Challenge #02174-E345: Unstoppable Argument vs Unflappable Opposition
Automatic skills, once acquired you can just do them. Touch typing, knitting and my personal favourite the cat owner's foot sweep and fridge door close manoeuvre. -- Knitnan
Muscle memory is an amazing thing. A skill set repetitive enough can wander into the back-brain and just... remain there. Encamped. Ensconced. Set into stone once done often or regularly enough. So much so that the being involved in such thorough learning can employ them whilst employed in another activity. This phenomenon is most noted in the halls of the Ambassadorial Meet, where most cogniscents who have to be there are deep into listening-and-knitting, listening-and-macrame, listening-and-crochet, or, for the advanced classes, listening-and-tatting.
There's something immensely satisfying about coming out of a forum in which nothing got done but your own half-a-jumper. Well. Immensely more satisfying that walking out where the only thing accomplished was Not Falling Asleep. For the super-advanced classes, though, there is arguing and handcrafts.
The needles never stopped moving in Ambassador Juan'mi's hands. Though they had stood to address the floor, the needles and thread never stopped. Most people needed to gesture when they argued. Juan'mi did not. "The honourable representative of Greater Deregulation South-Southwest already has his desired experiment in allowing corporations and manufactories to govern themselves. It is called Greater Deregulation South-Southwest. The experiment is already over, ending in resounding failure. Forcing other, more sensible polities to adhere to a failing strategy in order to make the failed experiment feel better is not going to remedy anything. Your local laws still remain an affront to the Cogniscent Rights Committee and their Bill of Rights and Responsibilities."
"I SAY WE BAN THAT BILL," yelled the Ambassador for Greater Deregulation South-Southwest. "WHO'S WITH ME?"
Juan'mi sat down. Only four other Greater Deregulations - also prevented from fully open trade by the CRC and the greater portion of the Galactic Alliance - stood with him.
"The Naes have it," said the Chairone/arbiter[1]. "Once more, the CRC and its associated Rights and Responsibilities remains the standard of judgement upon polities."
"What about our freedom?" demanded a different Ambassador for a Greater Deregulation.
Once again, Juan'mi stood, still knitting. "The honoured Ambassador for Greater Deregulation East certainly has all the freedom he desires once on his own soil."
That wasn't enough, of course. The representatives never understood the causality between their own, in-system freedoms, and the fact that their worlds were almost universally pollution-ridden hellholes that the people would rather escape from and never come back. All the doubling-down in the Universe couldn't convince them.
All the arguing in the Universe couldn't convince anyone else to join in their misery, either.
[1] After centuries of debate between 'chairman/chairwoman' and several valid pronouns, the Galactic Standard Language board came up with 'Chair-one' as the proper, gender-neutral occupation name.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / rosipro]
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