[FRIAM] MoNA

[Marcus Daniels]

Consider a large software project.   It can be thought of as an org-chart with roles and responsibilities of people each having complementary skills.  A new project can be thought of as a Platonic design that (just) needs a competent implementation.  A new project could also be a free-wheeling effort where anything goes provides a customer gets something -- such a project can be thought of as an evolving implementation or feature set that just needs to be rationalized well-enough to sell.   An established software project might be characterized more by bug-fixes and the refinement of documentation.

The metaphor of a software project to governance is loose, but both systemic (top-down) and causal personalities (bottom-up) could both identify a thing to ship (or sail) separate from themselves.

Someone that has been around software long enough has had the experience of having to do implementation or debugging when they would rather being doing design, or vice-versa.  I just don't buy that experienced people have just one way of looking at things.   Similarly an experienced legislator can also wear the hat of a ruthless operative and then return to legislating when the deed is done.   Because I wrote a throwaway Bash script yesterday doesn't mean I can't write some enduring C++ today.  Just mop up the blood from time to time, you know?

Marcus

________________________________
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of uǝlƃ ☣ <gepropella at gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, October 28, 2019 11:57 AM
To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] MoNA

Hm. OK. If I try my best to steel-man an argument, I'd have to say the only thing ingrained is the tendency to think systemically (democrats) versus the tendency to think causally (republicans). I can posit this is ingrained in their biology, either learned as they're reared or is some kind of genetic memory. [cue the folklore about the fat corpus collosum and multitasking]

If you believe in systematicity (?), then when you create a subversive infrastructure, that infrastructure can turn around and begin controlling you. [power corrupts] So, democrats, with their tendency to think systemically, might realize that their systemic thinking may well help them create a system that will run away and end up controlling them ... or resulting in bad things they can't estimate. It's not that're unwilling/unable to take the gloves off. It's that they *see* the consquences of taking the gloves off and don't want those consequences.

If you believe in (simple/linear) causality, then any actions you take will be limited, maybe even atomic. [cue the folklore about how right-wingers believe in the Self-Made Man] You believe you can turn on a dime, your agency is atomic/autonomous. Sure, last election, you installed an occult infrastructure to "cheat". But the cheating ... [ahem] intelligent gameplay ... needed to be done and you won't need to game it anymore once you've overcome the Evil system that was in charge before. It's not that they're willing to do *anything*. It's that they *know* any (suspicious) action they take will have short-lived consequences and be compensated for by future (obviously good) actions.

So, I still doubt we're talking about moral intuition. We may be talking about physiology, or anatomy, or some sort of natural selection. But it's not evidence of an ingrained morality.

On 10/28/19 10:31 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Except with the rhetoric (misinformation campaign) has a subversive operational side to it?  That is too complex?  It wasn't for the Trump campaign and the Russians.   It is simply incompetence that explains why the Democrats (in 2016 or now) could be well-funded but nonetheless fail given a nimble opponent that is willing to do *anything*?    Yes, I suggest there is something ingrained about the campaigning Democrats (as individuals and as a party), that make them unable to take the gloves off.   That makes them talk in circles about what would bring back the Obama/Trump voter, humor the Deplorables, or in the other extreme advocate progressive but unrealistic objectives like Medicare for all that will be hard to pass and fund.   Maybe Schiff et. al. have put together a team that can get it done, or the `deep state' will eventually make a move.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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