i am grateful that if i touch a burning stove, i feel pretty immediate pain, and so rarely lose a finger. 1/

to say that is not to say i like or advocate pain. but it's much better when pain is immediate and connected to remediable actions than when it comes mysterious distant from causes. 2/

much of the bad shit arrogant fools are now doing to the US state will, most assuredly, cause much more pain than a burnt finger, but that pain will be distant, and get caught in the epistemological woodchipper of tribalized motivated reasoning. 3/

we will never know and our capacity to act wisely, adaptively, effectively will be impaired by all the uncertainty and disagreement. 4/

i like pleasure, but i'm not grateful that a hit of fentanyl is pleasurable. i don't think that makes me anti-fun. i dislike pain, but i am grateful when i experience pain that can unmistakably warn me and guide me from experiencing much greater harms. /fin

i'm not advocating the inevitable suffering that will come from misgovernment. i'm saying its better that it come with some immediacy and direct connection than that it come through subtle, indirect, deniable means. 1/

to say that it's better we have nerves that discomfort us when we touch a burning stove than that we not and only discover the issue through the smell of cooked meat is not "supporting suffering and death as a form of punishment for antisocial behavior". 2/

if your statement means to be descriptive, it misses the mark, alas. 3/

collective punishment is bad policy. but bad consequences that the general public (or an individual human) can observe and connect to their causes are more desirable than bad consequences whose causes will remain mysterious to them. 4/

In the latter case, a thousand no doubt tendentious theories will emerge to obscure (perhaps from all of us, not just some condescending "them") any accurate, actionable understanding of causes and remedies. /fin