MariusFebruary on Nostr: The Pendulum Nothing is ever exactly right. Instead, any particular part of the ...
The Pendulum
Nothing is ever exactly right. Instead, any particular part of the universe is always off to one side or the other. Universal forces, including human actions, constantly aim to push everything back to equilibrium, only to overshoot and start all over.
Politics is no exception to this rule. Hence, the current state can always be criticized. Very prominent examples of such criticism are targeted at Milei for his attempt to put the budget and state finances back onto their rails, at Musk for shutting down government agencies and cutting costs, at Trump for kicking people out of the country and focusing on the USA, or at Kennedy for "putting American public health in jeopardy" as the Guardian noted back in November.
No complex task has one correct solution. There are just different approaches with advantages and disadvantages.
In current public discussions, I lack a fair appreciation of both effects and side effects. Of course, if one starts cutting spending in large and convoluted organizations, wasteful and valuable work will be affected.
And if governments overspend their budgets by spending their grandchildren's money, this is not just evil but also has positive effects.
The current public discourse is not nuanced enough, as far as I can see, thereby increasing the pendulum's amplitude.
Let's take the letter that 77 Nobel laureates sent to the US Senate last December to oppose Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s (RFK) nomination as Secretary of the HSS as an example.
I don't mind the 77 people speaking up and writing a letter, but I criticize their lack of self-reflection. Since the start of the millennium, the public has lost trust in institutions (including pharma, the food industry, and medical policies), and rather than informing and counteracting, the corporate media stoked that fire.
I ask the 77 to think about what they could have done differently in the last two decades to solve or mitigate those problems based on which an election has now been won.
There are countless such examples.
Even though I can't ask the 77 directly, I can ask myself. If I dislike current developments, I ask myself what I should have done differently and aim to change accordingly.
Nothing is ever exactly right. Instead, any particular part of the universe is always off to one side or the other. Universal forces, including human actions, constantly aim to push everything back to equilibrium, only to overshoot and start all over.
Politics is no exception to this rule. Hence, the current state can always be criticized. Very prominent examples of such criticism are targeted at Milei for his attempt to put the budget and state finances back onto their rails, at Musk for shutting down government agencies and cutting costs, at Trump for kicking people out of the country and focusing on the USA, or at Kennedy for "putting American public health in jeopardy" as the Guardian noted back in November.
No complex task has one correct solution. There are just different approaches with advantages and disadvantages.
In current public discussions, I lack a fair appreciation of both effects and side effects. Of course, if one starts cutting spending in large and convoluted organizations, wasteful and valuable work will be affected.
And if governments overspend their budgets by spending their grandchildren's money, this is not just evil but also has positive effects.
The current public discourse is not nuanced enough, as far as I can see, thereby increasing the pendulum's amplitude.
Let's take the letter that 77 Nobel laureates sent to the US Senate last December to oppose Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s (RFK) nomination as Secretary of the HSS as an example.
I don't mind the 77 people speaking up and writing a letter, but I criticize their lack of self-reflection. Since the start of the millennium, the public has lost trust in institutions (including pharma, the food industry, and medical policies), and rather than informing and counteracting, the corporate media stoked that fire.
I ask the 77 to think about what they could have done differently in the last two decades to solve or mitigate those problems based on which an election has now been won.
There are countless such examples.
Even though I can't ask the 77 directly, I can ask myself. If I dislike current developments, I ask myself what I should have done differently and aim to change accordingly.