I don't want to work very hard

These are super-ethical issues: ie, they exist regardless of your opinion of them. I hope there is no disagreement on them.

Throughout history all of the techniques you mention have been used to advance society in order to put you in a position of modern life being able to make your opinion to quit fighting under certain circumstances. Since you are alive right now, and must find some value to your life, it follows that after all of these conflicts in which your rules were not followed, there was still something left that was worth fighting for. At least at the level of civilization. So it follows that you at least value the results of other people with fewer qualms than you. Otherwise you should be living in a cave by firelight -- but fire was probably stolen by force involving torture, mass killings, etc. as well, so put the torch out.

That's at a civilization level. At a personal level, many folks throughout history have had moral issues with various parts of war. In the United States, many many times the rest of the populace fought wars the Quakers refused to participate in. In this case, either 1) you die, 2) you submit, or 3) somebody else with fewer moral qualms fights the war for you.

Morals are a key part of your personal life. I just wouldn't substitute my personal morals for my greater responsibility to mankind. My personal morals might be wrong, and if morals mean anything they mean the ability to introspect and change. I'm fully prepared to be wrong and face the personal consequences to me if my morals tell me to do or not to do something. It becomes selfish and grossly immoral, in my opinion, to inflict consequences on others under the banner of my own self-righteousness. War is a nasty, ugly business and it should be avoided at all costs mainly because of this equation: it strips us all to the primal need to dominate or die.

That's just my opinion. I would not mean to judge. I've found self-righteousness on both sides of the "just war" discussion, and it seems to hide the greater issue of how mankind as a race reacts and suffers.

* Marriage/Honeymoon * Kids/College * Retirement * Mortgage/House * Taking care of parents

I see your plan being tenable in a "no-dependents" scenario, but not so much if you need to provide for others.

My personal opinion is that any job you have will have at least 20% of BS you have to do in any role you have. Its the cost of working with people and organizations. Aim to reach that 20% level an if you can find a job with less BS stick with it.

That's just history.

the uncertainties of a complex world are so vast that I could never be so convinced of the righteousness of my cause

This we agree upon. What I'm saying is that you are forced to make a decision. If you default to self-destruction by virtue of an inability to decide, or if you decide self-destruction is preferable to victory, then in fact you are still making a decision -- that decision is to let the other side have their way. You're on the hook either way. And in fact, I would argue that if the other side is committing atrocities as well, you're even more on the hook for inaction to prevent their atrocities from occurring.

In practice this isn't extremely complex, it's just unpleasant as heck. Let's use the European theater in the last war. Hitler was trying to exterminate the Jews and others. In addition, both sides committed atrocities (although history will show the allies committed much less than the Germans) In addition, both sides tortured.

Now you can argue to to participate on either side would be immoral. You can argue this from a variety of viewpoints. But at the end of the day one side was fighting in order for longer-term peace to happen where nations and people would be free. The other side was fighting to dominate large portions of Europe and the purify the Aryan race. Any reasonable observer would conclude that the greater good for mankind was more free people, not more dead subjected people.

Extremists may use these arguments. I don't know. If so, they would be obliged to point out how their viewpoint would lead to more free alive people and less dead subjected ones. Since extremism most of the times seeks to subject people and to destroy those who do not agree with them, I believe that rules out 99% of those groups.

You mention extremism. I must point out the other end of the spectrum: it has become fashionable to promote "peace at any cost" and high values in the abstract as long as doing so means I don't have to make moral decisions or participate. In other words, you can ride the high horse of self righteousness to keep out of the muck of actually participating in the world. But then, when a 9-11 rolls around, suddenly you're a rifle-carrying militia member again. Done in this way, and not out of deep moral conviction, it's a form of laziness and self-absorption. In other words, you can use good words and good morals to do very immoral things (like sitting on your ass and not stopping horrors where they occur for the real reason that it might involve some pain or self-sacrifice) And I am definitely not accusing you of this, simply pointing out that both extremes here have problems.