[FRIAM] How democracies die

[steve smith]

EricS wrote:
> If they eliminate the ACA — and I don’t see anything now that keeps 
> them from doing that, very quickly —  I’m going to get clobbered.  Not 
> only episodically for myself, but full-time for others for whom I have 
> responsibility.  Not sure how long I can provide an umbrella against 
> the U.S. medical system, at my current capacity.
>
> It’s unfortunate.  They will likely suffer.  But fairy tales seem to 
> be the only places where sufferers learn anything.  Learning is a much 
> more complicated project, which takes some investment across the 
> life-course.  Works better in a stable environment.

Like "spare the rod, spoil the child" is it the case that it is the 
"punctuation marks" which deliver the lessons but it is during the 
"equilibrium" before and after where the "learning" happens? 
Differentiation and (re)Synthesis...   Annealing Schedules...

I am scrambling to understand which of a myriad of lessons this little 
pass-through a diffraction barrier is offering me.   In the spirit of 
our previous/parallel discussion it is *at least* a lesson in /which/ 
lossy compression (through projection?) is the fitness function I should 
be paying attention to, and what that high dimensional Pareto frontier 
(manifold) might look like?

I'm much more a satisficer than an optimizer so it is easier for me to 
let those collapse to a practical level, but still shocking when the 
weighting gets scrambled.

Along side Gibson's "Jackpot" sits Doctorow's "enshittification"... 
which reminds me, I should check to see what signal he is emitting today...

< firewood anecdote>

    I just (minutes ago) gave my "firewood guy" an extra large
    tip/bonus, knowing he and his are likely to be on somebody's "hit
    list" (your performative cruelty idiom) in spite of their very
    upright, diligent, serious contributors to the (local) community and
    economy.   I already pay them a small premium (santa fe prices when
    I could probably scrounge for el-rito prices) because I like their
    wood, their work ethic and have a loyalty to them with an eye to
    them being around in the future.

    I'm ahead by 1.5 winters in my firewood (partly due to a 1/2 cord
    giant limb from my huge Russian Olive giving up last spring).  I was
    ready to skip a year (my Solar carries my heating load with about 1
    cord per year for boost and cheer and dark weeks) but as things were
    sliding toward the MAGA abyss I felt it would be prudent to be 1%
    more self sufficient in these times as well as supporting some folks
    who might be marginal in context (I don't ask, they don't tell).

    It was mildly cold/snowy outside but of the three guys, two who I've
    met before wore face-coverings... I can't help but wonder if they
    are already worrying about being "identifiable".   They usually
    banter with me in my broken Spanglish but this time they were
    careful not to engage in Spanish, the youngest having very good
    English but even he pretended not to understand my broken Spanish. 
    I didn't want to push them, on the off chance it would be
    undermining their passive immune systems.

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