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Trying to figure out WTF is going on

A strange wee epiphany

Peter A Bell

Jul 18

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When one 'invents' something, having thought about it long and hard and from every angle, it can be that one is so familiar with all its aspects that there are some things that are just taken for granted. It is subconsciously assumed that the 'feature' is so obvious it needs no explanation nor even to be identified to those new to this 'invention'. It can be something that is considered - at some level below conscious reflection - so inherent in the contrivance that one simply doesn't think of it as a feature. Or at all. Until prompted to do so.

I experienced one of those prompts today when pointing out to someone that the Liberate Scotland 'plan' was entirely contingent on the vanishingly unlikely prospect of the becoming the next Scottish Government.

Being honest, I am obliged to admit that this attribute of the #ScottishUDI plan hadn't occurred to me before.

(I should state here that the unlikeliness of an initiative being successful is rarely if ever a good reason for not attempting it. An idea may be so good that it is worth putting out there regardless of its chances of coming to fruition. This is true of #ScottishUDI and would be true of anything else that qualified as a good idea.)

It was as I thought about how unlikely it is that Liberate Scotland will come from nothing to take a majority of seats in the 2026 Scottish Parliament that it occurred to me that one of the advantages of the #ScottishUDI plan is that it doesn't depend on some electoral miracle. In fact, #ScottishUDI relies only on the outcome of that election being more or less as indicated by polls.

Being honest, I am obliged to admit that this attribute of the #ScottishUDI plan hadn't occurred to me before. This is quite embarrassing. Because it is a very important attribute. My only excuse is that it is something I thought too obvious to be worth mentioning. So, I'm mentioning it now.

The #ScottishUDI plan works in the real world. That is the point. It works because it takes as its starting point the situation as it actually is and the future as it can safely be assumed to be. I only wish this had dawned on me sooner.

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