A couple of days ago I posted this crude drawing on my Facebook page with this text:
between republicans and democrats, the argument is ongoing and loud. and in the libertarian community, you currently hear a lot of bickering between Ron Paul advocates and Gary Johnson supporters.yet republicans and democrats will often say they don't see any difference between GJ and RP. and they think it laughable if you tell them you don't see any appreciable difference between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
this badly-done drawing is my attempt to explain this phenomenon. the guy in the background is watching a fight between two people in The State: Barack on his left and Mitt on his right. it's obvious to him who is his hero and who is the enemy. but he looks over at Gary and Ron arguing over in Freedom Land, and they're so far away he can't see any difference at all.
now if this observer were to cross over into Freedom Land, he'd begin to see noticeable differences between Gary and Ron, and then Barack and Mitt would be distant and barely separable.
Then an online friend helped by giving me a better explanation, something I had been trying to formulate but only had the words (from Daniel Quinn) "too close":
Very good method of communication I am impressed, the truth is anything you are close to and care about is going to be more detailed and therefore easier to quantify differences between parts of it. For most of our fellow citizens I think that everyone in your picture would look the same because almost everybody just doesn't care.
This kind of collaboration is the great thing about social media. It can almost make up for it being so time-wasting and addictive.
last updated 2012-11-05 15:21:39. served from tektonic.jcomeau.com
