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The Song and Dance.

ยท 2 min read
Ron Amosa

We already know the ritual, the same thing has happened time and again and nothing changes.

The "song and dance", the hand-wringing and platitudes. And nothing will change.

That's not being cynical, or "realistic" or "pessimistic".

It's an observation followed by a logical conclusion.

I started reading Thinking in Systems by Donella H. Meadows and I highly recommend it.

But it was from that book I learned about input and outputs to a system, but on an inter-system level. How the outputs of one system are the inputs of another and the concept of "stock" or reserves.

One line from the book

Look Beyond the Players to the Rules of the Game

(paraphrasing) You think you understand "two" because you understand "one" and "one and one make two".

"But you forget you must also understand "and"."

Uvalde, Texas is just the latest.

We understand "guns kill people", we understand "right to bear arms", we understand "all these kids were murdered with these guns".

The "and" we need to understand here is not a conjunction between two things. It's at the end of the sentence to append more tragedies, or just reflect the sentiment that nothing will change- "these guns killed all these kids!"... "and?".

I think we all understand this "and".