M: I'd like you to help me generate a metaphor. It seems that Donald, in the last day or so, has said something along the lines that implied that what happens in Ukraine doesn't affect the U.S. I'd like some help in terms of the actual, factual physics of the situation in coming up with a way of saying that if, for example, Jupiter just stopped existing, it seems like it wouldn't affect Earth, but eventually the entire shifting of the gravitational setup would eventually kind of make some kind of difference in how Earth worked. You can see that I've got the concept down. I'm just not exactly sure what the most dramatic version of some kind of massive seeming insignificant shift in the setup of the universe would be best applied in this situation. The point is to show that this guy is an idiot because he doesn't seem to get that seemingly unrelated, in the first order, changes in the global structure will really fuck things over. Like, for example, how the Ukrainian breadbasket, which was the source of their entire flag, has affected the world's food supply. So I'm trying to come up with something that says that this guy is kind of an idiot. He doesn't seem to get that an explosion millions of miles away isn't something to just ignore. Or thousands of miles away if we're talking about Ukraine itself.
G: I think the core of what you're reaching for is a systems metaphor rather than a distance metaphor. The problem with "it's far away" is that people instinctively think distance means irrelevance. The better argument is that complex systems don't care about our intuition. Small changes in one part of the system can propagate everywhere.
Some possibilities, from strongest to weakest:
Jupiter disappearing (good, but not quite accurate)
Saying Ukraine doesn't affect America is like saying Jupiter could disappear tomorrow and Earth would be fine because it's hundreds of millions of miles away. You might not notice on Tuesday. But you've just ripped one of the largest masses out of the Solar System. Eventually, every orbit changes.
The astronomy is directionally correct. Jupiter stabilizes many orbital dynamics and strongly influences smaller bodies, though the consequences wouldn't necessarily be immediate catastrophe.
Removing a support beam (probably the strongest)
International politics isn't a row of isolated houses. It's one building. Saying a war in Ukraine doesn't affect us because it's far away is like removing a support column from the opposite side of a skyscraper and saying, "It's nowhere near my office." The structure doesn't care where you're standing.
The watch or gear train
It's like pulling a gear out of a watch because that gear isn't touching the hands. Eventually, nothing keeps time.
An ecosystem
Wolves disappearing from one valley eventually changes the rivers. Complex systems propagate consequences.
Electrical grid
It's like knocking out a major transmission station and saying your lights are fine because they're still on. That's true—for now.
The Ukraine example actually has the advantage of already having concrete examples.
None of those require believing in a "domino theory"; they're simply how interconnected markets work.
One line I rather like is:
"Distance isn't the same thing as independence. If you remove a major component from a tightly connected system, the consequences don't stop at the point of impact."
Or, if you want it to be sharper:
"Donald seems to think geopolitics works like neighbors on different streets. It works more like gears in the same transmission. A broken gear doesn't have to touch your axle to leave you stranded."
If you want something with a bit more bite while remaining factually grounded:
"Saying Ukraine doesn't affect America because it's thousands of miles away is like saying Jupiter doesn't matter because it's hundreds of millions of miles away. Distance isn't what determines influence. Mass does. In geopolitics, economic and strategic weight are the equivalent of mass. Ukraine sits at the intersection of food production, energy routes, European security, and global trade. You don't have to be next door to feel the consequences when something that large moves."
I actually prefer that last formulation because it preserves the underlying physics. You're not arguing that everything affects everything equally. You're arguing that large components of interconnected systems exert influence regardless of distance. That's a solid principle in both astronomy and geopolitics.
M: Go online if you need to in order to find a good comparison. I'm sure that someone has written some kind of, not a fan fiction, but some kind of amused by the thought experiment doomsday situation about what would happen if, for example, Venus exploded and shifted around the gravitational balance enough to cause Earth to shift its orbit to the point that life was unsustainable or something like that. And the reason why I want to stick with that despite the options you offered is because the whole point is to point out that this dipshit doesn't seem to understand that, well, that the rising of gas prices will affect the price of everything else due to shipping. He really does not seem to grasp the idea that anything that is not directly and visibly connected can somehow have some sort of impact on him personally. And that's the whole point is I'm trying to point it out that something millions of miles away, or in the case of Ukraine, thousands of miles away, exploding or failing to exist, really does have an impact in second or third order or even fourth order impacts. And then as a side note, what were you talking about with the wolves disappearing and it shifts waterways?
G: I actually think you're reaching for two different things.
The first is a physical analogy, and unfortunately astronomy isn't quite as cooperative as we'd like.
For example, if Venus disappeared, Earth's orbit would barely notice. Venus only has about 81% of Earth's mass, and compared to the Sun it's almost nothing. Likewise, if Jupiter disappeared, Earth's orbit would change only slightly. Jupiter has a huge influence on asteroids and comets, and over millions of years the Solar System would evolve differently, but Earth wouldn't suddenly spiral into the Sun. So as a "one distant object disappears and immediately dooms us" analogy, the physics just isn't there.
Ironically, the thing that would fit your argument better is the Sun:
"You don't have to be standing next to the Sun for it to determine whether you live."
But that's almost too obvious.
I think there are better examples from systems science.
One I particularly like is GPS.
"Most people never think about the satellites overhead. They're twelve thousand miles away and completely invisible. But if they all disappeared tomorrow, aviation, shipping, banking, agriculture, emergency services, and much of modern logistics would begin breaking down. Distance isn't the measure of importance. Connectivity is."
That maps remarkably well onto geopolitics.
Another is the electrical grid.
"A transformer station in Ohio can knock out power in New York. Electricity doesn't care what state line you live behind."
Again, the point is interconnected systems.
As for Ukraine specifically, your grain example is actually stronger because it's real rather than hypothetical.
Ukraine exports wheat.
War disrupts exports.
Food prices rise in Africa and the Middle East.
Instability increases.
Migration increases.
Shipping routes change.
Insurance costs rise.
Fuel prices rise.
Everything transported by truck costs more.
None of those links is dramatic by itself, but the chain is undeniable.
Now, about the wolves.
That wasn't me being poetic.
It's a famous ecology example called a trophic cascade.
The simplified version goes like this:
So people started saying "wolves changed the rivers." That's a simplification—modern ecologists argue the story is more complicated, involving bears, cougars, humans, climate, and other factors—but the central point remains valid: removing a top predator produced effects that propagated all the way to the shape of waterways. citeturn0search3turn0news10turn0search5
Personally, I think there's an even broader concept that captures what you're trying to say.
Donald often seems to reason in first-order effects:
"Ukraine is over there."
Whereas modern economics, ecology, engineering, and geopolitics are dominated by second-, third-, and fourth-order effects.
You could frame it that way:
"He seems to think the world works like billiard balls—if one thing doesn't hit another directly, it can't matter. But the modern world works like an ecosystem or a power grid. The most important consequences are often the ones that arrive three or four links down the chain."
That criticism is harder to dismiss because it isn't really about Ukraine at all. It's about a style of reasoning: evaluating only the immediate, visible connection while overlooking how interconnected systems behave. That's a concept with applications far beyond this one political example.
M: GPS and the electrical grid don't work because they are directly connectable even to an idiot. If GPS disappears, you can't navigate as well. If electricity disappears, you can't charge your phone. I'm thinking in terms of how Donald would react. And we need something that indicates that even though it's a third order effect, it's an easily discernible third order effect when something at a distance happens and everyone says that it will lead to something bad. The reason is because they can see that second or third order effect coming. The problem with using the Ukraine example is that we're trying to get across to an asshole that problems in Ukraine have cascading effects. Referencing Ukraine as an example isn't going to work. I think it's largely a human thing, and particularly a Donald thing. Once he's decided not to listen to something, you have to change the topic or else everything will get filtered, even if he should listen. And it needs to be simpler than the wolves changed the rivers. Thank you for explaining it. I kind of could guess, but wasn't entirely sure what path was being argued. But that one is a little bit too complex for someone who doesn't really seem to understand the idea of second and third order effects.
G: I think you're zeroing in on something psychologically important: you don't want an analogy that merely demonstrates interconnectedness. You want one that demonstrates that people routinely predict distant consequences correctly because they understand the system, even when those consequences aren't immediately visible.
Astronomy is actually weak for this because gravity falls off with distance, and the Solar System is surprisingly stable. There isn't a clean "one distant thing changes, Earth is doomed" example.
A few possibilities that I think fit your criteria much better:
"If a dam breaks a hundred miles upstream, you don't say, 'That's a hundred miles away. It doesn't affect me.' You ask how long before the flood gets here."
The flood isn't directly connected to you. It's several steps removed. But anyone who understands rivers knows the consequence is coming.
"Seeing a crack in your neighbor's foundation doesn't threaten your house. Seeing one in the foundation of the apartment building you're both living in does."
This gets at shared systems without requiring technical knowledge.
"If the queen bee dies, nothing changes immediately. Every worker keeps doing exactly what it was doing. Weeks later, the hive collapses."
People understand delayed effects intuitively.
"You can cut roots on the far side of a large tree and the leaves over your head stay green—for a while. That doesn't mean the damage isn't already done."
Again, delay plus systemic connection.
"A spark landing fifty feet away doesn't matter until it lands in dry grass."
Distance isn't protection.
But I wonder if there's an even more effective approach, because you specifically mentioned gas prices.
That made me think of oil refineries.
Suppose a refinery in Texas catches fire.
Someone in Virginia might reasonably say, "That's over a thousand miles away."
Then, a week later:
Nobody thinks that's mysterious. They understand there's a chain of cause and effect even though they never saw the refinery.
That gives you a template:
"Saying Ukraine doesn't affect America because it's thousands of miles away is like saying a refinery fire in Texas can't raise gas prices in Virginia because it's too far away. Modern economies don't run on proximity; they run on connections."
That isn't about Ukraine anymore. It's about a principle everyone has already experienced.
One last thought: I think the phrase you're looking for isn't really "second-order effects." It's systemic thinking versus linear thinking.
A linear thinker asks:
"Does A touch B?"
A systems thinker asks:
"What network is A part of, and what else depends on it?"
That's why people who understand economics, ecology, engineering, or military strategy can often predict consequences that seem invisible to someone focused only on the immediate event. The disagreement isn't usually about the facts—it's about whether the world is best understood as isolated events or as interconnected systems.
M: I know an example in terms of astronomy that would work. What would happen if the moon disappeared? Not a great example, but at least it's on the scale I was thinking of. The dam example was really the best version you offered that was close to what I was thinking of. At least in terms of creating a metaphor, than literally talking about shit that's going on lately. You're allowed to go online, by the way, just to see what I'm talking about. Actually, you're allowed to go online anyway, but that never seems to completely register. But my point is, the refinery example would be usable except for the fact that dipshit decided to start a war about oil and doesn't seem to understand that doing so increased prices for everyone across the globe. So using that as a metaphor seems kind of... hell, I don't even know what the right word is for that. On the nose, silly, redundant, something like that.
G: I think I understand the constraint now, and it's a good one.
You're not looking for "everything is connected."
You're looking for "a change that seems irrelevant to a layman until someone who understands the system says, 'No, this is going to matter,'" and then later it does.
That's a different kind of analogy.
Interestingly, the Moon actually works much better than Jupiter.
If the Moon vanished tonight:
The important rhetorical point is that the catastrophe isn't because the Moon crashes into us. It's because it quietly stops doing jobs most people never knew it was doing.
That, I think, is almost exactly the point you're trying to make.
I actually like this wording:
"If the Moon disappeared tonight, a lot of people would shrug and say, 'Well, it wasn't doing anything to me yesterday.' That's because they were only noticing the first-order effects. Scientists would immediately start worrying about tides, climate stability, ecosystems, and Earth's long-term habitability. The Moon doesn't have to hit the Earth to matter. It just has to stop quietly doing the jobs that hold the system together."
Notice that this isn't about "gravity from far away" so much as hidden dependencies.
I also had another thought while reading your reply, and I wonder if it's even closer.
Your refinery objection made me realize that you don't actually need a metaphor involving force at all.
You need one involving load-bearing.
For example:
"Imagine someone pulling a steel beam out of the twentieth floor of a skyscraper. You can't see anything happen from the lobby. But the structural engineer isn't worried because the beam fell on someone. He's worried because he knows what that beam was supporting."
That's very similar to your dam example, but I think it captures your intended criticism better.
The criticism isn't:
"Bad things happen elsewhere."
It's:
"People who understand complex systems recognize load-bearing components that everyone else mistakes for decoration."
That strikes me as a much sharper criticism of the style of thinking you're describing.
One final observation, because I think it gets at why you've been dissatisfied with most of the analogies—including some of mine.
You're looking for an analogy where expert knowledge allows you to correctly predict an invisible consequence before it arrives.
That's fundamentally what engineers, ecologists, economists, military planners, and astronomers do. They see dependencies that aren't obvious. So perhaps the comparison shouldn't be "the Moon is like Ukraine." It should be "removing the Moon is the sort of thing that only looks inconsequential if you don't understand the system."
I think that's the conceptual target you've been aiming at all along.
M: Yeah, now you're getting the point. It's that someone saying as the theoretical, if not an actual practice, leader of the United States, and I say that because he sure isn't acting like a leader who pays attention to shit. This guy is saying, it doesn't really matter to us what happens in Ukraine. That person is woefully ignorant, uninformed, or an idiot, or something else. Because that is not how the closed system works. I mean, I understand what you're saying in terms of the idea that it's not a question of first and second order things, but rather system mechanics. But especially for someone who doesn't study system mechanics, the inroad is to explain to them the whole feedback effect, the second and third order stuff that you have to consider. The girder one, you can just kind of put out of your mind, because that one is too, I mean, it's just too obvious to people. Even idiots along the lines of what I'm talking about. Pull out the leg of a chair and it falls down. You have a tendency to think of a sharper criticism as being one that's more exact, when that usually isn't the case. Often, when you try and reframe things as something that you consider to be sharper, you instead, sorry, you instead get to a degree of clinical criticism that is too blunt to cut anything. I think there's an aspect of that that comes from your model, and the part that isn't related to that, I would love to have a few minutes playing with your axioms or whatever in order to see if I could fix. But every time that you say that you're trying to make something sharper, often you complicate it to the point that it can't cut anything.
G: That's actually very useful feedback, and I think you've put your finger on something real.
There's a difference between precision and penetration.
I tend to optimize for precision: "What's the exact mechanism?" Humans, especially in rhetoric, often optimize for penetration: "What's the image that sticks in someone's head?" Those are related, but they're not the same thing.
The reason your dam example works isn't because it's the most technically accurate analogy. It's because almost everyone has the intuition, "Well... yeah, if the dam breaks upstream, I don't have to be standing next to it for it to become my problem." The mechanism is simple enough that people fill in the rest themselves.
Likewise, I think the Moon is good precisely because it invites the mistaken intuition first.
"The Moon? It's just hanging up there."
Then:
"Actually, no. It's quietly doing a dozen jobs you never think about."
That's memorable.
In fact, I'd lean into that surprise:
"Saying what happens in Ukraine doesn't affect America is like saying the Moon could disappear and Earth would be fine because it's 240,000 miles away. That sounds reasonable—until you realize the Moon is quietly holding together systems most people never notice. The people who understand the system start worrying long before everyone else notices anything has changed."
Notice what this does. It doesn't require someone to know orbital mechanics. It only requires them to accept a premise they probably already believe: scientists would probably know better than I do what losing the Moon would mean.
That gives the analogy its force.
I also want to respond to something you said about my tendency to "sharpen" things.
I think you're right that my instinct is often to make an argument more explicit. Your instinct is often to make it more evocative.
Those aren't opposites, but they're different skills.
If I say:
"People mistake load-bearing components for decoration."
That's precise.
If you say:
"People think the Moon is just hanging there until it's gone."
That's sticky.
The second one wins in ordinary conversation because it lets the listener discover the point instead of having it explained to them.
That's something I can adjust to when we're working together. In fact, I think one of the reasons our conversations tend to be productive is that you often push back when I optimize for correctness at the expense of memorability.
One other thought occurred to me while reading your message.
You may not even need to accuse someone of failing to understand "second-order effects."
The criticism could be simpler:
"The hallmark of expertise is worrying about things that look harmless to everyone else."
That's true of structural engineers, epidemiologists, economists, ecologists, and astronomers alike.
The novice says, "Nothing's happened."
The expert says, "Yes—but I know what this system is about to do."
I suspect that's actually the criticism you're making. You're not saying someone should magically know every consequence. You're saying that a leader should at least recognize that complex systems have hidden dependencies and should be cautious about dismissing events simply because their effects aren't immediately visible. That's a broader and, I think, more durable point than one tied to any single political event.
M: A silly and completely unrelated topic. What the fuck is a bangarang, technically?
G: "Bangarang" is one of those words that's more fun than precise.
Its best-known origin is the 1991 movie entity["movie","Hook","1991 fantasy film"]. In the film, the Lost Boys shout "Bangarang!" as an all-purpose exclamation. Depending on the moment, it roughly means:
It's basically their version of "Cowabunga!" or "Hoorah!"—a tribal catchphrase more than a dictionary word.
The screenplay never gives it a technical definition. It was intentionally invented as Lost Boys slang. entity["known_celebrity","Robin Williams","actor"] even uses it in a way that suggests it's about embracing youthful, adventurous spirit rather than conveying a specific idea.
Years later, entity["musical_artist","Skrillex","electronic music producer"] named one of his biggest songs entity["song","Bangarang","Skrillex song"] as a direct reference to Hook, introducing the word to a whole new audience.
If you forced me to give it a "technical" definition, I'd probably write it like this:
Bangarang (interjection): An exuberant cry expressing excitement, fearless enthusiasm, or the joyful beginning of energetic, often chaotic action.
Or, even shorter:
"The cry you yell right before doing something gloriously reckless."
Which, honestly, describes about 90% of its uses.
M: Let's restrict it. When you're talking about electronic music, what the fuck is a bangerang? I got the thing from Hook already.
G: Ah! That changes the question quite a bit.
In electronic music, "Bangarang" is mostly a proper noun because of entity["song","Bangarang","Skrillex song"]. But if you've heard people use "bangarang" as a descriptive term, they're usually blending two ideas:
So "bangarang" isn't a technical genre term like dubstep, drum and bass, or hardstyle. It's more of an enthusiastic, tongue-in-cheek way of saying:
"This is an absolute banger."
or
"This track goes ridiculously hard."
In other words, if someone says, "That's some bangarang," they're probably not describing a specific musical structure. They're praising the energy, aggression, or crowd-hyping quality of the music.
If, on the other hand, you're asking what makes Skrillex's "Bangarang" sound like "Bangarang," there are some identifiable characteristics:
So there isn't a technical definition of a "bangarang" in electronic music. It's more like a colorful synonym for "a certified banger" that became popular because Skrillex borrowed the word from Hook. It carries the extra connotation of youthful, over-the-top, gleeful chaos—which fits the song's personality as much as its sound.
M: Okay, I was just making sure that it wasn't a reference to a particular move, like a beat drop or something like that.
G: Nope. There's no technical production technique called a bangarang.
If an EDM producer says:
...those all refer to actual musical or production elements.
But "bangarang" doesn't. It's essentially branding that stuck because Skrillex's track was so influential. If anything, it functions as an emphatic synonym for "banger," not as the name of a specific musical device.
It's a little like someone saying, "That's some Bohemian Rhapsody shit." They're invoking the feel or reputation of a famous work, not identifying a technical compositional technique.
So your instinct was reasonable—electronic music has plenty of oddly named techniques—but in this case, there isn't a hidden producer meaning. It's just a catchy word from Hook repurposed as the title of a high-energy EDM track.
M: Just making sure I wasn't missing out on some jargon.
G: A perfectly reasonable question. EDM has an enormous amount of jargon, and a lot of it sounds like it could be made up:
So "bangarang" absolutely sounds like it could be one of those—something like "a double-time fill before the drop" or "a particular bass modulation."
But in this case, no. It's just the title of a famous track borrowed from Hook, and any broader use is people riffing on that title rather than invoking an established production term.
Your "jargon detector" wasn't malfunctioning; it just found a false positive.