[FRIAM] The Insurrection Index

[Steve Smith]

On 1/7/22 7:01 AM, glen wrote:
> ...<Harm Reduction>... And perhaps it's a manifestation of whatever 
> core physiology it is that binds the [ma|pa]ternal-individual 
> perspectives into a triangle. HR seems to cut a comfortable, practical 
> slice through the mess, much like what I imagine a steely-yet-kind 
> affect would look like. 
I do have an affinity for the  Harm Reduction conception to a degree, 
and see how it can break the "downward spiral" that I think is implied 
here (I feel bad; I take risks/drugs to feel better; I get 
caught/judged; I feel bad;....etc).   Someone once told me "you are 
always either spiraling up or spiraling down in this world, it is the 
choices you make at any given instant which you are doing". Even 
homeostasis ideation leaves room for a mix of up/down spiraling within 
some limits.   I don't have a lot of experience with drug (or other 
harsh) recovery up close, but I have known a lot of mild addicts... 
people whose drug/alcohol/sex/spending/exercise addictions *seem* to 
interfere with their quality of life and have tried (only mildly) to 
bump them onto new trajectories.   I would say all of them were in some 
kind of dynamic homeostasis that had worked for them for years if not 
decades, and who was I to interfere with their patterns which were by 
some measure, actually working.
> I haven't. But I'd *like* to buy some street drugs and take it to, 
> say, a rave and have the HR team test it just to get a feel for that 
> process from the user's perspective. I think I can project how it 
> might feel to be on the HR team. But I really don't have any idea how 
> the users feel about it. One of my neighbors back in Oregon, I'm 
> speculating, would have thought the HR team was part of the "deep 
> state" ... or spies for the DEA. But I've known many drug users who 
> are more rational than she was.

The major proponents of HR that I know of tend to be do-gooders who 
believe they are "saving people".   That is not to say that they don't 
have some successes, and that the spirit is a good one, but to the 
extent I have had people (try to) interfere in my life, it is generally 
unwelcome (until I am ready, whatever that means).   I think the fact 
(not the aspiration) of HR can mean that many individuals who might have 
spiraled right out the bottom have the opportunity to reverse their 
spirals and spin back upwards... ideally through a different mechanism 
(finding something besides the addiction that is hurting them to climb 
back up with?).  I think HR is more important to  the non-subject of the 
HR in that it removes us (somewhat) from the judgement that whomever is 
being *harmed* *deserves* to suffer, and I think for the most part, that 
makes us better citizens... to relieve our own judgements at least in 
one or two contexts.

I had heard the phrase "there, but by the grace of God, go I" many 
times, and dismissed it as religious gobbledeygook until a very 
non-religious friend said that about a homeless person on the street in 
a time and circumstance when I was able to recognize the "grace" in what 
he was saying.

- Steve

>
> On 1/6/22 09:41, Steve Smith wrote:
>> Your use of Gaze worked for me, but I also understand Marcus' 
>> reaction to it.  I'm sure others would as well...  Gaze as you 
>> intended it and the rest of us received it is naturally a 
>> multi-spectral phenomenon... some of us have notches in our Gaze, as 
>> you suggested Q-shaman and Rittenhouse in their own Reflective Gaze 
>> perhaps.  I had not heard the reference to the 
>> nanny/daddy/libertarian triangle before but it fits how I do think 
>> about the tensions, up to and including my own internal apprehensions 
>> and intentions which sometimes have my mind/soul running a little bit 
>> like a Wankel engine... each combustion chamber taking it's turn 
>> (positive or negative pressure) on each of the three extrema you 
>> describe.   It seems like there is a meta-pattern in there, a first 
>> derivative of those quantities that can get a resonance set up, 
>> driving us forward (or backward).   In reflection on my ambitious 
>> youth, I think I was driven by that triad... 1) Wanting the freedom 
>> to explore/experience with abandon; 2) Wishing someone would clear my 
>> path, pick up my broken toys and cut the crusts from my avocado 
>> toast; 3) Wishing someone would bitch-slap the people who were 
>> getting in my way or not cooperating and maybe give me a hearty slap 
>> on the back anytime I did something bold.
>>
>> I also like your invocation of the Steely Affect Judge in these 
>> cases. I have my own distrust/judgement of the "<Adversarial> 
>> Criminal Justice System", mostly from having worked as a PI for a few 
>> years (in my ambitious youth) but the few members of those 
>> professions (judges, lawyers, LEOs) that I developed a lot of respect 
>> for were those that seemed to have a truly humanist center AND the 
>> Steely Affect you suggest. Unfortunately those were as Unicorn as the 
>> apocryphal Benevolent Dictator and the GoodGuyWithGun...   I left the 
>> biz because (partly) I didn't see a righteous niche for me (or 
>> anyone?) in that game.
>>
>> <aside> As an antidote to those judgements/kneejerks of mine, I *was* 
>> very pleased to see how hard the judge, prosecutor, and ultimately 
>> Governor of Colorado worked with the recent Manslaughter Case where 
>> the sentences for the trucker were required by law to be consecutive, 
>> leading to a 100+ year sentence for something that I think ended up 
>> being reduced to order 10 years.  I wanted to see more of that kind 
>> of unity (vs adversarality) in cases like Floyd, Rittenhouse, Aubery, 
>> etc...
>>
>> I have only begun to follow politics closely in the past 6 years or 
>> so but was not surprised to find how few *statesmen* we had among our 
>> elected officials.  Among those who seem to have truly dedicated 
>> their life to trying to make this nation (or any given state or 
>> locale) a better place for all who live in the jurisdiction, many 
>> have a very different idea from me of what "better place" would look 
>> like, but at least they seem to engagable on the topic.
>