Indeed, we can't all be omnicidal maniacs that want their legendary pump operator to really earn the name Urist McKrakatoa by destroying all life on the surface in an orgy of ash and pyroclastic flow.
It'd get boring, after all.
Undwarvenly. It's easy, after a point, to be a benevolent overseer and make sure everyone is fed, boozed, and has a dry place to sleep. It's more fun in the end to have a fort crash and burn because of some terrible idea you had.
Like digging an >60 z-level well shaft. Somehow, the elven traders wound up broken and splattered on the bottom. In the next ten minutes, over forty dwarves died flinging themselves down the well to claim illegitimate goods. In the end, it was more entertaining than simply forbidding the items and continuing on without them.
He's right- it's one of the reasons I keep pushing for nastier syndromes, they're one of the few things I feel could threaten the fortresses I build. I'm always too benevolent at first, and when it comes time to run it into the ground, what are my options? My military can handle the demons (in 40d), there are three levels of safeties on all my magma, and there are so many masterwork statues in high-traffic areas, I can't get anyone but the nobles to be so much as upset.
I like destroying fortresses, but the only ways I can find to do it are too crass- individually kill off every civilian, try to flood the place with magma, stuff that's really *me* killing them, rather than watching them kill themselves.