Jared Janes

When I was a teenager, I had a lovely chocolate Labrador Retriever. She loved her food. We kept a big bad of dog food in the pantry. One day, we came home. She had gotten into the pantry, eaten about 10 pounds of dog food, and vomited all over the kitchen. There are many second-order consequences she did not foresee, with no maliciousness. A dog might be able to learn the impact of eating that much food. But probably won't learn that a human goes off and purchases the food. For them, the food is just "magical manna" that appears. Occasionally, like my beloved pet, you encounter humans who, with no maliciousness, simple can't cognize second-order consequences, and, also, as any person does, desire maximal freedom. This is simply an unsolvable political riddle: how to give people maximal freedom when the exercise of that freedom is destructive, and they are unable to cognize such second-order effects and incorporate them into their decisions.

I do not like the pejorative in the Three Poisons (Attachment, Aversion, Ignoring). Instead: the valence neutral Three Involvements: Emphasizing, De-emphasizing, and Setting Aside. They become poisons only when they arise as compulsory, and not when liberated from compulsion.