(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . 11/30 Good News Roundup: The Shadows of Our Futures [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-11-30 Politics at home and abroad is a series of iterated Prisoner’s Dilemmas, in which the Authoritarians refuse to cooperate with the rest of us, and only cooperate with each other an a purely transactional basis. Except when the Shadow of the Future weighs on them, as it does in government shutdown negotiations, and trading Hamas hostages for Palestinian prisoners. Last night, after much to-ing and fro-ing up to the last minute, Hamas and Israel agreed to another exchange, extending the ceasefire to eight days. x 6th batch of Israeli hostages released, sharing hugs, jokes and high-fives with the Qassam fighters. pic.twitter.com/z715Ma64n0 — Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) November 30, 2023 Qassam is the military arm of Hamas. An American-Israeli woman was included in this release, and for the first time, young men. The Shadow of the Future can exert a strong pressure to increase cooperation gradually. Grokking Republicans: The Non-Cooperator's Dilemma To create More and Better Democrats means to increase cooperation. Punishing cooperation is the declared Republican mission. The Evolution of Cooperation, by Robert Axelrod, proposes a theory that says they lose, and recommends particular political strategies to make it happen faster. What we want to know, of course, is when and how they lose, and how those strategies speed things up. Yes, well, in the current situation, that would be telling. We cannot assume that Axelrod’s historical examples guarantee us success. But it is not a spoiler to reveal that the 2024 election is likely to be the turning point, and that working together to overcome disinformation and malfeasance, and to GOTV, is at the heart of the matter. Democrats have been working the Tit For Tat strategy quite well. Begin by offering to cooperate, and then punish each act of non-cooperation once. Republicans don’t actually know what they want, so they can’t tell which of their own is a cooperator with their side. Those who cooperate with us are to be cast entirely into the outer darkness, as they did with Liz Cheney. Unlike Tit for Tat, this is punish any defection totally and without limit. We hates it forever! We, however, believe in a world better than what the haters have always wanted. In the TV series Babylon 5 the point of all of the Babylon stations is to increase galaxy-wide cooperation against ferocious odds. In the end, the cooperating species throw the Shadows and the Vorlons both out of the Galaxy, with only the Old Ones for company. Which does not, as it turns out, solve the whole problem. Here is a critical turning point in the Human-Minbari relationship, when Lennier has nearly succumbed to his worst instincts, but repents and prevents the disaster he had set in motion. Delenn does not walk in the same world you and I walk in. She does not see the same world you and I see. In her world we are better than we are, we care more than we care. We act towards each other with compassion. I much prefer her world to that of my own, and I will not allow anything to threaten that. Lennier in Babylon 5, "Rumors, Bargains and Lies" So I am going to emphasize cooperation in today’s GNR, and believing in a better world. I took my own advice for today, starting by copying my Emergency Potluck GNR into this draft. Indictment/Arraignment/Setting Trial Dates Season has been officially open for months. Indictment, screaming, surrender watch, screaming, arraignment, screaming, trial, screaming, sentencing, screaming. Lather, rinse, repeat. Whatever they scream about loudest, we can get together to do more of. Congressional Democrats, a majority of the public, Dark Brandon, and most of the legal profession and the courts are with us. We are well launched on ending systemic racism and bigotry, discarding bogus economics, and a good deal more, and replacing them with equality and respect. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/30/2208094/-11-30-Good-News-Roundup-The-Shadows-of-Our-Futures?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/