Last edited Thu Apr 23, 2026, 11:28 AM - Edit history (1)
A helpful read. Conflict is unfortunately on my mind a lot. I am in a conflict that has zero possibility of resolution where I live in India.
I have been trying to formulate a simple strategy for minimalism in communication.
There is no reason why I should be miserable because of the corruption and misogyny of those I deal with locally.
It frustrates one to use internal frameworks too far outside science to navigate the world.
Otoh it should not be the sort of hack-like effort popular with people I tend to avoid.
Never enjoyed communication much 🫤. But it ends up being more time consuming a chore to shirk than to put some effort into.
Maybe communication should be framed as more than an unavoidable and meaningless chore to muddle one’s way through.
I have no investment in resolving any disputes or complaints locally. But I do in salvaging my existence separately from external impositions forced on one using inane metaphoric leaps.
Game theory is not a bad framework, though it is used by a subset of public “intellectuals” I tend to lump into a category I label “pretentious, annoying and creepy charlatan/dilettante who likes the sound of his voice” (e.g.: Jonathan Haidt, Steven Pinker).
My apologies if you respect either btw. They are generally unpopular with people left of centre though.
If my creepy and corrupt state here in India tried a program like the one you describe it would just be a creepy and invasive fraud.
This is not the US. I can tell that the stuff I have seen here in India (that is outside the routine) is just harassment, fraud and misconduct contaminating anything it touches that works here or anywhere.
Short of a criminal case the techies, hospitals, gamers etc here will never get the message.
And as someone stuck with an internal voice that has a range spanning angry child to angry teen in this context it has been difficult.
I have thought a lot lately of this para from 1984 when pondering unpleasant chores:
Winston's greatest pleasure in life was in his work. Most of it was a tedious routine, but included in it there were also jobs so difficult and intricate that you could lose yourself in them as in the depths of a mathematical problem—delicate pieces of forgery in which you had nothing to guide you except your knowledge of the principles of Ingsoc and your estimate of what the Party wanted you to say. Winston was good at this kind of thing. On occasion he had even been entrusted with the rectification of 'The Times' leading articles, which were written entirely in Newspeak. He unrolled the message that he had set aside earlier.
Seems especially fitting given how our relationship with information is changing dramatically.
I am a scientific researcher not a subject in poorly conceived and misconduct riddled experiments very inappropriately bridging real life and the net coercively.
Complaints aside, I am trying to distinguish and distance myself from anything I would anyway end up going to the police over.
Because chaos and confusion are very much in the alt right toolkit, not to mention similar types the world over.
But that aside, I still enjoy science - work or play.
Edit: Your post made me think of The Human Terrain Systems. Especially this part:
We wouldn't consider the selection of someone who wants to build a McDonald's in Gaza, or a dollar store in the West Bank, to be a wonderful way to represent our country. Or someone as crooked as, say, Mr. Haney from Green Acres, because there cannot be trust when it comes to slime balls. Such a thing could only happen if one is not really serious about resolving a dispute.
The HTS had a few interesting ideas. But it fell apart over fraud and sexual harassment allegations. What did they expect with the kind of lousy oversight defense contracting, gig work etc go with? And plausible deniability is the go to when people already use deception and tests as valid methodologies.
Now what is cool is Sesame Street’s ‘one of these things isn’t like the other’ to extricate the 0.00000000000000000001% of something cool out of this icky mess of information, machines, humans etc.
i am on DU as it is a rare part of the net I am cool with, recognising that while it comes with ordinary net characteristics, it has a definite operating principle I fully understand and respect. The admins are trustworthy. How anyone uses Zuckerberg etc’s tools seriously confounds me.
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