@ Alphaville
If you want to think in game theoretic terms, remember that all the classic games are subject to very specific incentive ranges. They fall apart outside of those ranges.
So if one is faced with a prisoner's dilemma, one must deal with it on its own terms. But if one wants to
stop dealing with a prisoner's dilemma, the incentives must change.
Stores cleaning carts and the premises full time during business hours is an infrastructural change that alters those incentives.
As is the move towards cashlessness. And working from home. And contactless delivery services. And curbside pickup.
Simple, straightforward changes each business can adopt to continue to be in business.
R values are condition dependent. Change conditions, change R values. We should want as many passive R suppressants as we can get.
These are the changes that alter the incentives going forward. We need more of this kind of innovation.
Perhaps the faster reacting Asian societies were as effective as they were dealing with C19, not because they lack American Independent Spirit TM, but they were simply more familiar with the threat and the proper response.
If there is one thing 2020 has shown us, it's that health codes need updating to pandemic standards. Leaving pandemic response up to the executive branch (state or federal) is a clear failure point, now.
I guess this is my way of looking on the bright side. The worse this winter gets, the more pressure there will be to harden against viruses.
Maybe next virus we will be as fast and certain as Asians were this time. Perhaps our problem isn't an excess of American Individualism, but merely a lack of practical experience.
And that seems to be a self correcting situation.
Your recent posts meander from
I'm sorry. We seem to have completely miscommunicated.
MI isn't saying that he is personally unhappy because of billionaire tweets and would they leave him alone. He's pointing out an obvious conflict of interest in that the West's transnational ruling class is advocating policies from whose harms it exempts itself.
Yup. I totally agree with you that this is what MI is saying.
I would only point out "transnational ruling class" in that sentence could be replaced with "all lobbyists, ever" and be just as accurate, at any time. If we
have a government then someone will try to use it for their own purposes. I see no need to break out one set of interests from the rest.
Similarly you replied to my post pointing out that this ruling class's preferred measures don't achieve their stated aims while leaving general devastation in their wake with a post arguing that the stated aims of the ruling class are worth achieving. OK, so what?
If I have any opinion on an American ruling class, it's that the idea conflates separate groups, for cognitive ease, not accuracy. That's not the kind of intellectual maneuver I tend to make.
So if I said anything about the ruling class, I meant it as advise to the effect that one should not allow anyone else to distract you from doing what is right for you.
That is true whether or not MI is aware it is happening or what his psychological reaction is to that awareness.
This is the heart of where I think we disagree.
I'm not sure that these evil rulers exist as a class. From MIs descriptions, they sound like rational people using the same system I am, but with extra moves available to them, because wealth and power.
Ok. Since there is no plan to reduce wealth inequality, nor to equalize power, I am hearing nothing about any proposed solutions.
Merely the language of class warfare. Against a mysterious group of strangers who are doing great evil at great distance (by whatever measure: class, money, power)
Situations like this make me think of the movie Snowpiercer. After going the length of the train, and grokking how the sausage is made (so to speak), if one still thinks the thing to do is to change the Engineer...
So I ask:
How much attention does one want to dedicate to a subject that raises one's ire, and has no resolution?
This is a real question. If one doesn't answer it for oneself, there are algorithms with a selection of answers to choose from.
(/s)
