>Some live by Hanlon's razor, "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity," but most live by the exact opposite
I've noticed that often the people quickest to deploy Hanlon's razor against conspiracy theories are the first to abandon it when they have a chance to demonize the outgroup.
The sheer difference between people is often vastly underestimated. Even among friends and neighbors we are hard pressed to find roommates, for example. I was trying to get at that on the national scale with my essay on accidental empire, but you probably did it better here :) nicely done.
Good luck, Parrhesia. As I've aged, I've come to see all of the dysfunction in society as being a result of a general free-floating insanity that's existed as long as people have been around. A thorough analysis of the craziness of h. sapiens is far beyond the scope of a single comment, but if we limit ourselves to recent Western history I feel like I can mention
1. The Dancing Plague of 1518,
2. The Salem Witch Trials, and
3. Satanic Ritual Abuse
to establish at least the flavor of what I'm talking about. This free-floating insanity inevitably manifests itself politically, as in
A. The Reign of Terror,
B. Prohibition, and
C. Modern American Politics.
So yes, OK, decreased federalism is nice. And yes, the Free State Project is cute. But no matter what, the inherent madness of the species will not long be suppressed. For all his hopes and dreams, man remains but a short distance from his ancestral origin amidst the trees. Take heart that at least there are apples there, and wood to make fire for ovens, and thence, pie.
>Some live by Hanlon's razor, "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity," but most live by the exact opposite
I've noticed that often the people quickest to deploy Hanlon's razor against conspiracy theories are the first to abandon it when they have a chance to demonize the outgroup.
The sheer difference between people is often vastly underestimated. Even among friends and neighbors we are hard pressed to find roommates, for example. I was trying to get at that on the national scale with my essay on accidental empire, but you probably did it better here :) nicely done.
Good luck, Parrhesia. As I've aged, I've come to see all of the dysfunction in society as being a result of a general free-floating insanity that's existed as long as people have been around. A thorough analysis of the craziness of h. sapiens is far beyond the scope of a single comment, but if we limit ourselves to recent Western history I feel like I can mention
1. The Dancing Plague of 1518,
2. The Salem Witch Trials, and
3. Satanic Ritual Abuse
to establish at least the flavor of what I'm talking about. This free-floating insanity inevitably manifests itself politically, as in
A. The Reign of Terror,
B. Prohibition, and
C. Modern American Politics.
So yes, OK, decreased federalism is nice. And yes, the Free State Project is cute. But no matter what, the inherent madness of the species will not long be suppressed. For all his hopes and dreams, man remains but a short distance from his ancestral origin amidst the trees. Take heart that at least there are apples there, and wood to make fire for ovens, and thence, pie.