The pace at which we can reach our destination of economic bliss will be governed by four things – our power to control population, our determination to avoid wars and civil dissensions, our willingness to entrust to science the direction of those matters which are properly the concern of science, and the rate of accumulation as fixed by the margin between our production and our consumption; of which the last will easily look after itself, given the first three.

That means don't engage with me and my colleagues in a true, final test of will, strength, endurance, and intelligence. "Let's be civil about this" is the rally cry of the besieged tyrant and the cheating husband. A villain always invests in the pity of his betters.