Gordian Knots (not to be confused with Don Knotts)
The Phrygians had no king, but an oracle at Telmissus (the ancient capital of Lycia) decreed that the next man to enter the city driving an ox-cart should become king. A peasant farmer named Gordias drove into town on an ox-cart and was immediately declared king. Out of gratitude, his son Midas dedicated the ox-cart to the Phrygian god Sabazios and tied it to a post with an intricate knot ...comprising "several knots all so tightly entangled that it was impossible to see how they were fastened"
The ox-cart still stood in the palace when Alexander the Great arrived. An oracle had declared that any man who could unravel its elaborate knots was destined to rule over all of Asia. Alexander the Great wanted to untie the knot but struggled to do so before reasoning that it would make no difference how the knot was loosed. Alexander the Great drew his sword and sliced it in half with a single stroke. -Adapted from Wikipedia
Rules
I want to blather a bit about "rules".
I believe that reality is filled with chaos and turbulence and unpredictable events. It may be predictable for short intervals but things fall apart as scales increase.
This causes us, as humans, endless intellectual anguish. We spend our childhood forming mental-maps and yarn-balls of if-then-else logic. It is a universal conceit to think that our mental models accurately and comprehensively map the world.
It is pretty easy to demonstrate that it doesn't, though. Maybe there is a rule that says "Don't go into that bar!" or "Don't walk through that neighborhood after dark". The reason for those "Don't go" rules is that the operative rule-sets we are carrying in our heads fails (often catastrophically) in those environments.
Declaring "That is against the rules" is not a viable defense against a mugger or rapist.
Trump
The main reason progressives HATE Trump is because he doesn't honor the rule-sets in their heads. This is an unprecedented (in our lifetime) event.
Intelligent people are unable to perceive how distorted and self-serving their mental models became over decades of self-referential evolution. Julian and Fatou sets are a mathematical example of how simple rules applied over many iterations can produce bizarre and complex outcomes.
The Euros are outraged when Trump demands that the Europeans reciprocate in any way. In the experience of every living European, American generosity has been akin to gravity: Reliable, always there, a force of nature that you don't have to pay for.
Other Gordian Knots
The war-gaming guys have the same blind-spots as everybody else.
Who says China will not use nukes to seize Taiwan? If they did, how certain are we that the US would retaliate with nukes? Isn't that what the Slotkin/Kelly insurrectionists were prepping the troops for? "Disregard your superiors when they tell you to launch nukes?"
The Donald is the best president since Teddy Roosevelt.
ReplyDeleteToo bad the minions at DOJ are not delivering.
Congress remains a cesspool.
Using nukes to seize Taiwan is an interesting exercise. My assumption is that China wants to capture Taiwan, not destroy it. A nuclear bomb is a very large area of effect weapon, I personally can't see many places that a nuke would be useful on the island without causing China a lot of trouble after the conquest.
ReplyDeleteA nuclear weapon would work nicely to wipe out any US submarines, or a carrier battle group. In that case we would be attacked directly and would respond in kind.
Europe is like a spoiled child living in their parents basement that is being kicked out into the real world lol
ReplyDeleteERJ, I wonder if another way to look at the resolution of Gordian knots is system disruption, where someone simply find an unorthodox (to the system) resolution of the issue. I am thinking here of great leaps in science, technology, philosophy, even theology where someone (often an individual) looks at a problem and finds the sideways, over, or under resolution to it. Others are shocked, but often the solution was there all along. Someone just needed to see it.
ReplyDeleteI believe the Trump administration quoted the NATO spending gap at $22 trillion since 1980.
ReplyDeleteI think the two lesson I have learned to live by are, Everything changes and most organizations live by, "What have you done for me lately?"