Moore's Law part 2: Whether You Want it or Not...

In my previous post, I proposed a methodology for solving America's social problems, based on the concept of Moore's Law.

The reality It will happen, whether you choose to actively, consciously try to apply it or not.

But it probably won't go the way you want it to. Let me try to explain with a few, poorly made diagrams (My prose isn't great, my artistry is considerably worse).

Let's use police violence as an example. First a baseline...

[This is really just two bell curves - one rating people, the other rating police - with respect to their relationship to one another. The upper (positive) end of the two has been removed as it is not relevant to the visualization. The people curve has been mirrored, and they have been linked at their intersection ("Basically Good").]

Now, there is an event- a police shooting. For one reason or another, it seems questionable. Maybe it was a sociopath who somehow managed to make it onto the force, maybe it was an officer with insufficient training who made a bad call, maybe it was a person who was committing suicide by cop, maybe it was a punk with an attitude who assaulted the officer.

It is difficult to tell, even by those closest to the event. Friends and family often tend to think the best of the individual question, and assume the other is to blame. Such events often happen so quickly, that everything is reaction, and the brain tries to piece together the "truth" after the fact.

In the absence of intentional control over our response, the natural response tends to go something like the image below. Those who are already predisposed to distrust or dislike the police will "Blow up the internet" with op-ed's, memes, angry rhetoric about those "jack-booted thugs". There may even be intimations of violence ("Pigs in a blanket! Fry 'em like bacon!"). The message will be generalized. In return, the police will respond naturally by "Circling the wagons". They will band together to protect each other. They will be wary, more distrusting.

There will be a migration, due to the divisive rhetoric.

There will be more events, more anger, more violence - both by, and against police.

And the cycle will continue, hollowing out the "basically good". This is the natural progression - the default behavior of "the natural man". It is the survival mechanism of the brain. We sense danger, we categorize (skin, color, religion, uniform, political party), we gather the herd...

But we humans are gifted with a greater capacity for reason. We have the capacity to ascend beyond basic instinctual thought. We can choose instead to say "This was a bad thing that happened. Let's work together to understand the truth of the events, and then respond appropriately". We have the ability to distinguish the individual from the race/religion. We have the ability to CHOOSE to apply a laser focus to an instance of bad behavior, and still respect, even embrace the "others".

We have to choose.