Emergencies

 Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of 9/11, which naturally brings up a lot of memories. We also had Biden give a speech yesterday, essentially pushing for vaccines or weekly testing... to varying degrees of approval. And word is that there's some sort of protest 'on behalf of those arrested after Jan 6th' next week. It doesn't seem to have gotten much buzz, and the worst groups seem worried about it being a trap by the Feds, so it may or may not amount to anything. (I'm hoping it won't, but as an indicator that these f*ckwits are still trying to cause problems, it's concerning.)

But I wanted to jot down some of the thoughts that have been flitting around in my brain, and I wanted to discuss emergencies.

There's a lot of weight to some of the concepts I'll throw out here, but in the interests of staying somewhat on topic I'll probably touch on them lightly.

I've written before about the difference in how decisions should be made when you've got plenty of time, vs when you're in a high stress situation where you have to act quickly. It makes sense for the military, as just one example, to encourage obedience and discipline. You don't have time to argue about which way to go if you're under fire, and sometimes even a bad decision is better than no decision. Especially if the unit moves in the same direction, and works together. 

But ideally? 

Well, I like my pizza analogy for a reason. If you have a small group of friends trying to order pizza, most people will try to find something everyone will eat. There's compromise involved, and some of the decisions may depend on who is paying for it and who is ordering, but for the most part a good group of friends will try to listen and respond to everyone's wishes. (And maybe people don't always get exactly what they want, but if they spend time with this group on a regular basis, then it's likely that their wishes will be catered to at some future time.)

This gets at the heart of my philosophy, if I were to call it that. "all men (and women, and non-binary... really all humans) are created equal". All have worth, and value. If you want to get religious, since I think a lot of this view came from my Catholic upbringing, you can say that "if God made this person and they're still alive by God's grace, then God must see something of value in them."

Which is... hard, sometimes. It's hard to remember humanity's inherent value when we see them doing things that we find outrageous. Awful. Mean and cruel. But God bless 'em, He seems to see something of worth even if I don't always. 

Deciding things that way might work in a small group of friends, though it can also be exhausting and time consuming and frustrating. Especially if people's tastes don't match. But the important part is making sure people know that their concerns matter. (And if they're overridden at that particular moment, it's not something that happens Every. Single. Time.)

That is, in a nutshell, what the social contract and democracy is all about. It's a way of letting a large group of people decide in a manner in which everyone has a say. It ideally has clear rules, consistency, and would avoid 'the tyranny of the majority' and various other pitfalls. (The concept of 'the greater good' has some weight, but you have to be careful since it's far too easy to justify forcing people to do things they don't want to. For the greater good. Really, the greater good is best served by also protecting individual rights and freedoms.)

That's easy to say, but a lot harder to put into practice. The point of all that, though, is that for the most part I do believe in the 'marketplace of ideas'. In the importance of persuasion to resolve our differences, and elections to show who cares enough, in enough numbers, to decide what we do. 

As part of our Great Experiment.

I don't like the tendency to think that one group of people knows best, or that we should ignore the masses because they're dumb and ignorant. Sure, if I think I know better it's tempting to dismiss everyone else as fools. (I use the term often enough). But deciding that you know best in such situations means ignoring the wishes of the majority of people who also live in this society. It means you probably ought to brush up on your skills at persuasion, and organizing, and getting out the vote. Even - or perhaps especially - if you think most citizens are wrong.

Seriously, we can communicate complicated concepts. And even ones that go against our immediate wishes. Just look at the success Republicans have had with persuading Americans - most of whom aren't even close to millionaires - to support their economic policies.

But this is in an ideal situation, much like the decisions made when you're far from the battle front and have the time to truly work out a good solution. (Perhaps not a lot of time. But in most circumstances delaying a decision in the Pentagon by a day or two won't have the immediate consequences it would have out at the front... and taking the time to do it right is worth it.)

But I mentioned 'emergencies', because the rules change then. Since I like using other examples before going into current circumstances, I'll use a city under siege. Back in the medieval era.

Back then, castles were strong defenses that couldn't be ignored... because if you left them behind you they might send out their forces to attack you from the rear. So what tended to happen is an army would besiege them, sometimes for years. And most of the time they fell either because of starvation and thirst, or betrayal from within.

Having an army outside your city is a pretty clear indicator that you're in an emergency, and there were things a city would do that they wouldn't otherwise. Like declaring martial law. Rounding up all critical supplies (food, metal for weapons and armor, etc). 

They would ration food, since they had no idea how long the siege would last and they'd all starve if they didn't.

And they would crack down on price gouging and war profiteering, because of course in a city under siege supply would shrink and demand would rise, and an unscrupulous merchant could make a lot of money charging people for rare goods.

I say 'unscrupulous' because for the most part everyone in the city is in it together. If the city falls the enemy forces would pour in, looting and pillaging and raping and killing. Merchants could lose everything, as could common laborers and armsmen and the lords and ladies in the castle. (Betrayal can come if one of them worked out a deal to save themselves... at the expense of everyone else.)

The rules change in an emergency, but there's also a clear indication of when the emergency is over, and when things can go back to normal. No army camped outside your walls? Then the emergency is over. 

Also... you should ration food because pretty much every able body might be involved in the defense, whether it's bringing water to the soldiers on the walls or helping pour boiling oil on the attackers. If you let normal market forces work, you may see a select few eat their fill while the people you need to help defend the keep starve... and starving people a) aren't going to do a good job of fighting and b) have more of an incentive to betray everyone in order to live.

In other words, merchants would have to be especially foolish or unscrupulous to protest when their goods are taken, their forced to sell at lower prices, and various other consequences of living in a castle/town under siege.

Some of the same dynamics apply to other situations, though perhaps not with the same threat of violence.

A shipwrecked crew, for example. 

And yes, a pandemic. 

The debate over mask mandates and vaccine mandates has me thinking about this, because in an ideal world I would love to respect the 'my body, my choice' argument, and to let people choose for themselves. I would also love to see persuasion used to convince people to do the right thing.

However, when hospitals are overloaded and people who don't even have covid die because there aren't any beds available, we don't exactly have time for that.

Your ability to act the fool ends when it gets other people killed.

Which is about where we are right now. 

The people who don't take covid seriously see all these as signs of tyranny. It's like they're in a castle under siege but can't see the besieging army. I don't find their arguments persuasive, because until hospitals stop being overwhelmed we're still in a crisis. (If we get the pandemic under control and politicians still try to enforce mask mandates or vaccine mandates then that would be a different story. But we're definitely not there yet, so their argument is moot.)

So yes, I do support mask mandates. And vaccine mandates (though offering to let people remain unvaccinated so long as they get tested on a regular basis is better, I think.When there's not a clear reason for enforcing something against people's will it's better to respect their autonomy. And if they're stubborn enough to get tested every week rather than vaccinated then so be it. They still shouldn't be going out and about, and definitely not masked, but whatever. People are worked up and emotional and it's not ideal but makes sense.)

It is... frustrating. I empathize with the people who are fed up. It's a lot of work to keep reminding myself that everyone has value... even the fools making terrible decisions right now. 

Some of them are family. Not my immediate family, thank God, but family nonetheless. And while I don't like seeing them parade their ******* foolishness on social media, I don't really want them to suffer for it. 

And I don't think they deserve the worst consequences (especially when some of the problem is that they're foolish enough to trust the wrong sources, or are shaped by the opinions of those around them.)