I have observed the results of high dosage steroids.    That crazy drive around 
could have been an induced mania.  In a normal situation, one might discuss 
having the vice president step in.    It really seemed redundant since he is 
only differently-crazy the rest of the time.   I only had a technical interest 
in the White House performance, hoping for a stumble or a burst blood vessel, 
etc.

From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 11:54 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim

I started to feel sorry for Donald when I saw him gasping for air on the 
balcony of the White House. We are all just humans, and he really seems to be a 
Covid19 victim. As Barack Obama said let us hope that the President and all 
those affected by the Coronavirus are getting the care they need and feel 
better soon.

But shortly after the old Donald was back, and to me it looks like he has not 
learned much. No signs of remorse for his behavior, no pity for Covid19 victims 
and no apology for the people he has infected in the last days. Instead we can 
see rage tweeting in uppercase (is his Caps Lock Key broken now?) in increasing 
intensity and frequency.

How do you see it?

-J.


-------- Original message --------
From: Frank Wimberly <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Date: 10/7/20 18:29 (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim

I feel empathy and sympathy for the little baby Donald before the remote mother 
and the overweening father made their imprint on him.
---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Wed, Oct 7, 2020, 9:38 AM Marcus Daniels 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Empathy requires attention and time, and anyone else is a better use of it.   
Quoting from Utopia, "What you have you done today to earn your place in this 
big crowded world of ours?"

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> On 
Behalf Of u?l? ???
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 5:54 AM
To: FriAM <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim

A collection of people, who shall remain nameless, recently tried to shame me 
for objecting to their waste of empathy for poor lil ol Trump, in light of his 
infection. One argument went something like "His father was horrible." One 
primary argument went something like "empathy begets empathy". Empathy is not 
zero-sum. Etc.

I started my objection to all this Trump-as-a-victim talk by listing several 
aspects of his CHARMED LIFE, like the fact that he's lucky enough to have lived 
to a ripe old age (when so many of us die young), he was born wealthy (when so 
many of us live our entire lives dirt poor), his stupid TV show was wildly 
successful (when so many of us are serial failures), his weaponized 
litigousness has benefited him throughout his life (when so many of us can't 
even afford a lawyer). Etc.

All that *privilege* has been bestowed upon him. And it seems, to me, he's 
squandered it all. He reminds me of those pitiful pictures of Saddam Hussein in 
court and then prison and then dead. Oh boo-hoo, poor little dictator being 
mistreated. Such sentiments are not merely weird to me. If game theory and the 
success of simplistic tit-for-tat has taught us anything, it is that the 
algorithmic *depth* required to beat straightforward (poetic) "justice" is 
academically interesting, but pragmatically degenerate.

So, no. I will not waste any of my finite lifetime feeling sorry for poor lil 
ol Trump, our Privilege Squanderer in Chief. If that magically limits my 
ability to empathize in some other context, so be it. If it implies that when I 
die pathetically, under some bridge, eating partial hamburgers from the Wendy's 
dumpster, my colleagues *rightly* avoid wasting their finite lifetimes feeling 
sorry for me, then I'm ready for that day. Like it or not, tu quoque is a 
fallacy.

--
↙↙↙ uǝlƃ

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