[FRIAM] corruption and impartiality

[uǝlƃ ☤>$]

IDEA has (the) US listed as backsliding:

https://www.idea.int/gsod/sites/default/files/inline-images/Figure%206_global.png

It seems mostly because of a loss of "impartial administration":

https://www.idea.int/gsod/sites/default/files/inline-images/Global_07.jpeg

Outlined here:

https://www.idea.int/gsod/global-report#chapter-6-impartial-administration

Of all the myriad things this brings to my mind (from postmodernism to federated computing), the most obvious one is the illusory "neutrality" of SCOTUS and the semi-religious hermeneutics around "the rule of law". The Rittenhouse verdict and this series of posts <https://reason.com/volokh/2021/10/18/the-second-amendment-vs-the-seventh-amendment-substantive-vs-procedural-rights-part-1-similarities-and-differences/> biased me even more. ("procedural rights"? Pffft.)

But the real question, here, is who is to blame? Mirroring Donald Trump, am *I* to blame for losing trust and constantly questioning the motivations of the Justices? (Is Trump to blame for questioning the election result/process?) Are we, me re SCOTUS and Trump re ... well ... everyone but himself, *imputing* partiality by our very insistence that it's there? Or, is it actually there?

There's something to be said, here, about secrecy and distributed tasking. While SCOTUS isn't secret, it is fairly centralized (into 9 appointed-for-life already elite lawyers ... fvcking lawyers for crying out loud). And the problem with secrecy isn't really about the secrecy. It's about diversity, including hyper-reductive reasoning as well as perspective and noisy application (universality). Twain's observation ("two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead") evokes this nicely. Distributed systems are leaky. And it's a feature, not a bug.

COVID-19, like blockchain tech and social media, brought both opportunities for more corruption and opportunities for less corruption. There are no more demes. We are awash in *pan*demics of various different kinds, from yahoos thinking they can read the Constitution just because they can read Harry Potter to 8-bit graphic artists issuing NFTs for their silly emotes. Get off my lawn!

Which of the Grand Unified Theories of Everything explains this stuff? I have no idea what's going on.

-- 
"Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie."
☤>$ uǝlƃ