Eric writes: < On the other hand, if I zoom out and look at material events stripped of symbolism, the officials managed to get several thousand ignorant, stupid, or simply lost people through a day of mostly chest-beating without very many people getting killed. That that seems to define a kind of “proportional” outcome, which would have been lost if, say, all those inside the capital had been locked in and set on fire, as might have been done in Ancient Rome or even by the resistance in Nazi-occupied countries. Would those inside have “let themselves in for it”? Yes, and I would not have had a large emotional response of sympathy for them. But it would have cemented the US as a country that institutionally was incapable of getting itself through any conflict with something like limited damage. >
The gatherings of the government and against the government are symbolic anyway. Really our country's business can be conducted over a Zoom meeting. I suppose one could make it look like the business of the people was going on in the capitol building so that when the white supremacists stormed the place, they could be neutralized in one place without any collateral damage. Perhaps an incapacitating gas with a tunable concentration depending on the nature of the event. Of course, any defensive technologies that are installed could be used for offense with a more sophisticated opponent. One could imagine directed microwave weapons that could be controlled from remote locations, say. And then there is the dark possibility of the next set of fascists that could take over one arm of the government or another -- maybe proliferation of such technology is not such a good idea! The institutional responses I see is mostly after the event. It is not clear to me there was any strategy to the government response at the capitol, other than to take a defensive position because they were understaffed. But *now*, Trump has lost his platform. If he is disqualified from running again and his allies are radioactive that's a step forward. The catharsis cost them, at least in the short term. Marcus - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
