Ed: Pluralism or Religion

Ed is starting its deep dive into its role as a pluralistic coherer or religious indoctrinator. Religious indoctrination seems to be its historical role (up until the end of the enlightenment era). There's normally a pacing and leading which happens between religion and governance (see Norenzayan's Big Gods). For a while governance adopts the lessons learned by religion, but does so in a more pluralistic way that enables group size increase or other adaptive group traits. For a while religion leads. Right now Ed is ostensibly determining (along with society) whether -everyone is equal under the law, or -some people are more equal than others (for the sake of equality of outcomes). Applied Critical Theory certainly takes the latter, Orwellian approach. Recently it seems like fricition within Alberta's Teachers Association is just starting to reflect this dichotomoy. The Orange bubble urban areas are heading one way, while rural venues are heading the other. There are structural reasons why urban centers gain ideological dominance within large institutions. This seems to be a historical "law". But this tendency isn't neutral, or "progressive". It simply reflects the cultural evolution cycles Peter Turchin describes in his Secular Cycles work and Cliodynamics. It leads to periodic revolutions, purges, and societal collapses. Fighting these cult like Trosky tendencies is not easy. By the time these behaviours become non-ignorable, instituitional technocracies and structures are largely monopolized by ideological conformity. Self selective processes gradually tip the balance toward homogeneity, and it is very rare that enough counter-balancing momemtum can be generated to bring things back into balance before over-reach leads to collapse. We'll have to see where things end up in the West. My guess is that much of US education is in serious trouble. Canada's pluralistic nature (and lower population) may give it enough breathing room to survive. But, here in Alberta at least, there are going to be some nasty fireworks as the Urban progressive minority start going head to head with the sleepy conservative base.

A Peaceful Protest?

 More peaceful protests continue. Not all involve mobs of people </irony>

Witnesses say antifa shooter Michael Reinoehl was armed with a semi-auto rifle when he engage in a firefight with four officers in Lacey, Wash. https://t.co/Jz7qNeUmvm

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) September 4, 2020

Modern Lynching

 This is a modern lynching. Simple as that.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/saw-our-hats-and-hunted-us-down-alleged-witness-recounts-fatal-shooting-of-right-wing-protester-in-portland

Cut to the Chase

 I tend to get to the end game of things pretty quick. I rarely feel the need for gradual ramp ups to energize yourself under the guise of allowing space for escape valves. If you're ready for the end game and fully accept it then the process of a mutually agreeable exit becomes easy. But there is no dallying around one-sided exits while the other side subterfuges. 

For instance, it's been since at least 2010 when I figured US civil war was going to be inevitable. The main question is whether it would take a mob based tit for tat, or whether it would be predominately a targeting assassination affair.

Now that everyone is waking up to this fact, we've got until Jan 2020 to figure out what to do. It will take a few months for the mail-in ballot fubar to work itself out. During that time you'll have a HUGE number of protests and counter protests with violence levels graudually increasing each weekend. Just like the Kenosha - Portland tit for tat, each side will fight for its legitimacy to occupy space and maintain a grip on its right to exist within the public sphere.

But, nothing will settle this down.

The only real option is to decide how to parse up that nation so that BLM/Antifa progressive cultists can comfortably exist in their space and Trumpist conservatives can exist in their own.

To that end you'll probably need an amalgam of states that start going by their own set of rules. Those rules will be very draconian for outgroupers. You'll have a lot of intimidation based emigration. That's similar to the sorting that happened during the Patriot-Loyalist conflicts in the war of Independence. It will also mean watering down Federalism. That is going to be very hard, nay impossible to do. Systems don't like to give up power, and I don't think the Judiciary is liable to give up any of the righteous rule.

That functionally means finding a way for the mid-west and south to have good port access. While I'm no expert, the Caribbean is poorly suited to this end. That means the crux of things will be the Carolinas and Virginia. But it also means finding a way for East coast puritanism to function as a political entity with West coast fundamentalism. That is hard.

There's also no easy answer for what to do with Washington. It's the Federal seat of power but is clearly in the boundaries of the progressive sub-nation. There may be no real way to get rid of Federalism's overpowering nature without giving up most of Washington's current physical role.

OTHER OPTIONS

The only other option is to explore the limits of City state power.

The current conflict can be well characterized as an overgrowth of city state size and power. Rural California, Oregon, Washington, etc. have very different politics from their city centers. Much of the over step of city center power is based on the deference outsiders give to the rule of law.  With the social contract now irredeemably broken (with the realization of such only slowly dawning on people), there will be a functional limit to how far cities can pressure their rural residents.

I don't think this polity size change is viable though. It is too many units of selection down from where polity size is currently stabilized at within our population.

Why It's a Bad Idea to Ban Conspiracy Theorists

Conspiracy theorists are annoying. It's the inevitable tail end of aspergery tendencies. Like 9/11 conspiracies or ant-vax stuff, it is incredibly time consuming to disprove.

But, like Russiagate, or relativity, occasionally, they're right. A system's characteristic to allow a certain percentage of its populace to engage in this type of behaviour is adaptive. Just like its adaptive to have a certain percentage of your population pushing existentially risky out-group sympathetic positions.

Here's another reason you shouldn't ban conspiracy theorists. Sometimes you won't hear a lot of pop-narrative damning stuff from mainstream players.

ST. LOUIS PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE BUSTED ALTERING EVIDENCE; REASSEMBLED NON-OPERABLE MCCLOSKEY PISTOL TO CLASSIFY AS LETHAL

https://www.infowars.com/st-louis-prosecutors-office-busted-altering-evidence-reassembled-non-operable-mccloskey-pistol-to-classify-as-lethal/

Racist?

Does something that is clearly racist cease to be so if it is politically agreeable? Or, if it is both politically agreeable and done by a protected class?

At some point one hopes that people will realize that objectivity & equality is probably the best way to keep racism out of society.