#everything was resolved and nothing was a stupid reddit theory

[trashprinceward]

Hello Mandela people, here is a theory I had

So these are some thoughts I had from a theory video I made a while back, that I think might get more reach over here. This a theory with absolutely no bearing, but just thought I'd put it out there anyway. (please note I'm not/never have been in any discords or reddits for TMC, so idk if any of this has already been talked about or proved wrong, so if I'm way off the mark, I'm sorry, haha)

Anyway, here goes. (This is adapted from the video transcript so sorry if it's a little disjointed)

I was thinking about like Mandela catalog stuff and rolling around in my mind. This idea came up just after Mandela Catalyst released, and how that and the end of Vol.4 followed Adam, and Adam being an alternate, and his transformation and things like that.

And that's great and everything, but I just haven't been able to stop thinking about Mark, and what Mark's role was in everything, and what happened to him or more specifically for my theory what didn't happen to him.

Because, you know, the reveal of Adam being an alternate and like the transformation he's going through is all very good horrific stuff but I think a lot of people, like myself included, and I know some other people in the fandom as well were expecting that to happen they saw it coming because of all the threads and the breadcrumbs that Alex had left behind. A lot of people were theorizing it and then you know the confirmation at the end of Vol.4 was like 'yes finally it's paid off'

But this is just a stupid Theory. It's probably nothing but I can't stop thinking about it. About how Mark saw uh the Intruder, Six, when he was young. You know, the story of the scary night when Mark was four. And it's always kind of got to me that that has never been resolved. And we've seen as well like in Exhibition that Mark was stalked by alternates for a while before Caesar actually made the move toeventually like entrap him, and I just wonder why why Mark had this encounter with Six when he was young and then nothing happened. He just got tired and went to sleep the end, and I always kind of laughed at that because it's a very understatedreaction to like seeing a creepy man in your room or whatever.

BUT the lack of reaction is kind of like feeding into the theory that what if Mark was also an alternate, but he never activated. Because it seems that alternates, or at least in the case of Adam (you know we can't expect Adam to be representative of every single alternate, but at least in Adam's case he had no idea he was an alternate, he thought he was human). And I'm thinking that M.A.D., the Metaphysical Awareness Disorder, we've got it all wrong.

People aren't killing themselves because they've been fed information they don't want to know. They are instead doing so because they're realizing their alternates and they are offing themselves before the transformation. We saw in Adam's case in Mandela Catalyst, he was already undergoing his transformation and couldn't take himself out. He couldn't die, alternates can't die. At least as far as we know, not through traditional means anyway.

So what made me think this about M.A.D. is, and I picked up on it the first time around, (in my original reaction video) I pick up on the phrasing that they use of "reverse the delusion". Which is the same phrasing that Lucifer/False Gabriel uses when he says he has to reverse the delusion. So, reversing the delusion isn't snapping people out of M.A.D. it's them surviving the process of into turning into an alternate without taking themselves out. So you've got like the 97% death rate of people realizing they're an alternate and then offing themselves like Mark did, and then the three percent who survive "reverse the delusion" (the delusion being their humanity) and go on to transform into an alternate.

And it kind of it kind of makes sense as well because if you think about it, in Intruder Alert (?), it says that something like 3000 children have gone missing from across the various counties. Now if the children have been taken by the Intruder, if they are all replaced with an alternate, that would be 3000+ alternates. And not only would Mandela County and the surrounding counties be overwhelmed, a lot more area beyond that would be overwhelmed as well. But if there's only a 3% success rate of alternates transforming and going on to survive, that's a much smaller number of alternates that actually survive the process. And it's not so much a loss to the alternates because as far as they're concerned, the original children are already gone. They're already dealt with so they're not technically losing numbers. But the three percent that survive, theyare gaining numbers technically, so it's still kind of like a net win for the alternates.

So yeah I just I just wanted to sort of like get this out because the thought won't leave my head it just keeps on going on and on. So maybe Mark was taken by Six as a child and replaced by an alternate. He didn't realize because apparently alternates don't realize until they "wake up". The alternate Caesar wasn't able to get to him to activate his transformation so he was able to basically off himself before the transformation took place, or at least that's my theory. Because otherwise why have that encounter with Six when Mark was a child, you know? Why would that be relevant? Why would it visit him as a child and not take him away, leave him alone for like 17 years, and then come back and kill him later? Why would that happen?

The way it adds up to me M.A.D., or at least M.A.D. as it's been presented to the public seems to have been misinterpreted a lot, or forgotten about a lot through much of the discussion and the theories and such, and I think it's a lot more important and a lot more relevant than most of the fandom discussion or the theory discussion tends to give it credit for, and I think it's a lot more integral to what's going on than we think.

It's probably nothing, it's probably me just reading into this way too much, but it's it's a theory that I thought I would share with you

[demoanais]

after seeing so many of my favorite ships go up in catastrophic flames when they should have EASILY stuck their landings, the finale of mrs. davis was extremely fulfilling on multiple levels. and NO i don't mean in a biTteRsWEet way either.

[wowsoboring]

Deconstructing Baseless Harry Potter Arguments#2 (i) : Harmione Edition

Obviously I once again do not mean to target all Harmione shippers. I know quite a few who're very good human beings and tolerant and accepting above all. However these aren't. In this case, you might sense quite a bit of levelheadedness in the beginning, however you must not be fooled as it goes south and takes a nasty turn very quickly. Don't get your hopes up, this is some of the worst shit I've ever seen, especially the way in which it progresses through its course. Naturally, for this post I have picked my own style of writing which will match that of those redditors. Reddit is the perfect breeding ground for all these weird cults, honestly. I shall be resorting to a formal language and style of conversation, very much like a debater would to sound as pretentious as these do. These posts are found on the instagram handle toxicharmonyshippers who gather such toxic musings and sayings for Harmione shippers while respecting the ones that are nice.

1)

Oh yes, let's use words like 'vehemently' to sound smart, why not? Of course, this little tidbit of the highly stupendous post seems more or less civil at the start. They also have the common decency to say "some Romione shippers" rather than generalizing all of us. Very nice of you, how very saint like. Let's wait till they drop the act and show us their true colors. Harkening back to the argument, I have but one question for you, "where do you find these people?". Where's the proof? Who are these radical Romione shippers who worship Ron and dislike Hermione? I haven't seen any such shippers and I am surrounded by Romione shippers on tumblr, instagram and fan fiction sites as well and haven't met the people you speak of. Some point out her flaws, yes, but no one hates her or dislikes her that much. I have seen two or three Romione shippers across hundreds and thousands who're skeptical of Hermione's perfection. Skeptical. Not hating, disliking, or anything. Of course, unlike this person, I have evidence: find these pi charts for your referral (clickable): https://imgur.com/a/QfPnQbB

you can, through these, see the amount of Hermione bashing across Harry Potter fanfiction and you can see that even in Romione fanfiction there's more Ron bashing. Hermione-bashing is a non-issue. That's what it is. Regarding the "nagging" statement, where's the lie in that? "Annoying" is somewhat subjective, I personally don't find her annoying at all. Who are these people and how often do you find them? "Mary Sue" is only reserved for Movie!Hermione. I have only seen book fans call her that. No one has ever called Book!Hermione Mary Sue. The movie does paint her as a flawless, all-rounder who's also drop-dead gorgeous. Only things she's bad at are flying and divination, all of which she denounces as useless, even though flying is like biking for wizards, divination, sure, not that important. with a teacher like Trelawney, even I would denounce it as hokum.

2)

Remember what I said about waiting for them to show us their true colors, well here they are. Bask in the glory of their senseless arguments. Why, I am from reddit, heck I have 25 thousand karma points on there, I just left because it was too stupid for me but I can argue like them very well. And in this case I would like to say that these people are under the impression that Ron is just there in the story for the sake of existence. And he doesn't work hard. That argument is of course, wrong. Because Ron (in no particular order):

1) fights a troll when he's 11

2) is willing to sacrifice himself when he's 11

3) stands up for his friends

4) makes sure Harry feels like he belongs in the family

5) worries about Harry and rescues him from literal jail

6) stands up against Draco rather than by-standing and enabling his behavior

7) tries his level best to make sure Norbert the dragon is in safe hands and carries it out, albeit not in perfection

8) is with Harry every step of the way in his confronting the basilisk

9) sends Harry and Hermione long letters and calls them often to check up on them

10) stands up on a bitten leg to defend his best friend

11) always apologizes for any of his mistakes and is forgiving when others wrong him

12) works his way to join the Quidditch team unlike Draco who most certainly bought his way in

13) destroys at least 2 horcruxes

14) finds out how to defeat a horcrux

15) has an excellent enough memory and observation to notice Harry speaking parseltongue and also using it to his benefit which proves he's resourceful

now since I have 8 more such pictures to rebut and I do have a life, I will stop. These aren't even a twelfth of the remarkable things Ron has done though, so rest assured.

oh wait what did you say about him just existing and not working for anything? If I recall correctly, he did just as well as Harry did in school and didn't score well only in subjects he didn't care about. Which is true for most people except for Hermione who has an eidetic memory which not everyone has, understandably. Rote memorization is not the best way to get by in life, by the way.

what are the "so many reasons" behind why Harry is the best fit for Hermione? Kindly share so I can rebut those too, I'm rather free nowadays, my finals have been cancelled. You say there are so many reasons but don't even give one, yet you want me to take you seriously. I'm afraid that's impossible.

Romione shipper here, i don't dislike Hermione. I haven't met or seen many people in the book!romione fandom who dislike Hermione (except for Movie!Hermione). The question of someone you like ending up with someone you dislike doesn't particularly make sense. In Friends, Chandler ends up with Monica: now I'm not the biggest Monica fan (I don't hate her but I don't like her very much either) but they are my favorite couple because they make sense. It's about compatibility and character traits, not liking or disliking because that's just a set-up for a ghastly invitation for people to pair up hideousness. "Oh yeah, I like Harry and I also like Hagrid, they should be together. I mean it would be very very disgusting but that's my logic, now, you can't fight it. "- that's how you sound. Please read what you write. Your logic is just...abysmal. That's all I can say without breaking my resolve and berating you with colorful profanities.

3)

This is without the doubt, the easiest one to rebut. It's a delight to see such terrible arguments at my disposal. Come on, dear Harmione shippers, write something that makes me question my choices, not things that make me scoff in disbelief.

In this case, you're essentially providing us with theories. Unproved theories and speculation of what you believe because you'd say anything you like. Where's the proof of your theory, though? Where is that crazy radical Romione shipper who does this? Kindly show me these people. Oh yes, you wanna say we objectify Hermione and disrespect her and view her as a prize. This aches me, that you believe this. No one has ever insinuated this, ever, in the history of anything. What is this winner-loser theory? How do you round off Harry Potter to "an alpha-male ends up with lead-lady" trope and still say you're a fan of the series? Harry Potter doesn't fit in with that format. Ron, Hermione and Harry are co-heroes. Similar to how there's no main character in Friends or the Heroes of Olympus series or the Avengers. We're not living in the 80s anymore. Hermione will be a hero, invariably whether she ends up with Harry, Ron or no one. She ends up with Ron and that's it. Talking about her like this doesn't make you sound any better either. Now you're calling me a misogynist because I don't support the ship of two people who describe themselves as siblings. That's very mature of you. Well here's the thing- I'm not a misogynist. It's as simple as that. I believe that women are capable of anything and everything. I believe Hermione is an amazing person and she is a hero and a different person. I believe the series would be impossible without her. I believe she is no one's prize. There's no requirement of a prize. I just think, similar to canon and the truth and her romantic interest, she will have a great relationship with Ron. There's nothing complex or deep about it, really. No personal weird-thing, no psychological complex, no internalized misogyny. There's nothing deeper than what I said. I am not sexist. I am a feminist. I am all for women empowerment. I love women with the fabric of my being. I love Hermione. I think she's amazing. You only become sexist when you ship people with unstable power dynamics, a bully-victim relation or something of the sort. Neither Romione, nor Harmione are sexist. Heck if you paired Neville with Hermione you wouldn't be sexist. And I hate talking about this so much, I can't even tell you. This talk does make it sound like I treat Hermione like an object and I assure you I respect her and I normally won't talk like this unless someone just outright calls me sexist for something that's not sexist. And this is that situation.

4)

in the case of Romione, no one is too good for anyone. Both are amazing people who're heroes and have done amazing work. That's all I have to say. There's no league, they are romantically interested in each other. I have no intention on sounding lame, but, in love there is no league. As long as you're not putting in any effort and are extremely lazy and leech off of your partner, there is no such concept and no, Hermione is not "too good" for him. Unless of course you're talking about movie Hermione, who is too good for anyone.

5) (halftime!)

oh yes they try to pull this off and wonder why we hate them. Classic. This person likes to sound british, so let's switch up our language, yeah? At least then I won't be out of my element. Let me correct ya, Ron at his best is an amazing, loyal, friendly, brave, strategic hero. There you have it. Ron and 'git' can't be used in the same sentence. Now if you talk about Ron's achievements, I re-iterate you to point two. If it's too much work, here:

1) fights a troll when he's 11

2) is willing to sacrifice himself when he's 11

3) stands up for his friends

4) makes sure Harry feels like he belongs in the family

5) worries about Harry and rescues him from literal jail

6) stands up against Draco rather than by-standing and enabling his behavior

7) tries his level best to make sure Norbert the dragon is in safe hands and carries it out, albeit not in perfection

8) is with Harry every step of the way in his confronting the basilisk

9) sends Harry and Hermione long letters and calls them often to check up on them

10) stands up on a bitten leg to defend his best friend

11) always apologizes for any of his mistakes and is forgiving when others wrong him

12) works his way to join the Quidditch team unlike Draco who most certainly bought his way in

13) destroys at least 2 horcruxes

14) finds out how to defeat a horcrux

15) has an excellent enough memory and observation to notice Harry speaking parseltongue and also using it to his benefit which proves he's resourceful

hey, see, I like Ron and I took the time to copy-paste this instead of asking you to scroll up. And I'm a lot of bad things but I am not lazy. I stick to my deadlines like Hermione. I start my homework in library class and continue it during phys ed the day its given. And I am not exaggerating. Bloody hell, I wish I was. I'm the ceo of deadlines, mate, don't tempt me! So you can see that Ron is much more than just a "nice bloke". And being a "nice bloke" isn't a bad thing either. He's all the things I said: intuitive, strategic, helpful, loyal and on top of that he's also a nice person. Yes, I do see a bit of myself in Ron. I do. I see the insecure side. I waste my time hating myself and criticizing myself and undermining myself, telling me I'm no good. But Ron overcomes that. He inspires me to appreciate myself. Is that a bad thing? Are you going to shame me for having a low self-esteem? Do you want to worsen my low self-esteem and make me feel more like shit?

Now the person who replied to your comment saying, "he isn't a nice bloke most of time.", he is. He is not being nice twice in a span of 7 years. How often do you act rudely or with jealousy? Wasn't Harry yelling at everyone in caps lock in OOTP. Now I don't condemn him for that because he's a fucking hormonal teenager like me and that would make me a hypocrite, but by your logic why don't you condemn him? Or why not condemn Hermione for saying "I only date good Quidditch players" and shoving canaries at Ron's face because someone else kissed him, while she kept using Krum and Cormac to make him jealous. She wasn't being a nice girl, then, was she? Now, once again, i don't dislike her or hold that against her because guess what, mate, I'm a hormonal teenage girl who gets jealous most of the time and would probably react in a similar fashion in the spur of the moment (Not defending her actions here, just putting myself in her shoes.) In short, Ron is a nice bloke MOST OF THE TIME.

6)

It would be misogynistic to think that. The thing is, NO ONE DOES my dear friend! My dear daft friend. I have never heard anyone say that! why are you so hell-bent on portraying us as misogynists when no one ever says that? Stop assuming. Just stop. You are crossing a limit here, aren't you? Yes you are. You cannot say these sort of things. We never said that or believed that, no one ever said this to be a reason to ship Romione. God what is wrong with you? Literally, stop fucking ASSUMING god damn it! Do you want me to assume things about Harmione shippers? Do you want me to go there? Because I will go there! I will go there the moment you tell me to. Just challenge me.

Ron is not a perfect best boi , the reason why so many of us like him is that he's imperfect and tries to become better through the course of time. You are once again assuming and I am once again asking you to stop.

Ron might be an ordinary wizard. He might be poor, sure, but he's a pure-blood and won't face much if he chose not to fight. But he did. He fought. Now I identify with Ron's attitude a fair bit, but I am also likely to spend my day in a library without noticing. People aren't one dimensional. Stop trying to act like you're a psychologist, i know you're not. I don't even think Hermione's overbearing at all! You just insulted someone you're a big fan of. Jesus.

Both Hermione and Ron are strategic, jealous, passionate, feisty, argumentative, intellectual...

that's like 6 similarities. They aren't polar opposites in the slightest. Their differences are just: workaholic, not workaholic. Nerd, not a nerd. Like that's fucking it, man!

8)

being relaxed doesn't make you less independent or driven. A relaxed and levelheaded Hermione will think through things, not be impulsive, not panic etc. She doesn't need Ron. I don't understand your obsession with acting like we ever insinuated that. Then she doesn't need Harry either lol. Stop shipping her with Harry, then or like shut the fuck up. Being a bit relaxed won't stop her or anyone from hitting great strides. Just don't get relaxed to the point you're lazy and casual about everything, that's it.

9)

What do you mean? Ron is balanced. He does finish his work on time. And even if he does procrastinate, she could also help him not and be more driven. Of course, this is an open invitation for you to call me a sexist bitch because I said that she could help him and now you'll think her goal is to help him become better yada yada yada. Fuck off. Defeating the horcrux taught him enough. He respected her. He remembered about the elves when she didn't. He begged to be tortured instead of her. He wouldn't need it because school work and jobs are different and the same person might perceive those differently. Calmness and relaxation doesn't hinder your potential. Not caring and laziness does. You can't function if you work and are stressed 24/7 with zero breaks. Period.

10)

No i do not want (nor does anyone want) Hermione to become Ron. Being slightly calmer doesn't change up your personality. I'm sure many people dislike those sort of fanfics without a doubt. I hate OOC and I don't want Hermione to lose her intellect with Ron because that makes no sense. Ron himself is intellectual and loves arguing with her. They'd boost each other, more like it.

-------

okay thats it i am exhausted as fuck. thanks for reading, i appreciate it. notes and reblogs are appreciated, this takes work.

[max1461]

Just read Scott Alexander’s post on “conflict theorists” vs. “mistake theorists” and, hmm. I have several thoughts. First, to summarize the concept for anyone who hasn’t seen it before: Alexander links to a reddit post by user u/no_bear_so_low, who originated the idea, saying

There is a way of carving up politics in which there are two basic political meta-theories, that is to say theories about why different political ideologies and political conflict exist. The first theory is that political disagreements exist because politics is complex and people make mistakes, if we all understood the evidence better, we’d agree on a great deal more. We’ll call this the mistake theory of politics. For the mistake theorist, politics is not a zero-sum game, but a matter of growing the pie so there is more for everyone. The second theory is that political disagreements reflect differences in interests which are largely irreconcilable. We’ll call this the conflict theory of politics. According to the conflict theory of politics, politics is full of zero-sum games.

u/no_bear_so_low claims that both the far left and far right are more amenable to conflict theory than liberals are, who lean more towards mistake theory. Alexander seems to agree, though in his own post he’s speaking mainly about Marxists in particular. He summarizes the concept as follows:

To massively oversimplify:

Mistake theorists treat politics as science, engineering, or medicine. The State is diseased. We’re all doctors, standing around arguing over the best diagnosis and cure. Some of us have good ideas, others have bad ideas that wouldn’t help, or that would cause too many side effects.

Conflict theorists treat politics as war. Different blocs with different interests are forever fighting to determine whether the State exists to enrich the Elites or to help the People.

In addition, Alexander subdivides the categories further into “hard” and “soft” versions:

Consider a further distinction between easy and hard mistake theorists. Easy mistake theorists think that all our problems come from very stupid people making very simple mistakes; dumb people deny the evidence about global warming; smart people don’t. Hard mistake theorists think that the questions involved are really complicated and require more evidence than we’ve been able to collect so far [...]

Maybe there’s a further distinction between easy and hard conflict theorists. Easy conflict theorists think that all our problems come from cartoon-villain caricatures wanting very evil things; bad people want to kill brown people and steal their oil, good people want world peace and tolerance. Hard conflict theorists think that our problems come from clashes between differing but comprehensible worldviews.

So what do I think about all this?

Well, it seems to me that this framework is (a) a fairly reasonable descriptive dichotomy, in the sense that, yes, a lot of people do genuinely seem to fall into one of these two camps, and (b) a horrible dichotomy on which to base any prescriptions about political meta-theory, in that these are both awful (and obviously wrong) ways to think about the world. Now, Alexander doesn’t explicitly give any such prescriptions, but he does describe SCC as “hard mistake theorist central”, and generally speaks of mistake theory in approving terms, while speaking of conflict theory in disapproving ones. I think this is bad.

At a base level, my problem with both these “theories” is that they’re, in some sense, just too optimistic.

I agree, for example, with the hard mistake theorist sentiment that the world is full of extremely challenging technical problems, that these problems can be the source of real human suffering, and that the only way to address these problems is through data collection and empirical analysis and hard technical work. And I agree that this will often produce unintuitive conclusions, that run against people’s gut sense of what the right policy might look like. I agree that the state is diseased. I do not agree that “[w]e’re all doctors, standing around arguing over the best diagnosis and cure.” People, it turns out, often do have genuinely different and irreconcilable values, and genuinely do envision different ideal worlds. In addition to that fairly mundane observation, there genuinely are a lot of bad actors, who are just in the game for their own benefit. The world is full of grifters, schemers, and petty (or not so petty) tyrants; on an empirical level that’s just not something you can deny.

On the other hand, I agree with the easy conflict theorist sentiment that, e.g., “bad people want to kill brown people and steal their oil.” There’s plenty of pretty immediate proof of that to be found if you look into the history of colonialism¹, or the slave trade, or US foreign election interference in the twentieth century. Actually, just so I’m not pissing anybody off by only mentioning “western” examples, I’ll include the Khmer Rouge and the Holodomor and comfort women and uh, you get the picture. For god’s sake, the Nazis really existed, and yeah, they really believed all that Nazi shit. In retrospect they may seem like implausibly evil cartoon villains, but in fact they were real flesh and blood humans, just like the rest of us. You think that was just a one-off?

And on a much more mundane note, sometimes (actually, very very often), ordinary people just have incompatible ethical axioms. Sometimes people have genuinely different values, and there are no rational means to sort out which value-set to choose. I suspect this is at least part of the reason for the rationalist community’s skew towards mistake theorizers, in that their favored intellectual tool has more-or-less nothing to offer when it comes to selecting your values (=ethical axioms, =terminal goals, etc). I mean, of course rationality is good for diagnosing contradictions in your value set, but it can’t tell you how to resolve those contradictions. That’s the domain of intuition, empathy, and aesthetics, were data cannot light your way.

However, I do not agree with the conflict theorists’ underlying sentiment that if “the good people” were just in charge, everything would be better. After all, there are all those pesky technical problems with unintuitive solutions getting in the way, requiring all kinds of expertise and thorough empirical study and uh, plenty of them might not even be solvable.² This is a huge deal. It’s incredibly easy to have the best of intentions and still make horrible mistakes by virtue of just... happening to have the facts wrong. Not through malice, or self-interest, or even some nicely-explainable sociological bias like white fragility or whatever. Just because problems are hard, and sometime you will fail to solve them. Even when people’s lives and livelihoods are at stake.

Here’s a handy latex-formatted table for your comprehending pleasure:

lol, we live there.

So this all sounds a bit pessimistic and, well, I suppose it is. I think we have a responsibility to acknowledge the gravity of our situation. We could, conceivably, live in a world that was structured according to either the conflict theorist’s vision or the mistake theorist’s vision, but we don’t. We live in a much scarier world, and if we don’t face that terrifying reality head-on, we’re not going to be able to overcome it.

Now, in general, I’d say I spend a lot of my internet-argument-energy-allowance trying to persuade [what I perceive to be] overly conflict-theorizing leftists in the direction of a greater recognition of the genuine technical difficulty of the problems we face. It's probably worth making a separate post about why I think a “denial of unintuitive solutions” is so common on the left, but I’ll just mention here that I think it relates to what I once jokingly called the “Humanistic gaze”. That is, the bias to view everything quite narrowly through the lens of the humanities, and to view all problems as fundamentally sociological in nature. When the world is constructed entirely by humans and human social relations, there’s a level at which nothing can be unintuitive. After all, an intersubjective world must ultimately be grounded in subjective experience, and subjective experience is literally made of intuition.

I usually don’t spend much time pursuing the dual activity (trying to argue liberals out of [what I perceive to be] an overly mistake-theorizing perspective). This is largely because, well, I think the optimistic assumption that mistake theorists make —that most people have basically compatible goals, and that relatively few people are working out of abject self-interest or hatred or whatever— is so obviously false that it doesn’t warrant as much genuine critique as it warrants responding with memes about US war crimes. The principal of charity is best extended to ideas, not people or institutions. You can take the neocons’ arguments seriously without extending charity to the neocons as agents.

The post concludes with Alexander writing

But overall I’m less sure of myself than before and think this deserves more treatment as a hard case that needs to be argued in more specific situations. Certainly “everyone in government is already a good person, and just has to be convinced of the right facts” is looking less plausible these days.

And uh, yeah. Indeed.

So, in conclusion: is politics medicine, or is it war? No, it’s politics.

There are disagreements, and conflicts of interest, and coalition building, and policy-wonkery, and logistics. There is, as with anything involving the state, the implicit threat of violence. (That’s where the state’s power comes from, remember? Whether it’s their power to tax, or their power to enforce individual property rights to begin with. Their power to regulate or build infrastructure or legally construct corporate personhood or whatever. There’s more than a bit of game theory involved, sure, but the rules of the game are set through the armory.) Every scholarly technocrat with double-blind peer reviewed policy suggestions still ultimately just decides who the guns get pointed at, if at several layers of abstraction. Every righteous people’s vanguard is still bound by the mathematics of production and the dynamics of a chaotic world. There are no easy solution, not conceptually easy nor practically easy. And unless we recognize that on a very deep level, we have no chance of fixing anything.

[1] I’d quote my go-to example here, of the truly ghastly stories relayed to linguist R. M. Dixon by the Dyirbal people of Australia about their subjugation at the hands of white settlers, but unfortunately I don’t have his book with me at the moment. Also this post would require several additional trigger warnings.

[2] I mean, after all, there are only countably many Turing machines, and the set of all languages with finitely many symbols has cardinality 2^(aleph_0)!