In all of the “help X” examples you give, I do feel like it’s reasonable to do it via taking an intentional stance towards X, e.g. a tree by default takes in water + nutrients through its roots and produces fruit and seeds, in a way that wouldn’t happen “randomly”, and so “helping a tree” means “causing the tree to succeed more at taking in water + nutrients and producing fruit + seeds”.
In the case of a country, I think I would more say “whatever the goal of a country, since the country knows how to use money / military power, that will likely help with its goal, since money + power are instrumental subgoals”. This is mostly a shortcut; ideally I’d figure out what the country’s “goal” is and then assist with that, but that’s very difficult to do because a country is very complex.
In all of the “help X” examples you give, I do feel like it’s reasonable to do it via taking an intentional stance towards X, e.g. a tree by default takes in water + nutrients through its roots and produces fruit and seeds, in a way that wouldn’t happen “randomly”, and so “helping a tree” means “causing the tree to succeed more at taking in water + nutrients and producing fruit + seeds”.
In the case of a country, I think I would more say “whatever the goal of a country, since the country knows how to use money / military power, that will likely help with its goal, since money + power are instrumental subgoals”. This is mostly a shortcut; ideally I’d figure out what the country’s “goal” is and then assist with that, but that’s very difficult to do because a country is very complex.