Why does democracy function as if Machiavellian principles married survival of the fittest? Why do we as a country lie, cheat, and bully to win power while hiding under the banner of truth, justice, and love? What is the end game?

Hedonism is good fit for your question.

An individual whats to live in a place where others live under the banner of truth, justice, and love. But, that same individual sees that by making compromises (lying cheating, bullying) they can improve their own situation as they see things. They don’t see this as compromising the society just improvements to their immediate surroundings.

The end game. Improvement of where one sees oneself. Small picture rarely affects the big picture. Brownian motion would indicate that just because a few individuals moving against the whole does very little as long as all individuals are similar in size. Of course, this changes as the individuals are larger or more influential but again it takes a lot to change course.

How long do modern homes with modern building materials & construction methods generally last?

Looking back at most structures, about 70% of well-maintained structures will last for between 100–120 years with modern methods. For every 10 years beyond that you’ll lose about 10% of the remaining.

For average maintained structures only about 50% make it to 100 years with the same 10% loss each additional 10 years.

Poorly maintained structures become shacks in 30 years or less.

Abandoned structures become shacks from 6 months to 5 years depending on the climate.

What defines the Stalinist architectural style?

Stalinist architectural style.

The style is much harder to define on an individual building scale unless your focus is one of the state buildings or the Soviet Academy of Architecture. Mostly it shows on an urban planning scale. Long parklike boulevards lined with housing blocks ending in huge plazas and major monuments or buildings at the ends of boulevard views.

Building exteriors used a lot of brick, terra cotta or unit concrete over nearly any kind of structural system. A lot of small windows. Imagine everyone placing a brick to build each building and enough windows so everyone got a window. This was the triumph of the common man, all of which are equal. Every element was to showcase the new social order of the many coming together to create greatness and every view to show the monuments the new order had accomplished.

But, outside the grand streets communism showed itself as massive project-like housing structures. The masses in cities were to work in factories, and factory-like construction was used to house them.

The large city centers were used as propaganda to the state that looked like modern classical buildings towering into the sky. Everywhere else was brutal mass-produced buildings that went on as far as the eye can see.

Are there any examples of Hot Ice or Ice-7 on planet Earth?

Naturally occurring? Probably not.

You need existing ice to be exposed to something like 3GPa. By increasing the pressure you’re generating heat. A lot of heat. So a separate system would need to be present to get rid of said heat or to start in a cold enough environment.

So three problems as I see things:

  1. No place cold enough to maintain solid ice throughout the pressure increase.
  2. No naturally occurring system to cool down ice throughout the pressure increase.
  3. Places on/in Earth that have that kind of pressure are too hot to maintain ice.

So, your kind of left with laboratories.