[FRIAM] Trump as a victim

[Marcus Daniels]

I have observed the results of high dosage steroids.    That crazy drive around could have been an induced mania.  In a normal situation, one might discuss having the vice president step in.    It really seemed redundant since he is only differently-crazy the rest of the time.   I only had a technical interest in the White House performance, hoping for a stumble or a burst blood vessel, etc.

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 11:54 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim

I started to feel sorry for Donald when I saw him gasping for air on the balcony of the White House. We are all just humans, and he really seems to be a Covid19 victim. As Barack Obama said let us hope that the President and all those affected by the Coronavirus are getting the care they need and feel better soon.

But shortly after the old Donald was back, and to me it looks like he has not learned much. No signs of remorse for his behavior, no pity for Covid19 victims and no apology for the people he has infected in the last days. Instead we can see rage tweeting in uppercase (is his Caps Lock Key broken now?) in increasing intensity and frequency.

How do you see it?

-J.


-------- Original message --------
From: Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com<mailto:wimberly3 at gmail.com>>
Date: 10/7/20 18:29 (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com<mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim

I feel empathy and sympathy for the little baby Donald before the remote mother and the overweening father made their imprint on him.
---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Wed, Oct 7, 2020, 9:38 AM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com<mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
Empathy requires attention and time, and anyone else is a better use of it.   Quoting from Utopia, "What you have you done today to earn your place in this big crowded world of ours?"

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com<mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 5:54 AM
To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com<mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim

A collection of people, who shall remain nameless, recently tried to shame me for objecting to their waste of empathy for poor lil ol Trump, in light of his infection. One argument went something like "His father was horrible." One primary argument went something like "empathy begets empathy". Empathy is not zero-sum. Etc.

I started my objection to all this Trump-as-a-victim talk by listing several aspects of his CHARMED LIFE, like the fact that he's lucky enough to have lived to a ripe old age (when so many of us die young), he was born wealthy (when so many of us live our entire lives dirt poor), his stupid TV show was wildly successful (when so many of us are serial failures), his weaponized litigousness has benefited him throughout his life (when so many of us can't even afford a lawyer). Etc.

All that *privilege* has been bestowed upon him. And it seems, to me, he's squandered it all. He reminds me of those pitiful pictures of Saddam Hussein in court and then prison and then dead. Oh boo-hoo, poor little dictator being mistreated. Such sentiments are not merely weird to me. If game theory and the success of simplistic tit-for-tat has taught us anything, it is that the algorithmic *depth* required to beat straightforward (poetic) "justice" is academically interesting, but pragmatically degenerate.

So, no. I will not waste any of my finite lifetime feeling sorry for poor lil ol Trump, our Privilege Squanderer in Chief. If that magically limits my ability to empathize in some other context, so be it. If it implies that when I die pathetically, under some bridge, eating partial hamburgers from the Wendy's dumpster, my colleagues *rightly* avoid wasting their finite lifetimes feeling sorry for me, then I'm ready for that day. Like it or not, tu quoque is a fallacy.

--
↙↙↙ uǝlƃ

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