Conversation

Sometimes a society has symptoms, like a body. It coughs the cough of low wages or gets the headache of unaffordable schooling. We are empathetic, we want to help - so we say, give the cough drop of minimum wage! Take the asprin of government-funded schooling!

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Aella

@Aella_Girl

May 6, 2018

These are real, empathetic motivations trying to solve concrete problems - but the body is deeply complex. Cough drops and asprin might relieve the pain, but maybe the medicine over time will cause other problems. Maybe the problem is actually a deeper disease.

Aella

@Aella_Girl

May 6, 2018

I am very hesitant to accept things like minimum wage and government funded schooling - not because I accept the symptoms, but because patching the symptoms might be worse for a the larger system - both in blinding us to the real issues, and causing more issues down the road.

Aella

@Aella_Girl

And too often I feel people who get outraged about social issues are not thinking in terms of large systems - they're thinking in terms of, "this thing hurts, and we need to make it stop in the quickest and easiest way." Our body is ridden with pills and stitches.

7:38 PM · May 6, 2018

Replying to

This does not mean the symptoms are any less real or bad or motivating. Just because I don't agree with your choice of medication doesn't mean I approve of the disease. We are both fighting the same thing, just a little differently.

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Replying to

Sure - but in this case we should be aware of the tradeoffs we're making, and be prepared to quit the patch as soon as we do figure out the right course of action.