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@Brian_Sauve opened up the conference talks with a great message.
“…you will not win your war for normal by simple accumulation of the right theoretical knowledge or the right mental model of an ideal political system, or the same for an ideal ecclesiastical structure.
Don’t let knowledge accrual and theory accrual function in your life like world-building functions for a fantasy novelist. An elaborate mental model of the world as you think it ought to be won’t, by itself, do almost anything.
Worse, it can actually keep you from doing anything, because you get so bogged down in an ultimate and hypothetical future ideal state that you become paralyzed in terms of taking the next three steps in front of you—because of course those steps aren’t good enough. After all, they’re all sorts of mixed up with sub-ideal circumstances and realities.
All of this can become like a relief valve for action—where the mere act of thinking and writing and posting and debating is substituted for the meaningful and concrete action itself.”
-Brian Sauvé