NATIONS ARE COMPLEX MAN-MADE SYSTEMS ...... 2020 ELECTION FRAUD WILL IMO RESULT IN "CASCADES & RUNAWAY CHAIN REACTIONS"
AMERICA DIVIDED?
It is! But you might not know it - or want to know it - if you're in a partisan bubble.
'Oh, it's just the Orange Man and his stupid redneck followers.' 74 million votes, 9 million more than 2016? So what? We got 80.
Partisan lenses can blind. Remember 2016? We don't see the "other's" gored ox. We don't want to see.
From my Rightwing perspective, the fissions in American society, developed over decades, have now become chasms. 80% of Trump voters believe there was cheating; nearly a quarter of Democrats agree. Is the media biased? Terra Reade ? Any of Tony Bobulinski's revelations? For millions, anger is boiling. "Soccer moms" are now on corners with signs: "Stop the steal!"
Below is a famous passage from Thucydides (5th C. BC) of how long-standing Greek communities - not so very different from our own - descended into communal violence. Thucydides does not even list the issues fought over. It was "factional" conflict of the sort that our Founding Fathers (especially Madison) feared: families divided, fathers killing sons, etc. .
“So disturbances broke out .... and .... the knowledge of what had happened previously in other places caused still new extravagances of revolutionary zeal, expressed by an elaboration on the methods of seizing power and by unheard-of atrocities in revenge. To fit in with the change of events, words, too, had to change their usual meanings. What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one’s unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant one was unfitted for action. Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man, and to plot against an enemy behind his back was perfectly legitimate. Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected became a suspect. To plot successfully was a sign of intelligence, but it was still cleverer to see that a plot was hatching. If you were a moderate, one was disrupting the unity of the party..... In short, it was equally praiseworthy to get one’s blow in first ...., and to denounce others. Family relations were a weaker tie than party membership, since party members were more ready to go to any extreme ..... These parties were not formed to enjoy the benefit of the established laws, but to acquire power by overthrowing the existing regime; and the members of these parties felt confidence in each other, not because of fellowship of a religious sort, but because they were partners in crime”.
'AMERICANS NOT LIKE THAT?'
The capital of Cyrus the Great (of Persia) was located in a high and desolate mountainous plain. When it was suggested that it be moved to a pleasanter clime, he refused. "Soft lands make soft men!" Noble Persian boys were educated to: "Ride well, shoot straight, and tell the truth."
The achievements of American civilization are largely taken for granted....as though the comforts and benefits we enjoy are immortal and indestructible, as if man's natural state is wealth and tranquility rather than anarchy. Nothing requires preservation because....all that "good stuff" is a free gift of Nature.
It logically follows: History is bunk! After all, history is only bad stuff and stupid people. This attitude is pervasive far beyond half-educated college graduates who may never have heard of the Federalist Papers. Most Americans, and not just alienated young, have grown up in an age of security... and they hunger now for ideologies that might give their lives purpose and meaning.
The English Civil War 1641 -50) is a further example of divided nation with antithetical elites ("Cavaliers" and "Roundheads") sinking to the barbaric. Thomas Hobbes, who lived through it, and was forced to flee, rejected the rose-colored view of human nature that prevails in America today. Strip man of conventions imposed and what one discovers is "a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death."
Material and scientific progress is today confused with the moral. Man has not changed.
Nassim Taleb, of "Black Swan" fame, born in Lebanon, personally saw his centuries old multi-ethnic community go barbaric. Taleb's thesis: If a community/nation is "fragile," then trying to predict its future is a fool's game......because "complex man-made systems are subject to "cascades and runaway chain reactions." 'One more grain of sand causes a mountain to collapse.' The flapping of a butterfly here causes a hurricane there.' "Our track record in figuring out significant rare events in politics and economics is not close to zero; it is zero."
IS ELECTION FRAUD A RARE EVENT? A BLACK SWAN?
"Rare events" and "stressors" are the keys to understanding Taleb. All things are subject to the stressors of life: volatility, randomness, disorder, uncertainty, risk. Rare events (“Black Swans”) are rare. They do not show up in past historical samples. Humans tend to focus only on risky things that have hurt them in the past. “Life is lived forward but remembered backward.” “Hundred year storm” will happen ("Time has sharp teeth"), but predicting it is exponentially more difficult than a five year storm.
“Anti-fragility” is a word that Taleb had to coin . It is not just “resilience” or “robustness” because these suggest only survival or equilibrium. Anti-fragility is that quality that results in an actual benefit or improvement from stressors. The evolution of man is an example: the strong and the adaptable survive and the weak and non-adaptable do not, thus benefitting man as a species. But there is a natural tension between nature and the individual. Individuals fear disorder and uncertainty.... though it benefits their species.
MASSIVE ELECTION FRAUD IN THE 2020 ELECTION -IF IT OCCURRED (or believed) - IS A BLACK SWAN EVENT
I have a progressive friend. Like me, she believe Biden will take office as the next American president. But unlike many, she was willing to look at election fraud evidence.... and does not dismiss it out of hand. She asks: Will we ever know the amount -and significance - of that fraud?
Her's is an attitude of relief tinged with regret .... that a "good" result (Biden's election) should (perhaps - she doubts it) be marred. 'You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs,' perhaps best sums up her frame of mind. But her mind has no apprehension of long-term blowback. Yes, she concedes, our election laws might need to be reformed ...a bit.
This view is echoed by most Trump voters. Essentially, they (reluctantly, but angrily) accept the result, but are already strategizing how a comeback might be accomplished.... in 2022 or2024 .... the same playbook followed by every previous political loser. Why do they accept it? Because this is what's happened in the past, ergo this what what will happen in the future.
<<<To a turkey, his farmer is a kind-hearted philanthropist! For there is no “evidence” from which to conclude otherwise… not until on the conveyor belt.>>>
I have a different, and dystopian, prediction for America's future. I hope I'm wrong because, if not, it will be unpleasant for everyone, progressives, and myself, included. In brief, it involves leaders who cannot afford to allow the truth to come out ('one lie always leads to another') and the unstable Democratic coalition that includes powerful anarchist elements that more centrist Democratic leaders cannot afford to alienate. Much like the French Revolution, those elements will grow in strength over time. Don't be taken in by calls to 'come together.'
IS AMERICA OF 2020 FRAGILE ?
Switzerland is archetypically antifragile. Per Taleb, Societies that try to protect their citizens from stress are always "top down." Societies that leave most stressors for the individual to deal with are "bottom-up." Citizens are so focused on local "trivia" - local elections, competition with other Swiss cities, the appropriateness of a statue or building - that national politics as we now know it doesn't exist. So much so that the average man in the street doesn't even know the name of the current Swiss prime minister. There is no "culture war" in Switzerland; gay marriage, abortion, etc. are not "hot-button” issues which divide the country because these are decided at the local level. The whole world knows Switzerland is antifragile. That's where the world parks its money.
A curious thing: America used to follow the bottoms-up approach and was antifragile. Ben Roth, a Jewish lawyer from Ohio, wrote a chatty, day-to-day depression-era chronicle His commentary on five presidential elections demonstrates how little they meant to most Americans. Why should it have been?
WE ARE ALL PASSIVE SPECTATORS
Confucius (479 B.C) was concerned with the art of living to the best advantage in this life, not in Heaven or the life hereafter. Confucius brushed aside - as of slight account - everything except the question of leadership.. Ignore a leader's fine phrases, he said, but attend to his actual deeds. "The virtue of the leader is like unto wind; that of the people like unto grass. For it is the nature of grass to bend when the wind blows upon it." The true leader is the man of character, and the ultimate root of character is humility. Character is everything.
Confucius also said: “The man who does not take far views will have near troubles.”
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