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Should be somewhere in The Origins of Order (as if that narrows anything down!) — keep in mind that I may not even have the original vocab correct, just the basic idea that recombination keeps a population from getting stuck in local minima. (Combined in my head with bacterial taxis: tumble while you're in a food-rich environment, pick a direction if not, and keep straight while gradient is increasing)

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BTW I'm innocent of Dune except for hearsay*; given the XXI vibe being what it is, maybe I should remedy that.

As with W40K, I guess I have a "gentleman's knowledge" of the Herbertiverse?

And on the optimal hills: at least we haven't been notified to clear out wine and skis and stock up yet — I was impressed by how efficiently my wife laid up 2 weeks' rations in the "cave" when the italian tourists first brought us Covid, and she asked, what, don't americans learn how to stock their shelter in elementary school too?

[gsf_emergency]

Any TP shortages in your locality 2020-2022?

Nothing deep required .

Just the general ecodoomer vibe, plus awareness of the intended message behind the Golden Path/the Weirding Way

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Nope, no shortages with the possible exception of N95 masks, briefly:

a) we gave our army the task to procure PPE, as they are the sole national entity which is both in the habit of buying things for millions of people at once, and could negotiate a cash&carry discount in china by sending cargo planes and logistics people to pick them up.

b) a local company bought a chinese mask-making machine with some public support for the gamble; that turned out to have been an out-of-the-money option, but had we needed the capacity, I'm sure that equipment would have been even more thoroughly reverse-engineered than it had been by the time of installation.

c) in between all of this, a few too "enterprising" people were charged for buying up N95 stocks and attempting to scalp them online.

Oh, and there was also a bit of a shortage of morals, as a few people tried to take advantage of various public support programs for enterprises; as far as I can tell although money was helicoptered pretty quickly to where it was needed, the forensic accountants were only a year or two behind to ferret out those marginal cases when it had gone places where it had not actually been needed. (like with no-personnel stores, this is one of the times where a high trust society pays off)

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The description of the Weirding Way reminded me of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74OBuMA2qEk#t=120s

(I was once watching the semifinals of the women's epée nat'l championships, and a former Olympian told me that "B always does the right thing, and that's why she won't win: A knows how to do the wrong thing at the right moment, and that's why she's a champion")

wrt to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42216196 : my impression of non-human violence is that they are better than we at avoiding violence when the power balance is clear; it's mostly with young animals or moments where the status quo threatens to have been merely a stasis quo that application of violence becomes necessary. (compare Cherryh, Foreigner)

Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic02W1bWeFU

[gsf_emergency]

That's why I make sure to keep the karma low (but the TP backup outrageous-- ok, pls reserve judgement before I've completely figured out the Miswak or equiv logistics). JK

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Keeping the karma low is similar to the peaceful anabaptists' way of being able to up sticks at (nearly) a moment's notice: without contractual ties it's possible to deconflict from a safe distance.

Shorter Herbert? https://read.gov/aesop/048.html