prevaricate
back in 'aught-nine, Anna commented that no one in our circle was that old, as if you had to be of a particular generation to understand the ideas—that could apply in both directions (the next generation's culture does not look promising to me; midwits say that elders have always said that, but maybe the elders were always right, by the standard preference-stability argument)
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+> [Anna] seemed to disapprove of our putting pressure on Scott, because the fact that Scott has done a lot of great work is exactly what made him a target for our pressure.
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+> Those who are savvy in high-corruption equilibria maintain the delusion that high corruption is common knowledge, to justify expropriating those who naively don't play along, by narratizing them as already knowing and therefore intentionally attacking people, rather than being lied to and confused
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+> I told Anna about Michael's "enemy combatants" metaphor, and how I originally misunderstood the point of the analogy. War metaphors sound Scary and Mean—I don't want to shoot my friends! But the point of the analogy (which Michael had explained at the time, but I wasn't ready to hear until I did a few more weeks of emotional processing) was specifically that soliders on the other side of a war aren't particularly morally blameworthy as individuals: their actions are just being controlled by the Power they're embedded in. And Anna was like, "But you could still be friends with someone on an animal level, like with a dog", and I was like, "Yeah, that's basically what Michael said."
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+> He says he likes "monastic rationalism vs. lay rationalism" as a frame for the schism Ben is proposing.
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+> I suspect Scott is calling the wrong side monastic, though - we basically believe it can be done by lay people, he doesn't. I'll be pleasantly surprised if he gets the sides right, though.
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / blobdiff