Minus Epsilon
This originates from the epsilon-delta definition of a limit in mathematics.
People seem weirdly confused by my position on covering & veiling.
My basic take is: âItâs way more complicated than I want it to be. I want to just hate it because of the propensity for abuse and subjugation. That never works out in practice because itâs just too simplistic.â
Because the Left wants to often celebrate Hijab as a display of their supposed tolerance, the whole thing is a mess. With that said, there are an awful lot of amazingly modern and accomplished Hijabis which is very inconvenient if you want Hijab to be a simple sign of oppression.
To sum up: the âHijab is a symbol of oppression...Uh...minus epsilonâ approach doesnât work in my experience, because of counter examples. There is simply more complexity than I might wish. That was a cautionary note about cool Hijabis. and not a celebration of âHijab is coolâ.
If you want to meet the coolest devout Muslims, say something sweepingly stupid about all Hijabis. You will soon meet a skateboarding hijabi neurosurgeon who gigs as lead guitarist on weekends to raise money for the study of childhood diseases...or some equivalent amazing person.
This is not a defense of the Hijab which can raise many complex issues. Itâs an observation about how many amazingly accomplished women wear hijab and the dangers of simple stories that we tell ourselves about the other that donât survive brushes with the complexity of reality.
@YasMohammedxx Hi Yasmine, and no I am not. I would say that you want things to be simpler than they are. We both want to protect women against coercion. But too many people with no experience of the diversity within Islam are being directed to see *only* the most troubling aspects.
@YasMohammedxx Part of my point is that folks worried about coercion within Islam are not being taught to express themselves effectively. By only focusing on one aspect, one leaves oneself open to the argument that you are denying other facets of reality. Even if those are in a clear minority.
@YasMohammedxx I understand that fine. What does that have to do with anything?? I take it as a GIVEN that having to wear Hijab, Niqab, Chador, Burqa etc is pure hell. That includes having an abstract right to say no but being put under tremendous pressure to do it. Thatâs not the only reality.
@YasMohammedxx I hate that stuff. That is also irrelevant to my point about creating an collection of people unaware that many modern Hijabis exist and will tear their objections to shreds if not prepared for modern accomplished Muslim women who can and will defend Hijab eloquently.
@YasMohammedxx Your experience for example is not the experience of a modern Hijabi in Denver who came to Hijab on her own after growing up Methodist. Why pretend that the situation of Hijab in Iran or Algeria is the same as Colorado? It weakens the valid objections.
@YasMohammedxx Drop by the Portal when in LA next? Would love to hear you lay out your perspective!
@KDRasmussen @YasMohammedxx That is about how I see reality. But I also think this variable is quite a bit bigger than others here.
@YasMohammedxx @KDRasmussen What? You hear that??
@YasMohammedxx @KDRasmussen I have the feeling we arenât having a conversation. Iâve NEVER said anything remotely like that.
@YasMohammedxx @KDRasmussen You keep *interpreting* me. I donât need to change my mind because I never took back the invitation. Likewise I never said anything like you insinuate above.
I believe the problem here is different. Letâs choose something unemotional to illustrate.
@YasMohammedxx @KDRasmussen Letâs say you said âMammals are furry and give live birth.â
I might respond and say âNo. Thatâs not true. Echidna are a counter example.â
You might respond âI know #NotAll mammals. I never said that.â
Iâd say âNo. The point is that the exceptions show the description is off.â
@YasMohammedxx @KDRasmussen You might say âWell. The vast majority of mammals give live birth.â
I might say âPerhaps, but the shift from the incorrect description is critically important. Itâs the difference between a phylogenetic and descriptive understanding of biology. Itâs not correct minus epsilon.â
1/ Let me say more clearly what Iâve been intimating. I am suspecting we may risk a colossal public health disaster because we have a terrible paternalistic expert public health culture of âmanagingâ and ânudgingâ populations. And also lying to control public panic & shirk duty.
2/ In essence we developed a culture of magical thinking âexpertsâ who should have been keeping a deeper system for âbottleneck eventsâ, but who for ages have been focused on luck-based âefficiencyâ because for the longest time our luck was amazing. Hence fragility is everywhere.
3/ These folks are our expert class in all areas: finance, policing, firefighting, etc. and they donât plan for suddenly correlated needs. They donât really plan for disasters. They say they do, but they lie to themselves. And then us. Thus we donât have depth to handle crisis.
4/ These people do not generally want to level with us. So they send 2 messages mixed together:
A) Donât overreact/panic and donât blame us. Take personal responsibility and you will be fine.
B) Follow our draconian instructions as if this Armageddon. Martial law minus epsilon.
5/ So many smart agentic people are unnecessarily bewildered because the message is meant for the masses who the elites treat as children. What I surmise is that people in the know think this may be much much worse than theyâve leveled with us about. Hence the severe reaction.
6/ Many are now worried about an under focus in official communication on the threat to young people in terms of morbidity & permanent or long term loss of function. But we arenât hearing much about that yet. We are being told to take personal responsibility for expert failure.
7/ So donât touch your face or go outside and youâll be fine because we donât have close to the beds, reagents, oxygen and masks that actual experts who deal with tail risk would have *insisted* upon in a correlated need event. And do note the word ârecoveredâ. Are they 100%? Ha.
8/ I think the subtext is: âWe, your experts, massively screwed you all. But youâll panic if you hear how bad this could get. So letâs play a game called âjust use common sense and a little martial-law-liteâ and we may not lose too many of us to what is a very serious threat.â
9/ So the âdonât panicâ message disguises the âwe experts *massively* screwed up & know a lot of things that are potentially terrifying that we are not fully openly sharing w/ you yet.â just like the financial crisis in 2008. Hence the number of people saying âitâs just the flu.â
10/ This has been my message: âStop calming us down and sugar coating. You *experts* take the personal responsibility on that you dole out to us and fire yourselves if you downsized our emergency reserve requirements to make quick efficiency gains anytime in the last 40 years.â
11/ In short, we have the wrong expert class and they are likely now finally telling us through their *actions* how serious the risk may be. My advice: toughen up & stop listening to public-health-speak wherever and whenever it conflicts with drastic actions you see being taken.
12/ If youâre young, think about recovery differently. Think about partial recovery that may never come fully back. Push government for answers on what reserves we have & how we can all pitch in to get depth back that has been removed for profit under efficiency & globalization.
13/ I know many agentic technology folks who would leap at the chance to solve problems. People of deep creativity and heroic resolve. Push government to stop with the Public health BS, level with us, and call up the science & tech geeks to leap into action as a brain trust.
14/ Iâm sorry but Iâve been afraid to think this aloud. This is a second version of 2008. Same stupid mindset. The last many years have been a health version of the so-called âgreat moderationâ. Take new draconian measures as the most likely indicator of the scale of the failure.
15/ In short, start tuning out exoteric public health if you have the ability to tune in to esoteric communication between the experts now scrambling to wake up from their failure. If the mixed messages are making you stupid, turn off the audio meant to calm you & watch actions.
End/ I thank several people who I may name later for contributing. As always, my colleague @nntaleb has made versions of these points his lifeâs mission. Thatâs not called being an asshole. Thatâs called heroism. But, I grant you, sometimes they look very similar. Even to me. đ
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