Escaping the new media cargo cult

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You don’t say…

Maybe you missed the first sentence of that last reply, either that or there’s some confusion about my use of the word palliative. In medical practice there is a critical difference between the goals and methods of curative vs. palliative care. You can (and sometimes must) use both simultaneously.

You are addressing the curative and pretending that the curative obviates the need for the palliative, which it does not. Pursuing the greatest good means learning the most effective way to achieve immediate goals within difficult or unfair constraints (saving a life today, in the next hour, in the next minute) without losing the ability to see the bigger picture (finding the fastest route to a system better than money or electoral democracy to balance autonomy against the pursuit of shared objectives, or allowing yourself to be taught in each moment in spite of an overwhelming anterior objective).

Recognizing the ways by which the long arc of history has encoded undesirable incentives into the minutiae of daily life is important, but seeing the world for what it is doesn’t free you from material constraints on your behavior (if only it did!), however unjust they may be. You have to operate within a flawed world. Of course, that’s only if someone needs you now (including yourself). If no one needs you now, then you may operate within whatever set of constraints you choose.

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You’re new here. This is not an argument worth having. He will wear you down until you give up. :smile:

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The kind that’s disk bound?

You think disks are only 50x faster than 35 years ago?

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