[FRIAM] ideological convergence, fringe fluidity, and the salad bar

[uǝlƃ ↙↙↙]

The Terrorist Threat from the Fractured Far Right
https://www.lawfareblog.com/terrorist-threat-fractured-far-right

The "Salad Bar" or what I typically call "cafeteria style" stochastically accumulated naturfacts has been a hallmark of the fringy people I end up talking to. It's rarely, but sometimes, successful to identify contradictions between the nuggets they've accumulated. Consistency is simply not a core component of human reasoning, which is why I like defeasible and paraconsistent logics.

The question I have is whether or not we *have* to quell all the atoms in which the far-right has blossomed in order for it to die out? The whole "united we stand" rhetoric seems to be a form of bureaucracy/consistency that is needed for large-scale engineering projects but totally unnecessary for large-scale destruction and violence. Is its atomization a sign that it's dying? Or a more intense risk of its success? This "foam" of little right-wing bubbles seems similar to free market innovation rhetoric ... or the diversity of COVID-19 responses amongst the states, or even "evolution happens faster under environmental stress". From an intelligence and homeland security standpoint, can we afford to allow even 1 tiny bubble to achieve its ends? Or do we have to squash them all?

And if the latter, is this an example of complexity from simple rules, where if we were to understand those core rules, we could squash them all strategically?

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