A post Christmas riff

Introverts, Extroverts, Timing, Nocosomial Infections, National Security, Survivor-China, and the Amish

Introverts are not the same as extroverts. In social situations, introverts lose energy while extroverts gain energy. So, introverts avoid many of the conventional interactions that the 80% of the country that is extroverts enjoy. Introverts appear, to extroverts, to be aloof, haughty, and arrogant. From the introverts' point of view, they are doing the same thing that extroverts are doing--avoiding situations that drain energy. Extroverts, for the most part, do not do extensive analysis of a situation--extensive analysis is too energy draining.

Politicians are extroverts. They have to be. They live in a world of social interactions and are constantly in group settings. An introvert would not remain in such a life for more than a day.

Scientists are introverts. They have to be. They live in a world of few social interactions and deep thought. The deep thought is required if the introverts are able to solve the problems that they have been assigned.

Introverts and extroverts are needed for the health and security of the US. Extroverts get out and talk to people, in the US and abroad. They find the direction that the country should go. Introverts solve the hard problems that must be solved if the country is going to go in this direction.

Introverts and extroverts like to think that the other is not needed for the safe future of the country.

One claim at the moment is that nuclear weapons should never have been invented by introverts and used against the Japanese. If they were not invented or used, two scenarios seem likely. First, the US could have lost the second world war to the Japanese in which case, similar to Koreans, former US citizens would have become slaves and would be greeting each other with "Ohio gaziamas." Second, the US could have won the war but lost an extra 5,000,000 citizens in the process. In this scenario, lasers, cell phones, molecular biology, etc. would not have been developed by introverted Americans but by others and America might not be a superpower.

So introverts and extroverts are needed for a safe future for America. A remaining question is what roles each needs to play in getting to this safe future.

Deciding these roles gets us to nocosomial infections, Survivor-China, and the Amish. Nocosomial infections are bacterial infections arising from bacterial strains, for instance drug resistance, that can survive only in hospitals and not in the wild. The use of antibiotics in hospitals has given rise to these drug resistant bacterial strains and maintains them. In the wild, these drug resistant strains rapidly are outcompeted by strains that are not drug resistant and that grow faster. In Survivor-China or any of the Survivor series, at some point in the game, the players turn on the strongest player and evict him or her from the game. This strategy only works if there is a structure outside the game that protects the players. Otherwise eviction of the strongest player would be fatal to the health of the remaining players. The Amish, in the book 'Amish Grace,' show an amazing ability to forgive other members of their community who have done terrible things. In the book, the people forgiven were the family of a murderer. As in Survivor, this ability to forgive assumes an external support structure--laws, police, and courts--that will punish the wrongdoers whom the Amish forgave. So, in each case, a particular societal structure actually relies on the rules and support of a larger societal structure.

Back to introverts and extroverts and national security. If introverts are the people who will create the objects that are needed for the U.S.'s national security and the introverts need many years of training and work in order to create these objects--hence the word 'Timing' in the title--then extroverted closing of national labs is against the self interest of the extroverts. The introverts, arrogant and aloof as they might be perceived to be, protect the extroverts against themselves and against outsiders.

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