[FRIAM] the cancellation arc

[Steve Smith]

Glen -

> IDK. Maybe this is simply the inescapable optimum for some people. Rosen is a great example, ostracized and ridiculed as vitalist for so long, causing him to be reactionary and retreat further into his own game, followed only by a few brilliant acolytes and open-minded domain hoppers. And maybe little p pragmatists are simply lazy or cowardly, not willing to tilt windmills long enough to push through a paradigm shift, compromising away the baby, happy enough with the bath water. I have no hill to die on. Maybe that makes me pathetic.

What a great medley of colorful idioms... 

I was acutely taken by "I have not hill to die on" and your
characterization of the "small p pragmatist"...  

I can't find (in my fragmented associative memory, aided only by my
flimsy google fu) the historical/mythological reference
(Scythians/Parthians/Greeks) to the small band of warriors who
deliberately trapped themselves on a ledge or a blind canyon (or their
leader contrived it), knowing that having no other option than fighting
their way out, they gained an advantage over the larger force who could
always retreat to avoid individual self-extinction, supporting a
collective will to yield to a smaller force?

I believe this is one of the charms/seductions of extremism...   and in
the historical anecdote above, is that not a highly pragmatic
tactic/strategy?

If we think of ourselves as cartographers/naturalists/archaeologists,
mapping a landscape, rather than trying to control it, perhaps the
strategies shift?

- Steve