The extrapolation wars

I heard Tucker Carlson played by David Knight on his show speaking about the flawed nature of people in the Bible and I realised that what I said before on the subject is actually more consequential than I realised then.

Life in the old days was more chaotic than it is today, because people had fewer instruments at their disposal to control it. Hence, when you read a story in the Old Testament, you'll realise all kinds of things going awry and never is there an unspoiled happy ending, but ever only one important decision that turned out right. If the stories were anything but, the people back then would have dismissed them as insipid.

Then, over time, people got better at controlling their environment and the endings of their stories became happier and their heroes more perfect.

That's what I said before, probably on this blog as well. I didn't then point out that this has been interpreted by many as God becoming more liberal with time, that is to say the invocation of God becoming less barbaric.

The latter is of course literally true, but only because technologically more advanced people are less barbaric by definition and hence also invoke God less barbarically.

It's mostly understood in another way though, namely that God is invoked whenever we can't control something and that the act itself is barbaric and that we become less barbaric, because we can control more.

Perhaps I should also look at the ever more liberal God in His own right. It is liberal to live and let live, and the more we're in control, the more concern we can show for others, when we have to solve one of our problems. So, yes, God appears ever more liberal too, because technologically more advanced people can show more concern for others in dire straits. (Which is incidentally what Mike Pence meant, and David Knight is an ass for denying it.)

Back to the people though who have evolved past the barbarism of God, they found a formula for what is good, namely what allows more control and liberalism at the same time, and the beauty of it is that time is by itself moving in that direction, and so they have begun to make plans for the future that are built on ever higher degrees of control.

In this mindset the set of unhappy circumstances is continually decreasing and civilisational stages can be defined by the areas of life brought under governmental control.

The problem with this today is that the actual control, the ability to ensure the desired outcome, is both seen through rose-coloured glasses as it is and as it will be. And on the basis of this the patronage of the world is overextended.

And that's where the political divide arises: One side blows problems in uncontrolled corners out of proportion and the other problems with the control, both wary of  the unfolding dynamic, the former that the ever brighter future is derailed by backward people playing on atavistic fears and the latter that the chasm between progressive extrapolation and reality will become ever wider.

This development is entirely natural, since people get constantly ahead of themselves. Well, the schism is here: transgressing concern on the one side and nazi tactics (as opposed to beliefs, e.g. making mothers fear for their children) on the other. I said, one emergency or another will have to break the deadlock, and since there is no emergency that could break transgressive concern, while any emergency that inspires natural solidarity will break nazi tactics, it is pretty clear how things will proceed from here on out - or in (rather good joke in Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie).

But to be completely clear: No pandemic or war can make a man forget that he's dealing with starry eyed crazies, but the rumouring will immediately cease in the face of personal affectedness.