[semilattice]

You actually do not need go far to answer most of the questions you are thinking through.

Australia (and to lesser degree Sweden ) are considered to be forerunners, the test-environments for the policies advocated by EU, Left politicians, and global tycoons.

>"... Within days of the COVID-19 outbreak in Australia, most shops began eschewing cash, with a preference for cards. And here’s the thing – most of us quickly complied. Recently, banking experts have said that over the 12 weeks or so that the pandemic was at a crisis point across the nation, the digital banking revolution sped up rapidly, by about five years. ..." [1]

Anonymity brings a way to evade authorities. If authorities are 'bad', anonymity is 'good'.

If authorities are 'good', anonymity is 'bad'.

So for the part of the population that believes in individual rights and ability of an individual to decide what to put into their bodies, how to defense themselves/etc -- the authority is bad.

For the part of the population that trusts pundits, government intelligence agencies, government's health organizations -- the authority is good, therefore anonymity is bad.

Perhaps these two opposite mindsets can not live peacefully in one country forever.

So periodically, they get into a fight, and decides who will claim the victory. The victorious then, will try to erase part of the history that makes them look bad.

And then, the whole cycle will start again. It takes about 5-8 generations. So around 200-300 years years.

It is panful to watch, unnecessary and really bad for humanity -- but it seems like we are not destined to get out of that cycle

There are solution to it, I believe. But neither in western countries, nor globally -- we are going, in the directions of those solutions...

[1] https://www.thebigsmoke.com.au/2020/07/13/the-dark-side-of-a...

[onlyrealcuzzo]

> If authorities are 'good', anonymity is 'bad'.

> So for the part of the population that believes in individual rights and ability of an individual to decide what to put into their bodies, how to defense themselves/etc -- the authority is bad.

> For the part of the population that trusts pundits, government intelligence agencies, government's health organizations -- the authority is good, therefore anonymity is bad.

Most things are pretty grey - not black & white. So there's not a clear good/bad side. Which is the reason people want personal freedoms and you could want anonymity regardless of how "good" you think your government is.

[semilattice]

>"... Most things are pretty grey - not black & white. So there's not a clear good/bad side. Which is the reason people want personal freedoms and you could want anonymity regardless of how "good" you think your government is. .."

I agree with you.

1) complexity of science grows every year. It takes a life-time to become infection disease specialist, immunologist, financial guru, constitutional lawyer, environmental scientist.

2) sophistication of deceit also grows with time, if nothing is done (because the reward for the successful deceit grows with time).

3) myself, there is no way I can make my own decisions about complex things. I need pundits, that I can *trust*.

4) but with the growing sophistication of deceit -- how can figure out who to trust?

That's where the division between the two mind sets shows up. Because what's relatively stable throughout the time -- are human character traits...

That division, in turn, later on creates the conflicts every so often -- as I mentioned.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

> 3) myself, there is no way I can make my own decisions about complex things. I need pundits, that I can trust.

> 4) but with the growing sophistication of deceit -- how can figure out

I agree with you, but it seems like you're again thinking that everything can be known / black and white. The experts disagree on some very important things quite often. So it's not only who to trust - but is that trustable person even correct in their analysis?

This is where personal choice and freedoms and democracy shine.

[semilattice]

I think I am driving towards 2 keys:

a) people that do live in a structured society, have to trust somebody. Because one cannot be an expert in everything.

In the sea of deceit, figuring out the 'right pundits, rights representatives' to trust is very very difficult.

Certainly, once a person figures out the 'members-to-trust', then dealing with discrepancies, mistakes, and differences of opinion within that circle -- is somewhat a different matter.

Those differences, in my view, will not result in ideological separation that I am mentioning in my original comment. The error delta is always built in in how we deal with 'honest mistakes'.

b) With regards to: >"... but it seems like you're again thinking that everything can be known / black and white .."

As I mentioned above, I do not particularly think that I was creating a false dichotomy. If I did, I am sorry, I hope my explanation above made sense.

But I do want to reveal something:

following through to a yes/no state, a binary end -- is something that I tend to think as a 'feature' of my thinking process :-).

I tend to see that my thought 'resolves' into a 'black/white' (binary) end state. While many steps to that might be very much 'gray' (non-binary).

As a personal guide, when I engage in this type of thinking -- I make it an 'axiom', that 'gray areas', eventually have to collapse into binary choices.

This 'eventual-binarity', in my view, is caused by simply the fact that we either alive or we are not alive.

or,

We either have a partner to create a family with or we do not.

or,

We either have biological progeny, or we do not.. and so on.

So that binary eventuality is built into basics of our existence.

Therefore when thinking about future state, I want it to represent those results.

To reiterate, certainly, there are many 'gray areas' in the steps to that finality of a cycle.

Wars (civil wars) might have many many reason, and they start as 'grey' reasons -- but at the end the brutality of those events revolve around very binary actions.

In my initial comment I suggested that there is a cycle that ends and starts with some sort of serious struggle and tragedy -- between representatives/followers of the 2 mind sets.

The binary choice there -- is that our society gets into that cycle or not.

I have not mentioned what may be ways for us to get out of the cycle, so I hope I did not leave the impression that those can be easily assumed from my comments.

[denton-scratch]

> Perhaps these two opposite mindsets can not live peacefully in one country forever.

Um, those two mindsets are not a genetic or ethnic heritage; they are personal preferences and temperamental differences that might well distinguish me from other members of my own family. Are you suggesting that if I have a different mindset from my son, one of us would have to emigrate?

Perhaps not.

[semilattice]

WRT, > ".. Um, those two mindsets are not a genetic or ethnic heritage; ..."

Yes, agreed. I do not know if these behaviors are completely 'learned via indoctrination', 'learned via experience', 'enabled by particular character traits' -- or a combination of all those.

Also, even genetic traits can skip generations...

WRT, >"... Are you suggesting that if I have a different mindset from my son, one of us would have to emigrate?..."

Certainly not, I am not suggesting that. I did not even mention a potential solution. One you are suggesting, has not been on my mind at all..

WRT your particular question (parent/son) differences and how dramatic they might be in regards to the 2 mindsets I mentioned above... History tells us -- they can be very very dramatic.

Exhibit [1]:

>"... In the official narrative Pavlik openly challenged his father and grandfather who hid their wheat from the state at a time when control over the wheat supply was crucial for Soviet Russia. The boy testified in court and filed a complaint against his father. The latter was found guilty on corruption charges and sent to prison. In an act of vengeance, the kulaks from his own family and their sympathizers decided to

..."

Exhibit [2]: >"... Son tips off FBI about father attending Capitol riot ..."

[1] https://www.rbth.com/history/329601-demon-or-hero-morozov

[2] https://edition.cnn.com/videos/us/2021/01/23/teen-jackson-re...

[wwweston]

And for some people, both authority and anonymity are tools. Neither is an unqualified good in itself, both have places where they should be affirmed and places where they should be limited.

[lettergram]

I definitely agree with this. IMO that's how the democrats and republicans are also realigning themselves in the US.

Although, I'd argue this cycles every 4 generations (see WWII, civil war, revolution, etc -- they're all fights against a autocracy vs populace), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generatio...