[FRIAM] on government

[Marcus Daniels]

I was behind a minor car accident the other day, and one party -- three people -- exited their car and surrounded the other car, believing the perpetrator needed to be contained.   They blocked traffic for about 15 minutes this way, and as far as I could tell did not exchange insurance information.  Much screaming and dramatic physicality.  Totally an inappropriate response.  There was a way for me to get around by bending a few rules, but it was fascinating to watch, so I just sat there watching.   It would have been unproductive to attempt to nurture them into a more productive conversation.   

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2024 11:26 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] on government

But how do we nurture a population of "smart" participants? I was going to object to Steve's analogy between immune responses and news. My objection is/was that non-equilibrium homeostatic states are maintained through continual signaling and it's the absence of or change in those signals that is the news. But that's not quite true either. Some signals are discrete event, some continual, some wax and wane, etc. News is any kind of anomaly in those patterns, I guess.

I'm currently suffering from (what I think is) long COVID. It's been ~8 weeks since the 1st symptoms. The best hypothesis for it, I think, is immune dysregulation. This seems like a good analogy to the grievance politics that's taken over some of our friends. When you speak to them individually about whatever set of fears/objections they have, they can be quite reasonable. Those are actual signaling systems in the body (politic). What's runaway is their processing of those signals ... like an overactive immune system. Whether it's the militarization of local police or TradWife rhetoric, it all just seems like "too much".

I don't know how to encourage people to calm down. Snarkisms like "touch grass" or "take a breath" don't cut it.

On 8/27/24 11:00, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Steve writes:
> 
> < Must *I* storm the capitol if one (or several or many) legislators-en-residence don't attend to my personal-petty preferences (interests) well enough? Some say yes, but I think they just like storming  and tearing down any symbols of "governance" (except their own rebel/nazi flags/armbands?).  Must I occupy/capture a city block (or more) and demand total eradication of the immune system (defund the police) because in fact the immune system can be pretty damned discriminating in it's also-indiscriminateness? >
> 
> There are dumb strategies and tactics, and these can result in injury or impoverishment of the participants.   People that want to change things need to be smart about how they navigate.
> 
> Marcus
> 


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