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@BlackAzizAnansi I think partly yes.
But the pandemic has caused what I theorize is mass PTSD. (For what the anecdote is worth, my therapist agrees with me.) One of the results is that the inability to think critically has been highlighted in many people who are traumatized enough that they can't mask their throughtlessness anymore.
In so many ways, COVID hasn't *caused* a crisis. It has merely thrown into stark relief the crisis we were already in.
@courtcan @BlackAzizAnansi I think this is exactly right. In London in 2020, when it was thought that homeless folks might be a vector, suddenly we found a way to solve the homeless problem! We could have done that at any time! We could carry on doing it now!
But, no. Those with the power to fix these things don't care to. That's a constant.
@fishidwardrobe @BlackAzizAnansi Exactly. Same with people working from home. The 1st pandemic year proved this a functional concept that we could've had for at least a decade already. But as soon as "we" could, back to the offices it was.
Covid has shown us that positive social changes are possible. They're hovering right at our fingertips. If we collectively truly wanted them, we would grasp them and use them. We're collectively showing that much of our desire for change was just lip service.
@courtcan @fishidwardrobe @BlackAzizAnansi
yes
we can do anything, only we don’t; and the only barrier is ourselves
inertia is the largest social force
realizing we can change is terrible
@notGordonAllport @courtcan @BlackAzizAnansi Meh; I can't "do anything". The list of things I have the resources to do is far shorter than the list of things I don't.
I can't, for example, give up my job in order to look after my disabled wife and daughter – even though I would like to, more than anything.
We mostly do not have agency.
@fishidwardrobe @notGordonAllport @BlackAzizAnansi
Some of us can but don't.
Some of us can and try.
Some of us can't and wouldn't.
Some of us can't but would.
But for better or worse, we are all still an "us" here on this pale blue dot in space.
@fishidwardrobe I'm truly sorry for the difficult situation with your wife and daughter. That must be so frustrating and heart-wrenching, having to give your energies to a job instead of to them.
@courtcan Thank you. It's not as bad as it sounds. Work have been very understanding; I mostly work from home. And they can get about a bit, it's mostly a matter of doing the housework. But the point stands: we're not free to do anything we want.
@fishidwardrobe That, we are definitely not.
@fishidwardrobe @courtcan @BlackAzizAnansi To have power is to have other people do what you tell them to do. It's about the agreement of other people that you're powerful.
We're seeing is a demonstration that, broadly and generally, nobody who works to live has any power. (Irrespective of what democratic institutions are supposed to do.) We're also seeing a demonstration that those in whom power has been concentrated exercise it murderously so that no change might threaten their status.
@graydon @fishidwardrobe @BlackAzizAnansi I sometimes think about how miserably terrified and those people in power must be. Somewhere along the line, probably in their childhoods, their emotional growth simply stopped. Like proverbial schoolyard bullies, they must pose and posture and strut, and make absolutely certain that no one questions their status, otherwise everyone will see that they are inherently powerless and adrift on the inside.
This is in no way an excuse. Merely sad explanation.
@courtcan @fishidwardrobe @BlackAzizAnansi I think this might be a mistake, too.
Moral frames don't work at any kind of scale. One of the indications of this is the lack of explanatory power such frameworks display.
We're in (multiple overlapping) systems subject to selection. What we get is what part of what we had that most successfully copied itself into the future. (Into a new generation, into the current composition of a political party, into next year's budget committee, like that.)
@courtcan @fishidwardrobe @BlackAzizAnansi One consequence of this is that small differences amplify over time. (Haldane et al. showed in the 1930s that teeny differences become dominant over time if they confer selective advantage.)
So the single most important thing if you have power is how other people with power react to you; they can change things, as most of us cannot. And it turns out that anything complicated—nuance, concern for the future, planning—makes being copied less likely.
@courtcan @fishidwardrobe @BlackAzizAnansi This produces a ruling class that reacts from the id and punishes harshly and reflexively. It always does this; we can find this in history as far back as we have history, across multiple cultures, religions, language groups, and notional ethical systems.
Any social system that legitimizes personal wealth (= farming other people's lifespan) and personal authority always does this. It's a with-these-aspects-of-the-system problem.
@courtcan @fishidwardrobe @BlackAzizAnansi The Carbon Binge creating more agency (however temporarily) means there's more to concentrate and individuals holding power can do more consequential things today than has been possible in former times, but the patterns? Those are nearly constant across history.
Anything persistent has to be extremely simple or it gets out-competed by something that costs less to implement.
@courtcan @fishidwardrobe @BlackAzizAnansi And then after the crash, it gets re-implemented. It's how things work; it's the one story people know about organizing human relations.
If we want (or need! the climate says need very loudly) something different, it'll be simple, so that its stories display those we have; it'll be ruthless, because the incumbents won't accept being displaced; and it'll be last wasteful, because absolute measures of effectiveness do matter eventually.
@courtcan @graydon @BlackAzizAnansi "Somewhere along the line" is English public school or something like it, very often. What you're describing is sociopathy, more or less.
Of course some of these people – more than you would think – are psychopaths and/or narcissists.
Sociopaths, psychopaths, and narcissists aren't really miserable or terrified; that part of them is usually missing.
But some of these folks are just swept along with the others, and, yeah, that must be terrifying.