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Amaterasu Solar's avatar

A good parable... Not sure why this shepherd was not there to bring peace and happiness... Seems at the end an effort was made?

Emmanuel Goldstein's avatar

See, the ecosystem fundamentally was imperfect to begin with and the shepherd's plan was to ensure stabilized harmony by planting the great tree for that purpose; so long as the tree remained, stability was preserved, even if harshly enforced.

Amaterasu Solar's avatar

Still… I ponder who the shepherd is… LOL! Yes, I grasp the metaphor overall…

PsyopBS's avatar

LSD eeish parable

Emmanuel Goldstein's avatar

Think about it this way: replace "great tree" with Saddam Hussein, "fungal spore" with salafi-jihadism, and "mushroom" with ISIS. Seeing the pattern...?

There's of course far more than one application to real-life scenarios.