides 'selective incentives'. If those 'selective incentives' do not appeal to some then we can only assume that they are 'irrational actors'. We have certain 'disincentives' that can be applied to 'irrational actors' unless those 'irrational actors' have other incentives that dovetail with our system of 'rational actors'. 

You see, in order to meet the needs of our system of 'rational actors' we must sometimes facilitate a certain set of 'dovetailing' 'irrational actors' (example: religious fundamentalists) in order to overcome another, 'less dovetailing', set of 'irrational actors' (example: secular tyrants). Once the 'less dovetailing' set of 'irrational actors' have been overcome (or reduced to crushed bone, ash, or something resembling barbequed meat) by the 'dovetailing' set of 'irrational actors' our system will set about overcoming the 'dovetailing' set of 'irrational actors' by supporting yet another set of 'irrational actors', often the remnants of the formerly 'less dovetailing' set of 'irrational actors'. And so it goes on. And on. And on and on. Forever. And ever. Until, eventually, someone comes along and decides that we (yes, we: me, you, your mom, your pop, your kitty and your dog) are the 'irrational actors' and overcome us (or reduce us to crushed bone, ash, or something resembling barbequed meat). Do you follow me? Do you get the idea? Don't you think it's clever? Don't you find it all devastatingly 'rational'?

I received a standing ovation. I was a bit chuffed to be honest but I'm not sure if they were applauding what I said or applauding the massive cock and balls I drew over the map of Syria on my whiteboard.